I’m a little drained and just going through one of those completely unmotivated phases. I’ll think “hey, I ought to blog about that,” but I stop before slapping together a piddly three paragraphs of “LiLo a LOLA? LOLWHUT?” (Though now that I have a title for that blog post, maybe I will write it!)

Yeah. So I’ve been spending my time playing around with Perler fuse beads, rearranging my apartment, and dispensing my wit and humor around the tubes. Oh, and doing a bunch of navel gazing. We can’t forget about the navel gazing.

For a really long time during horrendous breakups, as in breakups from horrible relationships where the aftermath was almost bad enough to wish it never happened, I’d get pretty pissed about friend fallout. It holds true even if it’s a platonic or friend “breakup.” I thought I’d have more to babble about this, but I’m going to leave it in the ever capable hands of “Harriet J.” from fugitivus.net. (And yeah, I know that I now run the risk of her getting her blog trolled. Full disclosure: I generally agree with everything she’s said, specifically on abuse, leaving abusive friend/relationships. If you feel compelled to comment to her, don’t act like a douchebag.)

Anyway. This is important shit. Read it. Emphasis throughout is mine, not hers:

I want to tell the full story of what propelled me to start this blog in the first place.

After I left Flint, I had to deal with friend fallout. Everybody does after a break-up, no matter how good or bad the break-up was. It’s crap no matter what, but there’s this narrative that you can avoid most of the bullshit just by acting with dignity: don’t talk heinous inappropriate shit about your ex, don’t “force” your friends to choose, and just generally move on with grace. That all sounds reasonable enough, if what you had was a reasonable relationship and a reasonable break-up. If what you had was years of abuse and a rape to top it off, doing something reasonable like seeking out crucial emotional support from friends is seen as talking heinous shit, forcing them to choose, and refusing to move on – which also makes it easy for your friends to dismiss you as a vengeful lying bitch, fucking up their ethics. All your rapist has to do is cry a little and say, “I really hope the best for her, she’s a great person,” and suddenly he’s this awesome guy that you, the rape victim, should really shut the fuck up about.

[...]

How I did it was ugly. I used a lot of kinda sort maybe could you I guess the thing is not that I’ saying you would and I don’t really care but what I mean is you know? I had almost no skills in standing up for myself, and didn’t really feel like developing them during an argument about whether or not I was really raped, and if so, whether or not I ought to just shut the fuck up about it already. I was determined to be some dignified picture of you-can’t-tell-I’m-a-rape-victim-because-I’m-so-strong, hoping this would gain me some kind of foothold against Flint.

I mean, I had no interest in playing little power games by trying to steal all our mutual friends away, but Flint did. Fighting back by not fighting sounded like the noble way, but it also sounded and felt a lot like abuse.

More located here. A lot of her posts have resonated with me since I started reading her blog about a month ago, and finding it gave me one of those “ILU INTERTUBES, LET’S NEVER BE APART EVER AGAIN!” moments.

I spent the entire day sobbing, looking up adoption stories, and eating boxed macaroni and cheese.  Because, you know, you probably would, too, if you had an (almost) eleven year old out there and if no one bothered to make sure you were okay.  It’s fucking cool, though.  It’s not like it’s anything out of the ordinary or anything.

Actually, wait, I lied.  I spent a good portion of the day asleep because why would I want to be awake for this shit?  Now I’m intending on getting shitfaced before I fall back into bed and prying myself away from the computer so I don’t keep putting up teary tweets and subjecting others to my hot mess.  Thank Christ for the internet, or else no one would have a place to document all of their darkest thoughts, amirite?

As I mentioned in a Facebook status earlier today, I am so sick of seeing bell hooks’ and Sookie Stambler’s comments regarding limelight seeking activists play out.* I’m really just over it. I am sick to death of seeing people get manipulated by this power hungry bullshit. (Oh, how I feel like I should be drawing some sort of parallel to government.) I am sick to death of seeing women’s choices, especially ones that impact no one but her and her alone, getting nitpicked. I am sick to death of seeing backbiting, stereotypical bullshit play out between other women. I am sick to death of seeing a woman’s choice to go vegan automatically related to her looks. I am sick to death of mainstream political bullshit, of deliberate deceptions, and of just keeping my mouth shut about all this fucking shit. I am sick to death of people attempting to rule with fear and expecting others around them to kiss the fuckin’ ring, man.

