Friday Ephemera
Apparently it’s a thing and it’s called “female masking.” // Christmas Island crab migration. // The computer code used on film and TV and what it actually is. // Specimen portraits. // Dolphins get high on puffer fish toxin. // Very cold rod meets soapy film. // Pointless diagrams. // Dig that crazy zero-gravity space art, man. // Sand, magnified. // Somewhat unexpected. // Times Square, accelerated. // How to cure a headache, how to select flour and other useful knowledge. (h/t, MeFi) // Ice music. // And half a million fireworks.
A tumblr argument generator. (Warning: Lots of f-bomb.)
The tumblr insult generator looks like it would be right at home among the Agonies of the Left. Might just put Ms. Penny, et. al., out of business.
I can’t believe this didn’t make the list.
“A domestic dispute over space aliens escalated Saturday morning when a lingerie-clad New Mexico woman allegedly pointed a silver handgun at her boyfriend, a weapon she retrieved from her vagina, where it had been placed while the accused was performing a sex act, police allege.”
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/346299.php
Somewhat O/T, but getting your kids to kiss their grandparents is dangerously blurring the lines of inappropriate sexual contact.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/08/shouldnt-force-child-kiss-grandparent-consent-sex-education
Apparently it’s a thing and it’s called “female masking.”
I didn’t think the 21st century was going to turn out like this. I wanted moon bases.
I didn’t think the 21st century was going to turn out like this. I wanted moon bases.
No moon bases as yet, as least none that I know of. But we do have burly black chaps squeezing into life-size rubber doll suits in order to amble about like even more burly white women. I, for one, hail our new latex overlords.
Arthur C Clarke didn’t see that one coming.
” Very cold rod meets soapy film.”
Is it me, or are porn film ad-writers just not really trying any more?
Julia, I’m guessing abstract porn is quite a niche market.
Hi David
The wife made me watch that female masking show, it was pretty sad. Now, I like ocassional crossdressing as much as the next man who’s ever surreptitiously tried on his wife’s underthings and pranced around in front of the mirror singing “I feel pretty” like a bigger, hairier Natalie Wood. But masks have always terrified me, possibly due to childhood viewings of Halloween and Friday the 13th and the Cybermen on Doctor Who.
So seeing grown and sometimes lizardy men squeeze into rubber lady suits and cover their faces with latex woman masks with less facial expression than Anne Robinson on diazepam made me feel uncomfortable.
Why do these men feel compelled to share their fetishes with the world? The poor girl whose friend insisted she see his creepy lady costume looked on the verge of tears for the rest of the programme. Say what you like about Aberdonians and the Welsh, but they don’t boast about their quadrupedal canoodling any more than I’d tell the world about how I enjoy singing along to Kate Bush songs in the car.
Unbelievable.
The Tumblr insult generator is the funniest thing ever. The sad thing is, the first (randomly-generated) argument that came up was literally indistinguishable from ones I’ve actually seen on Tumblr. For a moment I thought it was a genuine quote that had been copy-pasted.
What’s really sad is that these people often seem quite intelligent and reasonable in other ways. I don’t have a Tumblr account myself, but there are a few blogs that I read regularly because they share my interests and often have amusing, insightful things to say. But the moment the issue of sexual or racial politics comes up (and it always does, because of the Oppression Trump Card), they see that as a licence to start screaming at each other. I keep trying to convince myself that they’re still very young (mostly in their late teens/early twenties) and will eventually grow out of it.
One for your ‘academia’ file, David.
“When I enrolled in an advanced German for beginners class last fall at The College of New Jersey, I intended to improve my ability to speak and write in conversational German. What I did not expect to learn in German 103 was that the Affordable Care Act – a.k.a Obamacare – is the answer to our prayers, the Tea Party is made up of ‘old,’ ‘very moronic’ people, life is far better in Europe, and Occupy Wall Streeters were really on to something. Now that my grade is securely documented on my transcripts, I feel safe sharing my recent experiences inside the classroom, during which lessons on the German language frequently morphed into soliloquies on the benefits of universal health care.”
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/15812/
h/t Instapundit.
Steve 2,
The wife made me watch that female masking show,
And if that isn’t the opening scene of a future cult film, I don’t know what is.
Footballers would have been rolling on the ground for 30 minutes.
how to select flour and other useful knowledge.
“Examine its adhesiveness… Throw a lump of dry flour against a dry, smooth, perpendicular surface; if it adheres in a lump, the flour has life in it, if it falls it is bad.”
I don’t think they’ll let me do that in Sainsburys.
I, for one, hail our new latex overlords.
