By David Futrelle
Nyasha Madzima is the CEO of a one-person “branding and media” company that doesn’t seem to have a working web page. He also doesn’t seem to have a working knowledge of biology.
In a recent Twitter thread, he attempted to explain why women shouldn’t have more than one sexual partner in their lifetime.
I’ve run across assorted misogynists making a similar, er, argument — claiming that when women come into contact with a man’s sperm, it essentially rewrites her DNA and makes her a little bit more like the sperm-depositor. (This is complete nonsense, of course.) But Madzima is much more mystical about it, and presumably wearing a condom won’t prevent that Life Force from sneaking into the vagina, or wherever it’s supposed to be going.
Either way, the result is the same, offering men another excuse to claim that women who aren’t literally virgins are man-contaminated whores who can’t love good men correctly because they’re so full of the collective Life Forces of other (bad) men.
Which, even according to the perverse logic of these arguments, doesn’t seem quite fair. If any of this were true, wouldn’t the onus be as much on the man to avoid sex with multiple women to avoid contaminating or confusing them? Wouldn’t it thus be the duty of all men to remain virgins until marriage to keep from damaging them? If contact with a man’s dick is polluting, shouldn’t there be some sort of cap and trade program for dicks?
But it’s pointless to try to argue any of this logically, because this isn’t about logic any more than it’s about scientific facts; it’s just another way to make women feel shitty about having a sex life. Or to try anyway, because there aren’t a lot of women out there who buy any of this bullshit.
Anyway, this all made me think of this old song:
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@Cyborgette:
How is this not an Oglaf comic already?
@Naglfar:
But did they test to make sure these were all different men? Did they really have no repeat clients? And I’d expect more than a few of them to have come back the next night for the other twin’s services, just to compare…
As for the TERF discussion: As ever, what fascinates me most in people losing their shit over trans folks is how it’s always about trans women. I mean, I know why, but it still amazes me how blatant it is.
@Rabid Rabbit
Oh, I’m sure they did have repeat clients (assuming they did their job well), this is just the estimate they gave, it would be pretty much impossible to get an exact number so I think that’s the closest we’ll get.
@Naglfar:
One assumes they did their job well to have lasted fifty years in it.
Quoth the raven: what the hell am I reading?!!
As the TSA inspector said when looking at King Kong’s luggage: there’s a lot to unpack here. If this what Madzima puts out for public consumption, I don’t even want to THINK what he’s like behind closed doors.
@Alan Robertshaw: It’s a clip from a one-man show called The Brother, based on various pieces from O’Nolan’s works and performed by the actor Eamonn Morrissey.
I am so incredibly confused by the announcement this morning regarding the murder of Olof Palme. 🙁
IP – It seems to have been a kind of “nothingburger”, as they say in US politics? A fanfare without much substance? An attempt to establish some certainty for the public memory, while concluding the futile investigation with the convenient excuse that the suspect is dead?
@ cat mara
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he was a big promoter of Joyce.
Gotta love Irish literature.
“I give up on Ulysseses; I’ll see what this O’Nolan bloke is like….Oh FFS!!!”
The jokes pretty much write themselves, don’t they?
Consider the implication: there exists a market for the services of a 68-year-old sex worker.
So much for the MRAs/MGTOWs/incels’ so-called “Wall” …
@Lumipuna
Basically, they think they know who did it. If he were alive they’d put him on trial. However, he’d almost certainly be acquitted since there’s no good evidence. They truly believe he did it, so they don’t see any reason to investigate further. They also don’t find it likely that any better evidence will surface, so might as well close the investigation now. I just wish I knew why they’re so certain they have the right guy. They didn’t make a very convincing case today. No new information was presented.
IP – Maybe they’re just showing up their hunch, since they don’t actually have to argue anything in a trial, and there’s no risk of wrongful conviction?
Like, if the public is left with the impression that the culprit is “known with reasonable certainty”, then this whole process won’t seem like a complete failure when it’s over.
O/T but somewhat relevant to our description of TERFs earlier:
JK Rowling has published somewhat of a manifesto (Tw transphobia, misogyny) on her website. It contains every TERF dogwhistle I can think of and then some.
@Naglfar
Is there really a big movement to call lesbians bigots when they aren’t attracted to penises? I haven’t seen it, but I ask in case you have.
