Monday, May 14, 2007

Name That Troll!

I've been graced by trolls recently. They are poor trolls, however, for they were unable to afford even standard internet handles. Normally, I don't give gifts to the unnamed, but such brave words are truly deserving of a description sobriquette.

So, we're going to have a little contest. I'll give you the comment, you give the troll a name. You get points for wittiness, accuracy, and creativity.

Anonymous #1 is a comment I've been saving for a few weeks (that was left on a much older post):
Get a grip folks - the new costume is 600,000% better than the previous. It's daring, it's provocative, and really not that much more revealing than the costumes of, say Wonder Woman or Namor.

Funny how nobody ever objects to a guy in a scaly green speedo, but Star Sapphire, OH NO.
This person was referring to this costume, and seems to think that comparing a scantily clad woman to Namor in a discussion is a novel idea. I'm sorry Anonymous #1, but that complaint is so old its only Comics Community Anti-Feminist Cliche #8. We're on #305 by now.

Next up, we have Anonymous #2 from just a few days ago:
I think I have finally figured out why we Americans are one of the most aggressive nations in history! We are TERRIFIED of sexuality! In most of the civilized world, this statue would not prompt the perverted, blue-balled, artificially hysteric revulsion to playful erotica as it does here in the good old USA. Is it "feminism's" fault? "Puritanism's" fault? I don't know, but "I tremble for my country" and all that...
I'd wager that Anonymous #2 believes very strongly that bikinis made out of the American Flag are patriotic. And I worry about his sex life.

Moving on, we come to Anonymous #3 from yesterday:
Oh for god's sake. What the hell is wrong with you people? The idea for that statue is BRILLIANT, and it looks cool too, except for the eyes that seem to be of slipshod make.

Anybody who gets furious over that statue officially hates FUN.
Anonymous #3 enjoys doing laundry by hand without even a washboard, wearing thongs and a shirt two sizes too small, bending over with a special joint located in the thighs, and smiling while in this position. Let's give a hand to Anonymous #3!

That's all I found today, but these three brave persons are clearly deserving of names for their controversial opinions. What do you suggest?

30 comments:

  1. #1: SSS Trooper
    #2: Plastic Fever Uterus
    #3: Fundant Surprise

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  2. Ah... I shall go for irony in naming all three of these trolls.

    #1. - For their amazing speed in picking up on the topical zeitgeist of the Feminist Comic Blogger paradigm... I dub thee FAST_BEAT! For truly he does have his finger on the pulse of the feminist comic blogger!

    #2. - For realizing that America is truly the most sexually repressed nation in the world (as opposed to - say - all those countries where women can be stoned to death for leaving the house without a male escort), and his willingness to hunt down those who would repress their sexuality I hearby declare him to be... THE SEXUAL PREDATOR!

    #3 - For realizing that one must be willing to dress up and look their best, even when doing basic household chores, he shall be known forth from this day as... THE FANCY BOY!

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  3. Call #2 "Anony-Clone"! Because he posted the same statement over at my place, too.

    I've made the same comment at multiple sites, but never anonymously.

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  4. Number one is obviously "Insane!"

    Trying to compare Namor to anyone!

    Pshaw!

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  5. I also think you are scared of straight male sexuality. I can't figure out what you think is going to happen after some guy sees the MJ statue. It's just sex. If he gets an erection, good for him. If he jerks off too, fine. No one is hurt.

    There are all sorts of things like this for gay men, and we aren't in opposition to men. There are the Billy dolls, the Tom of Finland doll, and various other sexy guy dolls aimed at the gay audience, but I see no evidence that gay men have a sexist bias against men. We don't hate, fear, or want to oppress men.

    I really believe that much of what you write is not feminism so much as it is erotophobia.

    More here:

    http://360.yahoo.com/profile-NYapGagiRKXkibx6bHvcaBbV36Q-?cq=1

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  6. If he gets an erection, good for him. If he jerks off too, fine. No one is hurt.

    If he learns to treat women as objects there solely for his gratification, awesome! *rollseyes*

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  7. >>If he learns to treat women as objects there solely for his gratification, awesome! *rollseyes* <<

    Sockich, if that happened, that would be bad, but I don't see any evidence that that is what happens. Take a look around the world and look back in time and I think you'll see that the more a society has taboos against erotica, the more sexist it is. The Taliban banned erotica; San Francisco reveled in it.