Wasn’t that the first episode of the Doctor Who reboot?
I think there must be a Twitter generator similar to the tumblr one, and I’ve had the misfortune to engage it, because I’ve spent the last two days hitting my tweet limit in a vain effort to persuade a swarm of snot-nosed punks that Bill Nye’s “proof” that the Bible is a lie is the most egregious example of exegetical misprision possible.
Either that, or my nightmares are getting really, really vivid.
“Arthur C Clarke didn’t see that one coming.”
The only reliable guide to the future is Futurama.
I keep trying to convince myself that they’re still very young (mostly in their late teens/early twenties) and will eventually grow out of it.
Sadly, no. I’m nearing my third decade and a lot of these people are my peers, if not older.
At least, many of those I’ve had the misfortune of getting to know well enough to know their ages.
Pointless diagrams
The all time, hands down, definitive example which reminds that powerpoint is a pointless presentation tool.
http://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf is the accompanying original paper.
But we do have burly black chaps squeezing into life-size rubber doll suits in order to amble about like even more burly white women. I, for one, hail our new latex overlords.
Somewhere an identity politics muppet is trying to work out an angle on that one.
what is surprising is that a mainstream publishing house such as Bloomsbury Publishing did not see fit to suggest to Penny that she would come across not as a provocative thinker and powerful writer but simply as a potty mouth if she overdid things obscenity-wise. It is not edgy or hip to say “fucking” so much. It is merely vulgar.
And the use of the f-word only weakens Penny’s argument, which is that women are beaten into blobs of jelly by hate-filled attacks on social media sites by women-hating men. Penny does not seem particularly cowed — except in passages when she talks melodramatically about being frightened — which usually occur after passages boasting of her fearlessness.
Just one part of a highly entertaining review of an extended essay by Laurie Penny. The full review is here (apologies if – as often happens to me – I’m the last one to have seen this and you’ve all seen it already).
Nik,
“A polemicist who makes assertions that don’t stand up to much scrutiny.” The key line, I think. And one that’s been demonstrated, here and elsewhere, more times than I can count.
I found myself highlighting quite a few choice bits, though as you say that one probably gets to the heart of the matter most directly. Some other lines I thought were quite apt (and again, very similar to things you have been pointing out in these pages for quite some time now):
There is a lot of psychobabble …
Penny is a problematic figure as an analyst of cybersexism because she is so prone to perceive women as oppressed generally and treated as subhuman as a general rule. She sees slights everywhere she looks
however much Penny protests that she is not overdramatizing her own situation, the fact is that she has almost certainly never been in as much personal peril in her world of British journalism and commentary as Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been at various periods in her life
it is not quite clear what specifically Penny is advocating
Penny argues that criticizing her for attention seeking means one is a tool of the patriarchy. But as an American, I find her prescriptions for censorship in the name of freedom of speech for women not something that would fly in the U.S., and who would want it to?
Penny is a problematic figure…
Problematic as in incompetent, narcissistic and casually dishonest. I suppose she’s useful, though, as a measure of the culture, or the part of it she inhabits. What with her preference for attitudinising over evidence, hyperbole over logic, the urge to self-dramatize and the relentless dogmatism. That she has such a following and is apparently on speed-dial at the BBC and Channel 4, tells us something.
That she has such a following and is apparently on speed-dial at the BBC and Channel 4, tells us something.
Well, I guess at least one thing it tells me is that she has something of the Katie Hopkins / Anjem Choudary / Russell Brand etc. factor.
The competent, the temperate, the reasonable and rational tend to get less attention and for having precisely those qualities.
she has something of the Katie Hopkins / Anjem Choudary / Russell Brand etc. factor.
Heh. On the upside, I’m sure Laurie can be counted on to dash across town at short notice and say something that fits an expected line, which I suppose is an asset of a sort. Along with an ability to suddenly conjure a vehement opinion on whatever the subject is, including those about which she knows sweet bugger all. And her output is prodigious, in that there’s an awful lot of it.
I do like to be fair about these things.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10551618/Nick-Robinson-BBC-made-a-terrible-mistake-over-immigration-debate.html
Didn’t have a even handed approach to global tax redistribution (AKA global warming scam) either
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9684775/The-BBCs-dirty-little-secret-lands-it-in-a-new-scandal.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/12/scandal-bbcs-six-year-cover-up-of-secret-green-propaganda-training-for-top-executives/
If Laurie Penny were to analyze herself and her doings even a little, that would destroy her livelihood.
If her fans were to see how shallow and dishonest she is, there goes her livelihood, too.
There’s no upside to self-reflection, or to encouraging such, so it won’t happen.
