I don’t mean this inappropriately, I hope, but I’d wager I’d be happy to do nekkid things with Amanda.
Knowing what you’re doing is helpful in all things.

It is very depressing, and yet Ace seems to imagine it a lot whenever he has his private times.

Also, what the hell is strong-form feminist theory? Is it like the gender feminism anti-feminist talk about when they insist they’re the good type of feminist?

different brad- I’m sure Amanda appreciates the compliment. But remember, according to Ace, feminists only REALLY dig manly men like Daffydd ab Hugh and Jonah Goldberg.

Well, I know here at the boys club wimmin ain’t wimmin till we stamp em with the “i’d hit that” seal of approval.

I have no idea what Amanda looks like, just for the record.

So you’re saying I need to drink more beer and stop eating better as I age to get the hot liberated action?

Well, that’s part of it. The key idea for people like Ace is that “lesser” people enjoy being treated like garbage. Thus, women really want men who call them “dirty whores,” Iraqis enjoy having their country invaded, and it’s good for poor people to have their welfare benefits taken away to give Paris Hilton a tax cut.

This brings to mind the huge upswing in business dominatrices all over nyc experienced when the pigfuckers shat all over midtown in 04 so Bush could dry hump ground zero.
Ace is the one who wants to be treated like the filth he is, deep down in his subconscious.
When I think of repubs having sex, I think of Sade’s revolting text Justine, which I read for a Foucault class. Sex is power, for these freaks.

Post something different quick.

Dammit, Brad, you didn’t excerpt enough here so I went over there. I hate going over there. I read the whole rancid post and an unhealthy sampling of the fetid comments before throwing up in my mouth a little, but the gist, as far as I could tell, was:

1. A self-proclaimed feminist wrote a blog about how she likes rough sex and porn and dirty talk

2. For indecipherable reasons, Ace intuits via sweaty, obsessive fantasy that Amanda isn’t into said kinks

3. Commenters proclaim that feminists are hypocrites because . . . uh . . . they actually like sex and stuff? They lost me there.

4. But anyway, guys are pretty much the same thing as lesbians.

This has been a public service for those of you who Do Not Want To Go Over There.

Morty, ten thousand thanks for your brave self-sacrifice. You read them over there, so we don’t have them coming over here.

Shorter Ace & Co.: I like bonking women who don’t want to be bonked. Well, at least I think I would, if I got the chance.

Thanks, Smiling Mortician for the Cliff Notes version. I clicked the link, but realized quickly that it was a mistake. Had to get out fast.

I appreciate your taking one for the team like that.

How did you make sense of that at all, SM?
It just read as so much butthead n beavising to me.

I can’t think of anything more miserable than having sex with a self-loathing
misogynist who’s obsessed with the concept that there is such a thing as
feminist theory.

You know, I’m starting to think that that Ace guy might be kind of creepy.

I’m taking a shitload of antibiotics just for clicking that link.

Wot a smutty shuddering little crotchsniffer Ace is. I bet he has muttonchops and leatherette jeans. My girl could take him out with a lift of her eyebrow.

Little Man.

And he’s totally obsessed with A.M. Toe-tally. Poor A.M.

Well, I know here at the boys club wimmin ain’t wimmin till we stamp em with the “i’d hit that� seal of approval.

The phrase “i’d hit that” can be deemed offensive and inappropriate, which is why I’m sensitive and prefer, “I’d tap that ass”…

Amanda should give up her feminism because women with strong beliefs are not fuckable enough for Ace? LOL

I can’t think of any better reason for adopting feminism than as a dumbass repellent.

Whoa. When did Ace come out of the closet as a lesbian? Because even accepting that characterization of Amanda, I would think that would actually *appeal* to lesbians, unless Ace as a lesbian knows different, in which case she is invited to make her case to me and any other queer women hanging around, and then we can all, in our feminist way, chalk it up to different strokes, as it were. But it’d be an interesting discussion.

You’re just talkin nonsense AkaDad. Just because the expression equates having sex with someone with being violent to them doesn’t mean it’s problematic.
Next yer gonna tell me a sports team called the Redskins is racist and makes light of genocide.

*having a sports team called….

I am wilting. I need crotchless pantaloons.