    Lust is not the problem. Fear, frustration, anger, and ignorance are. Guys are going to lust and giving them things to inspire lust will not make them more sexist. You will not get rid of sexism by trying to ban lust or things that inspire lust. Making guys believe that lust is bad doesn’t make them stop lusting. It makes them blame women for their evil lust and you get something like the Taliban.

    Let me ask you this, what could a statuette look like that could inspire lust but not inspire sexism?

    Stop being afraid of guys wanting to have sex.

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  8. Let me ask you this, what could a statuette look like that could inspire lust but not inspire sexism?

    http://www.nitrocomics.com/batgirlmb.jpg

    http://www.nitrocomics.com/harleyquinnmb.jpg

    http://www.nitrocomics.com/WWCarter.jpg

    (Dr. Evil voice on)

    Scott. You just don't get it.

    (Dr. Evil voice off)

    This may come as a shock to you but it is possible for sexy to exist apart from sexist.

    The statues I linked to above show an attractive woman in an active stance as opposed to... say being bent over while doing "woman's work".

    THAT is the issue. Not you wanking yourself into a frenzy over a piece of resin. Not straight men having sex. It is about a strong female character being turned into a literal sexual object merely for the sake of catering to the adolescent at heart who have too much money, too little free time and no chance of getting a real woman to ever love them... in ANY sense of the word love.

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  9. Scott, I'm trying to see who you're arguing with. Can you please link to where it was argued that the statue is bad because lust is bad? Or where the banning of the statue was proposed? I'm not seeing those positions offered here or at the various blogs linked at WFA. Admittedly, I didn't read every single WFA response to the Mary Jane statue.

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  10. Pardon me, if I am misreading this, but is Scott advocating a complete surrender to lust, because otherwise the terrorists
    "win"?

    Michael Turner, your future is secured!

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  11. There's a t-shirt there - I Wank for Truth, Justice and The American Way!

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  12. >>Scott, I'm trying to see who you're arguing with. Can you please link to where it was argued that the statue is bad because lust is bad?<<

    I won’t be able to link to that because that’s not the way they phrase it. They say she is a “sex object.” But what is a sex object except an object that overtly inspires lust? If the intent of the object isn’t to overtly inspire lust, it isn’t a sex object; it’s an object. It is the lust that is at issue. We don’t see protests when statuettes overtly inspire admiration, laughter, or horror. But if they overtly inspire lust for women, then we hear that they are sexist and teach men to see women only as objects created for their sexual amusement. (See the posts above.) However, despite an enormous influx of erotica over the past 30 years thanks to the internet, VCRs, CDs, cable TV, etc., we now have a society that is the least sexist that it has ever been. The gender wage gap has shrunk, there are self-made women billionaires for the first time, there are more powerful female political figures than ever, more women graduate from high school, college, law school, medical school and grad school in general than men, rapes are down to one fifth of what there were in the 70s, women are less likely to be homeless than men, less likely to be drug addicts than men, they live longer than men, get medical attention more often than men, and they now are a wee bit less likely to be unemployed than men. In short, by virtually ever standard, the lives of women have gotten better while the erotica that was supposed to hold them back exploded to a 1000 times what it had been. The fear that erotica like the MJ statue is going to hurt women is an unsubstantiated myth and a kind of social erotophobia.

    >>Or where the banning of the statue was proposed?<<

    I never said anyone was trying to ban it.

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  13. Heee! Scott is kind of cute. "You just hate sex!"

    Nothing says "I love sex with leaving breathing women" like that MJ maquette given pride-of-place. I know I display my sexual aids on the mantelpiece, and this has done wonders for my love life!

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  14. I never said anyone was trying to ban it.

    Well, I was trying to figure out how the Taliban banning 'erotica' got drawn into the argument.

    Speaking of erotica, I like how you keep using that word. Here in middle America we generally call the stuff 'porn'.

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  15. >>"Starman" Matt Morrison said...
    Let me ask you this, what could a statuette look like that could inspire lust but not inspire sexism?

    http://www.nitrocomics.com/batgirlmb.jpg

    http://www.nitrocomics.com/harleyquinnmb.jpg<<

    I have to admit that I had an ulterior motive in asking for that. I wanted someone to point out that the vast majority of images of women in comics are NOT of women doing domestic chores. I tried to think of submissive homemakers in comics and I could only think of a few peripheral characters. The vast, vast majority are of women are powerful, dynamic, and employed outside the home. They are frequently leaders who beat the snot out of men. If comic reading straight guys are picking up comics to get off on subservient women, they spending way too much for a product that is going to frustrate them. I suspect that comic reading straight are a lot like comic reading gay guys like me. We prefer the objects of our lust to power, competent, active, attractive people, but we also have fantasies that run counter to that some times. But that does not mean that we actually fear, hate, or want to subject anyone to oppression.

