Spider-Man gets a new costume! Fans are the same old sexist scum!

Apparently, there’s a new Spider-Man movie in the works, and he’s got a fancy new costume (without nipples, I’m happy to report), and it’s got the hardcore comic fans in a lather. Well, not about the costume. It turns out that a few photos of the actor playing Mary Jane Watson were also leaked, and…she’s not sexy enough for some.

There’s actually 28 pages of people arguing whether Woodley is hot or not, seven times as many as there are talking about the new costume. (Although, like all comment threads, they go off-the-rails after a while. Flicking through, there’s an intense argument over whether the phrase "lipstick on a pig" is sexist, and a fair amount of discussion about porn.)

I hope the people making the movie aren’t as superficial as the ones who want to see it, although I fear there may be some unfortunate feedback between the two groups.

Uganda, Great Britain, same difference

Uganda is notorious for having some of the most repressive anti-gay laws in the world, but that’s not enough for the bluenoses of Africa, oh no: they’ve just passed sweeping anti-pornography laws.

The Bill defines pornography as any cultural practice, form of behaviour or form of communication or speech or information or literature or publication in whole or in part or news story or entertainment or stage play or broadcast or music or dance or art or graphic or picture or photography or video recording or leisure activity or show or exhibition.

It also prohibits any combination of the preceding that depicts unclothed or under clothed parts of the human body such as breasts, thighs, buttocks and genitalia, a person engaged in explicit sexual activities or conduct; erotic behaviour intended to cause sexual excitement and any indecent act or behaviour tending to corrupt morals.

That’s a bit…broad, don’t you think? That “underclothed” bit is already being interpreted as a ban on mini-skirts, for instance — just exposing any bit of the thighs has just been criminalized. Give ’em time, they’ll get around to making exposing the knees illegal, and then the ankles, and eventually everyone will be wandering about dressed like Victorians.

But it’s not just Uganda that is run by prudes: David Cameron in the UK is anxious to police the internet with the same prim attitude. He’s been working with ISPs to lock down the internet.

The language of the mythical ‘porn filter’ is so insidious, so pervasive, that even those of us opposed to it have been sucked into its slippery embrace. And so even when it turns out that O2 are blocking the Childline and Refuge websites, or that BT are blocking gay and lesbian content, we tend to regard them as collateral damage – accidental victims of a well-meaning (if misguided) attempt to protect out children from the evils of cock.

But this was never the case. As Wired reported back in July, Cameron’s ambitions extended far beyond porn. Working through secretive negotiations with ISPs, the coalition has put in place a set of filters and restrictions as ambitious as anything this side of China, dividing the internet into ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ categories, and cutting people off from huge swathes of it at the stroke of a key.

“As well as pornography, users may automatically be opted in to blocks on “violent material”, “extremist related content”, “anorexia and eating disorder websites” and “suicide related websites”, “alcohol” and “smoking”. But the list doesn’t stop there. It even extends to blocking “web forums” and “esoteric material”, whatever that is. “Web blocking circumvention tools” is also included, of course.”

And the restrictions go further still. Over the weekend, people were appalled to discover that BT filters supported homophobia, with a category blocking, “sites where the main purpose is to provide information on subjects such as respect for a partner, abortion, gay and lesbian lifestyle, contraceptive, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.”

Wow. That had me wondering whether freethoughtblogs was blocked yet, but as Martin Robbins explains at that link, they are being secretive about who is getting blocked, as well.

Hey, I wonder if they swapped the Ugandan and UK parliaments, if anyone would be able to tell?

So simple, even an invertebrate can understand it

The Digital Cuttlefish read the federal ruling striking down Utah’s gay discrimination laws, and makes an interesting point: Utah’s arguments were stupid. Not just poorly reasoned, but youtube-comment-grade stupid.

You’d think after all these years of clever people trying to rationalize their religious beliefs into law, you’d think someone would have said something that would make you stop and think, “Hmm, that’s a tough one…I’m going to have to think for a few minutes to counter that.” But no, they haven’t. And the court ruling goes through them all and points out how superficial and foolish Utah’s lawyers were.

By the way, if you want to get married in Utah today, Equality Utah has recommendations. Work fast — there are forces in Utah working to block this decision.

Also, “work fast” is bad advice about something as serious as getting married. Only move quickly if you’re already in a committed relationship and have wanted this for some time.

