Bad dog, no cookie
I wasn’t going to write about this. Mostly because I believe that the post was at least partly motivated by theferrett’s continued quest for to be famous on teh intaerwebs, and I don’t believe in rewarding bad-dog behavior. I've made that mistake with real dogs before. I get amused or charmed by brattiness, only to find the dog won't listen to me and is peeing on the floor.

A lot of very clever people have written things that resonate with me, most of which comes down to keep your rules/laws/hands off my body. I’m not getting into that, because frankly it should be so fucking obvious to anyone that a woman’s body is her own, and NO you really really don’t get to co-opt it for wank fantasy/social experiment of fail, and when you do you’re no better than any other man who has used his privilege, his power, his brute strength to keep a woman down.

No, really.

And I think this is where theferrett's brain malfunctioned (I mean aside from the obvious), because it’s clear reading his blog that he thinks of himself as an ally of women.

The problem with identifying yourself as an ally or a “good guy” (and as a white woman interested in racism/social justice I do get this) is the danger of developing a blind spot to your own privilege. That’s what I see happening here. theferrett sees himself as an ally; therefore it is impossible that he would/could participate in something demeaning or harmful to women.

That’s a mighty comfortable place to live, isn’t it?

So what the hell am I talking about? The lolcat (minus actual lolcats, cause LAZY) version could be summarized like this:

theferrett: ZOMG Boobie groping for grate empowerment
Wimmin: huh wut?
theferrett: Boobies!!!
Wimmin: dude, you’re objectification is not revolutionary and it’s not OK.
theferrett: UR interrogating my sexist bullshit boobage groping from the wrong perspective!
Wimmin: How are you an asshat? Let me list the ways…
Mrs.Theferrett: well, I’M a woman and I’M OK with it, therefore it’s TOTES feminism
theferrett: See??? A woman thought it was OK therefore boobie groping is totes feminist empowerment
Wimmin: and we’re still counting…

See, you know what? That easy dismissal of women’s concern about their safety because they don’t see the magicbeautyjoyjoy of your boob groping fits the definition of male privilege. And it isn’t any less oppressive or sexist when wielded by an “ally” or a “good guy”.

Oh, and while we’re on the topic of dumb privilege arguments; just because a token women/minority will argue for your idiocy does not mean that a) you’re any less of an asshat, or b) that you get a free pass for being an asshat. Seriously. You’re like half a step from “some of my best friends are …” so cut that shit out.

So I keep reading that bit in the middle, the part when woman after woman was saying UM NO, and theferrett and his boy-os were insisting that they just didn’t get it – it reminds me more and more of that evil smirk my dog would give me before he's piss all over the living room. Remarkably theferrett has maintained his utter cluelessness and written YET MOAR about how boob groping should only be practiced among small groups because other fanboys – you know, those real mouth-breathers – will take this beautiful, amazing, powerful thing (that you nay-sayers STILL just don’t understand, but here – let my wife/token woman defend it moar) and make it something perverse and dirty, STILL doesn’t get that he’s actually part of the problem.

That he isn’t an ally or a good guy here.

I feel myself itching to roll up a newspaper or grab their necks and rub their noses in the giant puddle* they’re making. But what the hell would the point be? The jolly great thing about privilege is they gets to go on peeing on the carpet and ignoring the rest of us.

This grand new experiment was about the commoditization of women’s bodies. That isn’t revolutionary (at least, not to a lot of women. Fanboy mileage may vary), nor is it a particularly interesting idea. In fact it’s pretty much the same idea that men have been selling to women for a good long time.




*Please note that I am 100% opposed to rubbing a dog’s nose in urine. The technique doesn’t work, it’s needlessly cruel and sadistic, and just causes the animal stress. However those objections do NOT carry over to being against rubbing men’s noses in urine. In fact, I wholeheartedly support the rubbing of mens noses in urine, be it for fun or profit.

edit There's a great round up of links here