as you can see in felipe's post above and in my reaction to them, there doesn't seem to be really outrage in Ms Clark-Flory's post here. Did you see Ms Harding's post against the Democratic party? That was outrage.

Take the sentence that you criticized in your post: Ms Clark-Flory's "we'll have serious reason to worry when violence against women loses that edge". To me, this means: Rammstein is using the violence theme to achieve the aura of a social outcast--they're not actually trying to support violence against women as a goal (see her "Kudos for the hint of female consent"), which indeed would be wrong. Where's the outrage?

What I see in her post is that she doesn't like the use of violence, especially violence against women, to build this social outcast aura. Which, as you point out, is OK: it's simply her opinion. You're free to disagree and tell everybody why.

Now you're saying: "Clark-Flory is suggesting that... [violence in art leads to violence in life argument]." Maybe she is, in which case I think she is more wrong than right. But this is an opinion, which can be discussed with pros and cons if you want. She also clearly doesn't like the music of Rammstein, which is again an opinion, which you can disagree with and offer arguments for if you want. Please go ahead.

So, for instance, I actually agree with your point about no subjective difference (i.e. difference in procedure, in conclusion method) between objecting to an album cover depicting violence against women and objecting to album cover depicting a gay couple. (Of course, there might be a difference in the supporting arguments, but that's another point.) I also think that violence in art is a complicated thing, and that jumping to facile conclusions doesn't help. I also agree that trying to censor what I personally doesn't like is not a good idea.

And I frankly think Ms Clark-Flory agrees with that, too. She just doesn't like Rammstein, and didn't like that cover either. To the extent that there may be a "art-influences-life" argument, it's made without any grandiose claims (her reference to the Columbine massacre, for instance, is immediately hedged with a "dubiously").

It seems to me your first post shows much more outrage than Ms Clark-Flory's (plus also a couple of wrong statements -- 'anti-porn, anti sexualisation bent', when talking about a post by a writer who is on record as having claimed that she actually enjoys porn and that porn played a role in her own sexual experimentation -- see her In defense of casual sex somewhere here in Salon).

You're probably right, and this says a lot about the analysis of violence in American culture. People jump to conclusions a bit too quickly, because violence in art has to be oh so bad, or so common wisdom goes.

To me, the reality is important, even if the point of the post is the perception. The difference between reality and perception would be an interesting thing to think about. (For instance, how do people react to Rammstein in Germany, where there is no translation problem involved?)

I know it's a sin to nit-pick, but I can't resist... it should be "Du bist keine Berlinerin", not kein, since Berlinerin is feminine.

That might not be outrage, but TCF surely dismisses Rammstein's musical accomplishments and pins their current success solely of the imagery contained in the album's artwork. A conclusion that is not born out by their track record or an assertion TFC would have made had she done the slightest smidgen of research.

Indeed. But your first post was about outrage, and my argument was that there was none there, and I'm glad that you agree. If all that you mean is that Ms Clark-Flory's opinion is wrong, oh, that's another question. This can be discussed. (If you have arguments to show that there's more than using the violence-against-women gig to get notoriety, by all means present them. I'm not saying you're wrong, you may be right and the reasons may be obvious as you suggest, I merely don't know much about Rammstein because theirs is not my kind of music. But I have nothing in principle against them.)

As for men celebrating women committing violence against men, I am not so sure of that.

I give Lara Croft as exhibit A, together with mostly all action movies that have some badass female character--I'll bet the viewers are overwhemingly male. I don't have the stats, though, so I'm willing to be convinced by someone who does. I've heard quite often in discussions about sex the guys who go "a sexy girl who can and does know how to use a machine gun... woo-hoo!"

As for the Dixie Girls, you may be right. The guys who like girls who kill guys don't like them to kill their boyfriends, they like them to kill 'bad guys'. Killing one's boyfriend does sound like chick flick stuff (though the gays might disagree). I suppose there's some BDSM thrill in there somewhere, but you can see this in a lot of places (the first that comes to mind is action comics, from She-Hulk to the X-Men).

So, if you consider all example of female-on-male violence in our culture... I think most of the consumers are male. Again, I'm willing to be convinced of the opposite if someone has good stats, but that's my current opinion.