sundries

[rm]

Sexism, let me count the ways: a new book in the UK asserts that women who allow nannies to help raise their children produce boys who grow up to be adulterers. And the girl children? Well they just become sluts and substance abusers.

The high school that canceled the prom because of a lesbian in a tux also reportedly repeatedly suspended a transgender student for earlier this year. In the realm of the slightly bizarre, this has come to light through Dan Savage, who has a good record about a lot of things and is entertaining as fuck, but has also been repeatedly faily regarding transphobia.

Wreckage of WWII plane found in Oregon.

That man who would become Pope Benedict XVI was kept more closely apprised regarding a sexual abuse case in Germany than previous church statements have indicated. Anyone got any insight into precedence/likelihood of the pope resigning?

I know we're supposed to hate A.I. (which I still think came perilously close to being one the greatest films ever made in spite of all the ways it falls apart; when I think about what it could have been had its vision fully succeeded I can barely breathe), but I can't introduce this link in any other way: Man Hatten, the place where the lions weep.

Dear Amanda Palmer: The problem with hipster racism is that if people don't know you it doesn't sound like a joke (which was never very funny anyway); it sounds like racism. Also, despite the illusions that celebrity media and internet culture encourage, most of the people who are really pissed off at you right now, don't know you; hence your racist joke sounding, you know, racist. Also, please stop contributing to our societal abuse of the word irony.

That said...

Dear Everyone Else, I am extremely sick of people calling her "a bitch" and "a slut" and other gendered terms that are about shaming female gender and sexuality because they either are (rightfully) angry about this latest debacle and default to those words (I'm working on it too!) or, and this is what I'm really irritated about, because they don't like that she's marrying Neil Gaiman.

This thing is about Amanda Palmer and who she is in public. While this thing may or may not be relevant to who she or Gaiman are are in private, if you don't know them personally (_personally_, not whatever quirk of internet/celebrity culture put the whole Internet on a first name basis with them) who they are at home isn't relevant to you, and the jealousy and misogyny I've seen directed at her deeply, deeply muddies the water in the critical response to her work and the performance of her public life. Please knock it off. It's not helping, and it's not appropriate.

At long last, a URL and registration information for the Bristol conference at which I'll be presenting the paper about mourning for fictional characters: Desiring the Text, Touching the Past: Towards An Erotics of Reception.

Observation about White Collar fandom: Look kids, the rape narratives are back. No, really. Rape hasn't been a huge topic in Torchwood fandom at all. White Collar fandom? Rape, rape, rape, prison rape, prison rape, prison rape. Some of it's kinkmemes, some of it's people processing their own experiences, some of it's just there, but I'd forgotten this aspect of fandom. This sort of thing was prominent in Harry Potter fandom, but it had slipped my mind the degree to which its thematic absence from Torchwood (although I've seen a few stories here and there) is atypical of both fandom and media in general.

Comments

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I really really hate the conflation of AFP's public persona and her relationship with Neil Gaiman. Beyond it being irrelevant to the subject at hand, it's so deeply misogynistic that I find myself wanting to defend her existence, when I'm deeply disappointed in her truly faily utterances.

[st-aelphaba.livejournal.com]

My ex-Catholic husband says it's highly unlikely, that he's more likely to call for papal clemency. List of popes who have resigned: http://atheism.about.com/od/popesandthepapacy/a/resignations_2.htm

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

AFP has completely lost any respect I ever had for her, and I used to be a huge fan. The last year's worth of fail has guaranteed she'll never see my money again. However, I may just go buy that Lady GaGa album...

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

This. Not a chance in hell he'll resign. The Catholic hierarchy is rotten to the core.

This is all I can think about them these days: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." Mt. 23:27

[sethg]

I love how having a degree in psychiatry gives you license to just make shit up about “child-rearing practice A causes pathology B” without having to even look for, y’know, evidence.

Considering all the stories I hear about “helicopter parents”, the current generation of twenty- and thirty-somethings seems a little too exclusively attached to Mom and Dad. Maybe their parents should have spent more time leaving them with nannies.

[elisi]

Rape hasn't been a huge topic in Torchwood fandom at all.
Hmm, I never thought about it, but that's very true. I wonder why that is, since all the tools are there - that spray Owen uses + retcon... Maybe something about the omni-sexual nature of the show, which means the characters will sleep together without having to be forced?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Also we don't see any of our main characters in situations that can imply sex peril, I don't think. In White Collar and Harry Potter I think those leaps are easier.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

"Sex peril"? I don't think I've ever heard that term before. Do you mean circumstances in which sex can be used as a weapon?