In the heady days of my yoof, me ‘n the girls used to get shitfaced after a harem party* and play a game called “I’d root that”. In our girlish glee, we’d name public figures, whether singers, actors, whatever, and discuss whether we’d ever get a leg over if we got the chance.

Of course, it was all done in the best possible taste. And sadly, now, it seems that we’d miss out on the chance to get a leg over Ace. Alas. Let me wipe the tears from my eyes.

*Cultural note: a harem party is the name for the party held every three months at the belly dance studio I used to attend. It’s all about frocking up (sequins, bead, hip belts, and shimmying gear), getting slightly pissed or completely ratsarsed, dancing, and having no blokes around. This means lots of fun is had by all. The party would continue after the general mass had left, with those stalwarts who formed a hard core of drinkers having even more riotous fun. Still no blokes.

Have I ever mentioned that Play-Dohâ„¢ and bacon makes me horny?

Oh, I forgot
I found a potential explanation for the playdoh n bacon line.
I quoted it in jest to a friend one night, and another friend didn’t think it was so impossible to understand.
A friend who watches lots and lots
and lots
of porn.
A lot. Cheap stuff, too.
Apparently, when you…. overuse certain parts…
urgh. can’t think of how to say this that isn’t disgusting.
Let’s just say apparently extreme familiarity with porn can give you room to find that description somehow appropriate. I think it’s safe to say Ace is probably extremely familiar with porn, so yeah, file it away.

Actually, when you think about it, “Baby, I am going to empower you all night long” does sound kind of hot, doesn’t it?

Behind Ace’s machismo, you can clearly feel the threatened ego of a man who knows he’s never truly satisfied a woman.

Low self-esteem or he’s on the clock because her time is worth money.

Amanda is very threatening to these people because Amanda is a very pretty young woman. Ace wishes in his dreams he could attract a woman of that caliber.

Can I admit that A) I found the Play-Doh comment actually sort of funny in a seriously sick way, B) based on the picture (nice duck!) in the entry above, he’s not incapable of being somewhat cute looking and C) I still wouldn’t fuck him if he promised to donate a million bucks to Al Gore’s election campaign.

Ace, the reason so many women avoid you? It’s not feminism per se… it’s just that feminism allows us to ignore anything else about you long enough to notice your repugnant personality, and to refuse to have anything to do with you on the basis of it. The funny thing is, it’s a lot easier to change your misogynist personality traits than it is to, say, develop a sense of humor or turn into Johnny Depp, so you might want to look into that.

Commenters proclaim that feminists are hypocrites because . . . uh . . . they actually like sex and stuff? They lost me there.

I think they only believe in cartoon strawfeminists. Y’know the ones who look like bull dykes and hate teh mens and believes all sex = rape. The notion that a feminist might actually like men (okay, like a certain non-knuckledragging type) and loves sex and might get off on pr0n makes their heads explode.

“Baby, I am going to empower you all night long� does sound kind of hot, doesn’t it?
I hear it all the time. Work, work, work.

Brad, just to clarify, there’s no way to “overuse” one’s vulva, any more than one can “overuse” one’s penis. Everybody’s genitals look different, is all. There are plenty of penes out there that look like they’ve been used as paint-stirrers for vats of muriatic acid – red, bulgy shafts covered in ropey veins that have hair growing considerably further down them than one might imagine is common, bent to the side at all sorts of creepy angles, with disturbingly purple colored oversized knobby protrusions at the end – and yet, if you really like the guy they’re attached to, it’s not such a big deal.

One of the bad things about porn is that it can give one a fairly skewed notion of what real bodies really look like. If one is the sort of person to be that disturbed by normal variation in human body forms, then one ought to consider avoiding casual sex at all, and make sure one only has sex with people one has some degree of affection for, in order to mitigate the (to my mind, odd) revulsion one might experience at encountering that variation in an intimate setting.

I’m not meaning “you” personally here – I mean the above just in general. In general, also, your friend is probably better off sticking to porn until he decides to get married. Real women’s bodies probably won’t go over very well with him.

As far as being turned off by strong women, all I can think of is Wash from Firefly when he’s being interrogated by the Alliance police: “Have you ever been with a warrior woman?”

I doubt poor Ace is man enough to handle the experience.

