Pandagon

I have such mixed feelings about the "teach people about consent" approach to rape prevention. On the whole, I think it's a good idea. It can help potential victims spot when a sexual predator is testing their boundaries. It also, if done correctly, makes it a lot harder for rapists and rape apologists to bamboozle people with by claiming that assaults are more "ambiguous" or murky than they are. The more we talk about how important it is for everyone having sex to be happy with what's going on,* the harder it will be for sexual predators to convince people that they meant well. No one means well while simultaneously sticking your dick in someone you know doesn't want it there, regardless of how she communicated that lack of desire.

Hey, #GamerGate fuckwits, if you want to know what an actual scandal regarding journalism ethics looks like, look at ESPN kow-towing to the NFL and Roger Goodell by putting Bill Simmons on a three week suspension for stating the obvious.

Alice Ollstein of Think Progress went to a campaign event for Barbara Comstock, a current state delegate in Virginia who is running for Congress. Comstock, being a bona fide lady, provides one of the skirts the GOP is hiding behind to fight back against the accusations that they're waging war on women. Cathy Gillespie, the wife of candidate Ed Gillespie, asked the audience, "How could they anyone ever think we have a War on Women when we’re running great women candidates like Barbara Comstock?"

Today in gross people who really need to go away like yesterday: Vance McAllister, standard issue overly entitled good ol' boy and congressman who isn't going to let his wife off the hook for doing humiliating campaign ads for him just because he was caught cheating on her.

The great paradox of "masculinity", as defined by our sexist culture, is that it's supposed to be about being all tough and confidence and unbreakable, yet at the very same time, masculinity itself is treated like a fragile, delicate thing that can be ripped away with a slight breeze, leaving previously manly men all weak and emasculated. Women, in particular, are seen in sexist eyes as having this all-encompassing, downright manly power to emasculate with little more than a side-eye of disapproval. Masculinity perishes upon having a video game criticized (or, similarly, having a video game developer you don't know have a sexual encounter that wasn't your business to begin with.) Or upon having someone suggest that domestic violence in football is an actual, for real problem that needs fixing. And apparently now if cartoon characters don't smoke.

Hard to believe, but it's happened: I agree with the religious right on something. This 8th grader in Fayetteville, Arkansas was banned from wearing a T-shirt that says "Virginity Rocks" on the front and "I'm loving my Husband and I haven't even Married Him," on the back. While this shirt is an offense to good taste, common sense, and even the concept of marriage, she should be allowed to wear it. It's not hurting anyone and she should be allowed to express herself. But the idea that kids should not be allowed to express themselves within reason seems to be the sole reason for the principal banning the shirt:

Not that there was any doubt, but the entrance of right wing ideologues into the faux controversy "#GamerGate" makes it almost comically clear how this is not, was not, and never will be about "ethics in journalism", but about harnessing the inchoate anger of a bunch of people who feel left out by the Cool Kids and aiming it directly at the goal of eroding women's right to basic equality with men. (For those who wish to argue that point, feel free to read this, and please comment there, in the wasteland where zero #GamerGate enthusiasts have yet to actually argue with any of my actual points.) It was a grassroots movement of 4chan misogynists who just want to punish individual women online to get back at women as a group for some incoherent sins against them (insufficient blow jobs, not sneaking into their houses to clean shit while they're away), but now the conservative vultures are swirling. They see some marks and they, by god, are going to pick them up. And like watching a vulture tear into carrion, it's simultaneously revolting and fascinating.

Another week, another dudely atheist whose supposed rationalism can't seem to stop him from engaging in emotion-driven temper tantrums because those mean ladies insist you actually apply the same rational lens to sexism as you do religion. This week's contestant is Sam Harris, who was criticized for suggesting that it's women's biological inferiority to men that drives women out of the atheist movement and not, say, the widespread acceptance of sexism that makes women feel unwelcome.

Sadly, not actually a sign of respect.

So a lot of people in skeptical circles have been reading and discussing this piece by Mark Oppenheimer in Buzzfeed titled "Will Misogyny Bring Down The Atheist Movement". Much of the focus has been on the issue of the repeated accusations against Michael Shermer and how baffling it is that the reflexive protect-the-creep position seems to stay firm no matter how much evidence piles up against him. (And of course, there's the typical excuses made for assault when the victim has been drinking, even though, for instance, no one would say that running people on the sidewalk over in your car is less of a crime if the victims were drunk.) Because of the serious problem of sexual harassment and sexual assault, the more low grade problem of disingenuous motherfuckers making pathetic excuses for their own sexist bullshit has been less examined. But I am here, folks, to say that while Penn Jillette is accused of nothing more than douchebaggery, his excuses for his douchebaggery are not acceptable. To summarize, Lindy West wrote a piece making fun of hack Super Bowl commercials and Penn Jillette---who I guess is a big fan of shitty commercials written by hacks?---took issue with her lack of enthusiasm for the comedy stylings of TV ads. Calling a woman a "cunt" is unlikely to be acceptable in most situations, but what was really startling about this was how he went there because she was not impressed by Super Bowl commercials. I mean, what next? Getting irate because there's an article out there by a lady who thinks maybe that Olive Garden isn't the best restaurant she ever ate at? It suggests a general distaste for women expressing opinions at all, just pure outrage that lady mouths are open for anything but admitting the presence of penises. Why not take your own advice and not read her article if you don't think it's funny? I mean, calling someone a "cunt" certainly takes a lot less talent than West's article mocking Super Bowl ads did.

You can have this and have political opinions.

For those who have been following the governor's campaign in Texas, you'll know that Democrat Wendy Davis has Republican Greg Abbott very worried about the women's health issue. She's behind him in the polls, though not as much as you'd think in Texas, but the Abbott campaign reasonably worries that the get-out-the-vote push from Democrats will be aided by the relentless attacks by Republicans on women's health care access, both in terms of shutting down abortion clinics and cutting government aid to prevent pregnancy. So Abbott wants to push back by trying to do that Republican thing where they pretend that abortion and contraception (the latter used by over 99% of women at some point) don't really count as women's health care, not really. From the AP piece:

Dustin Siggins comes at you from his home office, known to most as a street gutter.