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I think I have it. It’s OK for me to put on blackface and tell jokes about stupid black people because well, some black people are stupid, and it helps my self-esteem to do it. And as long as I don’t think what I’m doing is racist, it isn’t, even if black people think it is.They should lighten up. It’s just some jokes. And it would be OK for Bill Maher to be a misogynists pig if only he were funnier. If you guys are typical gay men, then you’re all a bunch of pigs, which I sincerely hope isn’t true. The gay couple I met at a fundraiser last week spent the entire evening making fun of a lesbian couple who were also there, and who they had never met before. So my hopes aren’t very high.
I find it offensive when black people complain. In fact, IT REALLY PISSES ME OFF!/s
Trust me. Drag queens will never do you gals. Dour kills comedy.
Elliesmom, I need to repeat what I posted on a previous thread. It’s intended for you and all those like you:
This is NOT a feminist blog. Stop hijacking threads with your incessant bullshit. There are a thousand places you can go to talk about how everything in the world relates to misogyny, which is really just another way to always be talking about YOURSELF.
You’re making it impossible for people to talk about what John writes here — which is sometimes about feminist issues — BUT RARELY.
I’ve heard lesbians mock gay men legions of times. So what? If we can’t make fun of each other we’re lost. As for Maher the answer is YES it would matter if he was funnier. His hatred of women isn’t about humor – it’s just unskilled assholery. Like Olbermann he just hates women and found a platform to spew his horse shit. His “comedy” isn’t comedy at all. It can’t be. It’s not based in humor.
I imagine there are examples of drag that is sexist. But most isn’t. The clip that started all this was not sexist unless one stretches the definition of sexism to include everything from teasing outward. That clip is a relatively solid piece of satire done well.
Jay you are wrong to think a discussion about Drag Queens isn’t a feminist discussion, IMO because the discrimination of gay men in society is part & parcel with sexism — it is all based on what society determines is *proper* behavior according to a person’s gender. Women must do this & not that to be a “woman” and men must do that & not this to be a “man.” So, with all due respect, I see your yelling about the gawd-awful feminists taking over a discussion on Drag Queens (on a blog that isn’t yours, btw) the same way I see a black man talking about civil rights in one breath & turning around and condemning SSM in the next. John said tonight on his show that he thought that black people — who know first hand about discrimination — should be sympathetic to, not condemn, the gay community re: SSM. Well, I think gay men — who know first hand what it is like to be discriminated against for not fulfilling society’s gender-role expectations of them & who have been told they are not “real men” if they are gay, should be sympathetic to women who have also been told by society that they must fulfill certain gender specific roles & if they don’t they are “trying to be men” and are not “real women.”
While I agree with you about Drag not being sexist or misogynistic (and I wrote as much on the previous thread) I found your attitude tonight on John’s show about “feminists” (a word you said with the same kind of derision I’d expect if you had said “child molester”) to be appalling – and I really didn’t like you calling those of us who choose to remain anonymous on the internet “cowards.” That’s just bullsh!t — and, in fact, is a coward’s argument — instead of addressing the merits of the disagreement, you simply dismiss the speaker as a “coward.”
Well Angie, we will be at opposite ends of most of the points you’re making. That’s not going to change.
*Taking strong opinions and often going on the attack under false identities is the definition of cowardice. It also lacks integrity.
*This is not my blog. It is one I care about and that I’ve been rooting for for years, and I know that it is diminished by the virulent kind of feminism constantly expressed here. The feminists here (not all, but the vocal majority) are doing for feminism exactly what Obama did for the democrats. Ruining it by making it something that a majority of people want nothing to do with. I say I know this because many people have told me that they stopped coming here because of it. I routinely bounce the ideas expressed here off of several women who are close to me and uniformly and without fail, they tell me that they find the views expressed here to be absurd and repellant. Repellant is the key word here.
*I certainly do empathize with the ways in which women are mistreated. At no time have I suggested otherwise. I am a feminist by any sane definition of the word. Drag is not ‘mistreatment of women’, which loops us right back around to what I’m saying: CITING MISOGYNY WHERE THERE IS NONE IS DAMAGING AND DILUTING TO ANY REAL CONVERSATION AGAINST IT. It is no different than calling racism where there is none and it happens routinely among commenters here. On a feminist blog? Fine. This is indisputably not one and those who want to use it as one are hurting it.
Seriously, you just wrote that you routinely poll women you know about comments on this blog & they all agree with you that they make “feminism something *most* want nothing to do with” (before stating that you yourself are a feminist by “any sane definition of the word” — “sane” as defined by you, of course) & you accuse others here of constantly talking about/seeing everything as it relates to themselves only?
