World Eater, you’re an ass. You’ve been told its offensive and you continue to defend its use. Yes, I’ll concede that when guys are just screwing around, maybe it’s not quite so harsh, but when they use it to offend, it is offensive to women – not just the guy it was directed at. Go fuck yourself.
Oh, and count me as one of those who don’t find “pussy” to be a misogynistic term. Sorry, Homebrew.
Obviously not all of them… but then, it is ok to make that kind of generalization, isn’t it?
Well, I find it offensive, and I know I’m not the only one.
According to your paperthin sensabilities it’s offensive, which doesn’t make it universally offensive. I’ll agree the on paper that it could be construed as misogynisitc, but everyone except you seems to understand it’s real world meaning.
May I suggest a compromise? Rather than “Stop being such a pussy”, say “Stop behaving in a way that is, while of course valid, perceived as contrary to the prevailing culture’s expected behaviour in a male”.
Sure it’s a lot longer, but it’s shorter than this argument.
Rather than shake my head and comment that “the term is offensive towards women” is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard, I sent an Email to all my friends’ wives. Not a single one out of the fifteen women on the thread considered our use of “pussy” in front of them to be the slightest bit offensive to them, nor towards women in general.
Perhaps we should start a polling thread in IMHO? I’ll stop using it if women truly are offended when they hear it, but I can’t believe the majority of women are.
As for the OP, I agree that “pussification” in that context was probably offensive. But guys just hanging out, calling each other “pussies”? C’Mon.
Homebrew:
[Speaking very slowly]
When I call an apple an orange, it’s insulting to the apple.
Not the orange.
Dumbass. :rolleyes:
Sorry for the delay, this has taken time to write…
Well… it’s better to be envied than Pitted, as someone more or less said. I was quite surprised to find myself coned in the searchlights, but the unpleasant shock was lessened by the heartening discovery that one or two people seem to think that I may not be as bad as all that. Anyway, gratifying as it is to find myself being stuck up for, I guess that ethics demands that I step up to the plate and say a few words in my own defence. Here goes:
- I forget where I got the expression “pussification” from in the first place. It might have been from a review of Fight Club - if it’s from the film itself, I wouldn’t know, as I’ve never seen it - or it might just have been from another site on the Internet where “men’s issues” occasionally get discussed freely and frankly. (Heh… I can see the storm of flak winging its way up to my altitude for my having the temerity to frequent anywhere like that. Well, I’ll just have to live with it.) It struck me as a convenient shorthand for the way society is being transformed in order to accommodate, not so much the needs of women per se, as the wishes of women as these are presented by a certain brand of highly active feminist. It’s not like I’m alone in being concerned. Heck, even newspaper columns written by feminists whom I wouldn’t ordinarily share any common philosophical ground with use phrases like “The Lost Boys” to describe the predicament of modern adolescent males in a world that is paying increasingly less attention to their gender identity and role in life. Sorry, I can’t provide cites. I’d need to be quite anal-retentive about keeping newspaper cuttings.
As to use of the word “pussy” or its derivatives as an insult being derogatory towards women - I presume it therefore follows that I denigrate my own sex by calling you a dickhead? Get real!
- Why women don’t fight in wars. Since you’ve plainly trawled the length and breadth of the SDMB looking for everything I’ve posted that you can possibly object to, you presumably got the context of that long diatribe that’s so outraged you. In that case, you may recall that certain parties in that thread were talking as though the whole reason why war was historically a male-only preserve was that this was a deliberate policy to exclude women from career opportunities and political power. I made what I thought was a perfectly valid comparison between the lot of disenfranchised (but on the whole, physically safe) women and, for instance, men in the Navy of the early 1800s or in the trenches in 1914-1918, and, in effect, asked rhetorically if women alive at the time would really have been in such a tear-arsing hurry to change places. If you disagree with my POV then say so and explain how and why. Simply dragging the quote out of context and citing it as somehow being “evidence” that I am a misogynist is somewhere between disingenuous and just plain fatuous. You might as well claim that the line “When you wish upon a star your dreams come true” is evidence that Walt Disney believed in the occult.
