Chris

Two posts have been stuck in my tabs for the past week or so.

1) The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck, at Shakesville, by Melissa McEwan.  It's hard to find one good quote out of that essay, as I would end up quoting the entire thing.  I suppose one that would kind of summarise the post:

These things, they are not the habits of deliberately, connivingly cruel men. They are, in fact, the habits of the men in this world I love quite a lot.

All of whom have given me reason to mistrust them, to use my distrust as a self-protection mechanism, as an essential tool to get through every day, because I never know when I might next get knocked off-kilter with something that puts me in the position, once again, of choosing between my dignity and the serenity of our relationship.

Swallow shit, or ruin the entire afternoon?

This is entirely exactly it.

2a) Harriet Jacobs wrote at Fugitivus about making rape jokes, and it is a good post, but one thing stuck out as something that hadn't occurred to me:

Whenever you hear about the epidemic number of women who are raped, bear in mind that there is an equally epidemic number of rapists.

So telling rape jokes isn't just bad because statistically speaking you might be telling this around a rape victim.  It's bad because statistically speaking, you might also be telling this around a rapist, or potential rapist.  And so you're contributing to the notion that rape jokes are just fine.

I have already nattered about how one can contribute to such things simply by being quiet.  I already know that rape jokes are perfectly awful for a myriad of reasons.  Just for some reason, that phrasing brought home to me, again, that the only reason why rape happens is that rapists exist, and also that I can't, just by looking, tell who they are.

Right, back under the covers for me.

2b) In that same post, she also wrote about jokes being a way to relieve tension.  Quote:

Jewelbeard is extremely liberal. He wants to help people regain their civil rights. He is pro-choice, he is pro-gay, he professes a unremarkable and unverified affinity to anti-racism. But he cannot stop calling his cats filthy sluts, or acting like a fucking asshole in D&D.

[...]

The bear confronted Jewelbeard with his zany douchebag antics, and Jewelbeard offered the excuse he always does: “It’s to relieve tension.” He went on to explain that he totally isn’t sexist — I mean, he’s pro-choice and everything! — and he completely respects women and sexism is wrong like definitely totally, but gaming is his place to cut loose and so that’s why he acts that way when he games.

There is nothing wrong with having a place and a time to relieve built-up tension. But by shifting the argument thataways, Jewelbeard neatly sidestepped the question of why there is a tension build-up in the first place. He is basically admitting that not getting to call women bitches and whores and treat them like he hates them on a daily basis creates an intolerable tension within him, and it must be let out somehow.

More for my "Gah, yes, this!" file. Absolutely.

Originally posted at Xtinian Thoughts.  Comment here or there.