Basically, I am just sick of all this negative bullshit.

I guess I should be happy that it’s spring and I’ve got the beginnings of an herb garden on my balcony. And awesome hair, of course. And a quiet apartment in the suburbs. And still unused gift cards from Christmas. And my birthday! And Libertarian Boyfriend. He’s pretty cool.

Okay, okay, so I guess I’ve got things to not rile me up (or the vodka is starting to kick in right about now), but it’s still infuriating. I mean, I get it, some people just suck. Unfortunately, they are the ones who go into politics.

* Movement women have always been turned off by the media’s necessity to create celebrities and superstars. This goes against our basic philosophy. We cannot relate to women in our ranks towering over us with prestige and fame. – Stambler, quoted by hooks; Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, pg. 7
As more and more women acquired prestige, fame, or money from feminist writings or from gains from feminist movement for equality in the work force, individual opportunism undermined appeals for collective struggle. Women who were not opposed to patriarchy, capitalism, classism, or racism labeled themselves “feminist.” hooks; ibid

Original link located here.  (Edit for clarity: this tweet went up on the 7th, the day the article was posted.)

Unless you’ve been under a rock, I’ve been posting a lot about this Bitch Magazine/biphobia debacle over the past few days.  (Gosh, I’m still waiting on that public apology I requested!)

Now, many fellow members of the LGBT community have made it clear that we have a HUGE problem with the headline and content of this piece.  Now, I don’t advocate that Bitch should remove old tweets, but I do think it’s telling that this tweet popped up on my Twitter about an hour ago:

(Original link located here.)

Seriously?  Really?  On what fucking planet is this acceptable?  It’s bad enough that Kelsey Wallace seems to think that the title was the only objectionable portion of the article, but to post the SAME article (with nothing changed by the title) again on their Twitter account stinks of childish stubbornness.

I’d rather get my feminist analysis elsewhere.

(But, as a side note, I did find this hilarious comment from Kelsey Wallace on the worldwide intertubes.  Scroll down until you hit it; in a nutshell, she has a problem with a blogger’s criticisms of Bitch‘s take on the travesty known as Jennifer’s Body.  It’s so professional of her to track down bloggers and chastise blog posts on their personal sites.  My favorite portion was this line “but I don’t think that warrants your questioning of our feminism or abilities as bloggers.”  Right, because disallowing non-mainstream feminist voices doesn’t imply that the Bitch editors are the arbiters of feminism, now does it?)

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If you’re reading this from my Facebook notes, please go to the original blog post (located here) to comment.

While I was enraged about the bi-phobic garbage presented in the infamous Casey Johnson/Tila Tequila article posted on Bitch Magazine, I made a sarcastic comment about how begging readers to donate money was a much better use of time than actually fixing the problem.  And what do you know?  A few days later, the Bitch Facebook page linked here in an attempt to beg for subscriptions.

My response to this (on Facebook) pretty much sums up my feelings on the whole matter:

LOL. THANK YOU FOR PROVING MY POINT.

This magazine is a fucking joke. See the handling of the Casey Johnson “article” if you don’t understand why. Hey Kelsey Wallace, thank you so much for ignoring my email after giving us the bullshit, pissy “you can email me if you have issues with Bitch” comment on that thread.

If this magazine’s interpretation of feminism has become posting homo/bi-phobic and misogynistic articles, all but ignoring complaints about them, and then begging readers to subscribe to this hot mess of a publication, then count me out. I’ll be removing myself as a fan and publishing my email to Kelsey on my website as a follow-up to my criticisms about the horrendous “Tila Tequila” post.

I’m certainly doing more for feminism there than reading this nonstop crapfest.

It’s beyond frustrating.  Web editor Kelsey Wallace spouted off a talking point about giving a crap and then completely ignored my email.  I gave her two business days to respond and watched her ignore my email in favor of putting up two posts on the website (one on the 9th and another yesterday, the 11th).  I’m so glad to see where Bitch Magazine’s priorities lie.