The flip side of the MRAs

Radfems. Just as freakishly twisted, I’m afraid. I somehow stumbled across a radfem site that is arguing that penis-in-vagina sex is always rape, and that men are always rapists. It’s the weirdest perspective, and uses the sloppiest logic. One way she makes her case is the loaded characterization, like this:

If we look at the act in more detail (skip this parag if you can’t take it), PIV is a man mounting on a woman to thrust a large member of himself into her most intimate parts, often forcing her to be entirely naked, banging himself against her with the whole weight of his body and hips, shaking her like he would stuff a corpse, then using her insides as a receptacle for his penile dejection. How is this a normal civilised, respectful way to treat anyone? Sorry for the explicit picture, but this is what it is and it’s absolutely revolting and violating.

That’s a description of rape, all right. The key words there are “forcing” her, treating her like a corpse, using her as a receptacle. And I would say that she’s exactly right, that if you see intercourse as “absolutely revolting”, you’d never willingly engage in it, and therefore the only way you would find yourself in such a situation would be if you were being raped.

And, of course, sex is really a silly looking activity anyway, and it’s easy to write a slanted description of it. She has every right to find it personally unpleasant and to avoid ever having a sexual relationship with a man.

But she goes too far in assuming her perception is universal. Sex can be entirely consensual, no “forcing” involved. And then she goes further: she makes the naturalistic fallacy.

The fact intercourse causes so many infections and tears and warts attests to the unnaturalness of intercourse, that it’s not meant to be. The vagina’s primary function isn’t to be penetrated by a penis but to eject a baby for birth. They are two muscle tissues / sphincters pressed against each other to help the baby be pushed out. Penetration of the penis into the vagina is completely unnecessary for conception.

Life causes infections and tears and warts and pain and death. So? That’s not an argument that it is unnatural. It’s also ridiculous to argue for a “primary function” for the vagina — especially when it’s a function that is only going to be carried out a handful of times during a woman’s lifetime, at best. How about arguing that its primary function is as an outlet for menstrual fluids? For some women its primary function might be for giving and receiving sexual pleasure. How about if we let individuals decide what they like to use their body parts for?

Biologically, I’d say that sexual intercourse is a perfectly “natural” use for a vagina — which does not impose on anyone an obligation to use it that way. It’s also perfectly natural that the vagina functions as a birth canal, and I’d remind our angry radfem that if she were to use it solely that way, she might just pass a son through it — who would have the potential to be just as good a person as a daughter.

Fools fail, f*ck their own sh*t up

You’ve probably already read Ophelia’s discussion of the latest MRA stupidity: a group of them on Reddit decided to flood Occidental College’s sexual harassment survey system with a collection of fake rape reports. The logic escapes me; people who claim that women make frequent false accusations of rape decide to inflate the statistics with false accusations of their own? Why? It was a spectacular own goal that effectively demonstrated that Men’s Rights Activists don’t actually care about ending rape, but are more interested in throwing up clouds of doubt and confusion to obscure their own repulsive activities and desires.

It was such a backfire that they’re now frantically trying to backtrack (It was so obviously stupid that even MRAs were aware of their mistake? That tells you how stupid it had to have been) and pretend that no, no one with any clout in the men’s rights movement had anything to do with inciting false reports. No, it was 4chan, yeah, that’s the ticket, it’s all the fault of those irresponsible pranksters at 4chan.

Except…here’s John the Other aka John Hembling, bigshot at AVoiceForMen:

jtoonbrothers

A word for Hembling: Yes, rape is a crime. So is falsely reporting a rape.

And gosh, but Hembling is really an awful person.

The silence of the men

A woman, alone at a bus stop, late at night. A series of men pass by, leering and sneering. One man accosts her persistently.

Over the course of five minutes, he verbally threatened me with rape, a beating, and kept trying to lurch closer to me. When I barked “BACK OFF” and raised my fists, he took a couple steps back, but unzipped his pants and started pantomiming taking his dick out while continuing to call me a bitch and a stuck-up ho. “I am going to slap you, bitch. You deserve to get raped. You deserve a dick in your ass. Stuck-up ugly slut. You’re gonna get raped because you’re a bitch and bitches deserve whatever they get.” At one point he made a motion as if he was going for something tucked into the back of his pants. I just kept yelling at him as loudly and aggressively as I could. But I was genuinely scared at that point.

Sounds familiar. I’ve seen second-hand that surly resentment from men on the internet — it takes some courage and strength to stand up against it in person. Then the bus arrives, and with it some hope of rescue.

