Friday, November 11, 2011

Paterno, Pederasty, and Pennsylvania Dudes Gone Wild

The news in brief...

Joe Paterno, shown raising his fist like a hard pederast cock, in solidarity with disgraced coach, Jerry Sandusky.
"Snitches get stitches!," Paterno reminded the gaggle of reporters and drunk students outside his home on Wednesday.

A story/rant/analysis called "Paterno, Pederasty, and Pennsylvania Dudes Gone Wild," is more than half-written and will be posted here shortly...check back on Sunday.  Until then, please enjoy my libelous black humor (above) but only to the extent that it makes you reflect on the batshit insanity and grotesque patriarchal violence imbricated in the still-developing fiasco at my alma mater (Penn State).

And, finally, thanks to those of you who commented on the first installment of this blog, and in particular, to those who expressed a kind word or two.  Much obliged.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Women should stop getting themselves killed all the time

So, I recently ran across a news story on the Huffington Post about a guy in Chicago who stabbed a lady to death over a misplaced bag of Halloween candy.  Now mind you, I don't typically read through the Comments sections of practically any blog, let alone a news site that is run by a millionaire and now partnered with AOL (hence the dramatic upswing in Kardashian 'reporting' since the merger).  But seeing as how I live and work in Chicago, I thought I'd take a quick peek, with the promise to myself that I wouldn't reply to any comments.  Well, that lasted about 10 seconds, until I ran across the following gem penned by some aspiring Nobel laureate named "firstamendment3": 

"I'm sure he had all the signs when she picked him."

Bearing in mind the substance of the brief news story, I felt compelled to write something.  But I was thwarted twice in my attempt because, as per usual, the Huffington Post deployed the prevailing wisdom of Internet comment moderation, which is that you can say grossly offensive, moronic or irrelevant things as long as you don't use the words 'fuck' or 'shit' (or, apparently, even the words f*ck and sh*t) while doing so.  This is what I wrote:

Yeah...women ARE stoopid. Not only are they incapable of picking out a good man but they're always talking back when their abusive spouses are kind enough to warm them about the consequences. You know...like when they say, "I'm gonna f*ckin' kill you and the f*ckin kids if you don't shut the f*ck up!!" Only a stupid idiot with a vagina sasses back a man who is so forthright about his intentions.  But worst of all, those stupid women are just the worst when it comes to losing bags of Halloween candy!  It's like she practically sent him an invitation to get stabbed repeatedly, with multiple different knives, until she bled out.  If she hadn't been so careless, or ignored the usual "seems like a guy who will probably kill me over Halloween candy" vibes that he was undoubtedly giving off, then maybe her kids wouldn't be orphans.  Women!  Right?!  I know!  You can't live with ‘em...but you CAN gruesomely murder them and take solace that some sexist scumbag assh*le named "firstamendment3" will help to justify it in the comments section on the Huffington Post...even if he's too goddamn stupid to read the first sentence and notice that the stabber was a "male friend" and not someone who the victim necessarily "picked" in the first place (not that it makes a sh*t of difference seeing as how only a deranged, woman-hating psychopath would ever count this as a mitigating factor).  

While my comment clearly includes a 'personal attack', the main issue here is certainly not the politics of Internet commentary, but the fact that the Internet (despite its various educational functions and amazing wonders) also serves a distinct function on an everyday basis.  And that is to prove without a doubt the truth of what has been said many times before, and in every language that has ever rolled off the human tongue: men are complete dicks.  

To be clear, I'm not talking about the context of this news story, or even the Interwebs, but rather, the big picture of humanity.  That is to say: We (men) are responsible for creating and reproducing the sociocultural conditions in which other men systematically commit, justify, or excuse grotesque amounts of violence against women...not to mention gay, transgendered and queer folks.  Collectively, men make a profound argument—whether through their direct actions, their rhetorical denials, or their multi-tiered apathy—that they should quite literally be bred out of existence (the SCUM Manifesto and part three of Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex are sounding less crazy with each passing day).

In some ways, those of us with 'progressive' sensibilities are the most blameworthy since we're ostensibly smart enough (or, at least, empathetic enough) to know what's going on, but are nonetheless too mired in our own liberal bullshittery ("But I'm a good dad/husband/etc" and "I use my privilege to raise awareness of sexism, blah, blah, blah") to actually figure out ways in which to MAKE THIS ALL STOP.  Or maybe I'm just overreacting and our collective historical legacy of war-making, hate-mongering, and ritualized abuse of the planet and its inhabitants is totally offset by, like, football.  Or big meat sandwiches.  Or something. 

*sigh*

But don't fret, guys…you don't have to actually think about this stuff, let alone do anything about it.  Before you know it, Salon.com or the New York Times (or others) will trot out some more Darwin-fellating neuroscientists who can 'prove' that all of this is just 'natural' anyhow because it's, like, totally an expression of evolutionary traits, or something. (And when, really, has a modified version of 19th century 'race science' ever let us down?).  Long story short, you're off the hook!  Besides, there's at least a few thousand over-worked, under-paid, under-appreciated women volunteers out there holding shit down from their posts at funding-starved health clinics, daycares, and the like.  They're totally on it!  And, shit…don't forget about all those Women's and Gender studies instructors out there as well.  Since they're only teaching part-time at schools that won't create tenure-lines, in programs unable to confer BA degrees, they've got mad extra time to tackle all this pesky patriarchy nonsense.  That means there's a whole bunch of people who are dealing with these problems so that you can either relax guilt-free, or comfortably pat yourself on the back for being anti-sexist.

When in doubt, just remember that women are natural born caregivers and nurturers, which means that they take to anti-domestic violence education and doing all-night volunteer shifts at rape crisis centers like a duck to water. You wouldn't really be good at that shit anyhow.

Enjoy the game (I'm sure there's one on).