Oh, and just for the record: while I do consider myself a supporter of full and total participatory equality for women in all aspects of society (and do not believe we are there yet), I am most definitely not a supporter of what is usually meant by “feminist theory”. And I still wouldn’t sleep with Ace.

(I don’t think not supporting feminist theory means you can’t care about women, any more than not supporting Marxist theory means you can’t care about poor people. It’s a difference in – well, more than just tactics, it’s a difference in strategy and outlook, but we’re both after the same goals, even if I happen to think their approach is horribly misguided and will never result in the outcome they hope for. This is just part of my general overall disdain for Theory…..I cannot bring myself to associate my name with people who want to interrogate Nietzsche from the perspective of a body of water any more than I can associate myself with people who think their penis is equivalent to the square root of negative one. In fact, I’ve been thinking about starting up an internet support group called SLAPP – Serious Leftists Against Postmodernism and Poststructuralism, just to provide a place for those of us who still hanker back to the halcyon days of unreconstructed old leftism to congregate and talk. But I’m totally off topic now and rambling, so I’ll stop.)

Jillian’s nailed it, if I can use that phrase. She probably still won’t marry me, though. I swear my partner won’t mind.

If it helps, it’s absolutely not revulsion I’ve ever felt towards someone I was willing to be naked with, it’s mostly just bemusement at the whole thing. Naked bodies are funny, and so’s sex. Nothing says you can’t giggle and be turned on at the same time.

And to clarify, my comment was responding to Jillian’s first comment there, since I hadn’t seen her second one and also, now that I have I have no clue what it means. It’s late, I’ve been awake for a day and a half, I have a migraine, standard excuses apply, but I probably still wouldn’t understand it.

This post reminded me of a link I found a while back:

http://primatejournal.blogspot.com/2007/01/couple-roleplays-political-way.html

You know, I’m starting to think that that Ace guy might be kind of creepy.

Really. What gave it away?

So what does Ace look like? I need to know whether I’d tap his ass or not…

The term for this is “verbal sexual harassment.” What we got here is “Ace” talking filthy in a vaguely threatening manner at Amanda Marcotte in the hope that she’ll be freaked out by his untoward, perverted sexual obsession and duck back.

The reason puny masturbating pig-fuckers pull shit like this on women is because it actually works: it successfully puts the fear into any sensible woman they target. Now I never worry about being stalked and molested, because I’m a guy and stuff like that never happens to guys. Whereas all female humans, from age six to age ninety, do have to worry about being stalked and molested, because that happens to women all the time.

Every victim of this variety of verbal sexual harassment is perfectly aware that ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, the creepy potty-mouth stalking-pervs are just typing one-handed and will never do anything but get their keyboards all sticky, but then there’s that tiny fraction of hardcore psycho deviates you read about in the news who actually do kidnap and rape and mutilate. That’s just a fact, and every woman knows and respects it. Thus little Mr. Potty-mouth basically lets Ted Bundy do his heavy lifting for him.

So, whenever you want to inflict abuse on a woman whom for some reason you dislike, all you have to do is verbally posture like a drooling sexual obsessive. Then one of two things happens. The one possibility is, the woman just silently absorbs your abuse, in which case you smirk into the bathroom mirror and say to yourself “I win!” The second possibility is, she says “You’re harassing me!” whereupon you just deny your real intention was to slap the bitch down, and start blathering about how it was only a joke, and what about the First Amendment, huh? and you bitches are so hyper-sensitive, and you dumb cunts got no sense of “humor”; then you smirk into the bathroom mirror and say “I win!”

The woman gets the fear and you walk away laughing. It’s easy and cheap, guys! All it costs you is your dignity and the respect of every civilized person who learns about it.

W. Kiernan: exactly. Spot on, that man.

Jillian: PleasePleasePleasePlease can I be a SLAPPer? Please? I’ve got my own silly hat, if it helps. I’m so sick to death of deconstruction, I’d like to punch the next person who mentions Foucault.

Plus I sooooo want to be able to call myself a SLAPPer.

*sigh* He really should leave this level of mockery to the professionals. The idea that feminists talk “theory” in bed is so clearly silly as to be painful. Granted, I am female, and thus he can only think of me as naked and lolling around waiting to be fucked (the only repose he can imagine women have time to take), but I write my blog posts that annoy him fully dressed.