It was the middle of the night. I was alone, without a working phone or pepper spray. But we were in a brightly lit place, so I decided to stand my ground and keep yelling at him to stay the fuck away from me and hope the bus would arrive soon, which it did. I rushed to it. The doors to the bus opened, and I called to the driver, “this man just threatened to rape and beat me and started to expose himself, please don’t let him on.” Blank stare from the bus driver. My harasser actually pushed past me, got on the bus, sat down in the front seat, told the bus driver “pay this bitch no mind, she’s a crazy-ass prostitute” and laughingly told him, “she been harassing ME”.

And the driver shook the man’s hand, and ignored the woman.

The man is calling the woman a “bitch” and a “prostitute”, and the driver seems to find it unlikely that he’s been harassing the frightened woman. He does nothing. He says nothing.

The driver eventually ordered me to sit down. So I did. And then asked him: “why aren’t you doing anything? Why did you shake his hand and laugh? That guy threatened to hurt me and rape me. Why would you do that?” He basically ignored my questions. Ignored me.

I sat there, in shock, while my harasser continued to yell threats and insults at me from the rear of the bus.

And she still manages to remain charitable towards the driver.

This morning I called the Golden Gate Transit hotline and filed a report. I genuinely do not want to get the driver fired. He seemed young and totally clueless and lacking in empathy, but not actively unkind. I just hope that some sort of protocol adjustment happens. Some kind of conversation where it’s made clear to each and every driver that when a woman begs them to call the cops or to bar an aggressive man from their bus, they should DO THAT.

That’s all she wants? I wasn’t even there, and I want more. I want men to stop being accomplices in harassment.

“Sad to see America INFECTING the rest of the world”

No, Ken Ham, it’s not. It’s sad to see a “public figure” like yourself preaching hate and homophobia, in response to this story.

It’s not just Ham. Here’s a sampling of the comments on that post:

Wow. These folks should actually be offended. They were selected not for merit, but as props. How nice for the Administration to reduce their identity to their sexuality.

Not just sexual preferences, but to their sins.

America is sending a message “we are a ungodly place” that mocks God

We are not so much a diverse place as we are a sinful place continually rejecting God’s word. Pray for repentance before it is too late for this country.

Just hope the Russians arrest these athletes. If it is illegal and they are there, then they are breaking the law – simple as that

Diversity happens in the sewer. You can’t stop it. Unity in the Truth is the high calling.

We have become a place of tolerance, tolerant to everything but the Truth. GOD is not mocked!

Sickness of soul. Pawns of Satan himself.

Seriously? What does being gay have to do with their athletic prowess? Go as athletes, not athletes with an agenda! And WHY does the FORMER DHS Secretary warrant tagging along? She does in NO WAY represent our country, in any facet, anymore. Send someone that does!

So the homosexuals are going to represent me? Even the communist’s deep in Russia reject homosex. I’d never thought that an atheist like Putin would be standing up for American values!

Obama has to be a closet homosexual. My mother has always said that she believed he was, and now I too have become convinced. I think that the wife and kids was just a cover up to get him elected in politics. Onama is a homosexual.

Now all that is sad.

I don’t think they bothered to read the article. The Obama administration is snubbing the Russian Olympics by not sending any high ranking members of the administration as part of the delegation — the most prominent politican in the group is the former head of Homeland Security — but they are including openly gay athletes, Billie Jean King, Brian Boitano, and Caitlin Cahow as representatives, not competing athletes.

Removing the cloud of discrimination from conversations about science

It’s always nice to hear the grown ups talking. Last night on Virtually Speaking Science, Tom Levenson interviewed Janet Stemwedel and Maryn McKenna on the subject of science writers and sexual harassment/gender discrimination. I listened to it while I was grading papers, and I think it may have contributed half a grade point or so on my evaluations, just by putting me in a more positive mood.

Now you can listen in too — it’s a pleasantly rational discussion of a real problem, and that’s how we take a small step towards correcting it.

Popular Science Internet Radio with Virtually Speaking Science on BlogTalkRadio

Capitalism: not just an idea, a religion

I don’t think I’ve ever met one of these face to face: an unapologetic libertarian fanatic who denies the existence of poverty, and claims that private charity would take care of it if it did exist. And at the same time, he’s stupid enough to voluntarily allow himself to be interviewed for the Daily Show! Oh, right, those two things are not contradictions.

(via Kick! )