It’s Jiz Lee talking about ethics and (queer) porn consumption:
While there’s a lot of talk about whether or not porn is ethical, there’s not much discussion about the fact that most people are watching porn illegally. Forget “ethical porn” – let’s talk ethical porn consumption.
Though a small handful of Robin Hoods will feel they’re liberating porn to the masses, or take accomplish in being savvy enough to scam what they feel entitled to watch for free, the folks who go the extra mile to break the law are not actually the biggest culprits. It’s everyone else.
I believe most viewers don’t think what they’re doing is that bad. Some may not even be aware they’re in the wrong to begin with. Who could blame them? A lack of media literacy around how porn is made leads fans to make a lot of assumptions. I know this first-hand, as I continue to learn more and more about the industry as I move from performing in front of the camera, to helping behind the scenes.
Let’s face it, free porn is easy. It’s the first (FIVE?) page results on Google. There’s no need to pull out a credit card (if you’re lucky enough to own one). You don’t even need to register or log in to press play. (A big step in preventing underage users from gaining access.) But figuring out where to go and what to click is not the first priority for someone horny.
Here is my HOT TAKE: I only ever want to read articles about porn from people who have worked in porn (ditto sex work).
Until the sun turns cold and the stars go dim, I will share every single article about Willow and Tara and lesbian vampire tropes I can get my hands on. I will never grow weary of reading about them. Never.
The Baddest of Cookie’s Bad-Bitch Outfits From the Premiere of Empire, yep yep yeppity yep yep
“Good climbing skin means building calluses thick enough to support a climber’s full body weight as it hangs off the tiniest slivers of rock. The calluses have to be strong enough to prevent some of the pain without becoming too thick or too dry.
One of the greatest threats to a climber’s success is a callus splitting open. As Jorgeson experienced last week during his battle to complete pitch 15, one of the Dawn Wall’s most difficult climbing segments, a cracked fingertip is akin to a blown tire in the final stage of the Tour de France.”
OH MY GOD I had to read this through my fingers because I am equal parts horrified and fascinated by how many different ways climbers to try patch up, cut open, superglue, and tape their fingers into stony submission. Excuse me while I tenderly coo over my soft, womanish hands in the corner.
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Everyone should interview Jazmine Hughes every day. “I want to be a managing editor. I think that would be best. I really like to boss people around. I have a lot of questions. I really like to hold people accountable for what they say they’re going to do. I have a lot of sisters.”
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More great interviews with fabulous women: Fariha Roísín talks to Janet Mock over at the Hairpin. What a week!
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“Even now, we are getting older and smarter and stronger, like two Popeyes,” said Glazer. “People ask me if I would go back and create a web series again and I say abso-fucking-lutely, dude. We are content generators. We can’t be at the mercy of anyone else. We’re insane people about work. We’re addicted to it. Once we started making stuff, we just never stopped, and we will never stop.”
Man, if there is even a chance you haven’t seen Grantland’s profile of Abbi and Ilana from Broad City, take this moment to correct that oversight.
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Thank God I know now about a new National Parks blog, because I will never tire of reading about the strange things that happen within our federal parks system:
Usually you need to head into a museum to see what turned up in the backcountry of Great Basin National Park: A 132-year-old Winchester rifle.
The find left park staff wondering why someone would leave their rifle and not come back? Numerous questions such as that one surround the small piece of American heritage found and recovered by park archaeologists in November.
A few reasons, off the top of my head: left there by a ghost, abducted by mysterious drifter, geocaching old-timey prospectors, MAYBE IT BELONGS TO SARAH WINCHESTER HERSELF AND WE MUST RETURN IT TO HER MYSTERY HOUSE IN SAN JOSE LEST HER UNQUIET SPIRIT HAUNT THE NPS ONCE MORE.
So, can we talk about Joan Didion for a moment? Is there anyone else who just isn’t a big fan? I ask because of this Awl article about the new Celine ad campaign: http://www.theawl.com/2015/01/free-joan-didion
I have to agree with this Barabara Harrison quote: “When I am asked why I do not find Joan Didion appealing, I am tempted to answer—not entirely facetiously—that my charity does not naturally extend itself to someone whose lavender love seats match exactly the potted orchids on her mantel, someone who has porcelain elephant end tables, someone who has chosen to burden her daughter with the name Quintana Roo; I am disinclined to find endearing a chronicler of the 1960s who is beset by migraines that can be triggered by her decorator’s having pleated instead of gathered her new dining room curtains.”
