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A couple of days ago, embattled indie game designer Zoe Quinn embarrassed some of her biggest critics by posting screenshots she’d collected from a 4channer IRC channel, showing an assortment of hateful and duplicitous #GamerGaters literally conspiring to wreck her reputation and create the illusion of a vast grassroots uprising against alleged corruption in the gaming business.
Her critics, put on the defensive, tried their best to dismiss her screenshots as “cherry picked,” and a few even accused her of writing the very messages she screenshotted and posted. Oh, there might be a few bad apples in the bunch, some were willing to concede, but they were in the minority.
And then they pulled out what they thought was their trump card: the full chat log from the IRC channel #burgersandfries from when the Zoe Quinn “scandal” first erupted in mid-August up until September 6th. All anyone had to do, they suggested, was to read the log, and they would soon see that Quinn was presenting a distorted picture based on out-of-context, “cherry-picked” quotes.
Of course, reading this particular log is a bit easier said than done: it’s 3756 pages, in 10-point type, of chaotic overlapping IRC conversations.
This is a classic case of what’s come to be known as “doc dumping,” which Wikipedia helpfully defines as
the act of responding to an adversary’s request for information by presenting the adversary with a large quantity of data that is transferred in a manner that indicates unfriendliness, hostility, or a legal conflict between the transmitter and the receiver of the information. The shipment of dumped documents is unsorted, or contains a large quantity of information that is extraneous to the issue under inquiry … .
It’s clear that those posting links to the log are hoping that their opponents will take one look at this enormous, messy document and simply give up.
What they didn’t count on was anyone calling their bluff – and actually taking the time to read it. Because if they actually knew what this document contained, and thought anyone would actually read the thing, they would have kept the links to themselves.
Even a quick skim through the document demonstrates that Quinn’s screenshots are hardly cherry-picked; you can flip to literally any page in this long, long document and find evidence of egregious misogyny and outright malice. Look a little deeper and you can find discussions of doxxing and spamming and all sorts of other dirty tricks.
But I’ve given the document a lot more than a quick skim. So far I’ve spent probably ten hours going through it, collecting evidence of all the things that the defenders of 4chan insist isn’t there. Even after ten hours, I’ve only begun to scratch the surface, but I would like to present you with some of my results so far.
Today, let’s look at some of what the 4chan chatters had to say about Zoe Quinn herself.
On Twitter, the standard line of the #GamerGate partisans is that what they’re doing isn’t abut Quinn herself; its a protest against corruption and nepotism in the video game world. They also insist that they’re not motivated by misogyny, and that they are more concerned about the alleged ethical lapses of game journalists than they are with just who Zoe Quinn allegedly slept with.
When it comes to the 4channers in #burgersandfries, these claims are complete and utter bullshit. The name “Zoe” appears 4778 times in the document, more than once per page; by contrast, “Nathan” – the first name of the allegedly corrupt game journalist she allegedly slept with – appears only 108 times. The words “ethics” and “ethical” appear, collectively, only 146 times.
Zoe’s name is in the official thread topic; chatters include it in their jokey nicknames. She’s the topic everyone always comes back to. She’s the reason everyone is there.
I decided to examine each occurrence of the name “Zoe” in order to see just what 4channers thought of her. After about 6 hours on this particular quest, I’ve only made it through roughly one-third of the mentions. But the results are not pretty.
The 4channers express their hatred and disgust towards her; they express their glee at the thought of ruining her career; they fantasize about her being raped and killed. They wonder if all the harassment will drive her to suicide, and only the thought of 4chan getting bad publicity convinces some of them that this isn’t something they should hope for.
They gleefully distribute nude pictures of her, posting links to online archives of them and emailing them directly both to Quinn’s supporters.
They dig up all sorts of information about her and her family and do their best to track down anyone and everyone with even the most tenuous links to her. One industrious researcher even manages to find a picture of Quinn at age 13; while acknowledging that it had no relevance whatsoever to issues of gaming ethics, she posts a link to it anyway.
And then there is the ongoing discussion of her vagina, described variously as “wide,” large enough to “fit 12 dicks at once, and “a festering cheese-filled vagina” that leaves “a trail of cunt slime” wherever she goes. Several 4channers speculate about its smell.