    >>This may come as a shock to you but it is possible for sexy to exist apart from sexist.<<

    This may come as a shock to you, but it is also possible for a fantasy to be something that we don’t actually want in real life. For instance, there are all sorts of romance novels that have women being kidnapped and raped by pirates or sleeping with vampires, but that doesn’t mean that women actually want to be kidnapped and rape or that they are necrophiliacs. There are all sorts of gay rape fantasy materials too. I even own some, but I assure I don’t plan on being raped or raping anyone.

    Maybe it’s just because I’m gay, but I’m really sensitive to the idea that products of sexual fantasy should be censored by people for whom the products weren’t intended rubs me the wrong way. I don’t want homophobes telling me what sexual fantasies I can indulge in, so I also don’t see why erotophobes should be telling heterosexual guys what sexual fantasies they should be indulging in. Unless you can find data that shows that the product actually produces a negative effect on the society, I say you should but out of other people’s sexual fantasies.

    >>It is about a strong female character being turned into a literal sexual object merely for the sake of catering to the adolescent at heart who have too much money, too little free time and no chance of getting a real woman to ever love them... in ANY sense of the word love.<<

    First, MJ is an object. Usually, she is a pattern of ink on paper. She is never a person, so saying she was been turned into an object is less clever and compelling than you think.

    Second, thinking of MJ as sexual and strong are not mutually exclusive. Strong women can do laundry and screw.

    Third, you are playing on the myth that guys who indulge in sexual fantasies are less mature than guys like you. Bullshit. You can no more tell anything about a guy’s level of maturity by knowing what his sexual fantasies are than you can tell by what dietary fantasies are. Biological urges are not limited to the adolescent.

    Fourth, the idea that guys who indulge in their sexual fantasies won’t get a “real woman,” is also bullshit. Women who read romance novels about marrying a roguish sheik can find love with real men, and men who have fantasies about a supermodel doing their laundry can also find true love. I own all sorts of porn, and I’m married to the best guy in the world.

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  16. >>Jeff Rients said...
    “I never said anyone was trying to ban it.”

    Well, I was trying to figure out how the Taliban banning 'erotica' got drawn into the argument.<<

    My point was that where there is little erotica (as in places were it is banned as the Taliban did or merely socially unacceptable), there is usually more sexism and were it is common (like San Francisco and Amsterdam), there is less sexism. I did not intend to imply that anyone was trying to make cheesecake statues illegal.

    >>Speaking of erotica, I like how you keep using that word. Here in middle America we generally call the stuff 'porn'.<<

    Not when it’s cheesecake statues, you don’t. That statue doesn’t reach the level of porn, IMHO. I also tend to use the word because it was used in the Meese report, which will show you that much of the porn/erotica hysteria is essentially baseless paranoia. You can read it here:

    http://www.porn-report.com

    with the most relevant section here:

    http://www.porn-report.com/403-porn-social-and-behavioral-science-research.htm

    If you can read that, especially the part where they discovered that of all criminals, rapists were the people who had seen the least erotica in their youths, and still think that erotic material turns people into sexist bastards, you are reading it upside-down. It was put together by guys who were radically anti-porn. One of the guys on the commission was James “Focus On the Family” Dobson. Despite this, they found no reports that said that porn caused crime, rape, or sexism, and a few reports that said it decreased the same.

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  17. gosh, i don't want to be anti-sex. please revise my opinions as necessary so as to be considered pro-sex by those who feel qualified to make such determinations.

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  18. My deepest and most sincere apologies to the straight men who have been horribly traumatized by learning their $125 wank material is degrading to women and that many don’t want to see that shit on display at their local comic shop.

    I only hope they can recover to what must be a devastating blow to their sexuality.

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  19. >>My deepest and most sincere apologies to the straight men who have been horribly traumatized by learning their $125 wank material is degrading to women and that many don’t want to see that shit on display at their local comic shop.<<

    I'm sorry to hear that you think lusting after women degrades them.I’m sure these feelings you have must be hard on you. I wish I could empathize with you, but I can’t. I’ve never felt degraded because someone lusted after me or men in general. I was at a Christmas party with a bunch of my gay friends and one of the guys gave out sexy guy Christmas ornaments that were not so different from the MJ statuette. Not one of us felt degraded by them. In fact, they were very popular. If someone has told you that men can’t lust and respect at the same time, that person should be flogged. Lust and respect are not mutually exclusive. In fact, there is often a connection between the two.