Concerning how modern liberated women just aren’t grateful enough - excuse my irony when I observe that now, from a position of safety, certain women argue that they never needed men’s protection. I wonder how many women were taking this line, say, shortly after Pearl Harbor? Who exactly were they protecting the women-folk from? Why, other men, naturally; but I doubt that the men of either side saw themselves as involved in some big cosy male club. Face facts, this is how the world worked from time immemorial until fairly recently. I may deplore war with all my heart, but I certainly don’t intend to sniffily tell the shade of my grandfather that, actually, my grandmother never needed his protection, and I’m not a bit grateful. IMHO, neither should anyone else who owes their existence to the courage of their forebears. YMMV.
Yes, I think you do need to comment. You can start off by putting that quote back in its proper context too: as a response to a sarcastic remark (by Cessandra) about how unattractive it is listening to “nice guys” complaining about not being able to get laid, endorsed by Opalcat talking about “spineless jellyfish”. Nobody getting Pitted for man-bashing there, I note!
Additionally, I think my remark works perfectly well on one level as a factual statement - women do, unless I’m very much mistaken, spend a good deal of time talking about their problems (see my earlier quote about the time I’ve spent providing a sympathetic ear!) - and on another level as a slightly cynical observation on the relations between men and women. Any women who never have anything cynical to say about men can go ahead and cast the first stone.
Mercy me! Doubting rape statistics? Could there be any more convincing proof of the extent to which I hate women? I suppose it has occurred to you that there has been plenty of discussion lately as to the validity of rape statistics, especially those that purport to show that 25% or more women will be raped at some point in their lives? There were other dissenting voices than mine. Are all men who entertain doubts about the figures misogynists? If women also doubt them, do they therefore hate their own sex? And isn’t it possible that I could consider that publishing lies about men and making them increasingly objects of fear and loathing does not in fact do women any favours, but rather the reverse?
That there is a gender-political movement in existence that sees men as “the enemy” is hardly news. Good gravy, Andrea Dworkin herself has come out with such gems as “Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women’s bodies”, and Robin Morgan, editor of “Ms” magazine, has said “I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them.” You don’t need to ask me for more cites when a quick browse through the “gender issues” section of your local bookstall will find numerous other examples of people making lively writing and lecturing careers out of this. I don’t say that the entire rape-victim-support network is under their control, but I do argue that people with the capability to manipulate statistics for their political ends do exist, and I’m generally wary of them.
Having satisfied yourself as to my misogyny, you then move on to homophobia:
- Ian McKellen, the ravi snip. Sure, you can read it as “this was going to say ‘raving shirtlifter’, but I thought better of it at the last minute.” Now I thought it was obvious that I was humorously gagging myself on the verge of an un-PC statement, and I’m sorry if it got past your sense of humour filter. Actually, Ian McKellen is a somewhat quirky advocate of homosexual rights - and I think someone who makes a habit of going through hotel Bibles eradicating the bit in Leviticus that offends his gay sensibilities is ripe for a little twitting. It’s not as if I said anything malicious. I also think that the kind of person who defaces hotel Bibles as stated is likely to have a somewhat greater tendency than the next man to see homoerotic subtexts where none were intended - and given the religious background of Tolkien and the theology of Middle-Earth, I think he would be horrified that anyone should believe he should see anything of the sort in his work. But, yanno, I said something of the sort in the very thread you’re talking about, as did others.
You ask “If you don’t harbour some homophobia, then why bother refuting the eroticism some people read into the work?” and I answer “Sometimes I say things because I think they’re true, and as to why I bother, ‘because I damn well please’ is all the justification I feel I need; certainly I don’t feel I need to ask you for permission.”
