They are dumping on catsix over there.
Ironic, isn’t it, that Gloria Steinham was one of the people paving the way for women to be able to express their sexuality? Wonder what she thinks of the “progress” MS magazine readers have made over the last 30 years?
Anyone want to start an anal sex thread over there?
FWIW, I’m Pielorinho over there – it’s my normal MB nom de plume.
I don’t think we should troll over there. Honest questions and ideas are good ignorance-fighters (though I’m starting to think that the rollseye smiley is the main form of rebuttal those wonderful folks have). But trolling will ruin any chance we’ve got of honest conversation.
Daniel
**
Band Name!
So y’all are the “trolls” and “snotty little nitwits” over there? I’m trying to read their posts, and I know if someone was on the SDMB with that level of intellectual rigor and their other hand on the rolleyes smiley, there would shortly be only a smoking hole.
The talented and lovely Margaret Cho.
Very well put, and exactly what I argued in my anti-Mackinnon essay I mentioned before.
Did you know that Catharine Mackinnon and Andrea Dworkin presented themselves as amicae curiae in a lawsuit called Butler here in Canada, and that their intervention was responsible for laws that allowed Customs unilaterally to seize material that was “degrading to women” - which of course ended up meaning mostly gay and by-lesbians-for-lesbians porn?
The gay/lesbian/feminist bookstore Little Sister’s in Vancouver, supported by Glad Day in Toronto and Montreal’s own L’Androgyne, finally succeeded in having the law stricken. Pat Califia wrote a great book about it called Forbidden Passages, and the struggle is fictionalized in the movie Better than Chocolate (in which the bookstore owner is played by Canadian novelist Ann-Marie Macdonald).
Geesh. I consider myself a feminist, and have for years, but those women are just insane! I agree with reprise–this isn’t the sexual freedom that women like Gloria Steinem wanted women to have. It’s sexual overanalysis and neuroses from the viewpoint of women who are never, ever going to be happy about anything that happens to them in the bedroom.
Oh, and the “ferbert will eat your dinner” person? I would love to see someone pull that rolleyes-after-every-post shit here, and live to tell about it. 
Admittedly I only glanced over the Ms. Forum thread, but I don’t see what the big deal is. It looks like someone was just bothered by depictions of women masturbating (and other depictions of women reaching orgasm) in pornography targeted at straight men, as they make it seem as though women’s sexual pleasure has the sole purpose of being entertaining for straight men. This isn’t an issue that I’ve ever thought about before, but a pet peeve of mine is the way that pornography aimed at straight men has attempted to co-op lesbian sexuality, so I guess I can see where they are coming from.
Their rhetorical skills over there aren’t up to SDMB standards and I may be confused, but the only references to not wanting to have orgasms that I noticed were about women in the sex trade who did not want to have real orgasms with paying customers. That is very different from not wanting to have a real orgasm with someone you are in a committed relationship with, or even a just-for-fun one-night stand.
No I think the issues stem from the fact that some of them have nothing whatsoever positive to say about men or their boyfriends, that there are posters there who are proud of the fact that they’ve never had an orgasm (and imply that they’re actually trying to never have one) and that regardless of the commitment in the relationship, they think that orgasms are a sign that the patriarchy has repressed them once again.
Then of course, trying to bring up a viewpoint that disagrees with their already entrenched paradigm leads to nothing other than being called a troll, a sock puppet, getting an eye-roll, and having them point out how hard they’re trying to ignore everything said that disagrees with them really caps off the fact that they’re not there to have an honest discussion. They’re there only to find people who think exactly the way they do to reassure themselves that they are doing what’s right - even though what they’re doing makes them completely miserable.
[spooky disembodied voice]
The hive mind does not tolerate dissent…
Shun the dissenters…
The hive mind does not tolerate dissent…
Shun the dissenters…
The hive mind does not tolerate dissent…
[/spooky disembodied voice]
It’s a puzzle to me. First, some women are complaining that they’re faking organisms because they feel that’s what their partner wants but then the same women complain that they’re being oppressed because they aren’t having orgasims.
What?
Maybe if they stopped being dishonest and started giving him specifics on what worked and what didn’t, they’d have more orgasms.
These people have issues. Hell, they sound like I do-I’m Obsessive Compulsive. And that’s EXACTLY how I sound when I have a certain obsession-I overanalyze it to death.
The difference is, I know it’s irrational.
That Renate person sounds like they know how to talk intelligently. It’s a pleasure, and I kinda think that through her(?), the whole question might be approached intelligently.
See, I kinda think that buried in the psychosis of the original poster is a valid point. It needs to be teased out and separated from the hyperbole and doctrine, but there is something there worth looking at.
The obnoxious insultings and smileys don’t help in that effort. I don’t know how Alsis and Felbert can possibly think well of themselves.
Daniel
Oh. My. Stars.
Guin, Daniel, Catsix, whoever else is over there fighting ignorance (I assumed ‘Renate’ was a poster from over here… she’s not?):
I applaud you for commencing and continuing a coherent disussion. I cannot BELIEVE some of the people that posted there. I am SO SPOILED by this MB that, after reading that one thread over there, I was running screaming for the hills. Are there really people out there like that? That call themselves ‘feminists’? I am SO BUMMED at their attitude of fucking idiocy. [Rolley-eyes smilie, indeed. Give it a fucking rest, Missy… Miss whatever-the-fuck-your-cutesie-superior-sounding-long-name is.]
There are actually a couple of valid issues raised in that thread.
One really struck a chord with me. I used to date a guy who considered my orgasm his accomplishment. He truly didn’t care about my pleasure–he just wanted to acheive a certain number! He also wanted me to yell and scream and holler loudly enough so that “people on the street could hear me.” So yes, I have experienced some of what those women are accusing men of doing.
But somehow, I managed to throw off the yoke of the patriarchal society that was imposing those sexual constructs upon me–I dumped the jerk.
Gee, I wish I knew of a forum where I could discuss such issues intelligently… :j
http://www.msmagazine.com/cgi-local/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=14;t=001420
This one’s a fun one too.
Mark Twain is evil for saying he hated Jane Austen and wanted to dig up her corpse and beat it?
Gaaah!
This one’s a fucking classic:
“These aren’t trolls. They’re just much farther down the river of Patriarchy, awash in the whitewater of denial while we bask on the shallows of self-awareness.”
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Yeah – that smacked so much of self-righteous-prickiness that i didn’t figure it was worth responding to.
The other thread, though – about shit you loved as a kid and are horrified at now – I can relate to. James Bond is, indeed, pretty fucked up.
Haven’t gotten to the Mark Twain part yet.
Daniel
Yeah, I almost registered to call her on this one, but I just couldn’t think of what to say. Not to mention that it’s just such a horrible metaphor that she should be forced to orgasm in front of her keyboard for writing it. Twice. And then have to fake a third.
Amazing that when the Dopers came on and started talking sense, the whole discussion just ground to a halt…felt so much like a high school clique where everyone stops talking and turns their back when the smart kid comes into the room. Also amazing that, even though I wasn’t paying attention to poster’s names, I noticed immediately when a Doper started writing…Guin, you’re great!
I love how their thread has now turned into:
Someone please inform them that before catsix showed up, it wasn’t a “discussion”, it was a pity party.