And some more...

[moominmuppet]

Finishing up clearing out email now that I'm home:

Canon and Sheep Shit: Why We Fight.
I hate the Doctor Who canon like Dawkins hates God.

Like him, I'm convinced the target of my animus doesn't exist, but that doesn't stop me spending half my life writing about how dreadful it is. (from marnanel)

Road Kill: It's Fresh, It's Organic, It's Free -- Honestly, perfectly sensible. I'd have to get over some of my cultural food limitations, and it'd be important to know how fresh the animal was, and what communicable diseases could be an issue, but I would have to get over the "ick factor" for one of my other favorite protein production ideas too -- developing an american taste for bugs and grubs. I like lobster, and they're basically giant sea bugs. I bet I'd dig roasted insects of various sorts, too. (and in response to someone's comment about cannibalism in the original post: If I die, and you're starving, eat me with my blessings. Please save and tan the tats; my friends have plans for them.)

Will Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap Continue to Defy Selling Out to Corporate Culture? -- I hope so!!

Teen pregnancy and disease rates rose sharply during Bush years, agency finds

Mainstream Media Reinforces Unexamined Arguments Against Public Funding for Abortion

Open Thread: When Art and Ideals Collide -- an issue I struggle with a lot.

Yes. This. Dawkins, get off of my team!

On the importance of midwives

I mean, there is a lot of (IMHO) woman hating in the following group of words. The topic, porn, the statement: “Do I want to look at some plastic-surgery enhanced woman who doesn’t even look human being porked”, the subject, how women who perform in porn (or are in the sex industry at large) suffer from Stockholm Syndrome.

Now see, that just chaps my ass in all the wrong ways. I mean, a huge thing that you see coming from anti porn feminists is that they hate the porn because it dehumanizes and degrades the women in it. But see, I am not sure how someone saying those very women do not even look like human beings is anything but dehumanizing and degrading? -- Amen.

Zombiechocolate has important stuff to say about that state of the economy in Ohio, and what that's meaning to people on a day-to-day basis. I'm so incredibly lucky to be in one of the safest job positions I possibly could be. My housemates and friends are being hit right and left. I'm still being hit directly by the public service cuts, especially RTA. A big factor in our move location was not only "is this on a bus line?" but "is this on a bus line we can be sure won't be cut?"

The Complex Sexualities of Young Women -- I haven't finished this one yet, adding partially for my own reference.

10 Things You Need to Know to Live on the Streets

Why I'm not watching Dance Your Ass Off

A really good piece on finding a gyn provider after sexual abuse

Gay and straight: parallel poly worlds

Tuning into Crisis Pregnancy Websites

Obama says not funding abortions is "tradition"

Condom ads from the UK

Whew. All done. Bed now.

Comments

[tasharowan.livejournal.com]

So I clicked the Feministe link, in part because of the mention of Stockholm Syndrome. I've never heard of it before. I read that post, but no explanation. So I clicked the link "Stockholm Syndrome." Dear god I want to strangle whose ever blog that is. I don't think I've heard anything so disgusting since I was working on a project involving porn in college. Why the fuck do these people think they have any right to speak for another person? How dare anyone oppose their view! I would question their humanity, but unfortunately, I only know humans to be that stupid.

And I still don't know what Stockholm Syndrome is.

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

And yes, that argument makes me every bit as angry as the fundies at the clinics who regularly argue "you just don't know any better" and "what have they done to corrupt your mind?" and the ever-patronizing "I'll pray for you" (which, in this context, means asking their imaginary dude to override my beliefs against my will, and which I therefore find a fundamentally invasive and overwhelmingly arrogant act).

[minniethemoocha.livejournal.com]

I saw an episode of DYAO by accident last week and loved it. I thought Marissa was hot and cute, I thought the contestants were hot and cute, and I thought the costumes were not ill fitting or trashy (they're DANCE costumes -- dance costumes are sometimes a little gaudy). Also the partners seemed not skinny and I enjoyed watching people who hadn't been able to do, say, deep squats, pole pullups or dips before get confident and strong enough to do so with attitude. I didn't find the judges mean or patronizing especially by reality TV standards. Marketing a show that seems less about weight loss than about becoming mobile and confident in one's sex appeal doesn't seem evil to me. A drop of 2 to 4 pounds in a week, which is what many of them seem to accomplish on these "drastic" diet and exercise regimes, is not beyond the pale -- I've done it myself without becoming unhealthy when I wanted to lose weight. And losing weight a little at a time while the main goal seems to be improving strength, muscle control, endurance, and grace really doesn't seem bad to me. I didn't see it as an opportunity for fat-haters to gawk. Unlike "Biggest Loser" I didn't see their fat depicted as grotesque. Just because they want to lose weight doesn't mean they aren't learning to move and feel sexy as fat people in a way they probably didn't know they could before. I weigh 200 pounds now, have weighed a lot more and a lot less at times, and I have loved and had great sex with women and men of various sizes, and I dug getting to see people who'd felt bad about their weight learn to work it and show off in a way that feels good. Am I missing something?