I read Didion’s book about her daughter, and, as someone with mom issues of my own, was very turned off by her (lack of?) mothering skills. I was also turned off of the Awl article because I have tattoos that I don’t regret and truly enjoy Knausgard’s My Struggle books, so I’m also biased in that sense. But yeah… your thoughts?
I honestly have never read any of her books, but that is because I find her so, so, so insufferable when I hear her interviewed.
“Insufferable” is a great word for my feelings toward her and her writing.
I haven’t read much by her – I think I picked up the White Album once – but you’re not the only one. From an interview with Angela Carter: http://bombmagazine.org/article/821/angela-carter
“Although I am a card-carrying and committed feminist, what I would like to see happen to Joan Didion’s female characters is that a particularly hairy and repulsive chapter of Hells Angels descend upon their therapy group with a squeal of brakes and sweep these anorexic nutters behind them despite their squeaks of protest. Like a version, dare I say it, of the rape of the Sabine women*. And bear them off to hard labour in the grease pits. Or else ten years compulsory re-education in the coffee plantations of Nicaragua might do the trick, make those girls feel there are worse things in life than running out of valium. Except what lousy fun it would be for the Angels. And the Nicaraguans might feel with justice it was a particularly foul CIA plot.
Actually, I think Joan Didion is an alien from another planet. Can we talk about a real novelist?”
* For a long time I was horrified that Carter would even suggest such a thing, until I found out that in this context, ‘rape’ means ‘kidnapping’.
Also, looking back over it, the ‘anorexic’ slam is a little cringeworthy – and especially odd given that Carter was an ex-anorexic herself. Still, it’s a great takedown overall.
Not to be a huge downer, but the Sabine women were kidnapped in order to be forcibly taken as sexual partners, which we would now definitely describe as rape. It was a cultural norm back then, but when it happens today in say Nigeria we don’t say “well it’s the cultural norm there for getting your wives”.
Ooooh dear. Sorry.
No, I mean, you’re totally correct – this “taking by force” (Lat. rapio, rapere) did indeed refer to the exciting adventure of the Romans seizing these girls from their homes. The abduction was the story to tell and the picture to paint! It involved planning, bravery, weapons! The enjoyment of their bodies later was easy, not a tale worth telling; you have these terrified women, they may have seen you kill their families, so you can have sex with them, no problem, no big deal. Yay, wives. From Rome to well past the renaissance, that part wasn’t the adventure at all. Just as of pretty recently, we’d definitely include that part in the story and the rape.
Angela Carter was often wonderfully un-PC. I recently read a book of her collected early essays, and they were fascinating.
I love her essays — I just like her voice and style. I thought The Year of Magical Thinking was very good, if also very different from her earlier nonfic work. Blue Nights was a tough one for me. She went on this riff about privilege (“privilege is a judgment”) and I was like… hmm now?
(the way she doesn’t talk at all about the adoption/acknowledge the birth parents at all was also a little weird for me personally, as an adoptee, but that was the era)
I guess I find the Barbara Harrison quote objectionable and, the first time I read it, chilling in the pit of my stomach because it attacks Joan Didion personally, instead of as a writer.
As an essayist Didion does reveal parts of herself, but she also makes it very clear that she hides things, that she is not a celebrity in the t.v. sense laying everything open for public consumption — so if we do go after her as a person not a writer anyway, it feels ugly to me.
Some of Didion’s fans are terrible. The Awl article makes a lot of assumptions about how we read Didion, though, that I don’t think you have to make (I too am a relatively young white woman, and I’ve never read her as other than a fascinating beautiful alien from another world — liking to watch but not having a shred of a desire to be her or even feeling like her world overlaps with mine).
I was really moved by her books about grief and bereavement. Is that what you meant when you talked about “her book about her daughter”? I don’t think we really see enough to make judgments about her mothering skills per se — especially not when she is talking about her daughter as she lost her, after grief sets in, when we all start to regret certain things we can’t change and when the intensity of the loss makes us no longer able to see the one we lost clearly.
