[Content note: sexual assault] When people call out sexist humor, they’re often informed that “it’s just a joke.” While some seem to believe that humor inhabits a special dimension of the universe in which things don’t “really mean” anything, psychologists tend to disagree. There are many, many reasons sexist humor matters. It hurts people, first …
Tag Archive: sexual assault
Apr 03 2013
My Oppression Is Not Your Thought Experiment
[Content note: sexual assault] There seems to be no shortage of people just itching for the opportunity to turn real, tragic human suffering into intriguing little thought experiments for their own amusement or political gain. This time we’ve got a college professor attempting to make some sort of bizarre claim about drilling for oil using …
Mar 17 2013
More About Justice and Less About Revenge: On Reading the Steubenville Coverage Too Early in the Goddamn Day
[Content note: sexual assault] I don’t want to hear anything more about the “ruined futures” of Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond. The verdict did not ruin their futures. They ruined their futures, when they made the decision to rape someone. I don’t want to hear anything more about how you shouldn’t drink if you don’t want …
Feb 27 2013
“We Saw Your Boobs” and Distorted Views of Female Sexuality
I’ll leave it to others to thoroughly excoriate Seth MacFarlane’s performance at the Oscars. What I want to address specifically is his gloating “We Saw Your Boobs” video, and the interestingly skewed notion of sexuality that it presents. If you believe MacFarlane, and others who think like him, sex is a sort of competition between …
Feb 06 2013
[guest post] We Need To Talk About Incest Survival
[Content note: incest, sexual assault, self-harm, eating disorders] Someone I know and respect asked me to publish this anonymous guest post. -M Mia Fontaine wrote an article in The Atlantic recently about the incest problem in America. Although we talk about sex scandals, stranger danger, and the abuses of the Catholic Church, as a society, …
Oct 24 2012
If Your God Condones Forced Pregnancy, Get a New God
[Content note: sexual assault] I mean, I realize it’s not that simple, but could you at least consider it? Richard Mourdock, a Republican senate candidate from Indiana, thinks we should be praising the Lord if we get pregnant from rape: The only exception I have to have an abortion is in the case of the …
Oct 14 2012
On Men Who Think Street Harassment Would Be Awesome
Whenever women are discussing street harassment and what causes it and how to prevent it, a man inevitably comes along to inform us that, actually, our feelings about harassment are Wrong because he, personally, would just love it if women catcalled him on the street or came up and slapped his ass without consent. There are …







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