Hey, Baby, Wanna Blow Me?

Filed under "Dispatches from the Rape Culture", I give you two unrelated but related vignettes:

The weather's been trending upwards lately and I've been taking the opportunity to walk around at lunch. Outside, away from my desk, in public. I know, I totally deserved what happened yesterday. Being out in public while female. What was I thinking?

I'm waiting at the corner for the light to change and a blue Jeep with the top down (it hasn't been that warm out) full of guys careens around a left hand turn, taking the opportunity to ask if I'd like to engage in sexual activity with them. Actually, one of them yelled, "Hey, Baby, wanna blow me?" as they barreled past me at a high rate of speed. I guess they weren't exactly prepared for a positive reply.

Welcome to the Rape Culture, "baby", where sexually transgressing against passers-by is good clean fun.

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The CEO of the local hospital we represent is a woman. I talk to her all the time, and while she is always perfectly polite, she is not in any way friendly or happy. She is business. A coworker of mine was complaining about it, "Oh, the bank vice presidents are always so funny and she's just mean!"

She's not mean. She's business. And those bank vice presidents are all men. And they are jovial fellows for the most part. Always with a joke and a smile. Whatever you call a woman like that- it's not "jovial"- you don't call her CEO of a hospital. Men have a little breathing room to be funny, women are too busy working twice as hard and convincing everyone they do not like pink. Or flowers. Or fluffy kittens. A man in a suit is business until proven otherwise, a woman in a suit will have to convince you. And then apologize for being "mean".

I Finally Got Mail. I Wish I Hadn't.

You may be familiar with Barbara Curtis at mommylife.net. I've done one post about her in hell, and we've talked about her a couple of times at freejinger (for all your fundy discussion needs). She makes a living with her website, as in its income is so important to her that even though she felt amazon was supporting pedophiles (she willingly joined the Catholic Church, btw), she still had to keep her amazon affiliation to pay the bills (the Catholic Church has a justification for that. Shocked, shocked I am!)

To reiterate, the person who sent me this email is a professional blogger. A person who willingly, knowingly and for recompense puts their opinions, thoughts and beliefs on the internet for the world to see.

From: Barbara Curtis
Date: November 26, 2010 2:17:48 PM EST
To: personalfailure@ymail.com
Subject: Loving you no matter what

It's like the title to a bad 80s power ballad.

It is really sad that you are not content to hate me but try to stir up others' hatred. Sad for my daughter 17-year-old Maddy who found this What kind of hatred drives this?

So . . . Barbara writes articles, of her own free will, to be posted on the internet, on controversial subjects. Then she is both shocked and appalled- not to mention all think of the children!- when someone publicly disagrees with her. On a small message board.

On the subject of hatred, what Barbara found was my, and others', reactions to two articles she wrote. (I found the links to these articles on her website, btw. Keep that in mind.) One stated that if you use birth control, you are sending your children the message that you hate them. The other stated that postpartum psychosis is not an excuse for any behavior and women like Andrea Yates should be tarred and feathered in the public square. In order to make the children feel safer, you see.

I consider those opinions hateful. YMMV, but that's the nature of the internet, Barbara. People disagree and do so publicly. If you can't handle that, if your daughter can't handle that, then that's your responsibility, not mine. I didn't make you write those things and I didn't make you post them on the internet. Especially considering that you posted, on the internet, a personal matter regarding your daughter in which you called her a bad mother. That was something. Something nobody needed to see.

I would really like to heal this situation. I've never tried to cause you harm and just because we disagree on issues shouldn't be enough to cause this kind of hate speech.

Hate speech? I disagreed with you, I didn't call for genocide. Get a grip.

Could Maddy and I come visit you in PA? Could you come visit us? We are really not far away from each other.

Yes, why don't I give the random internet lady my home address? Nothing could go wrong there. I should probably also give her my social security number, date of birth and mother's maiden name. Or, I could spend hundreds of dollars I don't have to visit random internet lady. That's a valuable use of my time- concerning a post on a message board. That totally makes sense. Heck, I take vacation days every time someone on the internet disagrees with me. I sincerely hope no one in North Korea disagrees with me, I have no idea how I'd get across the border.

Reading your blog entries - admittedly I haven't read many - I see you think of yourself as not hating, yet this is a case where actions speak louder than words.

I'm so hateful! Meh, I'd feel worse (or, you know, anything) if this weren't coming from a birther who posted a personal family matter for the world to see.

I would never try to harm you in this way.

I disagreed with you, I didn't set your house on fire.