In summary I guess I am not a “big fan,” but not in the way you mean, since I still appreciate her writing. Part of the pleasure of her writing for me is that she helps me see without having to judge, even when I see things I don’t like.
(Haven’t read the Knausgard books yet, but my husband with excellent taste also has been really enjoying them – you aren’t alone there!).
I suppose I find it hard to separate the person from the writer–I can only read what she writes, not what she hides, so I can’t judge her by what she isn’t telling me. People judge art by the artist much of the time (see many Toasties responses when Tilda Swinton is mentioned, many peoples’ responses to Woody Allen’s new Amazon show, anything about Roman Polanski, etc.). Not that Joan Didion has committed any crimes, of course, I’m just saying that I find her writing impossible to divorce from her self, much as many people find Woody Allen’s films impossible to watch because they’re constantly reminded of their negative feelings toward his person life/possible crimes.
Well, you should of course like what you like, but I don’t think that quote says anything meaningful about Didion’s writing. When Didion wrote culture criticism in the 60s she was in the business of excavating things and finding them hollow. She got away with this, as she said in the intro to one of her essay collections, by being “so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrustive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests.” To say “yes but she is just so matchy-matchy all the time” is to direct attention in the least interesting direction, toward the particulars of her small nervous feminine persona, instead of toward the people and phenomena to which that persona granted her access, and which she went on to take apart piece by merciless piece. I’ve not read her memoirs about grief, and maybe it would be more meaningful to talk about her persona in relation to those, but they hadn’t been written yet in 1979 when Harrison said she disliked Didion’s end tables and her daughter’s name. I’d rather pay attention to her sentences.
I’m not sure whether you like Didion or Knausgaurd is really the point of that article. It’s that you like certain things, they are turned into markers of taste, that “taste” is often conflated with “identity,” that you are marketed to based on your taste, and so you consume your identity. Didion is a special case because she herself writes and performs this shit, with her porcelain elephant end tables and whatnot, and now here she is, with her carefully constructed, tasteful identity, marketed right back at women with similar relations to taste and identity via Celine. You lose the writer in the forest of her stuff.
Such things make me deeply uncomfortable because, despite thinking in my heart of hearts that I am a special snowflake, unique in my preferences and too wise and cynical to be marketed to, my taste and my consumption habits are both utterly predictable and utterly intertwined. I am afraid to really inquire whether my artsy books and quirky clothes and high-fallutin food tastes are part of my self-image. (Not really: they are.) I can’t help it. I also can’t help thinking about how I can’t help it. I’m a little capitalist culture snake eating my own tail.
I like Didion (a lot), but I can see why she might piss some people off. She doesn’t let you forget this little knot of identity, taste, and money can be so tightly woven. You can see the effort in her style, whether her very distinctive sentences or in matchy-matchy decor–it’s an obvious production. You can’t mistake it for the accidental expression of an “authentic” identity. It’s too materialist to be “moral” or “serious”. You can’t miss that it cost a lot in some combination of money, time, and effort. Women aren’t supposed to let the work or the money show, maybe not even to themselves–that’s the definition of tacky, no? If you see any part of yourself in it, it’s not the kind of thing you’re supposed to feel good about. But also if you don’t do the work in one way or another? You might end up paying other prices for that.
None of this is comfortable at all.
I love this analysis of the article and of Didion.
I find her insufferable as a person and I hate her characters but I think her writing is gorgeous so I’m v conflicted on the Joan Didion front.
I love many of her books but I think a lot of the writing on her and fandom around her centers on her being skinny and rich and cool and well dressed instead of her actual writing.
Also not a fan but can we appreciate how pleasant sounding her name is: Diiiii-dieeeeee-onnnnnn. It makes me wish I liked her writing so I’d have an excuse to say it more.
There was an Awl article years ago on the minor Pauline Kael/Didion feud: http://www.theawl.com/2011/10/the-cordial-enmity-… Like Didion, there are plenty of things to criticise about Kael’s work, and her personality was hardly sunshine and lemonade, but aside from that – I liked it because I felt like I could file my lack of engagement with Didion into ‘Team Kael’ allegiance. Maybe we’re all either a Kael or a Didion (haha no that’s an appalling White Dude MFA kinda sweeping statement obvs)
I very much enjoyed that interview with Jazmine Hughes, so thank you for that.