Here’s the content of the email that Ms. Wallace couldn’t bother to respond to:

Kelsey,

I think I’ve pretty much covered all of my complaints with the content.  In my opinion, Bitch’s online content has been steadily declining over the past six months.  Many of the pieces I have caught online have bordered on insipid, even when I do agree with the point.  Take the South Park piece, for example.  (Located here: http://bitchmagazine.org/post/come-on-down-to-south-park-and-watch-some-feminist-episodes)  I agree that Trey Parker & Matt Stone have presented a feminist (or at least feminist friendly) perspective in quite a few episodes of the show and – as both a radical feminist and a libertarian – would have loved to read a much more in-depth essay about the subject.  Instead, readers were treated to a shallow piece that barely scratched the surface or incorporated feminist theory into the discussion.  I copied & pasted the piece into Word and did a word count on it; it was 390 words and came in at around 1 page.  There is no reason why Juliana Tringali couldn’t have incorporated examples, criticism, and a little bit of feminist theory into a tight, polished essay instead of something that reads worse than most blog posts.

I used to be able to count on Bitch for making me think about things a little bit differently, but now I can only really count on Intro to Women’s Studies-esque discussions.  Natalie Stein wrote the type of article you expect to see in an Intro to WMST course just before the author gets schooled.  I’d really love to not be subjected to this crap from a “feminist” publication.  Bisexuals take shit from lesbians who think we aren’t gay enough or who want to label us as “dykes.”  Straight men either automatically assume you’re into threesomes or are so intimidated that you might know how to get a woman off better than them.  Straight women are often convinced you’re going to want to lez out with them or are threatened because you’re so much more exotic than they are.

All of this shit that we take is dismissive of the many facets of our sexuality, objectifies us, and is just bad news bears in general; these ideas are based – at least in part – by ill-formed stereotypes of bisexuality.  Instead of tearing down these stereotypes and misconceptions, Natalie focused more on tearing down the unlikable women attached to these stereotypes (to paraphrase a Facebook user: the unstable, exhibitionist bisexual and the fallen blonde heiress).  What could have been a powerful critique on the media circus surrounding this very sad, very real story turned into an excuse to say “HAHA BI = BAD IDEA!”  Geeze, there were so many different, feminist ways this discussion could have gone.  Y’all could have even used the Perez Hilton/Tila Tequila Twitter war (over Casey Johnson’s death) to talk about sexism within the LGBTQA community and stereotypes about LGBTQA women instead of this tripe.

Hiding behind a disclaimer means nothing, especially when it’s used to justify misogynist and homophobic crap.  As I mentioned in one of my Facebook comments, it’s not like unpopular feminist perspectives will be read in Bitch anytime soon – which is the reason newspapers, magazines, websites, etc. have a version of that disclaimer.  It’s downright shitty when – instead of being used for it’s intended purposes – the web editor hides behind such a disclaimer to justify a piece such as this one.  As a member of the LGBTQA community, it really feels like I’m being told that my complaints, issues, struggles, and oppression don’t matter, as long as no one’s feelings get hurt by Patty Heaton.  Honestly, if you can’t see how this is a problem, then I don’t know what to tell you.

In a similar vein, passing all the blame off onto the author is irresponsible of both you and Bitch Magazine, and your miffed tone when you first began receiving criticism is bullshit.  You came across as more annoyed than anything else because those uppity lesbos threw a shit fit; I’m sure this wasn’t your intention, but to be honest, your tone in your initial comment really pissed me off.  It really struck me as typical dismissive breeder bullshit.  Furthermore, before you can even attempt to defend an article about the LGBTQA community, you need to check your privilege and try to understand why so many of us took issues.