In fact I feel great fondness for you as a couple of your posts remind me of myself when I was a young counterculture person working in corporate America (AT&T in Washington DC in the late 60s). I too hate inauthenticity and power relationships. But whereas I used to hate people who exemplified those things, I've learned as I've grown older - and since having children with disabilities (who've truly taken me into another dimension) that all of us are disabled in some way, limited by our life experiences, hurts, etc

Um, okay. We're all disabled. We all have trouble opening store doors and getting up a flight of stairs. We all have chronic pain and . . . you know what, no we don't. I agree that experiences shape and change us, but it's not the same thing as disability. "I used to be a hippy like you!" isn't really effective when the intended audience does not consider themselves counter cultural, btw.

I don't hate anyone and I certainly wouldn't hurt someone as you have tried to hurt me - and my children.

I disagreed with you on the internet. You'd think I poisoned her well the way she's going on about it. Seriously, read that sentence again. Now try to imagine any way that applies to publicly disagreeing with an article on the internet.

In fact, I've made it my life's work to try to help moms in practical and spiritual ways as they raise their children.

Good for you. I'm not sure how "birth control is hateful" and "postpartum psychosis is a poor excuse" is helpful, but whatever.

What you don't see is the hundreds of emails I receive.

What I can't figure out is why you have time to email me, let alone visit me. Hundreds of emails, four children with special needs at home and endless time to email and potentially drive hundreds of miles to meet the person who dared to disagree with you. Unbelievable. I'd say to get a life, but as far as I can tell, she should already have one. A rather engrossing life, in fact.

I know I'm far from perfect, but having come from the background I do (poverty, foster homes, abuse) and having spent my early adulthood in complete self-centeredness and hurting others, I know that it is possible to change. And I know from my adult kids that anyone can become a good mother. Not perfect, but trying each day to do a better job.

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. I didn't call you a bad mother. I called you out on calling other people bad mothers.

Why would you attack someone like that? Why would you dig up a 10 year old article and try to stir up slander and viciousness?

Honey, it's slander if it isn't true. You wrote those words. You linked to those words.

I think you need to check your own authenticity.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! I need to check myself before I wreck myself!

Life is truly about making mistakes and growing from them. Perhaps you can shift your paradigm, open your mind, think outside the box - and go for hope and change - the real hope and change that comes from growing and learning to love rather than hate.

I think you need to calm down. Although if you getting worked up always leads to a mashup of Dilbert, The Matrix and Office Space, I may well keep "provoking" you. With my disagreements. On the internet. Maybe it ought to be a rule that everyone has to start out at 4chan before entering the rest of the internet. It would give people perspective.

Again, I have never done anything to harm you and never would.

Me neither. See, we do have something in common.

As I have told you, and as I discussed on my blog earlier this week,

In which she called me a troll. Yes, a blog post, a few comments and a discussion on a message board are trolling in Barbaraland. I don't suppose there's any way to get Dennis over to mommylife, is there?

I actually feel great love towards you,

No, you don't. You don't know me. Love is a special, beautiful thing and to say that you feel it for some random person you've never met cheapens it terribly.

pray for you and am blessed whenever I see your comments. You have certainly brought out the best in me. I would truly love to meet you and be an example of healing rather than hurt.

Dear science, that it is some weapons grade passive aggression right there.

Look, Barbara, this is the internet. People disagree. It's not hatefulness, it's not trolling, it's not anything but an exuberant use of free speech. Get over it, hug your kids and move on.

WOW Is About to Get That Much More Annoying

Dark elves apparently frequent Country & Western bars.

I played WOW* for about 5 minutes, and I spent that entire time dancing, but for the love of gaming, does absolutely everything have to be about evangelism? Honestly, just because you have no life and no other interests, doesn't mean the rest of us don't.

I am exploring creative ways to evangelize in the dark corners where few people tread with the Gospel.

One of those, is in the realm of MMORPG, specifically, World of Warcraft. I've started low-level characters on a couple of the RP (Role play) servers. Some of these are Priests, and so it's natural for them to talk like, well, Priests!! (I don't know why I didn't think of this before, it's working brilliantly!) I get to share the Gospel and I've had some positive responses!

OK so another avenue I want to exploit is the fact that World of Warcraft is going to be going through a huge change in November.... the game "world" is going to change drastically, and they call this game update "Cataclysm". Interesting, with everything going on in the real world, that this is being brought about in-game. Well, I'm not going to let this go to waste!!

Those of you who have seen The Princess Bride will remember the scene where Andre the Giant wears a Holocoaust Cloak and spooks the guards at the castle... he's muttering some sort of weird doom scenario... so I want to replicate that. I have a character with the perfect outfit (cloak and hood) and I want a script about the upcoming *real* Cataclysm, to tell about the truth of the Rapture... people will disappear.... tribulation is coming.... one world government, the AC, the MOTB, all of that stuff, and that there is still time to repent while it is today.

