Letters to the Editor
-
Decidedly Anti-American?
Not only cowardly, but also prone to hyperbole. As I said, you don't have to use your real name. Very few of us do. It's a matter of consistency and being able to respond to ideas. If, as in your example, you used the name "Publius", I could address this post to Publius, just as you addressed your post to Emmers. So I've given you a courtesy (a name by which I can be addressed) that you have not given me or any of the other people who read this website. I also specifically stated that I thought there was a purpose to anonymous posting (to speak about a personal/sensitive issues). But I believe that making a run-of-the-mill post about how women don't have it so bad/men are abused too/feminists have bad ideas doesn't merit that protection. So I wasn't saying that Salon should stop you from posting anonymously - that's your right, certainly - I was just saying that you are a coward for doing so.
-
It's pronounced Publius, it's just spelled
Anonymous.
Why are you getting in my face for the way I pronounce my name?
-
Emmers
Another nice advantage of nicknames in these letter forums is that when CERTAIN people post, you just skip right over them, becuz they say the same thing day after day (bendover, brightstar, et al); or they make every single solitary subject all about themselves (AKA Blowhard).
-
On my daughter:
I post this just to clarify so no one misunderstands Anonymous 03:26 PM's misleading posts. (I never reply directly to him on principle because he is a dishonest troll. He often lies about what I have said including the lie that I oppose Anonymous posts.)
My daughter is a skinny 25 year old. She rarely drinks. Drinking causes weight gain. She does not smoke pot. Pot causes weight gain. She does not eat sweets. Sugar is evil. She has never been pregnant. Pregnancy makes you gain weight. She is a health fanatic, not a sex fanatic. Like most 25 year old women she is not a virgin. I never expected she would be. Right now she is not in a relationship and is not looking. As a skinny attractive blond with a drop dead gorgeous face, I have ample evidence she attracts plenty of male attention. She, when a teenage girl, went through a boy crazy phase, as do most girls that age do. However she also went though the Unitarian-Universalist Church's very extensive sex education program and she certainly knows how to say no when she chooses and yes when she chooses and what to do to protect herself from unintended pregnancy and disease. I recommend that church's sex education program highly.
As to her private sex life, since she is over age 18, how the hell should I know? It is not my business. It is not any one's business and other people not of her generation have no business assuming things about young women of her generation. Calling them sluts because they think they are entitled to have the same sexual freedom as young men is simply sexist.
If one doesn't like young people enjoying sexual freedom and wants to use the slut label then one should make damn sure to apply it to young men as well. It takes two to tango -- consensually.
People who want to use guilt-tripping and rape scares and moral judgments to curtail the sexual freedom of young women want to control women PERIOD. For adult women to be able to speak a clear no to sexual exploitation, we have to allow them to also say yes to sometimes risky behavior. Prescriptive notions about hookup culture and how young women ought to behave is nothing more that a desire to reassert control over women's bodies. The culture war over women's bodies -- make no mistake about it -- is about stripping them of their right to make reproductive choices, nurse their children, choose to work as mothers or choose to stay home, choose to marry or choose to remain single (and all the permutations in between), choose to remain celibate, choose to have many partners, choose their clothing, choose their work, choose what they put into their bodies, choose to refuse medication.
Choose.
Choose.
Choose.
Most of all, to choose to say NO to rape. If women cannot choose, they can never be free and equal citizens.
This is NOT about stupid choices. It's about choices, stupid.
The opposition of the trolls here is about curtailing the freedom of women. It's as simple as that.
However, if we respond to them, we have taken our eyes off the prize and given our attention to guys who do not deserve our energy or attention.
That is why I ignore the troll who calls me Agent Smith.
-
Agent Smith, I defended your daughter and all her choices! I defended her from you!
Agent Smith, you were the person that grew offended by Rambling Rose and what she had to say about women that got shitfaced to the point of not being able to make those choices and then blaming men.
I defended your daughter!
I would expect you to thank me, except I have harbor no such expectations of you.
As to why I call you Agent Smith, we've been over that.
You post anonymously, and you constantly call for an authoritarian punish the evil doers (that are inevitably men in your scenarios (just as you did in the very first comment in this thread)), and you keep on trying to take away the speech of those that dissent with you, now you're doing it again, by misrepresenting what Rambling Rose and what I had to say, and by godwinning the thread with your spurious claim that this is about removing choice from women.
We want women to have choice. With choice comes responsibility. If women don't want the responsibility, there is no reason for society to respect their choices.
-
* a note
My paraphase about keeping our eyes on the prize by taking our eyes off the guys is from a famous essay by Sonia Johnson.
-
Definitely sad when a total stranger has to intervene between mother and daughter
I wish more mothers could support their daughters instead of claiming they tramp around like sluts.
I wish there was some sort child advocate I could turn Agent Smith's daughter towards her to help them both out with their obvious communication difficulties.