Skimming right now and I just got to “because that’s what people do when they have a child—make a Gmail account” and smiled very widely. She is a delight.
Obviously TNC’s advice to Jazmine Hughes is private and in no way meant for public consumption, but I would read a piece where they hash out those the pros and cons of things like writing for TNR in public in a heart beat. I really do wonder what it’ll be like for Jamil Smith and Bijan Stephens and I so so so hope they have success, whatever “success” looks like to them.
Yesss climbing articles! There is nothing climbers love more than showing off various cuts, bruises, and “flappers,” which are when a whole callous shears, leaving just a flap of skin. There’s some lady climbers on instagram who have 1:1:1 photos of dogs, gear, and gnarly hand injuries. It’s great.
Also, foolproof recipe for healing flappers up fast: trim off the skin with nail clippers, then alternate neosporin/bandaid coverage and dry/no coverage every 12 hours. Heals in like 2 days.
Cyclists are also prone to sharing photos of their injuries. I wonder why this is.
I don’t know, but once my judo club did a survey for a public health student about how often we got injured, and it was hilarious to see how happy and excited everyone was to answer questions like “how often do you get bruises” with “I don’t know, always?” I think a lot of it is just “see what a badass I am? I’m totally a badass”
Just in case anyone missed this bit about the Dawn Wall climbers:
“In 2001 while working with a table saw, he accidentally cut off his left index finger—a debilitating loss when your life’s passion involves hanging by your fingertips. Doctors were able to reattach the finger, but told Caldwell that with its diminished mobility he’d never climb again. At first he was devastated, but then his determination kicked in, and he had the finger removed so as not to hinder him.”
( http://news-beta.nationalgeographic.com/2015/01/1… )
SO YEAH HAND INJURIES!
I have been reading everything I can find on Caldwell and Jorgenson since I saw one of the pictures of them starting up. I don’t climb but I think it is one of the most amazing and intrepid activities we humans attempt.
Also, these guys are just insane. Caldwell is missing a finger? WHAAAT.
Thank you, as I have just started climbing again with gusto and am amassing many calluses, this is Relevant Information.
That Broad City article was just excellent. I love Broad City, but I don’t identify with it or see myself in it–which always bugs me a tiny bit when I read articles that are like “Women can finally identify with people on TV and that’s why they love it!”
I think it’s awesome that it’s getting so much success, but there’s so much more besides the identification thing, like that it’s fucking hilarious and positive and straightforward and generally awesome.
Yeah, a lot of talk/writing about diversity and identification on TV annoys me for that reason. That’s why it would be great to have LOTS of shows centering women (and POC, LGBTQ… anyone other than white men ffs) because – guess what! – there’s not one singular “female experience” to identify with!
I’m a straight cis dude and I love stuff like Broad City and Girls and Enlightened and so I really fucking hate it when people classify that stuff as, like, “lady TV”. It’s not a blow to my fragile masculinity or anything, but why the hell can’t dudes enjoy TV that has female main characters? It’s just one more trope that discourages men from identifying and empathizing with women.
The only thing that bugged me in that article was that the list of successful online shows excluded The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl. I mean, it started in 2011 so maybe not early enough to fall into the “pioneer” category but Issa Rae has successfully moved to developing content with Shonda and HBO so I’d call that a success.
i also noticed this!
I’m definitely not Iana and Abbi, but I love them so much! I love it because they the Seth Rogen and Jason Segal of women and they’re full of so much joy.
“Excuse me while I tenderly coo over my soft, womanish hands in the corner.”
Lol, saaaaaaame. I’ve done eleven years of karate but I freely admit I am so not hardcore in many ways.
Ditto. One of the major things that stopped me from ever learning the guitar was the fear of building up calluses. Aaaiiieeee…
My fingers are calloused mostly from picking at and chewing on them. Negative survival points.
I definitely slathered on some hand lotion after reading that excerpt.
Same here. I will admit that one of the reasons I don’t climb much anymore is that I am very vain about my (beautiful!) fingernails.
There is so much great and important stuff in the Link Roundup this morning but my first and strongest reaction is “Damn I would love to bang Jiz Lee and Illana Glazer.”
Oh man, SO here for this on all accounts. Ilana’s desire for Abbi keeps me going.
