To those who have exhausted politics, nothing remains but abstract thought. – Honoré De Balzac
A collection of links and comments leftover from the twelve days of Christmas.
Update: Lying Down With Dogs
Remember my column about how the US seems bound and determined to align itself with third-world countries and oppressive regimes? Well, this article is sort of a reverse example, because while in Afghanistan organizations which protect women from abuse are accused by the media of promoting prostitution, in the US prostitutes’ rights organizations are accused by the media of promoting abuse of women. Is one so different from the other?
Am I Missing Something?
In this article from the New York Post, we read that a 24-year-old Manhattan woman named Lily Shang has filed suit against her estranged husband, 26-year-old David Glenn Rucker, after he threatened to post sex videos they took together on the internet (though he plans to edit himself out). Leaving aside for a moment the issue of their ages (which supports my contention that men shouldn’t marry until at least 30 and women until at least 25), what I want to know is how this is even one particle different from this story I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. Yes, the stories are by two different writers, and yes, the latter are celebrities while the former aren’t, but otherwise what’s the difference? How is a man using the threat of releasing a sex tape in order to lower his divorce settlement any worse than a woman using the exact same threat to raise hers? In my opinion both threats are equally reprehensible, and if I were the judge I’d throw the book at the one making such a threat, but then I believe in justice. Of course I also believe in Santa Claus, so what do I know?
How Exactly is This is Different From Every Other Year Since the Dawn of Civilization?
Lisa France of CNN says 2010 was “The Year of the Mistress”, and claims celebrity mistresses were a bigger story last year than in other years. No offense, Lisa, but were you educated in a convent? Did you somehow miss the fact that wealthy men have always had mistresses, that it’s always a scandal when others find out, and that such scandals have always been wildly popular with the hoi-polloi at least since the invention of the printing press?
Really Cheap Whores
Former Playmate and Hugh Hefner “girlfriend” Izabella St James reveals in her new book just how cheaply Playmates sell their favors: $1000 a week, and not for easy work either. For comparison purposes, I’ll mention that my fee for an entire week was $8000. True, Hef also gave them plastic surgery and the possibility of a centerfold gig, but considering that none of my plastic surgeries cost over $5000 I hardly think that makes up for their getting paid one-eighth what a New Orleans call girl could command. And that’s even more true when one factors in Hef’s baby oil obsession and preference for anal cowgirl.
Update: My Body, My Choice
In my column of November 19th I pointed out that Roe vs. Wade established that a woman’s right to privacy includes her right to own and control her body, and since the sexes supposedly have equal protection under American law it also establishes that a man has a right to own and control his body. And though many states argue otherwise, it clearly establishes the right to suicide; if it’s legal to end the life of a dependent fetus, how can it not be legal to end one’s own? The contradiction is a logical and legal absurdity. Yet the state of Connecticut argues that it has the right to force-feed a prison inmate named William Coleman who wishes to starve himself to death to protest what he says is his wrongful conviction on a charge of raping his ex-wife…a charge she only made after consulting a divorce lawyer when Coleman sought sole custody of their children. Maybe, as some commenters on the story suggest, it’s a grandstand play, but when the state of Connecticut tried to make the problem go away by offering Coleman parole, he refused on the grounds that to sign the papers would constitute admitting his guilt. Obviously we don’t know what happened, but I think the timing of the events and his refusal to accept parole lend considerable credibility to his story. And it isn’t like he’s asking for a retrial or pardon, though I’m sure he’d accept either; all he’s asking for is the right to end his own life, as established under international law. The state of Connecticut’s case is apparently based on the claim that Coleman’s actions infringe on its right to torture him for as long as it pleases, or perhaps because he has dared to call attention to the fact that courts are not infallible. Many women seem unable to even consider the possibility that any rape accusations might be false, a problem whose implications were discussed by Furry Girl in a recent column, but this isn’t even about that; even if he’s as guilty as a cat with a mouthful of feathers, he still retains the right to end his own life rather than submit to torture. And the state has no right to torture anyone, not even a rapist or someone accused of espionage.
Dutch Treat
Though this article was published in mid-November, it only came to my attention over the holidays. Maybe the reason Dutch women are so accepting of prostitution is that they realize that for a woman to pursue a male-style career is really kind of stupid unless it’s really, truly what she wants and not just what neofeminist-influenced society has forced her into. One of the reasons many of us take up prostitution is that, like the Dutch women in this article, we recognize that there are a lot more interesting and fulfilling things to do with one’s life than climbing the corporate ladder and sitting in a cubicle all day.
Devil’s Advocate
How old are you, and how good is your memory? Can you remember the way male writers of the ‘60s and ‘70s used to ridicule feminist complaints? Admittedly, some of the rhetoric of those early feminists was overblown, histrionic and even a bit silly (e.g. “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”), but most of those women had legitimate grievances that were no less legitimate because they were awkwardly or emotionally expressed. And if those male writers had taken the time to look beneath the surface and to strive to understand why women were acting that way instead of just insulting them and dismissing their feelings, the “gender war” might never have happened and we’d all be a lot better off today. With that in mind, take a look at this Jezebel article and its follow-up. I guess some people will call it “turnabout is fair play”, but IMHO the appropriate aphorism would be “those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.”