Very, very sad that such people are sitting at the fulcrums.
While it’s an interesting critique of Ms. Penny, I can’t really get on board with the author of that review basically handing her the “oh yeah but there really is intense misogyny everywhere all the time” point. Yes, the internet is often a toxic and hostile place–but I’ve seen just as many of my male peers get threats of (death, assault, whatever) as I have. Women aren’t treated with more hostility, it’s just the language used in the hostility changes if the opposition happens to know you’re female. (Or black. Or anything else that means they can use a targeted insult.)
I can’t really get on board with the author of that review basically handing her the “oh yeah but there really is intense misogyny everywhere all the time” point
This ‘misogyny everywhere’ stuff is purely political, designed to cultivate – amongst young women – a reflex use (or pretence) of victimhood.
The Graun feminists always talk in the passive about how women are “being silenced” or “brutalised” girls are “being sexualised”. They make a point of not saying who is doing all this.
(It’s hard to say who or what is being “pornified”, or what it means, let alone who’s doing it)
Likewise you might think misogyny is a state where one man hates women for being women. But the way the word is used in our favourite publication, you’d think it was this mysterious evil cloud floating about. Noone is doing the hating, the hatred is just there – and don’t you dare suggest it’s not there.
Yeah. I just make a habit of protesting it when I see it on the grounds of it really does not exist, at least not to the extent the leftward sorts make it out to exist.
Also the sexualization of young girls emerges from the same cultural force that decided twelve-year-olds were going to be having sex anyway, so no one should stop them, just make sure they’re doing it safely!! I’m not really sure why they didn’t make the link between “let’s make sex consequence-free for everyone!” and intense sexualization of increasingly younger women (and men, for that matter).
re dicentra:
There’s no upside to self-reflection, or to encouraging such, so it won’t happen.
Very, very sad that such people are sitting at the fulcrums.
I have a theory that one could bring about the total collapse of a civilization through some as yet to be designed mechanism (hint-hint Guild of Evil) that would impose self-reflection/self-awareness on that civilization’s total population. From that point, the society would simply freeze up of its own accord.
dicentra,
If Laurie Penny were to analyze herself and her doings even a little, that would destroy her livelihood… There’s no upside to self-reflection, or to encouraging such, so it won’t happen.
As noted in the comments following this comedic episode, some worldviews are antithetical to realistic introspection, or realism of any kind. And so Laurie tells us that she and her fellow poseurs are entitled to half a million pounds of taxpayers’ money so they can relocate random dirt while “imagining a culture beyond the control of capital and the nation state.” And, says Laurie, unless taxpayers continue bankrolling such things – so that pretentious leftists can piss about and feel important – “we have no business speaking of social progress.” The complaints from taxpayers who had to foot the bill for this parasitic, self-indulgent farce were, Laurie said, “anodyne” and “inconsequential.”
A mind like that is unlikely to encourage, or permit, self-awareness. As you say, what would there be to gain from it? The whole thing might come unravelled.
some as yet to be designed mechanism (hint-hint Guild of Evil) that would impose self-reflection/self-awareness on that civilization’s total population
Total Perspective Vortex (Douglas got there first).
the internet is often a toxic and hostile place… Women aren’t treated with more hostility, it’s just the language used in the hostility changes if the opposition happens to know you’re female. (Or black. Or anything else that means they can use a targeted insult.)
I think there’s a very dangerous and damaging way of dealing with things nowadays that says that any time someone says something mean to another person about some aspect of themselves, that that person must hate all people who share that trait.
For example, Alec Baldwin’s comments toward that gay tabloid guy or whatever he was, which were far nastier than what other people said that got them the full reeducation package — he wasn’t really excoriated by GLAAD because they knew he didn’t really mean it. He was lucky, because for most people they would’ve required the whole groveling package. It’s something everyone does when they’re really angry; they take any obvious element of the person they’re mad at and they throw it at them. If they’re gay it’ll be their gayness, if they’re black it might be their blackness, if they’ve got stupid hair it’ll be that. If someone calls Laurie a “stupid bint” or what have you, that’s not misogyny. That’s a person expressing annoyance or frustration in a very typical way. People have been known to throw the n-word around when are angry at a black person, but it doesn’t imply that they are prejudiced against all black people. Generally, an insult is just an insult. Maybe “in vino veritas” is true, but I don’t think people are usually more truthful when they’re angry.
On the other end of the spectrum you have leftists who routinely say bigoted things about whole groups of people, such as hating all Christians or the “bitter clingers,” and they don’t have the excuse of being enraged at the time. I find that sort of calculated prejudice to be far more of a problem, and far more likely to point to a general dislike of a group of people.