Admit it. You’d made up your mind in advance that you were durn well gonna find something I’d said that could be construed as homophobia. Incidentally, your determination to accuse me of both misogyny and homophobia convinces me that you’re a lesbian - though naturally that’s your affair, and I would never dream of despising you for it, or indeed that any third party worthy of my respect would either.
Stealth bigot? I don’t think so. Creative turn of phrase, but not well supported by boring old facts. Your “evidence” might have got a Salem crone burned at the stake, but I don’t think any fairer-minded court would be returning any guilty verdict on me any time soon. Still, I cannot but congratulate you on the depth of your, ahem, “research”. Those long cold evenings must just fly by.
Oh, and “Dumbass”, am I? “Well - double dumb-ass on you, then!” (J T Kirk, ST4: The Voyage Home)
Got a site for McKellen desecrating Gideon Bibles?
BTW, most people steal them. So that’s not really much of a crime…
Haven’t got a cite. I haven’t got a cite that hens lay eggs, either. For McKellen, I’d need to fish a newspaper out of the recycling bank, scan it, upload it and post a link. Alternatively, you could take my word for it.
I didn’t call it a crime… I just said it’s a kinda quirky habit. I mean, if everyone did that, any Darwinist would have to ink out all of Genesis 1 for a start.
Is this how you define few?! I’d hate to see what might happen in you’re feeling verbose
D_Odds, look up the word “meiosis” in the dictionary
I do have a 174,000-word fantasy manuscript to my name, but the ******* ******* agents I’ve written to so far won’t get it published for me… so that gives you some idea of what I’m like when I get really verbose.
Besides, although “Bollocks” would have given Homebrew’s fevered imaginings all the answer they deserved, the audience might have demanded more. It’s so hard to strike a happy medium.
“The cellular process that results in the number of chromosomes in gamete-producing cells being reduced to one half and that involves a reduction division in which one of each pair of homologous chromosomes passes to each daughter cell and a mitotic division” (M-W Dictionary, Online Version).
Now I’m really confused
Don’t be. The answer is: a fish.
I don’t have time to deal with the entire response right now, but let me say that I had no inclination to call you a homophobe until I saw the little gem you mentioned. Are you denying that “shirtlifter” is considered derogatory? As with the term “pussification”, I asked for a clarification before determining you were either misogynist or homophobic. In fact, “pussification” by itself was not enough for the misogyny charge. It is only taken with the other comments I highlighted that I arrived at the determination.
Had you been forthcoming when asked for clarification in the original thread, I would not have bothered to look at your history and would not have discovered the use of the derogatory term for homosexuals.
You hang yourself with your own rope.
“shirtlifter”?!?! Derogatory? What the hell? What does that mean? Is it like turdburglar? An insult virtually no one has heard of but deeply offends some people? WTF is a shirtlifter?!?!?
It’s a derogatory term for the guy that always uses the joke “Shirt’s on Fire!! Now it’s out!!”
While were on the topic of words that have unintended derogatory meanings that 99% of the planet is not aware of, what’s the deal with shirtlifter?
Once again your self-righteousness is clogging your sense of humour filter. The original quote about McKellen was snipped by me for comic effect, as in “smack my wrist for even thinking about saying it”. If I have to explain, you’re not going to understand.
“Are you denying that ‘shirtlifter’ is considered derogatory”, forsooth! Well, you’d have been a wow if McCarthy had had you on his team. I actually know a number of other derogatory terms for homosexuals… but some of my best friends are - no! no! Must notgo trotting out “that old canard” again… how I actually treat the gays I know is not the point :rolleyes:
I suppose taking to one side a guy I’d known for years who’d decided he was gay but didn’t want the knowledge in the public domain (and had confided in the wrong gossip-monger) and reassuring him that, actually, he didn’t have to worry about what I thought, doesn’t count?
Whaddayamean you had no intention of calling me a homophobe?
Oh, and by the way, vet your own vocabulary. It has been determined that “homosexuality” is itself offensive, as the word was not current until the Victorians coined it in order to label an activity they were busy criminalising. You are supposed to say “Orientation towards people of the same sex”.