It’s not clear how exactly the size or shape or smell of Quinn’s vagina relates to the high-minded issues of gaming ethics that the #GamerGaters are said to be concerned with. But in the IRC log no one ever seems to call out any of those talking about Quinn in the crudest sexual terms.
Lets’ go to the logs directly. Everything that follows is cut and pasted directly from the full log, available here.
That said, IRC discussions can be chaotic and confusing, generally with more than one conversation going on at once, so in some cases, I have removed extraneous comments in order to make what is being said clearer. I’ve indicated all cuts with ellipses, and if you want to see what I’ve removed it should be trivial for you to locate the quotes in the full log by doing a search for an appropriate phrase or the relevant time and date stamp.
TRIGGER WARNING for discussion of rape, suicide and murder.
The log starts early on in the Zoe Quinn “scandal,” and numerous people in the chat talk about distributing her nude pictures to as many people as possible:
Aug 18 17.37.57 <SweetJBro> lol I’m tweeting Zoe’s nudes to some of her defenders.
A few days later, several other chatters talk about harassing Quinn by sending her own nude pictures to her:
Aug 21 23.20.35 there should be a massive campaign to tweet zoe her own nudes …
Aug 21 23.21.01 <Silver|2> They’ve been tweeted at her a lot
Here’s a chatter making clear that he’s mainly interested in seeing Quinn suffer:
Aug 18 20.10.06 i couldnt care less about vidya, i just want to see zoe receive her comeuppance
Here are some speculating about her state of mind:
Aug 19 01.34.01 if you were zoe right now what would you do
Aug 19 01.34.07 <FIVE-GUYS> get mugged
Aug 19 01.36.41 in all seriousness, i dont know
Aug 19 01.37.03 <FIVE-GUYS> ive never been in a situation like this
Aug 19 01.37.15 i’d probably kill myself tbh
Here are some others talking about the possibility of Quinn committing suicide, a possibility one chatter greets with a smiley:
Aug 19 02.28.30 okay, is zoe actually depressed?
Aug 19 02.28.35 i bet she is now
Aug 19 02.28.37 <mugg> diagnosed etc?
Aug 19 02.28.39 kek …
Aug 19 02.29.22 <Opus> I think she tried killing herself before
Aug 19 02.29.28 <kailasha> she should try that again :^)
“Kek,” by the way, is a nerdy version of “lol.”
Here one chatter suggests that focusing only on Quinn is a bad idea – because it will make 4channers look bad:
Aug 21 17.23.31 <sarahv> The problem is that making it about Zoe sleeping around amounts to a personal attack which, while funny and something she totally deserves, will hurt our chances of pushing the other point …
Aug 21 17.23.38 <rd0951> ./v should be focused on the implications of gaming journalism …
Aug 21 17.23.47 Because SJWs will cherry-pick the /b/ shit posting and say “See? It’s sexist MRAs!”
A few days later, this (relative) voice of moderation gleefully jokes about Quinn being choked to death during sex:
Aug 22 02.02.46 <CutestGAmerGorl> Okay guys, how much does Zoe like being choked
Aug 22 02.02.49 <CutestGAmerGorl> during sex? …
Aug 22 02.02.58 <sarahv> clearly not enough
Here one chatter openly fantasizes about driving Quinn to “an hero” — that is, kill — herself:
Aug 21 17.48.06 I’m debating whether or not we should just attack zoe …
Aug 21 17.48.29 <Opfag> push her… push her further….. further, until eventually she an heroes …
Aug 21 17.48.51 <OtherGentleman> … What makes you think she has the balls to kill herself?
Aug 21 17.48.57 I kind of want to just make her life irrepairably horrible …
Aug 21 17.49.16 <NASA_Agent> but what if she suicides …
Aug 21 17.49.24 <Opfag> Good.