I also think that Laurie assumes that because feminists complain about the “hateful” and “scary” messages they get more than other people do, that they get more of those messages than other people do. I think the actual situation is that most people who voice a strong opinion online get vicious, angry, hateful, even violent responses, and most people just write it off as how things are on the internet and don’t think about it much. But then if a woman gets that kind of message it seems like some kind of especially mean attack on a weak person. Much like if you hear a guy yelling at another guy, “I should just kill you, you piece of crap” you wouldn’t think much of it, just male posturing, but if he said the same thing to a woman people would worry that he’s some violent psycho who’s actually going to kill her. But on the internet, you’re not in physical proximity. A man’s aggression is scary to a woman who actually is near enough to him that she could be hurt, but it’s rather hysterical to act as though saying things like that from other continents is supposed to be just as intimidating.
re Anon,
Damn that Douglas Adams. Between him, Yogi Berra, and the Paulicians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulicianism#Doctrines), I never seem to have an original thought. I presume the Guild of Evil is already hard at work on this. Assuming they are “of the present visible world”, that is…though one should never assume.
half a million pounds of taxpayers’ money so they can relocate random dirt while “imagining a culture beyond the control of capital and the nation state.”
They’re just openly taking the piss now, aren’t they?
I presume the Guild of Evil is already hard at work on this.
The boys in the lab are working tirelessly. Despite the odd minor mishap.
Yeah…had that happen to me once after messing in the Windows Registry and then accidentally hitting shift-alt-delete instead of ctrl-alt-delete. Might want to pass that one on to the boys in the lab. Glad I could help.
But then if a woman gets that kind of message it seems like some kind of especially mean attack on a weak person.
Because, psychologically, we’re wired to treat threats to women differently from threats to men. Ditto women in distress–it triggers something visceral in us, whether or not the woman in question is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Our basic social assumption is that women need help while men are left to handle themselves.
Feminism, of course, isn’t interested in disowning this particular piece of inequality because it benefits women immensely. At least not mainstream feminism; you have to leave it far enough to get to the gender egalitarians to find people who talk routinely about dumping it.
Personally I don’t see that as a necessarily bad thing (except where it excludes empathy for men who are struggling), but I do wish that women (myself included sometimes) would be more aware of it and so not fall back on “oh help I am a fragile little girl in a cruel world” whenever things don’t go their way.
pellegri
I just make a habit of protesting it when I see it on the grounds of it really does not exist, at least not to the extent the leftward sorts make it out to exist.
You’re right to point out that the crappy online behaviour does exist, but myself I’m not sure if misogyny & misandry are useful concepts. There might for all I know be a few psychopaths who really do seethe with hatred when they see a member of the opposite sex. But how many, really?
More likely there are numerous (generally straight, I imagine) people whose recent relationships have gone badly, and who temporarily blame the opposite sex generally for ‘faults’ they supposedly share.
Supportive friends may encourage this in, for example a relationship post-mortem. But in terms of actually encouraging resentment of the opposite sex, I’d say the all-time undisputed champion has to be any political ideology that makes us think that our gender makes us part of one oppressed social group or other.
Here’s another example of twitter oversensitivity
Alec Baldwin’s comments toward that gay tabloid guy or whatever he was,
If a flamboyantly gay man spreads catty, mean-spirited little items of gossip, then he actually is a “toxic little queen.” If woman does the same thing, she’s a “toxic little c—.” A straight man who gets catty and gossipy is a “toxic little bastard” or whatever.
Are we going to return to the dueling culture, wherein these things are settled with rapiers and first-drawn blood?
Come to think of it, that would be preferable to what we’ve got now. It might cut down on all this aggressive offense-taking.
It would certainly cut down on the noise.
dicentra, you nailed what I was trying to say. For some reason we accept pulling traits of the person we’re angry at into our insults most of the time (being short, ugly, fat, etc.), and everyone knows you don’t hate all people that share that trait. But oh man, bring in race (well, certain races) or “orientation” in exactly the same way and it’s a big thing.
I think this all stems from the idea that any mention of differences in any area, except to celebrate them, is inherently derogatory. Why can’t we make jokes about our differences anymore? Why can’t we have movie characters that embody common tendencies among certain groups without it being offensive? Old movies did this all the time and we still watch them, and it’s not a big deal. We can feel more comfortable with differences when we talk about them, and aren’t forced to studiously avoid mentioning them for fear of being accused of the evil of noticing someone everyone sees.