It’s fairly obvious that neither you nor Natalie even attempted to see where we were coming from here.  The “solution” was an apology posted way down in a Facebook comment thread that came across as an “I’m sorry if you got offended” styled “apology” and the title of the article was changed.  This was despite the fact that many commenters complained about the CONTENT of the article, myself included.  I really think you missed the point on this, considering you didn’t get that the title was only PART of the problem.  I’m not going to go through point by point and tell you everything that was sexist, homo/bi-phobic, and/or generally fucked up because – frankly – as a gender studies major, you should know better.  These are the reasons I said that I probably would not be restarting my subscription to the magazine; I don’t really want to pay money to be dismissed and have it defended.  I’m very disappointed with the Casey Johnson piece, and even more disappointed with the way it was handled; seriously, Kelsey, we didn’t even get a response from a Bitch Magazine rep until I mentioned I likely would not restart a subscription.

With all that being said, I do appreciate you opening your inbox for comments on Bitch, as well as coming online to facilitate a discussion.  Personally, I hope that this entire debacle can be used as a learning experience.  In the future, I deeply hope that Bitch will take a bit more responsibility when selecting pieces to run in print or online editions, that future authors will be a bit more sensitive to marginalized groups, and that the dreaded “opinion disclaimer” will be used for its intended purpose (instead of a way to deflect criticism from the magazine and its contributors).  As far as right now, I think the least that Bitch could do is put up a public apology on the main page from both Natalie and you; both of you have already apologized once in the infamous Facebook thread and we have every right to expect a formal, written apology on the main page.  I’m not saying that it will fix everything, but I think that it will go much further than you might think.

Thank you for letting me sound off to you.

Sincerely,
Vicki Moore

I don’t understand why this email – along with the suggestions in it – was ignored.  I guess that the Bitch staff has a huge case of butthurt when it comes to criticism directed at the magazine, which is pretty disappointing.  You would think that a magazine billing itself as an alternative to mainstream media might actually function in an alternative manner.

‘Magine that.

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If you’re reading this from my Facebook notes, please go to the original blog post (located here) to comment.

This all led the author to use the term “fake lesbian relationship” in her headline.

Luckily, many other Bitch readers were also pretty pissed about the off-base and phobic shit in the article. Frankly, I am shocked that anyone from Bitch thought this article should have been run on their website, but before I delve right into that mess, I really need to unpack all the sterotypical garbage here.

1. Oh, those darn attention seeking bisexuals!

As one Facebook user remarked, no one claims that Paris Hilton isn’t into dudes because she’s used her sexuality for attention. The attention seeking portion of it doesn’t make the sexuality any less real or valid, and is so heavily rooted in bi-phobia. What bisexual hasn’t heard claims that they’re just doing it for the attention, especially bisexual sex kittens – who are also always doing it for male attention? Surely no femme looking sex kitten or vamp type could have actual desire for another woman or even be experimenting; nope, it must be Girls Gone Wild syndrome.

2. Why can’t these homos be two-dimensional Super Gays instead of being nuanced individuals?

I can’t believe that Bitch Magazine would allow something to run that was so dangerously close to making a “credit to your race community” argument. Dude, really? Do I have to make more of a point here? Seriously, Tila Tequila, Courtenay Semel, Samantha Ronson, Portia De Rossi, Fergie, Perez Hilton, Neil Patrick Harris, Margaret Cho, Andy Dick, Sir Ian McKellen, Elton John, Jim McGreevey, Barney Frank, Dan Savage, and Christian Siriano are NOT the emperors of gay people. None of ‘em hold that title. They are not saints, they are not perfect, and they are certainly not two-dimensional stereotypes. Are we good on this?

3. OMG TILA TEQUILA HAS GONE OVER HER 140 CHARACTER LIMIT OF GRIEF!

Before Shot at Love, the only real distinction Tila had was to be the person with the most popular Myspace page ever. Shocking that she might grieve online? Let’s be honest, yeah, it’s not the smartest idea. If nothing else, when you’re emotional, you are so much more likely to say things you’ll later regret, and given this twisted mess of clusterfuckery, it’s probably a much better idea to take a breather and log off Twitter for a few days. But is Tila Tequila really the first person to publicly mourn the loss of a loved one? Is she really the first person to make bad decisions on the internet? Even if she was the first to do it, how on Earth is this proof that this is somehow a “fake” lesbian relationship?