Aug 21 17.49.29 Then we get to troll #Rememberzoe
One chatter warns that this strategy might … make 4chan look a tad misogynistic:
Aug 21 17.49.45 The more you try to attack her directly, the more she gets to play the victim card and make a bunch of friends who will support her because, since she has a vagina, any attack is misgony
Meanwhile, one of the other chatters suggests a rather creative division of labor amongst partisans of different 4chan message boards:
Aug 21 17.49.48 <rd0951> ./v should be in charge of the gaming journalism aspect of it. /pol should be in charge of the feminism aspect, and /b should be in charge of harassing her into killing herself
In the following excerpt, the IRC channel moderator asks one chatter why he is so obsessed with elaborate fantasies of Quinn dying in particularly gruesome ways:
Aug 21 18.26.37 <Cyberserker> You need a reason …
Aug 21 18.28.14 <Opfag> Well I don’t have a legitimate reason.
Aug 21 18.28.21 <Cyberserker> Nothing?
Aug 21 18.28.21 <Opfag> I just want to see her die horribly.
Aug 21 18.28.29 <Cyberserker> I’m talking about [your particular fantasies]
Aug 21 18.28.33 <Opfag> Oh.
Aug 21 18.28.39 <totality> sometimes you just want someone to get hurt
Aug 21 18.28.43 <Opfag> That, I have no idea
Aug 21 18.28.48 <totality> nothing wrong with that
Aug 21 18.28.51 all I know is I want zoe to die like that
While some fantasize about Quinn dying, others fill the chat with crude and often bizarre sexual remarks. All of the following comments came from a mere seven minutes in the chatroom:
Aug 22 02.21.54 i want to smell zoe quinn’s armpits …
Aug 22 02.25.42 you all would fuck the zoeholes
Aug 22 02.25.46 <JTG> given a chance too
Aug 22 02.25.47 <The_Remover> I am extremely aroused right now …Aug 22 02.26.47 someone seduce zoe quinn
Aug 22 02.26.53 <vanu> follow the shekels
Aug 22 02.26.56 <The_Remover> I volunteer to take one for the team
Aug 22 02.26.57 <vanu> to her vagina …Aug 22 02.28.51 meditate to nude pictures of zoe
Aug 22 02.28.53 <The_Remover> she gonna get raped
Of course, the 4channers are quick to profess disgust at the assorted nude pictures of Quinn they’re happily passing around to one another and the internet at large:
Aug 22 04.50.24 by the by, trigger warning on that mediafire archive. don’t download if you don’t want to see zoe naked …
Aug 22 21.17.13 <JCTheDenthog> Zoe’s mouth must be the strongest vacuum in nature to compensate for her face, body, and everything
Another suggests that his 4chan brethren download Quinn’s nudes if not for their own sexual gratification than for possible further blackmail later:
Aug 22 04.53.14 Eugh, why would you want to have her on your HDD? …
Aug 22 04.53.45 <The_Remover> because, a couple of months from now, when all this shit has died down, a raid may just be in order …
Aug 22 04.54.10 and i bet her dad doesn’t know she did porn …
Several days into the scandal, one chatter laments that there’s not much dirt left to dig on Quinn:
Aug 22 23.00.55 <Drinky_Kraw> I don’t think there’s anything left to harass Zoe over anyway. …
Aug 22 23.01.00 <Drinky_Kraw> The laundry is pretty much all aired
By the 23rd, some bored chatters compare notes on what they see as the relative sexual pros and cons of Quinn and game critic Anita Sarkeesian:
Aug 23 05.40.20 <Josh_> Zoe has a gross robotic hand, blue hair, and tats 4 days
Aug 23 05.40.29 <Josh_> if I was forced to put my dick in one of them
Aug 23 05.40.29 <Josh_> Anita
Aug 23 05.40.39 <GribFabdabgib> If I had to put my dick in them, yeah Anita
Aug 23 05.40.43 Anita is a skinny bitch whos all bones
Aug 23 05.40.48 <DarkHiero> True …Aug 23 05.41.07 <DarkHiero> But at least it looks like she tries to take care of herself. …
Aug 23 05.41.15 <Headsmash_> From just looks alone, Id rather do Zoe than Anita. Fat bitches usually give better head anyway.
Aug 23 05.41.21 <DarkHiero> If I’m putting my dick in crazy, that matters.