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  20. Comics are good at the lust, great at the lust, but seem to fail miserably at respect.

    If MJ were just one statue in a sea of comics in which women were respected, valued, and seen as more than a sex object, then there'd be no problem. But it’s not just MJ, it’s her, and Power Girl, and Batgirl, and Supergirl, and Wonder Woman, and Storm, and Rogue, and almost every other female character in comics.

    What you don’t appear to be grasping, is that there’s a difference between lusting after women and seeing women as objects that can only be lusted at. Surprisingly, women who like superhero comics tend to want characters that can inspire more than hot spurts from male admirers. That's why some posters dislike the statue.

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  21. hippokrene -- His problem seems to be that he doesn't understand that the bad part about being an object is the object rather than the sex part of the phrase.

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  22. >>What you don’t appear to be grasping, is that there’s a difference between lusting after women and seeing women as objects that can only be lusted at. Surprisingly, women who like superhero comics tend to want characters that can inspire more than hot spurts from male admirers.<<

    To the contrary, hippokrene, I do understand that, and so do the guys who like comics. In those comics, MJ, Power Girl, Batgirl, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Storm, and Rogue are all dynamic, self-assured, competent, intelligent, and admirable. More than half of those characters you mentioned were leaders of groups. Two were considered goddesses. It is those attributes that made the characters popular enough with straight guy readers. In other words, they do inspire more than hot spurts from male admirers. Porn is a lot cheaper and dirtier than those statuettes. What makes them worth the extra money is that the buyers associate more with the characters than just sex. They associate the same positive attributes to the characters that you do.

    What I understand is that straight guys (who are people like you and me) can hold two thoughts in their heads at the same time. They can believe that women have well-rounded personalities with depth of character, insight, and charm while still wanting to see them do something smutty. I know guys can do this because gay men have been able to vote for male Presidents while still wanting to blow them. I don’t know about you, but the more I respect a guy, the more likely I am to lust after him. Are you suggesting that it is the opposite for you or that you don’t think they can lust and respect at the same time like you can?

    Here is a question, given that all of the statuettes that these companies produce are of characters that comic readers are already familiar with as powerful, admirable, dynamic, assertive women, what makes you think that there is anyone buying them who sees women as objects that can only be lusted at? Doesn’t the fact that these characters already had other characteristics associated with them before they became statuettes tell you that the buyers DON’T only think of them as objects to be lusted at? Has anyone said that he didn’t think of the women as anything but sex objects? Where are you getting the idea that comic readers abandon all attributes they associate with the female character when they see her in a lust-inspiring position? Put Wildcat into a jockstrap and have him do my laundry and I’ll still think he’s a bad ass … with a nice ass. If I can still respect Wildcat’s character while lusting after him (like in the scene where he battled the bad guys while naked or when he was naked in bed with Hippolyta), why can’t straight guys do it with MJ?

    Finally, let me voice my opposition to this notion that that lust turns women into “sex objects.” With very few kinky exceptions, what a person lusts after is another person, not an object. So if someone is lusting, isn’t it more likely that he is personifying, not objectifying?

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  23. "Put Wildcat into a jockstrap and have him do my laundry and I’ll still think he’s a bad ass."

    And because you're the observer, you have the power to give or withhold that respect while he's doing laundry in a thong for your viewing pleasure.

    Culturally, women aren't observers, but the observed.

    You're seeing this situation from the viewpoint of the guy checking out Wildcat. If you want to understand the reaction, you need to see it from the point of view of Wildcat, who now has a strange guy ogling him as he's forced to prance around folding pants in a g-string. Yeah, maybe the guy respects you, but either way he gets to choose what you wear, and how you look, because you're there for his viewing pleasure.

    Men look. Women are looked at. That's Feminism 101.

    Male comic buyers can choose to look or not look. Male comic buyers can choose to view female characters as sex objects or not. They get this choice because the comics industry is formed around their desires, because 90% of female characters are made to be gawked at.

    Female comic buyers don't get those choices. They don't even get heroines who exist independently of the male gaze. Even when that heroine is sixteen-years-old and we're viewing her corpse, the art will pose her so men can check out her full chest and hot ass.

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  24. Hippokrene -- You can play with him if you like, but don't get too worked up or waste excessive energy on him, he's just a troll that followed me home from Willow's.

