So for some reason the fellas on the Men’s Rights subreddit are discussing an article by Australian newspaper columnist Clementine Ford in which she expresses her desire to see more dongs on television.
As she notes, there are plenty of boobs on display on HBO shows like Game of Thrones, yet “rarely are we treated to the visual smorgasbord of a well stocked meat platter. ” Ford is sick of it. “So bring on the parade of wangs, willies and woodies!” she demands. “I’m fond of a wand and I’m not ashamed to say it.”
I’m not terribly familiar with the writings of Clementine Ford, but evidently she’s not big on subtlety.
Anyway, the fellas in the Men’s Rights subreddit aren’t having any of it. Nuh uh. They ain’t buying it, ladies! You may write columns about how you want more wang on TV. You may talk about it with your friends. You may have gigantic collections of peen pics hidden away on your hard drive.
But the MRAs of Reddit know better. It’s all some devious feminist ploy, as Steampunk_Moustache helpfully explains.
Huh. That took an odd twist at the end there.
But it’s our old friend Giegerwasright who provides the real answer, in the form of a wall-o-mansplainin’ so giant that I had to shrink the text to even screencap it.
Huh.
So why exactly are women pretending to be interested in seeing more penises on television? So they can point at them and laugh?
Women are such an enigma, especially if you just assume that nothing they ever say is true and that it’s all part of some weird plot to screw with men’s heads.
(H/t to r/againstmensrights for pointing me to geigerwasright’s lovely comment.)
RE: yaoihuntressearth
Ah yes! Your DA icon is familiar to me, and you’ve been on about as long as I have. I guess I just saw you around back in ’04 or something, on the forums maybe. What an odd coincidence!
Yaoi huntress, you should join our DA group.
So the thing about these stories where little girls Totally Want It and are initiating it and the older guy is just doing what they want: There are so many problems, but I think the biggest is that that’s always the narrative. Rapists who abuse little girls always say that she was asking for it, she was into it, she’s a slut, she liked it, etc. And by writing a story where the five-year-old really did want to have sex, he’s actively feeding the narrative and making things harder for real little girls.
Not to mention the part where all she knew when she “consented” was that adult do it and it feels good. So do a couple of shots of [insert booze of choice here] (ymmv) but we don’t let kids drink (analogy sucks, I realize)
He even seems to understand, at least a little, what small kids are like. She cooperates with the police because she doesn’t understand what the repercussions are going to be. But sex? She knew what she was getting into!
Piers Anthony seems to think he’s being cutting-edge with this shit. (This is giving him the benefit of the doubt.) Horrible as it is, I feel like this is some weird generational thing; there seem to be quite a few writers who came of age in the 60s who got far enough into the sexual revolution to see that society has fucked-up views about sex, but not far enough to realize that, uh, actually, some taboos make perfect sense–like child molestation. So you get a bunch of this creepy pedopologia where there are these ideas that it’s purely the oppressive views of society that make child-molestation bad.
It’s very tempting to believe, if you haven’t been molested yourself and you only remember being a horny kid.
I’m reading stuff about PA at the moment and there does seem to be a question about whether he’s a pedophile or not. He’s corresponded with them and it seems a pedophile wrote something in Firefly … urgh. He may not be a criminal but he’s sure as hell sympathetic to them.
Yeah, Piers Anthony has some VERY skeezy ideas about sex. I still prefer to believe that he’s a skeezy but generally decent person who would never actually harm a child in his life. LET ME KEEP MY ILLUSIONS OKAY.
The thread I’m reading about his other stuff is just horrific. I can give a link if anyone wants, but it comes with a lot of trigger warnings. I’m finding it hard to believe that anyone who’s spent a lifetime churning out this stuff could be called decent even if they’ve never physically hurt anyone. Keep yer skeevy rape/pedophilia/torture fantasies private, don’t trot ’em out as novels, kthnx.
The pedophilia thing is definitely cause for concern. The rest, meh. I’ve written a bit of erotic horror myself, so I tend to give other writers the benefit of the doubt. I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to think *I’m* a dangerous pervert, based solely on what I’ve written.
I’ve written erotic horror too, but I totally side-eye a man who mixes those with his pedophilia fantasies and publishes them as mainstream fantasy/sf.
MordsithJ — the key word there may be horror, from what I’ve seen of his stuff, it isn’t presented as horror, but rather as children’s lit. Which is a bit different than writing erotica, of any sort, for those old enough to buy porn.
LBT // someone — please tell me I’m wrong and that shit about the small child wanted sex wasn’t children // young adult lit.
There’s also the little point that he wrote a looong author’s note at the end of Firefly defending pedophilia and saying adults should be acknowledging that children are sexual by having sex with them. Oh, and he corresponds with pedophiles in prison.
Yeah, “just” a bit of fiction, just him playing with ideas, my arse. He’s no better than the MRAs and their dire rape fantasies.
Yes, at least twice in the one book of his I read.
Male sciffy writers who write women well enough that I’m not jarred out of the narrative going ‘hey, wait a minute?’ Charlie Stross, but I’ve only read a handful of his books.
@titianblue
High five!!!! I’m just coming off a F&F marathon myself. I always say Paul Walker’s the shittiest actor to entertain me since Arnold 😛
@kittehs- re: Terry Pratchett. I LOVE him, but he also does this thing where he writes Severe Snarky Uptight Ladies who are Totally Hot as a stereotyped subset of his female character range (off the top of my head, Spike and Susan fit that bill, and there are others). I put him in the same category as Joss Whedon. He writes a variety of well-rounded female characters, but he also writes his personal wank stereotype into a lot of his work (in Joss’s case, it’s Ass Kicking Brunettes with Serious Issues).
M Dubz – good point. I didn’t really get that impression with Susan, but wossname from Going Postal, totally. She was probably the most annoying character I’ve read in his books, though that’s partly because she’s a chain smoker.
I’ve written some crazy stuff as well so I shouldn’t be too harsh, but you have to wonder with some writers.
Not to mention Broken Birds forced into prostitution.
@shadow High five!! Although I admit I watch F&F cos Vin Deisel’s voice curls my toes. In a good way. A very good way. 😉
@titianblue
For me, it’s listening to Paul Walker stumble and bumble his way through slang. I swear, hearing him say “Ride or die” made my life 😛
RE: Argenti
Fear not. Firefly wasn’t for children. Thank god.
But yes, a LOT of Anthony’s work is marketed to young people. We read his Xanth novels from the ages of eight to fourteen, and the very first book LITERALLY says the female love interest has no better purpose than rape.
Since Anthony was the first (and for a looong time, ONLY) time we heard of rape, I admit to nursing some bitterness. Pretty sure part of how we got into our rapey situation was because we believed the shit he wrote about.
Even the way he wrote about Imbri being in season in Night Mare was very rapey. Hello, mares do NOT automatically submit to any stallion that happens to be around.
“Now that I think of it, I can’t remember ANY male sci-fi writers who did decent female characterizations. Anyone want to correct me? MALE writers.”
Frank Herbert’s original Dune series had some freaking AMAZING female characters. Lady Jessica was the shit. Her brain was like fire, and she scorched quite a few people with it before all was said and done. Bene Gesserit Kung-Fu? Check. The power of Voice? Check. She was elegantly defiant too.
I never managed to get through Dune. For me it was terminally boring and I couldn’t stand any of the characters. 🙁