the message in the bottle is the booze

I like the men in this thread. They decided that they were qualified to answer the question of whether asking a woman to wax is oppressive, and of course, that the answer is "no." Whatever you do in the bedroom consensually is fine! Consent! Don't kinkshame!

Dudes, consent is a necessary condition for treating your partners decently, not a sufficient one.

How much of a fucking clueless asshole do you have to be to think, "You know who we should interview about this Harvey Weinstein thing? WOODY ALLEN. I bet he has something to say!"

I won't link to the article because I don't want to give it hits. It was on the BBC yesterday, and I hope they get an avalanche of complaints. Now it's making the rounds more widely.

As a friend said, "The only way that's a good idea is if the interviewer asked, 'So, as another predator,...'"

What the fuck. Seriously. He complains about "witch hunts." And of course, because he's famous, because he's objectionable, he's now going to be one of the loudest voices in the media discussion of Weinstein. Not other women who have something to say about sexual abuse, not someone with anything helpful or insightful or educational to say ... fucking. woody. allen.

I hate to be the bearer of late and redundant news, but this is too smile-making to assume you've all seen it already:

PROP 8: UNCONSTITUTIONAL ... for now

We haven't won the war, but winning a battle feels nice, doesn't it? Here is the Metafilter thread on this, which has the most informative discussion about the decision that I've seen yet. It was posted earlier today, before the decision was announced.

New York Times article with a briefer summary of what this probably means.

The Big Picture takes on same-sex marriage. Some beautiful pictures. Ignore the comments.

More links that I've been collecting over the past few weeks days:

Cordoba House, a Muslim community center whose founders' values include rejection of religious extremism, has come under attack; right-wing pundits and politicians are using it in a cynical attempt to capitalize on anti-Muslim sentiment, turning it into the "ground zero mosque." There are so many ways to respond to this: It's not a mosque and not even visible from the site; Muslims are not our enemies and in fact suffered and died on 9/11 as well; there is already a mosque as close to ground zero. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has responded to the outrage in a speech defending freedom of religion.

Those scanners that the TSA promised can't store the "nude" pictures they take of you? Actually, the U.S. Marshals now admit to saving tens of thousands of those pictures.

In 2004 then 19 year old Sara Reedy was raped at gunpoint. Six months later, she was jailed for false complaint. Today, a federal appeals court reinstated her lawsuit against the police detective who orchestrated her arrest. (Another MeFi link)

Probably everyone has already seen this, but here is Rachel Maddow's wonderful take on the difference between a democracy and a constitutional democracy: we don't get to vote on rights.

Iroquois Lacrosse Team was not able to compete in world championship because the British government did not accept their passports.

North Korean football team shamed in six-hour public inquiry over World Cup. The team's coach has apparently been forced to go into construction work.

A motorcyclist has been charged with wiretapping and faces up to sixteen years in jail for videotaping a police stop in which a plainclothes police officer approached him with his gun drawn and yelling.

Big cats on catnip

It's hard to imagine the mindset of law enforcement that would do this:

Tabitha has been working as a prostitute in New Orleans since she was 13. Now 30 years old, she can often be found working on a corner just outside of the French Quarter. [...] New Orleans city police and the district attorney’s office are using a state law written for child molesters to charge hundreds of sex workers like Tabitha as sex offenders.

The only way I can wrap my head around it is to imagine them as full of contempt for sex workers; they think they're so low that they don't deserve fairness or empathy. They deserve to be treated like child molesters, even though many of them started sex work while children themselves.

If I adopt that view, then it makes sense that the majority of people convicted under this law are non-white, poor women. The person with the most privilege in the exchange--the john--escapes without charges.

Ignoring the fact that this is wrong, it doesn't even make sense from a practical standpoint: This will only make it harder for prostitutes to find housing and work, further narrowing their already narrow opportunities and trapping them in the sex work that law enforcement supposedly wants to stop.

I'm currently reading the first book in the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. Most of what I've heard about it is the same: It's good paranormal-detective fun, but the first book is pretty bad. It gets better as the series progresses.

I don't mind the prose. It's not good, but it's not obtrusively bad either; it sort of fades into the background most of the time and only jumps out to go "BLARRRHGH" at you when there is a clumsy info-dump. I'm not far enough along to really judge the plot.

What does stand out is the sexism.

Harry Dresden, the protagonist, is a self-proclaimed "old fashioned" man. For example, he holds doors open for women--not something I would blame him for, but he continues to do it even after they tell him that they don't appreciate it.

In his own words, "men ought to treat women like something other than just shorter, weaker men with breasts." Women should be treated differently, regardless of their feelings on the matter. And this is portrayed as if it makes Dresden more noble.

I'm alright with flawed protagonists--in fact, I love them, but when it seems like those flaws are reflections of the author's prejudices, I'm uncomfortable. I don't like it when an author's racism, sexism, or other -ism is showing. I could accept that this was Harry Dresden's problem, not Jim Butcher's, if not for how sexism suffuses the portrayal of women in the book, which can't always be explained away as being due to Dresden's point of view.

( And then it gets worse. )

So, Harry Dresden's old-fashioned values:

Women should be treated differently than men regardless of their opinions about it. Women are more hateful than men, and more subtle than men. It's unexpected if an attractive one has a traditionally male job. They love romance novels land chocolate, and what they're looking for in a man is money. Using a mind-altering substance to get a woman to fall in love with (read: sleep with) is bad because it makes you look desperate.