I “ruin” relationships just in time for Valentine’s Day

…or at least that’s what my friend Dean Burnett thinks.

Over at the Guardian, I decided to apply some kind of honesty to relationships, advising readers to question monogamy, procreation, etc., in their relationships (assuming most relationship are the two person, monogamous, long-term types). My main focus for this piece was to encourage the view that if you can’t speak about such important and difficult subjects with your partner, that should be a worrying sign.

Of course, it would also be nice if more people undermined their stigma of those who are childfree, polyamorous,ethically promiscuous (I’d love another word for this), etc.

Human Rights Watch video on homophobic attacks in Russia

Good luck watching this.

Thugs. Terrified thugs launching fists at the harmless, at the innocent.

Gay rights isn’t just a gay problem, just like sexism isn’t just a woman’s issue, or racism isn’t just a non-white issue (all of this assumes sexism, racism, etc., only directly negatively affects one group, too).

Nobody is unaffected by these things: We just think we aren’t. Being straight I am affected by not being oppressed about my sexuality. But the point is, no one group alone should benefit from a lack of oppression – everyone should.

I have no idea what to do about that. I don’t know how to combat sexism or homophobia or any kind of bigotry. I’m not well-versed in the politics, in the psychology. I don’t know why it happens, how long it’s been happening. I don’t know where it began, where it exists, where it thrives.

I only know its wrong. I only know that more of us, at least, should proudly support and stand up against bigotry. But keyboard warriors aren’t sufficient; digital petitions aren’t enough; this attitude at the very least can be articulated “live” to friends, loved ones, when they make homophobic remarks, when they dismiss women as dumb, when they try sneak a racial “observation” through conversation. Maybe that will help, maybe it will make them think twice about being so comfortable in their lack of concern for people who aren’t part of their group.

Again: I don’t know. This realisation that things are wrong anchored by having no fucking clue what to do is, for me, almost as horrible as knowing that, tomorrow, bigotry will continue and innocent people will be hurt because they’re not the “right” sex, not the right race, not the right sexuality, not  physically built right, not the right height, not the right weight.

I hate this species.

(This is an important piece, by Marc Bennetts, on responding to Russian situation.)

Women don’t know how language works, the poor things: No means yes

Amazon was hosting a Kindle book called “LMR Exposed: How To Overcome Her Last Minute Resistance To Sex, Turn ‘No’ Into ‘Yes’ And Get the Lay!” It was pretty bizarre and rather horrid. I read as much as I could while it was hosted and have read the author’s “articles” before.

The Huffington Post quotes it:

“I’ve had situations where a girl is lying naked with me on my bed, still loudly proclaiming that we’re not having sex… Other times, I just forcefully removed the hand, stuck my dick inside, and she welcomed it eagerly once I was in.”

Charming no? Go rape! (LMR means “last minute resistance”. So, yes, there’s that.)

The International Business Times notes:

The book, which was available on Kindle, gives tips on how to convince women that resistance [is] “ridiculous” along with a “sneaky psychological technique that busts through LMR without her even knowing”.

Anyway, I wrote an Amazon review that went live – even though the book itself is removed. I mostly had fun writing my review, in an attempt at satire, since I was afraid of tackling it too seriously – which I’m sure others will and have done, better than I could.

The author found out about the initial 1-star reviews, and promptly responded in the obviously mature way that warrants taking him seriously as an adult. (If you can’t read the following image, please click here)

(Source: Huffington Post)

Allow me to fisk.

“A few individuals with nothing better to do have gone to my Amazon.com book page and left my latest book several 1-star reviews.”

Many of us spend our time doing many things at the same time; one of the things that matters is combatting bigotry and mistreatment of women, and underlying beliefs. Beliefs which, when truly believed and acted upon, significantly harm innocent people. That’s not a waste of a time – it’s a moral duty.

However, that’s done to a matter of degree and anchored by degrees of morality. I personally would’ve kept your book up – so that it could be critiqued and shown to be silly (and promoting harmful behavior).

But anyway, what do you care, right? It’s just one star reviews.