When mocking the sexual proclivities of your enemies, it’s best to make cutting jokes that hit close to home. For instance, quoting one post where a misogynist wonders why women lose sexual interest after a week and then quoting another where he treats cunnilingus with disgust and letting the inferences come naturally.

There are plenty of penes out there…

I just want to give Jillian a big shout-out for using the correct plural form of “penis.”

The phrase “i’d hit that� can be deemed offensive and inappropriate, which is why I’m sensitive and prefer, “I’d tap that ass�…

HA! Man, seriously, I am almost grateful to Ace for the hearty laughs.

The woman gets the fear and you walk away laughing. It’s easy and cheap, guys! All it costs you is your dignity and the respect of every civilized person who learns about it.

Your comment is absolutely right, Kiernan. They do it because it works for them, most of the time. And that makes me really, really mad.

“Granted, I am female, and thus he can only think of me as naked and lolling around waiting to be fucked”

Heh. The first thing I thought of is someone waiting on the bed laughing out loud.

I’m such a geek 🙁

SLAPP: Seriously, I’d hit it.

That Ace is one classy motherfucker. Making assumptions about a person you don’t know and their sexuality and then writing about it is some impressive stylish, sophisticated, grown-up adult shit.

There is nothing creepy about it at all. It is in no way possible that it could be a thinly veiled sexual fantasy expressed by a repressed and under-sexed individual.

Real class machine, that Ace.

I can’t think of any better reason for adopting feminism than as a dumbass repellent.
I think this calls for a t-shirt – “Feminism: repels dumbasses, assholes, and Nice Guys with entitlement issues. Get yours today!”

The first thing I thought of is someone waiting on the bed laughing out loud.

This actually happens frequently. When I’m in bed naked, women consistently laugh out loud…

Seriously, has he ever had sex with a woman? Does he even know how people act in the bedroom? WTF does he think Republicans do, groan and grunt things like “I’m going to give you a big fat tax cut, baby?”

He couldn’t seem like more of a dork if he was rolling a saving throw against virginity.

He really should just go ahead and get paid to endorse whatever brand of blowup doll he uses.

I cannot believe that Ace had the gall to write about anything sexual after the Play-Doh and Bacon incident.

Oh, wait. Yes I can. Silly me.

so what’s the over/under on when the whiny “I was just joking” post goes up? 2 hours?

Jillian: you are aware that you cited a feminist‘s critique of postmodernism in the process of criticising feminism, right? Not all feminist theory is pomo.

Jillian-
ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
This is why I never want to hear about other guys’ genitals. Not homosexual panic, but… gah. Reminds me of my first sight of a surgically augmented penis at the earlier mentioned friend’s place.
As for my friend being effed up by porn, yup. I was lucky, I suppose, that next to my dad’s Playboys in the bathroom growing up were my mom’s Ms. mags. Or maybe it was that the girls in Playboy had the same proportions as the girls in my comic books. In any case it never fooled me.

As for SLAPP, the good news is Derrida’ popularity has finally begun to recede. I think a big part of it is the academy is also finally starting to get over Heidegger, or at least notice his major damn flaws, like a horrible misreading of Nietzsche that set study of him back 30-40 years. Also, the analytic side of things is starting to get over itself n produce interesting work. It’s a shame Bernard Williams died.

Brad, just to clarify, there’s no way to “overuseâ€? one’s vulva, any more than one can “overuseâ€? one’s penis. Everybody’s genitals look different, is all. There are plenty of penes out there that look like they’ve been used as paint-stirrers for vats of muriatic acid – red, bulgy shafts covered in ropey veins that have hair growing considerably further down them than one might imagine is common, bent to the side at all sorts of creepy angles, with disturbingly purple colored oversized knobby protrusions at the end –

That’s it – I’m keeping my blinds *closed* from now on, young lady.

Brad, just to clarify, there’s no way to “overuse� one’s vulva, any more than one can “overuse� one’s penis.

Must I prove you people wrong again?