Aug 23 05.42.00 <DTrig> Yeah but odds are good you get the clap/crabs from Zoe
Aug 23 05.42.14 <Headsmash_> Same could be said for Anita based on what we know
Aug 23 05.42.17 <Headsmash_> lol
Aug 23 05.42.32 * DarkHiero shrugs
Aug 23 05.42.34 Anita looks like she douches though
Aug 23 05.42.36 <DTrig> ANd cleans up
Aug 23 05.42.39 Zoe…. eh
And then it’s back to another discussion of suicide:
Aug 23 19.38.17 <Headsmash_> So does anyone think Zoe’s gonna off herself and become a catalyst for misogyny and hatred of women in video games and video game culture? …
Aug 23 19.38.47 if zoe offed herself she probably wouldn’t be anything but an ED article ..
Aug 23 19.38.55 <Araf> Headsmash_: She won’t, she has a too big ego …
Aug 23 19.39.13 <Headsmash_> I’m not too sure about that. I think she could.
Aug 23 19.39.16 <Araf> She would off herself if everyone ignored her and abandoned her, which is not the case. …
Aug 23 19.39.25 <Headsmash_> Depends on how much she gets stuck in the victimization complex. …
Aug 23 19.39.28 Really the 5guys scandal is the most famous Zoe has been …
Aug 23 19.39.43 <rd0952> yeah but she’s also been harassed night and day for a week
Other chatters indulge in sadistic fantasies:
Aug 24 12.24.22 who really wants to meet zoe quinn and be kind and comfort her in this time of crisis
Aug 24 12.24.43 <Cyberserker> Not if you comfort her with a knife-hug
Aug 24 12.24.45 <Cameralady> and slowly, through friendship and blossoming relationship, get her to repair her shitty ways and come clean and become a good person …Aug 24 12.24.52 <Cameralady> and then
Aug 24 12.24.56 <Cameralady> once she’s reformed
Aug 24 12.24.58 <Cyberserker> knife-hug?
Aug 24 12.25.07 dump her in the most brutal, heartwrenching way possible
One chatter wants his fellow 4channers to declare victory and move on:
Aug 24 15.16.10 <PaperDinosaur> Also Zoe is no longer the target to be focused on
Aug 24 15.16.13 <Josh_> ^^
Aug 24 15.16.14 <sarahv> ^^^^^
Aug 24 15.16.18 It’s about the 5guys
Aug 24 15.16.21 <sarahv> It always has been
Aug 24 15.16.28 <Josh_> It’s more about the journos
Aug 24 15.16.33 <PaperDinosaur> She’s done, we’ve wrecked her in a professional manner. …
Aug 24 15.16.42 <sarahv> Unfortunately most of the people involved in this seem to be interested in destroying Zoe
Aug 24 15.16.46 stop digging up shit on zoe’s past
Aug 24 15.16.47 <PaperDinosaur> Now we have to wreck her shield, the people who tried to defend her
Soon afterwards the same guy who suggested that they move on from Quinn is back making jokes about her killing herself:
Aug 24 16.33.54 <PaperDinosaur> Guys, lets me fair to Zoe here
Aug 24 16.34.02 If every time I did something people sent me nues of her
Aug 24 16.34.07 <PaperDinosaur> I’d fucking kill myself
That same evening, Quinn’s ex-boyfriend – the fellow who started the whole thing going with a long series of blog entries documenting Quinn’s alleged infidelities – shows up on the channel to ask questions from the assembled mob.
Here is one of the questions he chose to answer:
Aug 25 00.02.21 <Cyberserker> Last question is from several people actually. I wanted to save it until the end due to how popular it was.
Aug 25 00.02.22 <Cyberserker> “Would you say Zoe was a “big girl” for you?” …Aug 25 00.03.04 <Eron_G> she is heavier than people I usually date. …
Aug 25 00.03.12 <Cyberserker> Fair enough …
Aug 25 00.03.14 <ebola-chan> Did she not fly so good?