“Naturally, not a single one of these cuckoo social justice warriors have purchased the book or read it.”

Many of us have read you and read significant portions; besides which, if we’re wrong, just tell us why. Your book isn’t some philosophical thesis or scientific treatise – it’s a summary of pro-rape behavior. I doubt my perspective would be changed because I read through to the index. You have one, right?

“Your pathetic mob efforts have had absolutely zero impact on my business. Further, several hot girls have privately reached out to me in commiseration over the response to this article.”

Interestingly, this isn’t about you but about the beliefs you are espousing. But, sure, go ahead and view this as some personal attack on “your business”. And of course, I keep forgetting the measure of morality is how many hot girls reach out “in commiseration”.

“Finally, it is a very beautiful, sunny Friday afternoon here in Bangkok, Thailand. Tonight I will go out and celebrate life and most likely fornicate with a gorgeous young girl. Perhaps several.”

Good for you, but I think we know it probably won’t be consensual fornication. So to that extent, I’m quite worried. Not that you care about that silly liberal feminazi dogma called “consent”, eh? That’s not for “real” men, amirate?”

“I will have spent exactly zero seconds of my life thinking about you”

Er. Then why write this comment? You clearly did. Perhaps we should teach you about how time and numbers work?

“while you foam at the mouth for days straight from behind your computer screen thinking about me.”

My mouth is quite dry but I’m touched you care. And, again, this isn’t particularly about you but what you are espousing – and those views are tackled, in various ways, by many people.

“I (we) win.”

Yes, you do. Look at that empty Amazon page! Wow. Such space.

Um, but sorry – what do you win, exactly?

 

 

NoteNote – The note-naming convention specifies a letter, any accidentals, and an octave number. →

On the ethics of public shaming & digital mob justice

I wrote a post for the New Statesman on using public shaming and digital “mob justice” – even when aimed at those people we consider to be wrong. I’m unconvinced of public shaming as a tactic, in terms of “justice” – since one would hope that enforcing justice is itself considered in moral terms; that we don’t assume moral immunity because we’re responding to an injustice, but rather maintaining morality even while maintaining justice – in an unjust and often horrible world.

I don’t doubt public shaming is effective – but efficacy must be measured alongside other perhaps equally effective, but more moral responses and so on. My concern is that we can’t control how others respond and this is especially telling when original offences – say making a racist joke – is less bad than responses – calls for raping the offender.

There’s a lot to focus on, but this currently is my position regarding public shaming. It doesn’t mean we never act, only act better.

I kinda defend Nickelback

As if it’s not enough that I “defend” “racists” and hunters, I’m now defending the worst of them all… like, ever, totally: Nickelback. Kind of.

I guest-posted on my friend’s Guardian blog about musical taste and shaming (and still snuck in a big of bigotry about better music, I think? Er, oops?).

Anyway, science is fun. Don’t shame people for their music taste and don’t be ashamed, say, for liking pop music.

Related: How horrible my experience was in retail – as I’m sure it is and was for everyone – but at least it means I can sympathise with these (mostly) horrible stories.

Is it ever right to target an individual?

I blogged a longish piece about the ethics of using your platform to target an individual, as we recently saw with Bill and Emma Keller targetting Lisa Adams; and, recently, Caleb Hannan “outing” Dr V for being born a different sex in a piece about golfing equipment. Not to mention how so many piled on Justine Sacco, Melissa Bachman, and so on. I really dislike how this occurs and wish platforms were recognised as unequal between people, especially in light of people’s identity (the internet is not, in fact, a fan of women or trans persons for example).

Suicide can be moral, but that’s no reason to egg people on

At the moment, in Cape Town, there’s a man threatening to jump to his death. Some are calling for him to jump.

I jotted down some thoughts about why suicide can be moral, but why that’s not the same as being part of a crowd yelling for him to leap to his death. And also oppose those who claim life is always worth living.

This list of how American conservative media treated women in 2013 is too long

Seriously.

Lou Dobbs described a Pew Research study that found an increase in female breadwinners as full of “concerning and troubling statistics.” Dobbs said the study was suggestive of “society dissolv[ing] around us.”