Yes, trans people are so worrisome, since they pose such a serious danger to young people and gay people. And also, giving some people basic rights erodes the rights of other marginalized groups. And I have a bridge to sell you …
Am I off base, or does this “I don’t want a climate of fear!” statement directly contradict the “I’m terrified of trans people!” statement that immediately preceded it?
Actually quite true. A huge number of trans-exclusionary people are liberal feminists or not feminist at all, and calling them all TERFs elides this.
I am interested in this research and would like to see it. Too bad she doesn’t back up this statement …
Pretty sure this is not a real dichotomy. There is a trans woman who works in the building I work in, and I definitely do not feel less safe in the bathroom for the risk that she might walk in and use it, too. I’ve never actually seen another person’s parts in the bathroom. Our stall doors close and lock. It’s not an issue for me, and it’s not an issue for anyone else with whom I work. It’s just not an issue. Completely gender-neutral bathrooms would solve this non-problem, though, so I wonder why that isn’t ever posed as a resolution to the supposed extreme danger posed by trans women in the women’s bathroom.
I’m sorry about the assault JK suffered, but I don’t see how her trauma is at all relevant?
I have no words.
I’m not sure if she’s saying that trans women are predators themselves, or just that they’re giving cover to predatory men – it could go either way and she harps a lot in this essay on theoretical men who could get a Certified Trans card despite not being trans – but this is an ugly thesis.
@PoM
No, it’s just a straw man that TERFs use to attack trans* women. In reality I’ve never heard any trans* person say anything of the sort. I’m sure there are lesbians who don’t like penises, and that’s okay. They don’t have to date people who have penises. The issue would come if they declared that having a penis meant that someone was a man and/or predator just because they don’t want to date said penis-haver.
It’s a myth closely related to the ROGD myth pushed by transphobes. Julia Serano has a good breakdown of it here.
I’ve seen people suggest that to TERFs because many TERFs purport to be “gender abolitionists,” so one would think they would like neutral bathrooms. The TERF attitude on gender-neutral bathrooms seems to be either indifferent or, more recently, many seem to think there should be a third bathroom that all trans* people are required to use but keep men’s and women’s restrooms for cis people.
Their beloved hashtag #SexNotGender says it all: they just want to enforce everything based on ASAB, not gender identity.
I think she’s using the second as a coverup for the first. This is a common tactic, to claim you don’t take issue with a marginalized group but that you’re concerned about X issue which isn’t really related. Of course, it becomes very transparent when one notices that this is basically saying “I don’t want to give a minority rights because the majority might take advantage of them,” which is a very flimsy argument.
Her argument re: “certified trans cards” aka Gender Recognition Certificates becomes even weaker when noting that one does not actually need a GRC to enter a restroom legally in Britain. Anyone could walk into a restroom, there is no forcefield that keeps out people without a GRC.
I recently unlocked the prestige achievement of being banned from the Reddit sub r/GenderCritical.
Granted, that’s not difficult. It struck me that, for people who claim to want to abolish gender as a social construct, they police it with vigor and zeal.
I have also noticed the tendency to focus exclusively on trans women. Trans men don’t seem to arouse the same fervid agitation, from either TEFs or cisgender straight men.
Alan Robertshaw: update on the Wizarding. I cited him the Ofsted report on the school he claimed his younger brother had attended, and he backpedaled like a Nice Guy who’d just DMed an unsolicited dick pic. Oh, and Leeds definitely has no go areas, and there are ‘white meat shops’ that no longer sell pork. I did not point out the inadvertent humor in that description.
Wait, wait, what about vampires? Can they walk into restrooms or does somebody have to invite them in? This is the kind of thing the TERFs should *really* be worrying about!
My dad once made the argument that it was Bad to allow trans girls into the girls’ restroom at school because it gives non-trans boys a way into the girls’ restroom. He said that he totally would have pretended to be trans in order to do that. I stared at him and said, really, you would have put up with the bullying and worse for the possibility of looking at a closed stall door? And he had no answer for that but didn’t change his mind at all.
@Robert
Congrats! What got you the ban?
When they say they want to abolish gender, what they seem to mean is they want to end conversation about gender identity and enforce everything based on assigned sex at birth. They even have a phrase for this, #SexNotGender.