Okay, I googled the Bella wych elm thing the other night because somebody was talking about it in the comments of another piece, and this article came up:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/is…
It’s very interesting, but more importantly, THAT PHOTO ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? It was the last thing I looked at before going to bed and I’m pretty sure that woman owns my soul now.
I love this!! I’m endlessly fascinated by this case. I love when new theories and information comes around! I would watch the hell out of it all as a scary movie or a documentary (or even as little as a scooby-doo episode, let’s be honest)
Also, yes, that woman looks terrifying.
Oooh, my favourite unsolved murder case!
Oscar noms SELMA Best Pic but Ava not up for Best Director? No nom for Best Cinematography? So… it was an organically created whole movie thats one of THE BEST, but not expertly directed… and not visually appealing. And the lead actors? Eh. I mean, not that great. But yeah, Best Picture. Everything else, meh. SELMA’s only other nod– Best Song– and will be up against “Everything is Awesome” in Lego Movie. Um. Ok.
I’M SO MAD ABOUT THIS
I’m pissed off that Mommy wasn’t nominated for Best Foreign Film. Not only is it a fantastic movie, but it was nominated for a Palme d’Or and won the Jury Prize at Cannes – and it wasn’t even nominated at the Oscars?
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
*seethes with quiet, polite Canadian rage*
Pathetic showing from the Academy, particularly given that the directors of mediocre awards bait The Imitation Game and Foxcatcher did get nominated. Really showing their stripes by reaching to keep that category (and frankly, nearly the whole nomination slate) white and male.
I just looked up the noms and now I’m yawning my head off. How… I dunno, insipid, I suppose? Ugh.
“YAWN” was my reaction, too — not to the lack of diversity and the frustrating/angry-making lack of nominations for Selma, but to the actual nominations. Just … boring.
I just read an Entertainment Weekly article that said that a Black person has NEVER won Best Director. Plus there’s only been one female winner (Kathryn Bigelow for Hurt Locker, presumably acceptable despite the lady-cooties because it’s about Very Important Man Feelings).
I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was THAT bad. DO BETTER, ASSHOLES.
A little out of date, but relevant
Wow.
I just cross-checked with Wikipedia, and there have only been four women NOMINATED for directing in the entire history of the Oscars. I hate everything.
I thought by “noms” you meant “internet slang for eating, as in ‘OM NOM NOM'” and I was very confused.
I eventually figured it out (look, I’m not smart in the mornings), but I still have this mental image of the Oscar committee gobbling up a movie, burping, and deciding how tasty it was.
It is very telling that the Academy is eager to honor films that examine long-ago injustices with clear villains and (white) saviors, but refuses to acknowledge films that tackle more recent injustices resurfacing in real time.
#solidarityisforwhitepeople
I read that whole Broad City article yesterday, which inspired me to actually watch the show for the first time! I binged through most of the first season last night and LOVED IT. Hannibal Buress really is the best part of the show, so sweet and weird and funny, like when Ilana calls him and he’s just hanging out at the animal shelter.
I can’t really identify with it at all, but I still think it’s great!
Hannibal Buress and I did the same open mic years ago at a little dive in Chicago when he was just getting started. I chatted with him afterward and he was really funny and nice. He got famous a few years later and I vowed to repeat this story every time his name came up.
How about when he makes two jokes in a row and uses the kid’s hand to high five himself!? Also when Miss Claudette at the rental car place is like, “don’t try and seduce me with your idris elba in short shorts thing”….oh he’s the bessst.
Willow. Vamp Willow. I LOVE this.
The Reply All podcast is really good this week. The description: Yik Yak is a an app that allows users to communicate anonymously with anyone within a 10-mile radius. At Colgate University in upstate New York, the anonymity brought out a particularly vicious strain of racism that shook the school.
The episode focuses on and interviews the students of color who are working to improve things. It’s really interesting. Also, there’s a tip of the hat to dad jokes, so that never hurts.
(sorry if this comment posts twice. I didn’t realize I wasn’t logged in the first time I tried to post.)
Hi! I’m Alex Goldman, and I reported that story. Thanks so much for mentioning it! It’s a very cool thing to be scrolling through the comments on the toast and see this story on here. Again, really appreciate it!