Pot meet kettle.
Sorry I wasted my time.
Those aren’t gay men, those are assholes.
Gay man here who loves lesbians. In my experience of working with both gay men & women on progressive find-raising events, dykes are the only queers who actually GET SHIT DONE.
Angie, you addressed me and my views directly. How the fuck am I supposed to respond without referencing myself and my views?
Yes — I poll friends about issues when I disagree with something so strongly because I want to see if anyone else sees it the way I do or if I have an anomalous point of view. What’s the problem with that?
Obviously, some people have never taken a Research Design and Qualitative Methods course. Flawed research leads to flawed results. Of course, if one is only looking to reinforce their own biases, then any method will do. But it’s doubtful that anyone else will take their “findings” seriously.
I have read the thread and it distresses me. I have never thought of John’s blog as a gay blog or a feminist blog or a blog that only addressed one issue. To me, it was a blog for those of us who saw through the bullshit of the progressive liberal jackasses. I know this has been beaten to death in the comments and everyone wishes the thread would just go away, but after thinking about it for several days, feel compelled to support elliesmom. This probably doesn’t make me one of the cool kids on the block, but I believe she hit the nail on the head.
I find it offensive when black people complain about such things. In fact, IT REALLY PISSES ME OFF!/s
FYI: You got your wish on Romney hammering back at Reid. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/242011–romney-reid-needs-to-put-up-or-shut-up-on-my-taxes
Good. My little mistake tonight with the pre records really got me going about Reid. What a total asshole. I want Romney to destroy that little prick.
obama channeling JP Jones: “I’ve yet begun to fight dirty!”
Can I just add that my favorite moment on the show tonight was your one word answer to why Reid converted to Mormonism. blogtalkradio is having a “quote of the week” contest and I may submit that moment…it won’t win of course but it’s was a gem. It threw me but then made me laugh all night.
LOL! Awesome, because your reaction in the moment made me think I had been a very bad girl. Not that I mind being a very bad girl, but I do hate to disappoint my friends. :p
Just a comment on the Chick-Fil-A kerfluffle. I have so many friends who have been reflexively posting for 2 days about how much they hate CFA, and how much they hate all the people who lined up at CFA. Never heard them talk about CFA ever once before. Frankly, I’m not sure why proponents of gay marriage (which I count myself as one) haven’t just let this guy have his opinion and ignored him. Gay marriage rights are continuing their inexorable march state by state. Do people really want to pick a fight with the camps of people who have either been riled by their support for “traditional” marriage or by their understandable support for a private American’s right to state his views and contribute to positions he believes in without government punishment or people in both camps? Because there are more of us in total (I’m in the free speech camp too) out there than there are people who want to destroy CFA. This is a really losing proposition.
I also always find boycotts like this particularly ludicrous. Don’t eat at CFA if you don’t want to – absolutely. But, come off the self-righteous high-horse. If anyone boycotting CFA has ever driven or flown anywhere, they’ve supported countries in the middle east who imprison or stone homosexuals to death. So, as I pointed out to a good friend of mine (which stunned him into silence – first time ever), if you are going to boycott CFA, better start walking everywhere too.
Well said Run.
I loved hearing Jay on the show last night because he was being truthful. I don’t agree with what he said but his passion about what he was saying was clearly authentic.
However, I agree with and, FWIW, completely endorse angienc’s comment above.
Many of us have a priority issue, or issues, and that’s what we tend to inject into discussions. For my money that’s a really good thing; we tend to know more about what we’re most interested in and when we bring passion to a discussion we bring energy to the conversation. Also there’s a good chance we can learn from one another’s best knowledge and most considered conclusions. Doesn’t mean every one of us is right about what we think about our priority issues or that we’ll agree with each other’s conclusions, but contributing authentic passion to a discussion enlivens and enlarges it. I don’t agree with what feminists here have said about drag (more about that later) but I’m really glad they brought it up because they made it a more interesting discussion.