[kessie.livejournal.com]

I will be very surprised if the Pope resigns. It's happened before, but it's rare, and the Church is still clinging to its 'untouchable' status with white-knuckled hands.

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

I think you're onto something there; it's missing that element of sex-as-special-case that makes taking it by force into a threat worth treating as its own narrative focus. [Edit: if sex isn't something to RESIST, then there's comparatively less incentive to consider taking it as an avenue of attack?] That said, one could possibly make a case that psychological rape might have been played up more, since the show does have that added possibility of screwing more intensely and directly with minds than some, what with the retcon angle (what Gwen did with Rhys does come to mind here)...

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yes, I meant sexual. But I'm tired and on a deadline elsewhere. I'd edit the comment, but that can't happen after comments receive comments.

Of course, now that I think about it, John Hart does sort of threaten people sexually, but that's like one note in a symphony of threats. I don't see people latching onto it in fic that much.

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

Hart threatens people sexually as part and parcel of seeing the world through a sexualized lens, I would say; it's not that he considers it as some sort of special OMG Horror to do to people, it's just how he relates in general, so it's incidental to, as you say, the symphony.

[elisi]

That said, one could possibly make a case that psychological rape might have been played up more, since the show does have that added possibility of screwing more intensely and directly with minds than some, what with the retcon angle
*nods* I think that the way the show treats retcon is maybe a factor - it's seen as a tool, mainly. Although Adam of course showcased the dangers of being able to manipulate people's memories... Hmm.

if sex isn't something to RESIST, then there's comparatively less incentive to consider taking it as an avenue of attack?
I think having Jack as the main authority figure is actually quite important in this respect. Jack is overtly sexual, but not when it comes to threatening people. Sex is, although often screwed up (see Gwen/Owen), generally portrayed as a *good* thing.

Must ponder more, my head is full of thoughts and I'm not sure I'm putting things right. It's a very tricky subject.

[rm.livejournal.com]

One recurring theme I _do_ see in Torchwood fanfic is that rape is culturally abhorent to the culture Jack is from in a much stronger way than it is to the overall culture we are from .

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

if sex isn't something to RESIST, then there's comparatively less incentive to consider taking it as an avenue of attack?
I think having Jack as the main authority figure is actually quite important in this respect. Jack is overtly sexual, but not when it comes to threatening people. Sex is, although often screwed up (see Gwen/Owen), generally portrayed as a *good* thing.

This is where I was attempting to go in an unfinished comment, thank you.

A lot (not all) of rape narratives come from a "sex is bad" place, so if you're dealing with a group of characters for whom that's not a trope, you remove that angle. It's very refreshing, honestly.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Which raises this thing where shouldn't one of the reasons rape is evil be because sexual contact should be a good thing, as opposed to because sex is bad?

Man, this is getting really thorny and our culture is sooooooooooooo screwed-up.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Unrelated, mostly, to everything, but if you happen to like (hard) cider, when you're in Bristol be sure to make it over to The Apple — a pub on a boat that does only apple-based alcohol — about 40+ ciders (8? on tap), plus some apple brandies and the like. The Old Bristolian is _fabulous_.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

Amanda Palmer is local to me, I've been to her house, one of my friends is her current housemate, and she dated one of my friends and there's a song about them on one of her albums, and this is all just too weird to deal with. If it was any random celebrity that I happened to be a fan of, I could deal, but this just makes me twitch. (And then there's more tenuous social connections to Neil Gaiman too.) People calling her a slut or other sexually charged terms, though, them I flat out 100% disapprove of. I heard about them dating before it was public, and was happy for them. I was visiting my parents, and told some of my obsessive Neil Gaiman fangirl friends from high school, and they were unhappy, and I was really weirded out by their reactions. Since then they've bitched about how "she's changed him" and "why is he wasting time working on her projects" and how they don't like what he does now, and I am appalled by the sense of entitlement they have about the personal life and creative choices of a man they've never met outside of a signing line. What the hell is wrong with people re:celebrities? And why does your lj comment box turn into a confessional for me, because I don't even want to mention Amanda Palmer on my lj right now.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

i spent season one despising Owen because I saw his action in the pilot as straight up rape and I didn't understand how everyone else didn't see it that way. I pondered writing emo fanfic about how he ruined that couple's lives to illustrate my point.