And a few that he didn’t:
Aug 25 00.04.13 What does her pusy smell like must answer …
Aug 25 00.07.11 Eron, when you went down on her, did you taste the other guys semen? If so, what did it taste like? …
Aug 25 00.10.40 Eron I don’t think you want your headphones back, it’s most likely splattered in Nathan’s semen and Robin’s Menstrual fluids. …
Aug 25 00.16.52 eron are you going to take up sucking dick now that you’ve been cucked by the 2/10 ugly jew
Later that morning the chatters are back to sharing their creepy and violent sexual fantasies:
Aug 25 00.19.28 <EronLovesZoe> I feel like I would probably fuck Zoe. But not out of a loving sense of sexual attraction. More of that “hate fuck” sense where you just want to assert your dominance as a male on her, a primal savagery. Then I’d probably have to sterilize myself to prevent the genome from spreading.
Aug 25 00.19.59 I’d slap a saddle on zoe and ride her throught the midwest
Aug 25 00.20.02 I wouldn’t even get that far EronLovesZoe, I’d just start raging and headbutting her and gnawing on her cheek …Aug 25 00.20.10 that seabiscuit looking ass bith
And talking again about the pros and cons of trying to get Quinn to kill herself:
Aug 25 07.18.18 <Logan> Any chance we can get Zoe to commit suicide?
Aug 25 07.18.29 if we can get more daming evidence
Aug 25 07.18.29 I think the [doxxing info removed by DF] is a good shot.
Aug 25 07.18.33 <temet> like her fucking a train of lack dudes …
Aug 25 07.18.39 <PaperDinosaur> fuck off Logan
Aug 25 07.18.39 <temet> black
Aug 25 07.18.51 <Logan> Nah 21st century doing a train is so 90s. …
Aug 25 07.18.59 <PaperDinosaur> If she commits suicide we lose everything …
Aug 25 07.20.34 <PaperDinosaur> If you can’t see how driving Zoe to suicide would fuck this entire thing up then you’re a fucking idiot
Aug 25 07.20.41 Imagine the kotaku article …
Aug 25 07.20.48 <temet> PaperDinosaur is right
Aug 25 07.20.51 <temet> not the right PR play
Not. The. Right. PR. Play.
And on that note I am going to end this installment.
This is only a small fraction of the terrible stuff said about Quinn, in the small portion of the log I have managed to read through so far.
I may return with more installments. Honestly, I’m not sure how much more I can stomach.
But I will certainly write more about the 4channers’ discussions about doxxing and hacking Quinn and others; again, I have looked only at a portion of the logs so far, but there is already a great deal there.
EDIT: Just realized that WordPress ate a bunch of the names of the posters in the quotes here. (WordPress likes to eat angle brackets.) I’ll manually add the names back in when I get the chance.
@medman
You’re taking the facile route of dismissing these attitudes as being the work of people “beneath” you, so you don’t have to face the reality that they’re everywhere. The only reason #gamergate balooned the way it did was because there were lots of people that thought harassing and threatening a single game developer with gendered violence was an adequate response to rumors of journalistic corruption.
Again, you make many assumptions that have no basis in reality. Assuming I dismiss attitudes “as being the work of people beneath” me is risible. At least it would be if it weren’t such a diaphanous attempt to clear your own shortcomings. And I’ll repeat…threats and harassment are tools of the incompetent who don’t know how to use their words in a more constructive manner. How threatening a woman with violence and rape can be excused by folks like you really elucidates the mental deficiencies among so many of the general population.
Semantics? Really? That’s what you’re so keen to point out? One of the sentences you’re referring to relates to all women, one relates to one specific man… which takes my own experience into account. If I had said ” A woman should be loved and cared for by her man”, would you be satiated? I used the plural with women, and the singular with a man, specifically this man, being me. So your specious argument holds little merit, perhaps in your mind only.
o_O We can’t help it if you seem unable to grasp a basic and simple point, medman, and seem unable to see the sexism inherent in your comments. But please, do point out where anyone here has excused threatening women with violence and rape.
Wow, inability to read *and* ableism. Add that into the trans-exclusionary and heteronormative language and your offensiveness points are just soaring. Classy.
RE: medman
How threatening a woman with violence and rape can be excused by folks like you really elucidates the mental deficiencies among so many of the general population.