I love Reply All, and intend to listen the hell outta this today.
http://grist.org/politics/the-senate-will-vote-to… – I love this
Because for sure if a bunch of old rich white guys say climate change isn’t real, who are we to argue with them? Time has told us they have all our best interests at heart.
That Grantland article about Abbi and Ilana completely made my freaking day yesterday. And then it was capped off with the new episode which was both hilariously funny and managed to work in Seth Rogen perfectly without calling attention to his Seth Rogen-ness.
Never over Abbi and male!Stacey yelling at a kitten.
BELLA IN THE WYTCH ELM! After a toastie mentioned this mystery in the comments earlier this week (or last week?), I read an article that possibly identified the killer: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/is…
I am so excited that the new Croatian president is not just a woman but also someone I know! She worked with my father-in-law when he was the Croatian ambassador to Canada. Yay Kolinda! Here is an article in English about her:
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/…
Yay Santa Fe New Mexican! That’s my hometown paper.
but now i wanna know who was so mad at the hairpin this weekend?!?!?!
I want to know, too! I went back through comments on her articles from just before the weekend to see if there was anything, but no. Curiosity is getting the better of me.
Love all the articles I’ve read about the El Capitan climb (“the El Capitan” sounds dumb and is repetitive, but somehow calling it just “El Capitan climb” sounds weird to me too? ugh, language), and this fingers piece especially!
Does anyone know how they’ve been going to the bathroom?? I’m not too proud to admit that is one of the first things I wondered when I saw a picture of their cliff-tent thing.
Multiday climbs necessitate a poop tube. It is just what it sounds like- a tube that you poo in. In related news, multiday rafting trips also require that you bring your own toilet. Those are colloquially called “groovers” and look like a tiny mobile outhouse with a toilet seat on top.
THANK YOU. One burning question answered. This info all just convinces me further that while I like camping and hiking, intense out in the wilderness trips are really not for me.
I hear what you’re saying, and I am not generally one who enjoys dealing with poo/pee, HOWEVER when you are in one of those situations where such a thing is necessary, you get used to it and it becomes the butt (ha!) of many jokes.
Yes! What CNM says below, and then the support team takes the waste away when they visit. They pee into the air – there was an amazing description of “urine evaporating in the the thin, dry air” or something along those lines. There was a pretty detailed profile in the NYT….last week I think? I was fascinated.
That line about evaporating pee deserves a damn Pulitzer.
If it helps, the “the” and the “El” aren’t redundant – one is the article attached to “Capitan,” and the other is the article attached to “climb.” Maybe rephrase it in your head as “the climb of El Capitan”?
Bella in the Wych Elm is one of those creepy unsolved things that I can’t get enough of, and then spend hours in bed getting increasingly anxious about it when I should be sleeping. The Taman Shud case is another beguilingly unsolved mystery.
I have re-read that Taman Shud article two or three times now and it still gives me chills. It’s the closest real life has ever come to a Borges story.
Wow. This is fascinating.
I’m starting Broad City Season 1 tonight, I am giddy like you are when you know there’s scads of something wonderful out there for you to consume.
Anyone in Boston have any thoughts on the protests on 93 this morning? I’m definitely torn – on the one hand, I feel like the whole point of protesting is to be disruptive, and that the idea that protesting is only okay if it doesn’t ruffle anyone’s feathers is crap and leads to “free speech zones” and all that. I think it takes both peaceful protests and disruptive protests to make people attention.
But then I think, on the other hand, this was seriously dangerous. Not just to the protestors, but for people suddenly realizing they had to come to a complete stop on the highway on a snowy morning. I don’t really give a crap about some guy in management who couldn’t make his 9 AM meeting, but what about someone wokring a minimum wage job who is going to be fired because their boss has a zero tolerance policy for lateness regardless of the reason? What about someone waiting for an ambulance that couldn’t get through?
It’s a very poor protest strategy. It’s dangerous, not easily repeatable by other supporters, draws attention to the protestor more than the cause (and the method has no real relevance to the cause), and engenders serious ill-will from the public at large since they’re more heavily affected than by whomever the protest is targeting.
I’m wicked pissed at them, basically. 🙂
There was a similar protest that stopped traffic on a major highway during morning rush hour here in San Diego a few weeks ago, and I had similar mixed feelings about it. I admire that the protesters are FORCING people to pay attention to them, because that is needed, but yeah, I don’t like how it could negatively affect people in the ways that you mentioned.