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  25. If you can read that, especially the part where they discovered that of all criminals, rapists were the people who had seen the least erotica in their youths, and still think that erotic material turns people into sexist bastards, you are reading it upside-down. It was put together by guys who were radically anti-porn. One of the guys on the commission was James “Focus On the Family” Dobson. Despite this, they found no reports that said that porn caused crime, rape, or sexism, and a few reports that said it decreased the same.

    You're leading me off on a tangent here. I think you are under the impression that because I used the terms 'porn' and 'middle America' that I was anti-porn. I'm not. Surely I can be a fan of a genre, like superhero comics or 'erotic' statues, and still find a specific offering in that genre to be objectionable or offensive?

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  26. >>Surely I can be a fan of a genre, like superhero comics or 'erotic' statues, and still find a specific offering in that genre to be objectionable or offensive?<<

    Of course, you can. And you have the perfect right to voice that opinion.

    What I’m concerned with is the question, “Should the comic companies discontinue producing a product that some people want because some other people find it objectionable or offensive?”

    To that question, I answer, “Hell, no! … unless they can show that the product actually does damage to individuals or society in general.”

    For instance, there are people who find the Harry Potter series objectionable and offensive because Harry is using magic in defiance of Biblical injunctions. So, should the Harry Potter series be discontinued because some find it offensive? I would say that if we found that kids who read Harry Potter actually began consorting with the devil and his evil minions, the answer is “Hell, no!”

    Shakespeare was banned because his works were considered objectionable and offensive. Let’s say a bunch of people found his works to be too full of sexuality, should publishers stop printing the plays? People object to Mark Twain, J.D. Salinger; they objected to including gay characters in comics, they objected to blacks in comics, they objected to interracial couples, they objected to showing women in positions of authority over men, they objected to evolution, etc. etc. For all of those objecting people, I have to say, “I don’t give a shit that you object. Unless you can show me who publishing this is actually going to hurt individuals or society in general, I’m going to keep producing this stuff for the people who want to buy it.”

    As a gay man, I am especially sensitive to the idea that other people should be allowed to censor my fantasy media. More people find gay porn offensive than do the MJ statuette. If companies capitulated to the offended, I’d get nothing that approximated my sexual fantasies. If my sexual fantasies actually caused meteors to rain down as the loony ministers said, I’d have to agree that I shouldn’t be allowed to have porn. If gay marriage actually caused a disintegration of straight marriages like the objectors said it would, I’d agree that gay marriage was a bad thing, but once we see that Massachusetts is the only state with gay marriage and it has the country’s lowest divorce rate, I can’t see why there should be gay marriage.

    If the people who object to the MJ statue are only concerned with guys lusting, I’m sorry, but Marvel should ignore the objectors. What the offended seem to be saying is that the statue creates a mindset that makes men see women only as sex objects, and therefore, the men will act as if women were only sex objects. If that were true, I’d be opposed to the MJ statuette. I’d write a letter to Marvel complaining. However, no one has presented any evidence that this supposed mindset and its subsequent actions really happen.

    Which brings us to why I mentioned the rapist study. If there is any group that sees women only as sex objects, it should be rapists, right? They would be the poster boys for reducing women to nothing more than objects created for their sexual desire. If the feminist theory was correct that sexually explicit material like the MJ statuette caused men to think of women as sex objects, then it would seem that rapists would be the people who were most influenced by erotica. However, when we look at criminals, the rapists were the people who had the LEAST exposure to erotica, not the most.

    The theory is that erotica creates the mindset and the mindset creates the behavior. The study shows that the erotica apparently is not connected to the behavior (at least not in a positive way; although the evidence suggests that it might have a negative affect on the behavior.) Therefore either:

    A. Erotica does not create a mindset that views women as mere sex objects.
    B. People who view women as mere sex objects are less likely to rape.

    I don’t know about you, but I have trouble believing that B is correct. That leaves A being correct. If A is correct, if erotica does not create a mindset that views women as mere sex objects, what is it exactly that you are objecting to? And why should Marvel listen to your objections instead of the desire the desires of the people who want what would appear to be an innocent, harmless statuette?

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  27. What I’m concerned with is the question, “Should the comic companies discontinue producing a product that some people want because some other people find it objectionable or offensive?”

    I continue to follow the WFA links on the matter and I see a lot of gnashing of teeth, but I don't see anyone calling for this item to not be sold. Am I missing still widespread calls for banning this statue?