You know, dude, you could’ve expressed the same sentiment in half the words. We think you’re pretty stupid too.
If I had said ” A woman should be loved and cared for by her man”, would you be satiated?
…satiated? Really? We don’t EAT humans here, we can’t be satiated by humans.
medman
In a word, no. You’re totally missing the point here.
#stickienotegate update:
The final set of stickienotes has been recovered. It was cleverly hiding beneath a pile of papers on my desk.
@medman, what about the SPINSTERS?
Yay, stickinotes! Will you update us on the security measures you’re taking to prevent future crises?
Whatever helps you guys sleep at night. You certainly seem like you need it, so who am I to deny you your delusions? Enjoy…..
@puddleglum
Spinsters are people too, damn it.
I’ll bookmark this conversation in case I ever need to illustrate the concept of willful obtuseness.
You’re doing a great job elucidating your moral deficiencies, aren’t you? Try to be less dishonest, if you can.
medman’s gotta be a sock.
So you can’t actually find any instances of anyone here excusing threatening women with violence and rape, huh?
(Hint: It’s because no one here has done that, and you are either willfully ignoring everything everyone has said, or just flinging shit at the walls to see if anything sticks. Or both. It’s probably both.)
I’m not assuming anything, just concluding it based on your own words – namely, your casual demeaning of the #gamergate participants with adjectives that imply they either have some mental illness or are some kind of people different from everyday men – not like you, of course, who’s such a white knight for all women everywhere!
Sigh (It’s what I get for reading old threads).
Lisa (and why is it the people with flawless English all seem to claim to be from France when they need a non-english background to excuse spelling errors?): The male gender would be the oppressor if every single man on this planet were misogynists.
So I guess it would be unfair to day France was attacked by Germans in 1914, or occupied by Germans in 1940, because most Germans never entered France… some even stayed home, and some were opposed to the wars.
Got it.
Also that whole, So there’s a thing I hate to see in debates. And that thing is persuasion.
If you want to progress and resolve a conflict, you should use logic and tolerance instead of persuasion, is a load of bullshit.
You don’t mean “persuasion”. You mean to say you only want one (or at most two) of the three tools of persuasion to be used, logos (and perhaps ethos).
Fine, it’s stupid, and impossible, but feel free to (honestly) argue for it, rather than pretend that there is some magical land where “logical argument, absent anything else” is either extant, or possible. What facts one chooses, the order in which they are marshalled, and the words chosen to convey them (as well as which person is being quoted as apropos) are all tools of persuasion (and often carry aspects of pathos, with their logos). If I wish to make a comment on security it’s a question of what I intend to convey which decides if I use Jefferson, Churchill, Stalin, or de Gaulle.
That’s persuasion. It’s essential to agument, since the end result is to persuade someone to change their mind.
medman: Only fools think treating a woman with respect and dignity is “handling with kid gloves”. this just in…treating women with respect and dignity is what you’re supposed to do…this shouldn’t have to be explained to any man…
So far so (mostly) good. It shouldn’t need to be explained to anyone.
Women should be loved and cared for by a man…
A does not follow B. Loving and caring for “by a man” (sudden shift of how all men must treat all women to how one man must treat one woman), has bupkis to do with the subject.
The fact that your simplistic thought process assumes a posture of subjugating women and implying that loving and caring equates to women being incapable of “handling things” says more about you than your own mind can process. If you think that’s “patriarchal”, that is a you problem. Good luck with that.
Nope. The thing is, I do respect women. Means I treat them as I treat men. I don’t put them on a pedestal where they can never be threatened, insulted, etc. What I say is that any such threats, insults, etc. need to be meritorious in nature.
You say that no “real man” makes them. That’s very different, and patriarchal.
And you have a patriarchal view, compare and contrast the sentences:
Women should be loved and cared for by a man… with just as a man should be loved and cared for by his woman.
Women are not property, to be owned. No man has “his woman”.
Assuming I dismiss attitudes “as being the work of people beneath” me is risible.
And here I thought it was quotable, e.g. you said: I repeat…only cowards and the simple minded threaten women.