Good-natured ribbing about differences is a good way to foment friendship. It punctures any apprehensions you might have about how the other peeps feel about your difference. If your friends don’t make fun of you, they’re not your friends.
How do you reach out to someone across a minefield?
Of course, that’s not the bug but the feature — a society divided into insular zones that cannot be crossed without loud howling and gnashing of teeth is a society that can easily be manipulated into blaming Those Guys for whatever ails them.
Are we going to return to the dueling culture, wherein these things are settled with rapiers and first-drawn blood? . . . . It would certainly cut down on the noise.
Well, no. .45s at thirty paces are Loud.
—-many years back I was at a Boy Scout camp with a .22 rifle firing range that went pop . . . pop . . popop . . pop . . BOOM—One of the scoutmasters had brought his very large calibre black powder pistol, so that showed that even resorting to formal dueling pistols won’t help either.
Well, no. .45s at thirty paces are Loud.
Louder than all the shrieking harpies on Twitter?
I think not.
Louder than all the shrieking harpies on Twitter?
Ehhhhhhhn, On Twitter.
I’ve run across twitter. Occasionally I’ll go to a particular feed and catch up.
Occasionally.
—I rather recommend Sherman Alexie, and find the twitter feed to be entertaining as well.—
Some people have their shows, on TV or so, mine are The State Of The Union address and the Oscars telecast, which tells you how often I actually pay attention to a TV.
And I, or anyone else, should bother paying attention to twitter?
Yes, the occasional actual gunshot will continue to be louder.
There might for all I know be a few psychopaths who really do seethe with hatred when they see a member of the opposite sex. But how many, really?
Not a lot. But the people who champion the ideas of misandry/misogyny as being culturally pervasive are trying to take a cue from champions of racism being culturally pervasive–and while there is cultural wariness/differential treatment of the minority “other” all over the place (because again, that’s how people are wired), I don’t think it’s typically racism any longer. At least not racism unmixed with many, many other cultural factors.
But I think–and I’m armchair philosophizing here, so my words have exactly zero weight beyond supposition–that while a culture that’s wary of outside races quite easily survives and often thrives, a culture where men and women actively hate each other would self-destruct pretty quickly due to lack of breeding. Granted some of the cultures where more abhorrent treatment of women has gone on for a long time and does go on to this day seem to put the lie to that, but that’s more–treatment of women as breeding objects than outright hatred. As Girl Writes What says, she’d much rather be “objectified” in the sense women are–as an object to be valued and possessed and kept alive to reproduce–than the sense men are, as objects that can be destroyed.
idk. I’m rambling at this point and not sure I’m making a lot of sense. Bottom line is outside of most aggressively backward cultures, “institutional misogyny” isn’t a thing; that’s a needlessly incendiary term feminists and the like use for “things that I don’t like about the status quo”.
even resorting to formal dueling pistols won’t help either
Well yes. Pistols are so gauche. The suggestion was rapiers, which are a gentleman’s weapon.
I would quite like to be a feminist. I mean, I think that women and men should be treated equally. I really do.
The problem is that that doesn’t seem to be all feminism is about these days. These days it seems like all feminist philosophy rests on a foundation of hardcore social constructionism, and indeed sometimes it seems like the actual equality of men and women is a secondary goal to the promotion of this kind of social constructivism — to trying to get everybody to accept that everything is merely social conditioning, there is no right and no wrong, no duties, no obligations, no facts, just social constructs.
Which I cannot accept, mostly because… well…
‘A supporter of women’s ordination said that the only difference between her and the Archbishop of Canterbury was that he had a penis and she did not. Even from the purely biological standpoint, this argument is bollocks.’ — Auberon Waugh
But if there was a way to be a feminist, and advocate for equal treatment of men and women, without abandoning all ideas of objective reality (which is the logical endpoint of this kind of social constructivism) then I would love to be one.
For instance, it used to be that feminists writers would point out double standards — where men and women were treated differently, by the law and by society. And this was useful and such double standards are bad and to the extent they have been reduced that’s good and it would be nice to reduce them further.
But reading some ‘feminists’ now, one often gets the sense that they are not so much against men and women being held to different standards, as they are against the idea that anyone should be held to different standards whatsoever.
It becomes a race to the bottom. Whoever abandons more of the duties and standards of civilised behaviour in order to embrace the more feckless hedonism, wins.
I can’t help thinking that real feminists, like Mary Wollstoncraft or the Sufferagists, would be appalled, having fought to show that women are just as good as men, to discover that their legacy has been perverted into trying to prove that in fact nobody should bother trying to be ‘good’ at all.
Sorry — read ‘against the idea that anyone should be held to any standards whatsoever’.