I agree with Mallory’s Hot Take re: articles on porn/sex work. I also suggest that we don’t cherry-pick and only read articles written by people from the industry who we already agree with. Because, hey! Not everyone who works/has worked in porn/sex work has the same opinions about it!
I’m not the hugest Buffy fan, but that Willow/vamp/dark article was great.
Here is my HOT TAKE: I only ever want to read articles about porn from people who have worked in porn (ditto sex work).
Can this be the Law of the Universe or something? Articles, novels, movies, whatever.
I respect the hot take, but: I never worked in either, and got much of my start as a writer reviewing porn, dirty books and sex toys. I was hired because I could meet a deadline, was doing it for free (monthly column that ran for four years), *and* because an outsider’s perspective helped open up the publication to new readers. I was there to judge in the sense of providing critical evaluation of consumer goods, and I mentioned the things that majorly squicked me out so readers would know where our taste overlapped and didn’t, but basically kept an open mind. It was a great job, and I think I did it well and with minimal harm.
I saw these videos yesterday of Fleetwood Mac performing “Rhiannon” and Stevie Nicks being super witchy and fierce and I have wanted nothing more than to share them with everyone I know. So, uh, here they are.
On Midnight Special in in 1976 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2lIOSpu_YY (for background on this one, see here: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/17-rea…
Another performance, which is especially amazing from 5:22 to the end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l59XNFsgw_w
I have never been terribly taken with Joan Didion, but I have to say my hatred of Angela Carter eclipses any mild dislike I might feel for Didion. And the main reason is that I think Angela Carter’s whole non-PC feminist pose is just a cover for a general sicko mentality that really enjoys violence, especially against women, for its own sake. And think about what she’s doing here – if she just wants “those anorexic nutters” sent off to the grease pits or the coffee plantations, there’s no reason to bring in the Hell’s Angels, or to make them “particularly hairy and repulsive.” She’s doing that, and referring specifically to the rape of the Sabine Women, so that our minds will go straight to gang rape – but oh hey, she never said that! She’s just talking about a little harmless kidnapping.
I love Carter’s prose, but she definitely is…weird about certain things. Still, I wouldn’t know if she “enjoys violence, especially against women, for its own sake” so much as she cheerfully goes too far in the service of some nebulous purpose.
Still, to be sure, I can absolutely see your point with regards to this.
Two things pop-culture related that I just feel like bringing up today:
PARKS & REC!!!!! WERNER HERZOG!!!!!! LESLIE’S TAMMY 2 IMPRESSION!!!! I died. I can’t believe it’s almost over.
Professor Blastoff episode featuring a solo Tig & her fiance Stephanie Allynne. It will warm even the most cynical person’s cockles: http://earwolf.com/episode/tigs-journey/
Oh my god, Amy Poehler doing a Megan Mulally voice has to be one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. I was watching alone in my room last night and I think all my roommates heard me howling with laughter.
And of course Werner was incredible.
Also not a fan but can we appreciate how pleasant sounding her name is: Diiiii-dieeeeee-onnnnnn. It makes me wish I liked her writing so I'd have an excuse to say it more.
No, I mean, you're totally correct – this "taking by force" (Lat. rapio, rapere) did indeed refer to the exciting adventure of the Romans seizing these girls from their homes. The abduction was the story to tell and the picture to paint! It involved planning, bravery, weapons! The enjoyment of their bodies later was easy, not a tale worth telling; you have these terrified women, they may have seen you kill their families, so you can have sex with them, no problem, no big deal. Yay, wives. From Rome to well past the renaissance, that part wasn't the adventure at all. Just as of pretty recently, we'd definitely include that part in the story and the rape.
There was an Awl article years ago on the minor Pauline Kael/Didion feud: http://www.theawl.com/2011/10/the-cordial-enmity-… Like Didion, there are plenty of things to criticise about Kael's work, and her personality was hardly sunshine and lemonade, but aside from that – I liked it because I felt like I could file my lack of engagement with Didion into 'Team Kael' allegiance. Maybe we're all either a Kael or a Didion (haha no that's an appalling White Dude MFA kinda sweeping statement obvs)
I love Reply All, and intend to listen the hell outta this today.