I think this is because of cultural stereotyping. There is a decades old pop culture portrayal of trans* women as murderers and sexual predators. This doesn’t exist for trans* men, as there is very little media portrayal of them at all.
It also seems that there is some sexism at play. Transphobes think that trans* women are men and trans* men are women and that men are violent and dangerous, so they assume trans* women are as well. Similarly they assume the opposite of trans* men, whom they see as women and therefore weak and non-threatening. When TERFs do talk about trans* men they tend to depict them as misled lesbians or autistic girls who don’t realize what they’re doing (which is hella ableist and misogynistic).
Despite this, on surveys it seems that somewhat more cis men are opposed to sharing bathrooms with trans* men compared to the number of cis women opposed to trans* women in women’s bathrooms, but I think this mostly has to do with toxic masculinity.
@PoM
Generally, when cis men talk about what they think trans* women’s motives for entering restrooms are, they’re telling on themselves. Really, we just want to pee in peace.
@Naglfar
It’s possible that he also doesn’t really know what women’s restrooms are like. Maybe he thinks women squat over a communal trough or something with everything hanging out for all to see. I didn’t ask; I was too flabbergasted at his original statement to dig any deeper.
I can’t help but wonder if a fair proportion of cis men would also feel opposed to sharing bathrooms with trans women, given the hostility that toxic masculinity holds towards anything feminine.
For all that TERFs seem to think that all men are slavering violent predators, they certainly don’t seem to give a damn about what might happen to female-presenting folks who might be forced into using the men’s room, not even when faced with the statistics of the violence that trans women face. I shouldn’t really be surprised about that, I suppose, but it’s still vile.
@Catalpa
I’m sure they would be, but a toxically masculine man probably think he’s stronger than any possible trans* woman and could beat and/or rape them, so he doesn’t see that as a threat to his masculinity.
I am reminded of the quotation from TERF leader Bev Jo: “They expect we’ll be shocked to see statistics about them being killed, and don’t realize, some of us wish they would ALL be dead.” TERFs actively want trans* people to suffer and die.
A few have addressed the bathroom question from a slightly different angle of saying we should push for men to be better so men won’t assault trans* women in bathrooms. They have conveniently never said how to do this, nevermind that this isn’t what any trans* women, even the GC ones like Debbie Hayton, want.
@Naglfar
It is fascinating to see her descent. I do not envy anyone who has difficulty reconciling their like of the franchise while also being aware that JK Rowling is an awful person.
@Ooglyboggles
I never liked her books that much, but I do feel sorry for some friends of mine who are LGBT and Harry Potter fans who are having to grapple with this. What really is sad is that a lot of LGBT people connected to her books, and I can see why: it’s a story about a boy who literally lives in a closet and is miserable, then when his identity as a wizard is embraced he succeeds. It’s just sad that she could write that, then be as she is.
@Naglfar
Sadly, the only thing about that that surprises me is that they are so willing to say the quiet part out loud.
@Ooglyboogles
I still have some fond memories of the Harry Potter series, but then I still have some fond memories of At The Mountains Of Madness and other stuff that H.P. Lovecraft wrote, and that dude was a horrible excuse for a human being as well. Sometimes shitty human beings can produce enjoyable art. It doesn’t make their shittiness any less shitty, and being aware of the author’s hang-ups is a good idea when it comes to consuming art critically. I don’t blame other people for condemning the media produced by these folks, though.
I’m sure as hell never going to spend any money on any Harry Potter related items again, in any case.
I’ve never been nervous about being in a public restroom for women except for the times a nun was also in there. (It was a Catholic hospital and I come from a long line of Anglican heretics.) After a while, I just nodded and smiled when Sister Whoever passed me between the sinks and the door. A co-worker had it worse, because one particular nun had been her grammar school principal, and she’d been terrified of Sister for a good chunk of her childhood.
I enjoyed the Harry Potter books back in the day (Hufflepuff here!), but I wasn’t as into the fandom as my younger sister, so I’m disappointed but not devastated by JKR’s reaction. I hope she can learn some better lessons from all this.
OT: I got rejected for the job I interviewed for on Monday, but an hour later, I got a call from a recruiter wondering if I’d be interested in a similar job for nearly twice the money I’ve ever made before.