[juniperus.livejournal.com]

That comment really saddened me. I'd rather liked AFP overall... her work with the Dresden Dolls, her realness in an industry pretty much totally unreal. But... the last year has obviously worn on her, there have been frayed edges showing on occasion. *sigh* I'm left wondering if the unceasing misogynist/crazy fan attacks have run her down to the point of exceptionally poor judgment -- because this comment was about as fucked-up as it gets. Not that I've followed her closely (that would involve effort), but from the blog entries I've read and other statements she's never come off as a fucking clueless hipster of the most deplorable variety... she's skirted that edge, occasionally had the appearance of self-consciously edgy (instead of just herself, edgy or no), but not been a complete jackass. This misguided attempt at some sort of humor? Complete jackass. Question is where she'll go from here... she needs to look at this incident critically and not just react to the criticism as being More Of The Same misogynistic shit she's been slogging through. And then do what is necessary (not what is funny or edgy or expected)- be real and be honestly apologetic for fucking up this heinously.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Well, consider this:

Sex is bad.

If you get raped, it's your fault somehow. Either you wanted it and are trying to cover your ass after, or you were dressed wrong and sent the wrong message, or you just didn't say no loud enough. The onus is on you, the victim, to have prevented the rape. Otherwise, well, clearly you did want it or deserved it.

Also, a girl or woman who has been raped has been sullied and is a dirty thing. Who wants a dirty thing? You know, because sex is bad and she had sex.

Sex is not a bad or dirty thing on Torchwood, and while there's all kinds of weird things behind any given character's consent, it is always given.

When you're writing Torchwood, which is full of adult characters for whom consent, while may have caveats, is given freely by way of Alien pheremones, brainwashing, or ulterior motives. That is to say, in the moment the consent is given, it is meant.

It's hard to write a rape narrative of the above sort (again, LAZY WRITING WHOA) when a rape victim, in that environment, would receive compassion, help, and retribution, not shame.

[labellerose.livejournal.com]

Re: Amanda Palmer-Yes
Re: That UK book-Oy. It's been my experience that nanny-raised children tend to have issues, but Those Aren't Them. One thing I've observed is that nanny-raised children tend to lack life skills. Example- a friend of my daughter's was spending Thanksgiving with us because her physician parents were working. I asked the young women to prepare the vegetables for the crudite plate. This 17 year old had never handled a vegetable peeler or a paring knife. Another issue I've observed is a lack of what for want of a better term I call 'self-entertaining skills'. I tend to atribute this to the nature of the child/nanny relationship. A disengaged or disinterested caregiver is all too likely to plop the kiddo in front of whatever electronics are available. A conscientious nanny can, with the best of intentions, plan and structure her charge's day so that the child doesn't get that daydreaming, reading, guitar-playing, or fort-building time on his or her own.

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

It's hard to write a rape narrative of the above sort (again, LAZY WRITING WHOA) when a rape victim, in that environment, would receive compassion, help, and retribution, not shame.

THIS. Torchwood takes the motivation to tell that story away by neutralizing (most of) a potential rapist's reasons to use sex as the avenue of attack, as opposed to simple non-sexual violence; if there's no value-added to rendering the attack with a sexual dimension, because you can't plausibly play off of the cultural assumptions about sex that you cite, then odds are your typical writer is just going to go with the straight-up mugging/assault/ohmygodanalienjustrippedmyfaceoff and save themselves the trouble of opening that can of worms, if said can of worms isn't specifically the story they're intending to tell. (Which it could certainly be, I have seen it done even in this fandom, but it means that OMG RAEP isn't automatically a go-to complication to muddy up just any story with.)

[svollga.livejournal.com]

I was wondering not so long ago about the absence of rape tropes in TW fanfiction. Its' really unusual - I went looking for rape stories specifically, and discovered that there are very few of them, even less of them are graphic, and it's almost impossible to find a story built entirely around rape and h/c after that. Oh, and there is a woman-forcing-man story! With a serious (and very traditional) h/c plot!
I find it very refreshing after my previous fandoms (HP, X-men, PotC) which were full of rape and/or coercion stories, but I keep wondering why this particular fandom works this way.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

While there's not a huge amount of out and out rape in TW fanfic, there is still quite a bit. Google Ianto and rape and see how much comes up. Also check out Dorothy Marley's bookmarks over at Delicious. This ties closely to the whole 'Ianto as the wife' distortion taken by a lot of writers. I don't honestly know how this compares with other fanfics - so it could still be far less.

There's also a fair amount of 'aliens made me do it' sex which much like laura47's comments on Owen's alien spray, has some elements of dub-con at least.

I do agree that the show itself is mostly sex positive - people actually enjoy their relationships with others without guilt and shame - which is pretty refreshing actually.