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

We may simply be coming from different perspectives. I'm unlikely to give "benefit of the doubt" to any competitive weight-loss show (and when it's part of the scoring, and especially when they're intentionally dramatizing that element by creating a house full of "evil temptations", I can't see it as anything else). I think they're fundamentally fucked up, and capitalize on fatphobia in all sorts of ways.

[minniethemoocha.livejournal.com]

Eh, like I said, I just watched a couple of epis, so I didn't get a chance to see the parts about the "bad food" or shaming tactics. I just liked that the coaching was towards physical grace in people who had no dance background, and that contestants were encouraged to feel sexy and good in the bodies that they had at the moment, even if they did strongly wish to lose weight. That and I think a couple of the people on the show are total eye candy, so perhaps I just saw what I wanted to see. I realize also that my comment might have sounded really assy, given how much you dislike the show, so although I had a different experience, I want to be clear that I am NOT trying to erase or invalidate yours. :-*

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

No worries!

I think it's frustrating me particularly, because I'd dearly love to see a dance show like this if it weren't weight-loss focused.

[cassidyrose.livejournal.com]

I thought the costumes were not ill fitting or trashy (they're DANCE costumes -- dance costumes are sometimes a little gaudy).

I am the author of the linked post. Some of the costumes on the show don't fit the contestants properly (waists cut at odd places, not enough fabric to prevent butt ride-up of the skirts when dancing, etc.) and the gaudiness did veer into trashiness for me and I am a semi-professional fat dancer who has also been a burlesque dancer so that is saying a lot. They could have costumed the contestants much better and still been flashy and sexy and fun. We do it all the time with the Fly Girls. And I still contend that the over-reliance on shiny spandex was a move to display the fat in a non-positive way.

I enjoyed watching people who hadn't been able to do, say, deep squats, pole pullups or dips before get confident and strong enough to do so with attitude.

That is the insidious lure of shows like these. It is compelling to watch fat people be active because we don't often see that on TV, but we need to remember they are on a weight loss show (hell, it is in the show's name) and are doing these exercises primarily to lose weight for the competition. If it were just about gaining mobility and strength and learning to dance as fat people they could have had a show just about that. Hell, they could have filmed my dance company for that matter. But that is not nearly as marketable as a weight-loss show, nor does it feed the diet industry. The fact that the show, for whatever reason, had to be tied to weight-loss is the fundamental flaw. And I do think there is a HUGE humiltainment factor in having people get checked out by the show's doctor in their skivvies and getting weighed on stage on a massive scale.

You are right that the judges aren't mean by reality show standards, but they also fail to give much serious dance criticism. There seems to be too much "WOW, I can't believe you can actually do that being so fat" implicit in some of the comments, and as a fat dancer I have heard comments like that far too often and I find it condescedning and patronizing.

It should also be noted that the contestants are eating very calorie-restrictive diets a la Biggest Loser. One woman is eating fewer than 1,000 calories a day. They are trying to lose as much weight as possible as quickly as possible because that is key to them winning the show. These are not people in it trying to get active who may experience weight-loss as a side effect. These people are trying really hard to lose weight and to lose it fast. They are not being judged on their dance ability alone, but on one how much weight they lose as well.

The first episode had a whole bunch of fat-shaming stuff around food. Apparently all fat people know how to eat is hostess products and fried chicken. There is a big 'ol "Cheat" cabinet in the house the contestants live in which is stockpiled with "junk food" and there have been multiple dramas shown around that, including showing someone "cheating" by eating the food (because, really, what makes better TV than a fat person eating potato chips?). That sort of moralistic and sensationalist crap about food is fundamentally problematic and illustrates that the show is largely about the drama of fat people losing weight and "battling" their "food demons."

I dug getting to see people who'd felt bad about their weight learn to work it and show off in a way that feels good. Am I missing something?