And The Princess Bride? Is nothing sacred?

Also, isn't it always today?

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*World of Warcraft. It wasn't for me, but the dancing is awesome.

You're Unpublished, Aren't You?

First of all, I detest literary snobbishness for personal reasons. My mom wrote romance novels and she did it well. Over 30 of them were published. She was the most popular romance author in Germany for 3 years in a row in the late 80s.* And every single year, English class would start with the teacher trashing romance novels as if someone, somewhere were attempting to replace Ulysses** with the current Harlequin releases. Honestly.

I rather detest tautology, but entertainment is what it is. Video games involve pressing buttons, movies involve staring at a screen and kids' shows will feature bright colors and near lethal levels of overacting.

However, that's not to say that a good story is limited by format. The Halo franchise has been telling an amazing story for the better part of decade, touching on sacrifice, loss, the essence of humanity and ethics in the face of genocide while gamers everywhere scream, "Boom! Headshot!" and then get blown up by the noob who can't figure out how to throw a grenade. (Why, yes, that was me last night. I got two kills for that.)

All of this might help to explain my annoyance at yet another self congratulatory "Most of the reading public is stoopid and that's why my book won't sell even though thinly disguised erotica does quite well" post, this time at Salon.

Likability is indeed just another word for "morality." A huge section of the American reading public does not want art for art's sake, or even realistic characters; it wants the books we read and the movies we see to be clever public service announcements, meant to uphold public morality.

Ever read a book with an unlikeable protagonist? I have, though it's rarely done on purpose. Here's the thing: I could be doing anything with my time. I could be cleaning or shopping or watching TV. I don't have to be reading your book. There has to be some kind of motivation to get me started (cool cover!) and some sort of motivation to keep me going. That's where likeability factors in.

If we like someone, we care about what happens to them. If we dislike someone, we don't care what happens to them. Or we want bad things to happen to them. So, if your protagonist is unlikeable, what's my motivation to continue reading? Yeah, I don't have any. That's why writers stick with likeable protagonists, because while unlikeable yet sympathetic protagonists can be done, it's very difficult to do and if you miss the mark, people stop reading.

I've been trying to think of successful unlikeable protagonists and I've come up with two, one from movies.

There's Dexter. (I've never seen the TV show, I've only ever read the books.) He's not really likeable. In fact, he's deliberately unlikeable, which is not to say unsympathetic. One can, and does, sympathize with Dexter, one does not like him.

There's Riddick***. (Yeah, it's Vin Diesel, but it totally works. It especially works the less he's wearing. Anyway.) He's not likeable at all, but it sure is fun to watch him kill in the most primitive possible manner with an air of ennui that seems to say, "Yeesh, why am I always the one that has to do all the killing? Is there no one else with the requisite slashing skills available, ever?"

That's it. There's plenty of likeable antagonists, they abound, but unlikeable protagonists? Really difficult to do.

It all reminds me of a classic defense mechanism, "You're weird!" This epithet is used by many young people whenever they are confronted with a challenging person or a person with a challenging thesis. Having read many literary reviews on Amazon in order to get an idea of what the average person thinks about fiction, I've come to believe that half of the negative literary reviews can be broiled down to those two words: "You're weird."

The "average person" as represented by Amazon book reviews? Really? If by average you mean "Buys books online and then returns to review them later", sure. That's not the average person, however. And you're assuming we're stupid?

The sad truth is that most American writers are professionals first, artists second. We need a Mark Twain to make all these Horatio Algers look ridiculous. The case of Nirvana and '80s rock is also instructive.

I will now explode into laughter for two reasons. 1) Samuel Clemens a/k/a Mark Twain was under no illusions as to what he was. He knew he was a professional, he liked being a professional. 2) Kurt Cobain was not allowed to listen to anything but gospel music growing up. The music he wrote for Nirvana? He thought that was punk. He was pretty surprised the first time he heard actual punk.

I guess the point here is art is accidental and if not, it's not art? I dunno, I clearly don't understand literature.

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*No, we never did find out why, exactly. I guess some things work out even better in translation.

** I'm told that book is art. I think it's 1,000 pages of masturbation and unless I'm the one getting off, I'm not interested in masturbation.

***The DVD version of Chronicles of Riddick includes about 20 minutes of pure sci fi cut scenes that completely explain Riddick as a Furyan. The movie makes so much more sense if you've seen them. And Escape from Butcher Bay is an excellent video game.