There was a lot of great feminist theorizing that could have happened here. We could have seen a discussion open up about the media circus surrounding Casey Johnson’s death, or even a discussion about any of the objectionable portions of Stein’s post; instead, Bitch Magazine’s web editor, Kelsey Wallace, felt that this bi-phobic tripe was a better use of bandwidth. How do I know this? Well, Ms. Wallace jumped into the fray of critical comments (after I had commented that I would likely never get another subscription to the magazine) with the following miffed comment:

Hi, this is Kelsey, the Web Editor at Bitch. Thank you everyone for your comments. I have contacted Natalie, the author of this post, and asked her to respond to your concerns about her interpretation of Casey Johnson and Tila Tequila’s relationship. Please keep our policy in mind that “Opinions expressed on this website are those of their respective authors, not necessarily those of Bitch.”

As for those of you who feel that all of the content on the Bitch Media website is rapidly declining and is at the level of a high school women’s studies course, please feel free to contact me (kelsey@b-word.org) to relay any specific criticism you may have.

Thanks again,
Kelsey Wallace

Notice two things: the statement does not address the specific issues others had with the post, and it uses a disclaimer to deflect all criticism onto the author. Opinion disclaimers are meant to protect a publication from extreme criticism over an unpopular view. In this context, it would be meant to cover the mag’s asses if they had someone writing about why they don’t support gay marriage because they don’t support marriage (for example). The disclaimer isn’t intended as a clever little shield to deflect rightful criticism such as horribly bi-phobic language and points made in a supposedly feminist publication. (What’s next? Are we going to see articles warning us about the Lavender Menace?)

By hiding behind it and hanging Natalie Stein out to dry, Kelsey (and, by extension, Bitch Magazine) might as well be saying, “not our problem!” I guess we’ll just ignore the web editor’s responsibilities re: approving pieces for publication. It was completely irresponsible to allow this article to run in the first place. The solution was to change the headline of the piece (to “Sapphic Salon: The Death of An Heiress, The Milking of the Press“), to completely disregard the issues within the article, and to give a half-hearted “sorry if you were offended” styled “apology” within Facebook comments. As of right now (11 pm EST, 1/9/10), there is still not an apology or any acknowledgment that the article was shouldn’t have been posted in its current form.

Considering that Bitch likely won’t be asking Angela Keaton to contribute any pieces to their site under the guise that her opinions are not necessarily shared by Bitch Magazine’s, I think it’s safe to call “bullshit.”  It’s even more depressing to me because it feels like Ron Paul campaign BS all over again.  Why is it that my issues – as an LGBTQA woman – can be sold out and dismissed, but it would be the worst crime in the world to give Jill Stanek a voice? (I say this as being one of the main organizers on this event.) I’m guessing that it will be a cold day in hell before we see Kelsey Wallace giving either Wendy McElroy or Camille Paglia a voice in the publication.

It’s the same old homo/bi-phobic crap that we queers have been subjected to since the beginning of friggin feminism. It’s tired and played out, but sadly, probably won’t fully change; instead, privileged straight people will continue to act like they know how we should feel about any subject. Maybe we would all be a little better off if we started listening to marginalized groups and stopped speaking for them.

Then again, what do I know?

Follow up: Kelsey Wallace, web editor of Bitch Magazine, ignores reader complaints.

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If you’re reading this from my Facebook notes, please go to the original blog post (located here) to comment.

As I have mentioned on my blog previously (see here), I was a victim of backstabbing by a college arm of the Democratic Party.  I don’t know the exact reasons, but judging from the little bit I do know, I have always felt that I was targeted for my refusal to blindly submit to the party.  For God’s sake, as far as Dems go, I’m Team Kucinich all the way.  (Btdubs, the only way I’d vote for Ron Paul is if it were a Kucinich-Paul [or, sigh, even Paul-Kucinich] ticket.)

I have never really meshed up with the Democrats on a lot of issues.  I could enumerate them at length here, but if you’ve been reading my blog, then you’re really well aware of my political beliefs.  (Although perhaps I should post an “in a nutshell” list.  Maybe another day.)  Given that I held a position that was a clusterfuck, did a great deal of work, cleaning up messes, and putting out fires for the president of the organization, and also doubled to tripled membership, I thought I was a shoe-in for the position of president.  As it turned out, there was a drawn out, concerted effort to oust me and destroy any of my credibility whatsoever within that group.  The position went to another woman (one whose political positions and opinions were not terribly well known before she was handed the position) and I essentially washed my hands of the organization.