Ya know, in college, I dated a young woman who was very active in campus activism and, particularly, the campus NOW chapter. She’s the one who hipped me to the idea that feminism was beneficial to dumbass country boys, too. We talked politics and feminism in bed all the time. I always thought – and still do – it was a major turn on. As usual, I don’t know what the hell Ace’s problem is. Maybe he just needs a hug. Bet he don’t get many hugs, what you wanna bet.

So what does Ace look like? I need to know whether I’d tap his ass or not…

I’m not sure I want to know why you “need” to know that. Anyway, he’s pretty much generic chickhawk- “puffy, with beard and pale, broad ass”.

This thread is hillarious. I wonder when Ace or one of his followers will come here and refuse to have sex with us?

As usual, I don’t know what the hell Ace’s problem is.

it begins with a ‘c’ and ends in ‘loset’.

Jillian: you are aware that you cited a feminist’s critique of postmodernism in the process of criticising feminism, right? Not all feminist theory is pomo.

Yeah, I know…..I tend to think of myself as a Marxist feminist, anyway (although more of an emphasis on the “Marxist” and less on the “feminist”). And I love Barbara Ehrenreich – she rocks my socks, even if she is somewhat to the right of me 😉

It just seems like the most prominent form of feminist theory of late has been feminist Theory, which is just a whole lotta blathersome crud, imo. Seriously – try reading Luce Irigaray once or twice. She’s more incoherent than Derrida, which is an accomplishment. The main reason I don’t have much to do with feminist activism anymore is because feminism seems to be currently split into warring camps of either liberal feminists or radical feminists, and they’re both just so hopelessly misguided that it would be a waste of my time to try to do anything with them. Liberal feminists seem to think that if only there were as many female CEOs of large corporations that exploit lax labor laws in Third World countries as there are male CEOs, everything would be so much better, and radfems seem to think that having a penis makes you automatically an oppressor of women. I couldn’t be further removed from either school of thought if I were on another planet.

I’m actually halfway serious about the SLAPP, guys….I’ve scheduled some time this summer to do some reading in Theory, and I’m thinking about doing some critical writing in addition (if the reading goes well). If it comes together, I’ll let y’all know. I’m especially interested in spending some time looking at how Foucault’s supposedly revolutionary work on sexuality is actually way, way more “essentialist” than anything those who disagree with him propose, and does more to help anti-gay theory and action than even the most reactionary fundamentalist.

(And, sad to say, this really IS my idea of a fun summer vacation. Now you know why I’ll never land myself a real man like Ace! sob!)

And I’m all about getting down with the group marriage, Sidhe. Just let me know when.

brad, I hope the day comes when educated people look on Derrida the way educated people of today look on phrenology or table rapping. If I ever find the spare time, I hope I can do my part to make that happen. (Although to be fair, I’m willing to engage in dialogue with people who disagree with me….I just don’t think I’m likely to be persuaded to change my position much. I don’t want to sound like an unpersuadable dogmatist, is all, because I try hard not to be one).

I will agree to the group marriage thing, but only if I get to wear the wedding dress…

I’m of two minds on Derrida. On one hand, his style is bullshit, he connected philosophy and literary theory in maddening ways, and the exgf who hurt me worst was a huge fan. On the other hand, while it takes him 5 to 10 times as long as it should to say it, he occasionally had a point, if you were generous in interpretation, and he tried to reintroduce an element of style and artistry into philosophy as such. He failed miserably, in my view, but at least he tried.
I think he should be looked at as an unduely famous in his time very minor thinker who amounted to footnotes to Heidegger. One name out of dozens, which only experts in the field will know. Considering Derrida’s ego, I think that’d be a worse fate than being loathed.
I also think he should be blamed for the various Philosophy of *insert pop culture reference here* books out now, somehow, and for that you’re right, he should be loathed.

Deconstruction is indeed so much crap on a cracker, but I have a hefty hunk ‘o animus for poststructuralism, too.

I remember back to the mid-nineties, when everyone was a New-Ager, and if your chakras weren’t properly aligned, this was cause for concern (This may still be true; however, since that time, I have taken up professional hermitry – seriously, that’s me on the left).

At the time, I heard many people proclaiming as though it were wisdom of the greatest profundity that we all “create our own reality”. This utterance would fill me with the overwhelming desire to punch the speaker squarely in the nose, and then ask them what they were planning on doing to get over the deep seated feelings of self-loathing they must have to have created a reality where people walk up and punch them in the nose. (This probably helps explain why I became a hermit – best way to avoid assault charges).