On the “Dutch Treat” thing: in my experience, that is perfectly correct, but frankly, that is mostly true for men, as well. It’s not really about being lazy, for men and/or for women: they work rather efficiently, and everything here is organized in such a way that a little bit of concentrated work gets you far. There are, of course, some individuals that stand out and build big careers on workaholism, but that tends to be frowned upon here. It’s supposedly a bit asociaal, a word that the Dutch have shortened to aso and use as offense for all kinds of “frownuponable” behavior. A Dutch saying: als ‘t gras te lang groeit moet je het maaien, if the grass grows too high you have to mow it. 🙂
I’m all in favor of a person’s right to commit suicide if s/he thinks it’s the best choice. I always find it funny that people try to argue against that. Other than the religious argument (‘god doesn’t want it’), I don’t see any reasonable one. The basic idea seems to be that people are wrong when they commit suicide: life ain’t so bad, you’re exaggerating your problems, there’s always a brighter side, etc. But so what? Even if someone wants to kill him/herself for some frivolous reason, the right thing to do would be to argue with him/her, not to prohibit this by law. The latter is just, I think, some way to calm citizens’ troubled consciences.
Finally, those guys’ grievances, although clearly heartfelt, do seem exaggerated to me. I’m sure there are real grievances there, as you point out, Maggie, but I think someone needs to help them articulate these grievances better, or else they will end up sounding just as silly as the poor bicycle-needing fish (“a foreign girl will make me a dish she thinks I will like, while an American girl won’t”… I’ll bet this guy’s experience with foreign women isn’t very extensive). I’ve met American guys who thought American women were the worst — and American women who thought American men were the worst. I’ve met Brazilian men and women who thought the same about their opposite-gender co-nationals. I’ve now heard the same from Dutchmen and women, and from Russians of both genders. The specific complaints vary, but still… My working hypothesis is that ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’ is a very important part of this, despite any real grievances.
Me, too, but a lot of early feminist grievances sounded pretty exaggerated, too (bras as tools of “oppression”, for example). But one doesn’t learn about the other genders’ feelings by ridiculing them and dismissing them as “idiots” or “bad people”. 🙁
I can certainly relate, Sailor Barsoom! 🙂
Yet the views of ‘the exotic’ in Western society do tend to make me feel a little sad. Regardless of whether they are positive or negative, they tend to miss the most important points about the experience of ‘the different’; namely, that the differences between “us” and “them” actually mean less than they seem to mean in the mainstream depiction of them, and so do their similarities to us. I.e., “they” are different in a way that is actually not that foreign to us, and “they” are similar in a way that is subtly different from us. (This is a difficult topic to explore, so I’ll leave it at that.)
Yes, we are all more alike than different (even on a genetic level, we’re more closely related to each other than most animals are to their own species). I wonder if we could handle a truly “exotic” thinking being?
That is true, Maggie. Where do you think their grievances come from? You’ve written columns about how ignorance about men and men’s desires lead women to unrealistic expectations. Is that it?
But the appeal to ‘foreign women’ is well-known. There’s the appeal of the exotic, to begin with; and because of cultural differences, some of the difficulties American men experience with women will be absent; but others will be present. (The difficulty to be accepted by foreign in-laws should also not be underestimated).
Isn’t the present equivalent the Russian Bride that you get offered in so many websites? The scantily clad ladies in pretend match-making websites that offer you everything you want if you’ll enter into contact with them? 🙂
My experience with Russian women tells me that they are more given to mood swings: one moment you’re their hero, their little lapochka (darling), the best lover they’ve had, etc.; the next moment you’re a monster, her mother had always been right about you, etc. Also — I hasten to add that my sample size isn’t that big, but still — I was suprirsed by the number of Gold Diggers and Manipulative Bitches among them — especially among those who decided to live abroad. There are of course good people too — I married one of them. But all in all, I don’t think American women are bad in comparison. (The Russians do tend to be more attractive in average, I’ll grant them that. I wasn’t surprised when I found out Mila Kunis — the pretty girl Jackie of That 70’s Show — is Ukrainian.)
I think “familiarity breeds contempt” is a contributing factor, but I honestly feel the major problem really is that Americans have an overdeveloped sense of privilege. And when a man and a woman, each with such a sense, get together conflict is sure to follow. There is, however, a kernel of truth to the feeling that young American men have that the problem is worse in young American women; I’ve been in relationships with both, had friendships with both and worked with both and I honestly feel that young American women are indeed less reasonable and more narcissistic than the men, probably due to feminist indoctrination that they have rights but no responsibilities. I’ve noticed that girls from the Northeast tend to be the worst while those from the South tend to be the least, though of course there are plenty of exceptions in both cases.
That ‘sense of entitlement’ thing does ring a bell, though I must say I remember it more often from American men than from American women (especially when they are abroad). I don’t know–maybe I was just plain lucky, but the American women I met were mostly no-nonsense normal people who, even when they declared themselves feminists, were never exaggerated (and were as appalled as I was by exaggerations in others). There were exceptions, though.
Along with ‘familiarity breeds contempt’, there is also ‘lack of familiarity breeds dreams.’ There are some powerful positive stereotypes about, say, French women, or even Brazilian women; and some of their defects (there’s an element of con-artistry to Brazilian women — and men — that usually isn’t present in Americans, much to my pleasure) aren’t well known.
I know all about the appeal of the exotic. I’ve called myself “Xenophile” on some websites. I think Xuxa’s accent attracts me nearly as much as her face and figure.
I’m also the guy writing up a sacred prostitute with fur, a tail, and who sees different colors than the men of her species.
The women who agree to get oiled up by Hef get more than $1000 a week and a chance to pose nude. They get TV shows, calendars, and book deals. They get a degree of fame, and if you’re smart, fame can be spun into fortune.
Oh those awful American women! Meh, heard it before. Anybody ever heard of an outfit called Viking Cruises? Not sure they’re still around, but basically they were a combination island resort/brothel. For a big wad of money, you get a weekend on a tropical island with a beautiful woman, and yes, you can have sex with her. Well, they made a point of saying that the women were from Eastern Europe and Latin America, because those women know how to treat a man, unlike spoiled American women. The fact that their livelihood depended on knowing how to treat a man may have had more to do with it than their nationality. Just sayin’.