For the past year and a half, I’ve just always dismissed that incident as something that one particularly scummy friend and several scummy acquaintances had cooked up together; I always chalked up to a one-time thing, and used it as a learning opportunity to realize that I wasn’t cut out for major party politics.  Politically, I began to map out my own path, really think about how I felt on various issues, read more, etc., before deciding to slap on some Docs and let loose with some feminist rage within the Libertarian Party.

However, this all changed within the past few days.  A friend of mine (whom I’ve referenced before) was running the LGBT group on campus.  He, for a lot of reasons, recently broke with the DNC.  His reasons for this break are irrelevant.  He remained a dedicated LGBT activist; as a gay man, it’s not shocking that he would still be active in the community and in its activism circles.  The problem is that he was beginning to criticize the God-King’s Administration.

I think we see where this is going.

The problem with the major party system is that there is such a huge fear that someone who has rejected it might actually make some headway.  No, scratch that.  Democrats in my state (Pennsylvania) worked to keep Carl Romanelli (Green) off the ballot during the 2006 Senatorial race.  (Mr. Romanelli was later fined $80,000 to reimburse Democrats who had challenged petitions. Or, if you’re third party, you know the real reason he was fined: because he had the fucking audacity to run for public office.  What an asshole!)  They claimed he would siphon votes from Bob Casey Jr. and would be a huge threat to the Democratic Party ticket.  Given that third party candidates rarely, if ever, get enough of the vote to actually make a difference in an election (and there has been speculation as to whether third party voters would even bother voting in elections that were limited to only Democratic and Republican candidates), it seems to me that there is one logical conclusion.

Really?  Do I need to spell it out for you?

Okay, fine: the obvious conclusion is that major parties simply want to throw anyone off the ballot as a means of asserting their own power and maintaining the status quo.

Now, I’m guessing you can probably see the connections here between state and national level politics, and the political bullshit that goes on in a student group at a third rate state university.  These various individuals who want to make their big splash in politics after they complete their worthless Political Science degrees look at college not only as a place where many of us learned to take wicked bong rips, or do kegstands, or the miracle of Plan B, but also as their first introduction to making alliances, building your following, and squashing dissidence the first time it rears its ugly head.

And you wonder why libertarians hate the system and hate the state so much.  Neither of the major parties care about your rights or your freedoms, and if you can’t see that, the you probably wonder why libertarians are such confrontational assholes.  If given the choice, I’d much rather be the confrontational asshole who tries to promote an alternate perspective over allowing former friends and “colleagues” the ability to use non-partisan organizations as thinly veiled shills for major party politics.

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If you’re reading this from my Facebook notes, please go to the original blog post (located here) to comment.

Damnit.  This is a giant pain the balls.

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If you’re reading this from my Facebook notes, please go to the original blog post (located here) to comment.

The biggest reason I didn’t want to quit (aside from the fear of gaining a little bit of weight) was that once you go from addict to former addict, it’s like going from uber cool to fucking dork. Like, your Tuesday night goes from adventures involving waking up in bus stations covered in your own vomit to spending six hours scrapbooking. (And not in an ironic manner.)

I don’t want to scrapbook in a non-ironic manner. Smoking is cool and sexy (and any smoker who tries to tell you otherwise is a goddamn liar. There isn’t a smoker out there who thinks that shit isn’t cool. We don’t need slick marketing to tell us that smoking makes you a sex kitteny badass, it’s just common sense). I don’t want to be a dork. I started smoking when it was acceptable to do so; i.e., when I was a stupid 15 year old. It was cutesy to develop a life-threatening and costly addiction then!

I’ve been trying to tell Libertarian Boyfriend that the best way to celebrate my not having smoked in two weeks (as of Saturday) is with a pack of Marlboro Light 100s. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re seeing eye to eye on that one.

Since Twitter came along, no one really writes on these walls anymore.