What I think you may be missing is that despite being shown how to "work what they've got", this message is being purported in the service of weight-loss and is viewed as acceptable because the contestants are working to become thinner. I do not think a show like this would air where people learned to show off their sexy fat, embrace it, and not do a damn thing to get rid of it. At the heart of it, DYAO is a weight-loss show with dance as a gimmick. It is why I cannot endorse it in any way, shape or form.

[minniethemoocha.livejournal.com]

As perhaps I mentioned, I didn't watch the show closely enough to see all the faults you did. I watched only 2 episodes while I was nursing a head cold. Obviously I was about the eye candy and not so much about the fat politics. Also I'm by no means an experienced dancer. Just an ordinary fat chick here. In any case, I'm not out on the ramparts with a halberd about it, I just didn't find what I watched utterly evil. Clearly your mileage varied and you have strong feelings about it.

[cassidyrose.livejournal.com]

I understand, and I just wanted to respond explaining what I found particularly unseemly about it. I meant no disrespect to you. I am in a place where I think all weight-loss shows are inherently exploitative and fat-phobic but as always all our mileage varies on how see such things.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Open Thread: When Art and Ideals Collide

I don't have much trouble with this, largely because I've found serious (modern) misogynists and homophobes (like Card) tend to be sufficiently annoying in their storytelling that I'm rarely interested in the stories they tell. I'll put up with mild problems, and I'll easily put up with anything that isn't exceedingly egregious from work that's from before 1970, but anything after 1980 that's into the sort of serious misogyny or homophobia territory (from my PoV, one or both of these describes all of Card's work) is something that I have no interest in. I've regularly put down a book out of annoyance or boredom and then later found that the author was a raving nutball libertarian conservative or similar variety scum (John C. Wright & Peter Hamilton are both excellent examples of this phenomena). One of the useful things about reading almost exclusively SF is that most SF authors wear their ideologies on their sleeve and so reading books by modern or near-modern authors whose politics and social belief that I later find out are horrid essentially never happens.

Gay and straight: parallel poly worlds

Aaron has talked about this at length. He's largely a part of gay male culture now and straight/bi poly culture strikes him as very weird. It's definitely a case of there being a major gay & lesbian culture vs. bi & straight culture divide. I find it sort of sad that bi people always (IMHO at least) seem to be part of straight poly culture rather than gay or lesbian poly culture.

Yes. This. Dawkins, get off of my team!

Yes! I have much sympathy and respect for atheists. I have little respect for Dawkins as a scientist and none for him as a loud-mouthed ideologue.

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

I most often find the art issue a problem in movies and older books. I have a lot of trouble enjoying old movies because I can't stop noticing the gender and race politics to the exclusion of actually just enjoying the plot, for example.

I see a lot of overlap between the lesbian/bi/straight poly worlds, with gay open relationships generally being conceptualized very differently. And I don't think that's just because of my own relationship dynamics (my most long-standing poly relationship being with K and T, who are living within a pretty poly and poly-friendly lesbian subculture). I also see it in who posts to the LJ poly communities. I can recall a lot of posts by poly lesbians, but almost none by poly-identified gay men.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

most often find the art issue a problem in movies and older books. I have a lot of trouble enjoying old movies because I can't stop noticing the gender and race politics to the exclusion of actually just enjoying the plot, for example.

I tend to excuse work from the early 1960s and earlier unless it is impressively horrid, because I largely assume that the US and Western Europe were deeply scary and exceptionally bigoted places prior to the social changes of the 1960s.

I see a lot of overlap between the lesbian/bi/straight poly worlds, with gay open relationships generally being conceptualized very differently. And I don't think that's just because of my own relationship dynamics (my most long-standing poly relationship being with K and T, who are living within a pretty poly and poly-friendly lesbian subculture). I also see it in who posts to the LJ poly communities. I can recall a lot of posts by poly lesbians, but almost none by poly-identified gay men.

That makes sense to me - at least in the poly communities that I hang out in (the Portland and DC area otherkin communities, where poly is essentially the norm, and at least 40% of people are bi), there are slightly more women than men and there's a mild undercurrent that even men in the community are sexually threatening unless proven otherwise, so it makes sense that such a place would be more welcoming of lesbians than gay men. However, it's equally true that I know only two lesbians in these communities, neither of them have any major connections to their local lesbian community. Of course, I also know no gay men in either community, so there's clearly some bias.