Since you have averred (unsupported) you would never do such things, the only conclusion one can draw is either you think yourself no better than cowards, or you dimiss the attitudes of those whom you see as being beneath you.
Or perhaps the part where you dismissed my argument by calling me a fool: Only fools think treating a woman with respect and dignity is “handling with kid gloves”.
There is no substance in that comment. It both ignores my argument, and dismisses it by calling me a fool. So, either you think yourself no better than a fool (in which case we are in agreement), or you do precisely the thing you denied.
Semantics? Really? That’s what you’re so keen to point out? One of the sentences you’re referring to relates to all women, one relates to one specific man…
Ooh… A “it’s just semantics”, my bingo card is full.
Here’s the thing, 1: semantics matter. 2: you missed the point. It’s not that you switched from plural to singular, it’s that you made women ownable objects. Peolpe are autonomous.
Again, semantics. And again, my comment was referencing a plurality when referring to women (hence the use of “a” and not “my”, as I can’t refer to all women as mine, but I certainly can refer to my woman as “mine”, which I did. Which is why when people speak, both men and women, they refer to “my wife”, “my husband” or “my girlfriend”, “my boyfriend”…not “a wife” or “a girlfriend”. Stop your nonsense and wake up from your self induced coma. Semantic silliness.
medman:Again, semantics.
Very good. I think we are making some progress. You are (finally) starting to see the issues at hand. It is about semantics.
You want to pretend your word choices don’t matter, all the while pretending our word choices do. There are words for that to (depending on the level of awareness they run from observational, to condemnatory).
but I certainly can refer to my woman as “mine”, which I did.
Again, you didn’t (it’s that pesky “semantics). What you said was (in case it slipped your mind)
No mention of yourself was made. You made two blanket statements about women. Both them (to almost no one’s surprise) showed an understanding on your part that women are things which can be seen as property.
Lets look at a parallel: Cats should be loved and cared for by a person, just as a person should be loved by their cat. It’s a perfectly understandable sentiment, and the shift from plural to singular in the reversal is consistent. It’s says that cats (as a class) should be taken care of, and that the ideal form of that car is to be under the loving protection of a human being.
The second clause (co-joined by your use of ellipses) clarifies to show that when a cat is so loved a protected it should reciprocate that love and affection to it’s owner.
Those same logical rules apple no matter what nouns are used in the formulation you made.
That is the semantic content of your words. I can see why (in the manner of Humpty Dumpty) you would like semantics to be a dismsissable thing (as if it were merely the infelicity of less than nimble fingers on the keyboard causing errors in spelling), but it doesn’t.
The semantic (unlike the orthographic, and lexical) choices one makes reveal the underlying logical structures in the thoughts of the person making an argument.
Which is why when people speak, both men and women, they refer to “my wife”, “my husband” or “my girlfriend”, “my boyfriend”…not “a wife” or “a girlfriend”.
While this is true, it’s not dispositive. You didn’t say “a man should be loved by his partner”, you said a man should be loved by his woman. I refer to my wife, and to my partners. Those imply a reciprocal relationship. One cannot have a wife without that wife having a spouse (partner is implicitly reciprocal), but the use of, “his woman” implies no such reciprocity.
Which is (again semantics, though perhaps it’s just reading comprehension) the argument people made. No one said one can’t use a possessive pronoun to describe a relationship (which is what wife/husband/partner/spouse do), what they objected to was your use of a non-relational noun to describe a person as a possession.
*emphasis added
pecunium:
you obviously have way more patience for this nonsense than I do. Congratulations on making the effort.
#stickynotegate
The notes have been confined to a high-security storage facility code-named “desk drawer”. Hopefully this will prevent me from stealing and hiding them without my knowledge.
For they same reason they pretend to be women, people of color, gay, trans etc. They think it will gain points with us and they can say whatever they want and still have cred. After all, liberals love France. Because cheese, arthouse movies and surrendering.
@medman, thanks for responding to the inside joke! Do you also LIVE DIRECTLY ON THE BEACH?
@puddleglum
Why would I care about your inside joke?? I don’t live on the beach, but I am waterfront, so you’re half right.
If you feel the need to convince yourself of something, feel free. Meanwhile the semantics remain.