That said, Jay, I really did love hearing you on John’s show but I have a bone to pick with you. You are absolutely positively wrong about people using pseudonyms on the Internet. When I first started posting comments, fifteen years or so ago, I used my real name. I know it will surprise nobody that my comments pissed off some people. What I discovered then and have noticed since is there is usually a loon or two in the crowd. One of them looked me up, it wasn’t hard, found where I worked and tried to make trouble for me with my boss, trying to out me (I was out, thank god, but worked at Goldman where there was a lot of gay-derisive attitude, including my boss, and if I hadn’t been out it would have really screwed with my relationships there) and sending a detailed list of how much time I spent making comments online. My boss sent copies of all this to HR along with his comments supporting me as an employee important to the firm, which he believed would protect both him and me (it did), and told me about it to warn that I should be careful. Then the stalker found my home address and phone number. Called and called and wrote letters denigrating me and making veiled threats. It wasn’t just annoying and unsettling, my husband developed a fear of home invasion and the stalker’s behavior was robbing him of sleep and the sense that our home was a safe place; the phone ringing or a knock on the door had, for him, changed from happy expectation to worry verging on fear. Even after the stalker stopped sending letters and leaving voice messages when I threatened legal action, she continued by calling and hanging up incessantly. We changed our phone number, put it in my partner’s name and paid to have it unlisted. Then I left the site where I’d posted under my name, found somewhere else to comment and began using zaladonis. I don’t post under that name because I’m a coward, I post with it because I value my, and more importantly my husband who wants no part of blog communities, privacy and safety and peace of mind. By using the same online name for nearly 15 years, and being truthful about myself, I am posting under my own name. The fact that I made up a name to write under is no more cowardly than Mark Twain was cowardly.
Bone picked!
I dunno Zal. I’m a bit literal on this subject. I was thinking about Angie’s umbrage at the word ‘coward’ last night, because I respect her. I just can’t agree with you folks at this point.
Your story is unpleasant of course, but I don’t think describing the things you’re afraid of erases the definition of the word ‘coward’.
coward |ˈkou-ərd|
noun
a person who lacks the courage to do or endure dangerous or unpleasant things.
Aren’t you just engaging in an argument like this hypothetical one?
“I didn’t stop the man from beating his child in the store because if we get into a fight and I’m injured or thrown in jail all hell will break loose and my family will suffer.”
For the record, I can be a coward about some things. Just not this one. There’s a reason I sign my real name. ‘Fraid we’re at an impasse here.
No. I haven’t chosen not to enter a dangerous situation wherein my presence could help anyone.
I think a more apt analogy is jumping into a mosh pit. I don’t see the point. Is it cowardly to say no thanks to that? I’m sure some see it that way. I see it as simply good judgement.
You’ve said you think it’s cowardly to not use our real names but you haven’t explained the purpose of using our real names. What’s the point?
I believe there are Men’s Rights blogs for guys with this kind of “issue.”
IMO John lets this blog be about whatever posters want to make it about in any given hour and by and large he seems to enjoy that. That’s one of the reasons I come here – I enjoy it that way too. I can’t stand blogs where the host scolds “stay on topic,” because some of the most interesting things in life happen when we’re off topic and I think that holds true in online discussions as well. Not always, but often enough it’s worth slogging through the occasional drift into nonsense.
A word about drag queens because I have a different take.
I’m 56, came out around 1976 (the Tall Ships disembarking in New York blew the door off my closet, but that’s another story) and became pretty familiar with drag queens for a while during that time, in New York primarily, but also L.A., San Diego, and San Francisco (backstage at Finocchio’s was a trip and I still have a picture framed on my office wall to remind me). In those days, for the most part, it was a seedy corner of gay life; I was curious about the wild side and explored all I could the first couple of years after coming out. Anyway, it was a long time ago but for a little while I knew a lot of drag queens fairly well and they all had only one thing in common: they were gay men who liked to dress in women’s clothes. Stop. That’s it, that’s why they dressed in women’s clothes, because they wanted to dress in women’s clothes. It was as simple as that. There were inner psychological reasons no doubt, but the external “reasons” I’ve heard and read here were really subsidiary agendas, more like what do I do with this now that I’m all dressed up? They were not in women’s clothes because they wanted to make a comment about women or felt simpatico with women, they were in women’s clothes because it felt good, they wanted to pull on, zip and hook, and walk around the room wearing a dress. It made them feel good, feel “right.” The drag queens I knew didn’t want to be women, they just wanted to wear their outfits.
They’d started by wearing their mother’s or sister’s dresses, or some as children had fashioned “gowns” out of bedspreads and “wigs” out of pillowcases, pillaged dresses from Goodwill collection dumpsters or stolen them, along with make up, from stores or robbed houses –the stories I heard– and by the time they were drag queens as adults and leaving their apartments all made up, they needed a destination, a purpose for the outfit. But it cannot be dismissed that the main reason was the simple enjoyment or comfort of dressing in women’s clothes, which is different from wanting to be a woman or the feeling that one has anything in common with women, or feeling drawn to wear women’s outfits for political reasons. After they were dressed and made up, some used it for political statement, some were entertainers, some sold it to men who wanted to buy it for twenty bucks off Times Square; but that wasn’t the reason they had the dresses and heels to begin with.
