Some people see a movie about a 60 foot ape, and see a 60 foot ape: these people are called "normal." Some people see a movie about a 60 foot ape, and see a black man feverishly trying to get it on with a white woman: these people are called "racists" or "insane." People who equate black males with apes are highly suspect in my view. Think about it.

King Kong is a movie about a huge ape, nothing more. Get over it. Would you have preferred a giant black and white panda, or maybe a massive polar bear? Next we'll be hearing about how Godzilla is symbolic of Japanese people's hatred of American blacks, who they see as hell bent on destroying urban environments.

Why don't you find something substantial to bitch about, like the horrible working conditions or poor wages that many Americans, black and white, labor under? Not everything is about race, and manufactured, paranoid outrage detracts from the real issues.

...and talking about it with your father-in-law over Thanksgiving turkey while fantasizing about being hung from the ceiling and screwed senseless. Do people actually pay to read crap like this? Something about that gaping orifice in the bird invited the comparison, I imagine, in much the same way talk about gay men getting it on has one particularly rabid wingnut obsessing about "man on dog" sex. Why am I not surprised that the ones who are the most "moral" and righteously indignant about others' sexuality are so often given to the more bizarre and obsessive aspects of it?

... might reflect on the fact that with over 750,000 members, CWFA has over 3X the membership of NOW, and there is certainly no shortage of people in this country who oppose abortion, pornography or "free love." I'd like to believe that the sort of anti-male rhetoric that has become the lingua franca of NOW, CWFA and Madison Avenue doesn't appeal to today's "mainstream" woman, but I have to imagine that they take this approach with women because it sells...or at least they think it does. I'm sure most people are smart enough to realize that most men aren't rapists and that Barbie and Tinky Winky aren't going to make kids go gay, but it doesn't stop them from patronizing organizations that do.

... then who are we denigrating when we call men "dicks," "pricks," or "scumbags?" Which sex are we denigrating when we insult lesbians for being "butch" and acting like men? How about young women who call the more effiminate members of their gender "girly girls?" Perhaps we should all learn to stick to gender/racially neutral insults like "asshole" or "fuckwit" when we wish to denigrate people we don't like. It would be oh so much more considerate.

Maybe the real issue here is not that we use a part of the female anatomy to denigrate men, but that men who do not measure up to some societal notion of "manliness" will inevitably have their "manhood" questioned, in whatever terms, and not just by other men. A good example of this will be to try and engage any sizeable group of feminists in a debate about reproductive choice for men. You are guaranteed to have at least some of those feminists, at some point in the debate, question your "manhood" or perceived lack thereof. Then of course there is the old standby of being accused of having a little dick or being unable to get laid if you ever dare to question any aspect of female sexual behavior.

I doubt there has ever been a major war in any country at any time in history where some group of women did not appoint themselves the guardians of manliness by criticizing the men who stayed behind as cowards. I just got a dose of this myself the other day when I pointed out within a group I go to that there is no way I would ever have served in a barbaric and unjust war like Iraq, to which one woman in attendance suggested that maybe the problem is that I "don't have the balls" to fight. Well, last I checked, I do have a pair of balls, but I wasn't aware until now they were necessary for combat effectiveness. The "Four Feathers" scenario of women who don't have to fight labelling the men who chose not to as "cowards" is alive and well.

But don't expect many feminists to ever acknowledge that men are denigrated for any perceived failure to live up to their roles in society, not least of which by feminists themselves.