When a person says that “we create our own reality”, it seems to me they mean one of two things: either that we, literally, create our own reality – in which case the person is demonstrably insane – or they mean that we all view the events of our lives through a filter of our own prior experience, which colors and shapes our response to the world – in which case they have just uttered the most banal, trite bullshit as though it were profound wisdom.

The poststructural focus (once again, probably more due to English department literary theorists drunk on power than philosophers) on “the death of the author” is something that strikes me in the same way. When a person claims that the meaning of a text resides in the reader, they seem to mean one of two things: either my grocery list is really also a historical survey of the Armenian genocide – in which case, see the bit about “insane” above – or that we all bring our own perspective to texts we read and thus come away with different impressions of them – in which case, see above re: “trite” and “banal”.

And as far as the “postmodern condition” goes – if anyone could explain to me how the claim “There are no grand totalizing metanarratives” is anything other than a grand totalizing metanarrative, I’d be muchly appreciative. I suppose this also means I should try to find time to read Tarski this summer. But the great thing about a summer of “peripatetic reading” is that you never know in advance where it will take you.

I can’t help but notice that this thread has gone — in 64 comments — from A Different Brad offering to get nekkid with Amanda Marcotte, to ADB deriding Derrida. I for one regard this as a downward trajectory. Way to drag things into the gutter, ADB.

There are no grand totalizing metanarratives — actually this strikes me as a good summary of the modernist position. Oops, that doesn’t leave much room for postmodernism. Never mind…

She thinks he’s a war-pimping knuckledragger with a fear of intimacy. (visual: Amanda gets head in the back of the head with a wad of Play-Doh, turns to see Ace gazing at the ceiling nonchalantly)

He thinks she’s a man-hater with a vaj full of teeth. (visual: Ace is in his mom’s furnished basement watching the Sarlacc Pit scene from “Return of the Jedi,” absentmindedly petting a stuffed panda)

But when fate brings them together (cue Paula Abdul’s “Opposites Attract”) they just might learn they’ve got something in common.

Love.

Trailer montage would include Amanda handing Ace an O’Keefe painting with a bow on it, and a campfire scene wherein Ace does the “…a bloody HOOK!” reveal with a coathanger sticking out of his sleeve.

Working title: Bacon Whoopie.

Heh.
I look at poststructuralism as a way of justifying the grade inflation going on back then, and probably still now.
Philosophically, I’m a Socratic Nietzschean, which means I continually gain perspective on how little I truly know.
Less glibly, it means my focus is Nietzschean perspectivism and the ways Nietzsche’s concerns are closer to Plato’s than is commonly believed, hinging on philosophy as a way of life, not as metaphysics. Nehamas is big for me, tho his work is only a starting point, n has flaws of its own.
My point in bringing this up is the underlying relativism of poststructuralism is something I half believe in, but not in practice. Instead of saying everything is relative, I say everything is contextual. A context contains standards allowing for judgment, and our existence forces us to issue judgments. We just shouldn’t mistake those judgments for universal truths, or expect them to be directly applicable generations later.

N Dok, if you think that was slagging Derrida, don’t get me started on Searle. Not that I know his work that well, but damn, he sucks.

Hell, I don’t even know what “poststructuralism” is. We don’t deal with it very much in my field.

I write my blog posts that annoy him fully dressed.

Liar. You’re sitting in your underpants covered in Cheetoh dust, just like the rest of us.

ADB:
Instead of saying everything is relative, I say everything is contextual.

Ooh! Thanks, that helps me with a discussion on modernism vs postmodernism that I was having a while back. I couldn’t think of how to phrase it. Contextual, everything’s connected, that’s it…

solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short:

Ow ow ow my BRANE.

*hee!*

[…] Dear MSNBC: please, please, please, please fire Chris Matthews. If you really must employ somebody who has creepy obsessions with other peoples’ sex lives, I’d recommend Ace of Spades. […]

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[…] from one extreme to the other, yet has stayed the same. Remember the old days when Bush was King, Ace was the most macho sort of Joker, and liberals were ugly queens who took it in the ass, their bacon […]