    Personally, I don't want the statue banned. What I would like is a clear explanation from Marvel as to why they thought this was a fitting representation of one of their characters. Who approved the license to produce the statue? And more importantly, I'd like an explanation as to why questions regarding this matter were deleted from Joe Quesada's blog. Marvel's clearly got every right to license out their intellectual property however it pleases them, but the fact they don't seem to want to talk about this situation doesn't look very good to me.

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  28. >>I continue to follow the WFA links on the matter and I see a lot of gnashing of teeth, but I don't see anyone calling for this item to not be sold. Am I missing still widespread calls for banning this statue?<<


    I guess we are going to have to disagree on this, Jeff, because not only do I think it is clear that the posters are hoping to influence the comic companies into not producing statuettes, comic covers, etc. that they perceive as sexist, if that is not their goal, if they are just bitching and moaning, I’ll have lost a tremendous amount of respect for them.

    While I disagree with some of the theories that motivate the posters, I think that their hearts are in the right place. I don’t believe the sexy fantasy material produces sexism, misogyny, or rape, and I hold that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence to back me up. However, if someone on these boards was not convinced of that and continued to believe that sexy material like the MJ statuette or the Power Girl cover did produce sexism, misogyny, or rape, I’d say that the posters were down right pathetic and unethical not to try to get the comic companies to stop producing them. I believe that posters are trying to shame Marvel and DC into changing their ways, and if they are correct in their theories and I’m wrong, more power to them.

    If you want to confirm your theory that these people are just whining and not hoping to affect change, I suggest you ask them. I won’t do it because I think it would be entirely too insulting to even make that suggestion that they aren’t trying to end what they think is unethical treatment of an entire class of people. But good luck to you.

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  29. I guess we are going to have to disagree on this, Jeff, because not only do I think it is clear that the posters are hoping to influence the comic companies into not producing statuettes, comic covers, etc. that they perceive as sexist, if that is not their goal, if they are just bitching and moaning, I’ll have lost a tremendous amount of respect for them.

    At this point it's pretty clear to me that you are conflating complaint with calls to action and censureship with calls for censorship. Influencing a company as to what products they produce is not the same as asking for a ban on an already sold item. Calling for a reckoning as to who and how the MJ statue got approval from Marvel is not the same as asking for their heads on a platter. You seem to want to rhetorically slide down the slippery slope to the Taliban banning erotica in order to dimish the complaints of others. What I see is a lot of people asking for a dialogue on how we got to this point. Maybe I'm misreading you, but it's clear from here that you've been misreading me.

    Frankly, I find your attempts to recast this debate as a war against lust and a call for a ban of the statue to be nothing but putting words in other people's mouths. But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that point, too.

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  30. >>But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that point, too.<<

    You are correct. I will have to disagree with that. My point isn’t that censorship is bad. You’ve got me confused with the people who make that argument. If those statues and covers are doing something bad, we, all of us, you and I, should try to get Marvel and DC to stop doing them. I am not concerned with the US going down the road to the Taliban. I’m not saying the people are trying to be like the Taliban, I’m saying that a lack of sexual material does not create a lack of sexism as you can see from the Taliban, and an enormous proliferation of hookers, porn, strip joints, and sex shows does not create sexism and we can see from the very unsexist places like San Francisco and Amsterdam. I am not saying that anyone is trying for some kind of legal ban on sexual material.

    My point is that the theory that the statues and covers do anything bad is a faulty theory. All the evidence that I have seen disproves the theory and much of it actually suggest that exactly the opposite is true. (e.g. San Francisco, which as one of the most notorious histories of strippers, hookers, and porn, has produced the most powerfully elected women in the country.) I used to believe the theory. I used to be opposed to sexy stuff in comics, but everything, even studies done by people who are radically opposed to sexual material, finds absolutely nothing that connects sexual material to sexism, misogyny, or rape, and several studies, even studies done by people who are radically opposed to sexual material, find that sexism, misogyny, and rape are actually lessened by the presence of sexual material.

    If any can give any evidence that the statues or the covers actually create sexism, misogyny, or rape, I will gladly change my tune and add my voice to the chorus that call for comic companies to stop their irresponsible behavior and quit the production of said material. Or if you just want gnashing of teeth, I will gladly do that.

    However, if the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor is saying that such things are harmless fantasies that may actually make things better for women (and the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of saying that such things are harmless fantasies that may actually make things better for women), what are you trying to do and why are you trying to do it? If it is not just lust you are opposed to, what is the behavior you are opposed to and what makes you think the covers or statues will create that behavior when the overwhelming amount of research from decades of research done by people that wanted to prove that you were correct says that not only are you wrong, but the opposite of what you believe is more likely to be correct?

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