Shannon wants to be nice to Mag, but no matter what I just can't help the desire to make fun of her. I think it's the insistence that feminism is all touchy feely and shit. It's not about equality, or thinking or doing any work or soul searching or anything like that. I have the impulse to point out that submission for females is totally not marginalized, and fake ass BDSM* is every fucking where. I have the impulse to say "Ok, you're right, feminism isn't a political movement- it's about coddling your fucking feelings about your sex life. Here's a fucking gold star. I hope you enjoy it while women's rights are being taken away". That's not very nice, but that's the first thing that comes to mind.

I understand her experience and all, but what about the experiences of women who have to suffer through forced submission, horrible blowjobs and the like? When I hear about how great blowjobs are, I'm reminded of totally traumatizing face fucking encouraged by horrible porn. But hey, that's OK, because it's orgasms at any cost here. Even at the expense of women who have good enough sense to admit that bullshit is bullshit. I'm suspicious about who exactly is supposed to be my ally here. If I can't trust you, you are not my ally. I really don't want the frivolous and silly on my side to tell you the truth. If your political committments are detrimined by whether I think female submissiveness is the total apex of wonderfulness, yea, get off my side please.


There is research that praising a child's effort rather than their base intelligence has a better effect on their schoolwork. I think that making feminism an issue of identity instead of an issue of let's work hard to DO something is driving a lot of fighting. Being able to analyze the larger society and the workings of power becomes stigmatized as mean and cruel because it does not allow for foolishness or fooling one's self. But those are precisely the skills we need to change the status quo.

Now, random quotes!

And how can a social-justice movement function if it has no working definition of social justice?

Deep thoughts by Katha Pollit

*I say fake ass, because just randomly being an asshole because you have a cock may sound like BDSM, but I like to separate the two.