On the June 20 edition of Fox News’ Hannity, frequent Fox guest and conservative radio host Bill Cunningham shouted down Fox contributor Tamara Holder during a debate saying, “You shut up. Know your role and shut your mouth” and asking if she was “going to cry”

On the November 18 edition of Fox Business’ Varney & Co, host Stuart Varney wondered, “Is there something about the female brain that is a deterrent for getting on board with tech?”

On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh offered his “suggestion” to avoid being accused of sexual harassment: “You walk up to the woman and say, ‘Will you please ask your breasts to stop staring at my eyes?'”

WSJ‘s Taranto Says Of Alleged Domestic Assault: George Zimmerman Simply “Guilty Of Being Male.” After George Zimmerman allegedly threatened his estranged wife with violence, James Taranto tweeted that Zimmerman was “guilty of being male”:

And so on and so on. Horrible.

Thanks to the researchers Emily Arrowood, Olivia Kittel, Olivia Marshall, & Samantha Wyatt at MediaMatters.

Should we stop supporting lostprophets, on streaming services, because of Ian Watkins?

The Welsh band, lostprophets, have essentially disbanded, after lead singer Ian Watkins was found guilty of horrible crimes against children. I stopped listening many years ago, thankfully, but I can imagine my first instinct would be to delete all their albums, destroy their CDs and remove any posters or paraphernalia. People have, obviously, also wondered (or screamed) about stores and streaming music services continuing to host lostprophets.

BBC Wales Arts and Media Correspondent Huw Thomas Tweeted about the music streaming service, Spotify.:

When asked if there’s a precedent for this, Thomas replied:

Major retailer HMV appeared to be one of the few he knew about that had removed the band:

(I can’t tell if lostprophets is still being hosted, as I have no access to Spotify due to living in the Dark Ages, according to the Internet.)

Assuming the band is still being hosted, that the other band members’ knew nothing about Watkins’ crimes, and services like Spotify do provide money to artists/performers, is it right for us to ask for the band’s removal from services providing them (both) with an income?

My first thought is that Watkins’ crimes don’t need to hurt more people; in this case, it would be the other band members who appear innocent. Often in our haste, fuelled by anger, we forget that punishment aimed at the offending individual can sometimes, inadvertently, hurt innocents related to that person.

Justice is meaningless if punishment is only a synonym for revenge. No, we’re not courts or police or whatever: but we too can and do punish (witness the rage and the events of the Justine Sacco incident). So the point is to target the wrong-doer and undermine punishment for those closely related.

Of course, one can say that it’s bigger than band members incomes. These gentlemen aren’t,  as far i know, struggling for money, nor are they completely reliant on streaming music services. Thus, by removing lostprophets, Spotify can show support for abused people by saying “we care more about solidarity with your safety and sense of injustice than [say] making money”.  Better yet, lostprophets could themselves withdraw.

But why only Spotify? Should the band members cease all touring, should hosts cancel the performances? Perhaps there’s less at stake with concerts, since most don’t care who host those concerts – since it’s about the band rather than the organisers. Spotify however has its name everywhere, so you can associate that brand directly with the current awful cloud around lostprophets.

Of course, the band has essentially broken up due to Watkins’ horrid crimes. But there are issues that arise if the other, innocent band members were entirely dependent on the band and income from sales.

In many cases, of course, the point is that I can buy all the albums and just destroy them and they’ll still make something; but what about tours, future listeners, and so on, that generates more and new income? This seems little different to instances to any organisation is brought into the spotlight not for the efficiency of what they do, but because of the horrible crime of one or two members. Investors pull out, clients drop them and so on.

There’s no hard and fast solution; it requires case-by-case analysis but, in response, we must remember not to punish too far and too wide off the mark of who deserves punishment (and even then we must decide what that punishment looks like). If I were a fan, I’d probably no longer be – but I would be hesitant since, if everyone did so, it could unnecessarily harm innocent people who just happened to be making money the same way as Watkins.

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