Speaking of humorlessness have you ever noticed how the only funny lesbians are the famous ones?
Oh hell no. The funniest human being I know is a lesbian nobody on this blog has ever heard of. She’s an editor and her wife (who’s a serious minded attorney with a great sense of humor) and their year old baby are spending next weekend at our house and I’m already girding my midsection to withstand the belly laughs I know she’ll bring.
Ok, so feminists, drag queens, gay, straight, lesbian, old, young, black, red, white, brown, Democrat, Republican, Left, Right, ok, ok how is it that we have so much time to go on and on about these things when there is life to be lived? Interesting topics and I am just as capable of expressing my opinion as anyone else but is there a right and wrong here? Must we, in our insecurity, put any group or person down? Must we constantly force ourselves to forget that we are connected and to hurt another is to hurt ourselves?
I am a woman and need not be defensive about that. That is an is. I and any man are equal with different talents and, often, different needs. Different yet equal. Gay, straight, wearing a dress, not wearing a dress and on and on and on, can we not take the risk of respecting and celebrating one another’s difference and express ourselves authentically with wisdom, humor and compassion?
I am a woman and certainly am NOT a victim – don’t need to be, don’t want to be. Period. Why would I spend any time worrying about what someone else is wearing, what there sexual orientation is or what color their skin is? I care about who I am and who you are. How you dress, what you look like or what your skin color is is colossally unimportant.
Just my opinion.
PS John, you are brilliant and you express yourself beautifully. Please keep doing it.
By the way, when we use the blog we are donating to it, right? We better be or we need not to use it. John spends a lot of time on this and his radio show and we must be as willing to compensate him as we are to express ourselves here in this blog that he makes possible for us.
imho, and i am just one person, the reason why i started coming here in the first place was because of hillary and being a puma.
becoming a puma had to do a lot with all of the misogyny that was slung at hillary and so in my opinion she lost mostly because of the sexism. so basically, all in all, this place for me had to do with being a feminist for real and seeing the misogyny and no one in the democrat party or in the media seeing it because of obama being historic or whatever shit that was blocking their brain cells.
basically, this blog has always felt like to me that would call out when we see real sexism which should have no place in the 21st century. there are things that are not sexism, but there are things that are and maybe as a woman, i feel it more than a man ever could. but it is still there.
so i personally think this is a good place to talk about sexism, misogyny, feminism, because in my opinion this blog and being a puma and being for hillary was started because of these very issues.
thank you john, for bringing us this blog. i appreciate the feminist viewpoint as a woman, to the fullest. we need to call it out when it is just is. like if condi were announced as vp for romney and the ob campaign made it about what she wears instead of their contrasts politically, then that is sexism. and it should be called out no matter what party even if we don’t agree on the issues at all. ob’s campaign plan should still never be misogyny based, and neither should the media go there either.
couple o things:
Zal, I’m not going to police threads to make sure everyone is “on topic” -I like reading through what people have said and do so regularly. I am still in the “flattered people show up at all” bit and frankly, hope i never stop being grateful about that. But this is not my job and my time is limited like everyone else’s…even THINKING about vetting for topics in a thread wears my ass out. Plus I ain’t lying when I say I find a lot of stuff said here interesting. It often comes from angles I’d not thought of and sometimes I don’t agree at all. Mostly this is fine. If the ruff and tumble gets too nasty I may change my tune on this. Last week I did finally snap and kicked off a hijacker.
However, having said that, when I write something and the thread goes off in a different direction does it bother me? Sometimes. My ego wants you all to discuss what I wrote about. Can i control that? Lord no. Do I even want to? Lord no. The drag queen conversation worked my nerve but no one is under any obligation to NOT work my nerve.The youtube clip was on point with the post as far as I’m concerned. And was funny. I find nothing sexist about it or drag in general. I’m quite sure there is drag that is sexist. But the impulse behind most drag is not sexist in the least.
Also, I don’t think of this place as a feminist blog. It’s feminist friendly – I think – I am in general agreement with many views that are called feminist – It’s not my main issue, Uppity does great work on that stuff as do may others. Anita Finaly’s book was so rich for me because she took my hunches about what was going on in 2008 and extrapolates and fills them in. But I could NEVER write a book like that about 2008. My main interest is how politics plays out in this country, which encompasses quite a lot if you think about. I think I’m a feminist. It’s a good thing to be. But I’ve never thought of this as a feminist blog.