Penis Graffiti

Remember in high school when people were constantly drawing penises everywhere.  I always chalked this up to immaturity/silliness.  But I was talking to orkinson the other day and she thinks that it is a manifestation of patriarchy, and even a form of terrorism, not that different from, say, drawing swastikas everywhere.  Although the people I knew who did this seemed more like goofballs than terrorists, I think it is a serious concern, after all, male dominance and machismo were both prevalent in our high school, especially in my class, which seemed dominated by boys, particularly in the honors classes.  So, basically, I ask you, harmless (though tasteless) prank?  Or act of sexual terrorism?  After all, there are many ways to be immature, but the selected weapon is almost always the penis.  Thoughts?

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so hot, so what

So I saw this in the College Center last night and of course I’m wondering, what the fuck? For those who can’t read what it says, (sorry it’s a little blurry) it’s an advertisement for Vassar College’s Rowing team who have their Ergathon, where they row for 24 hours straight as a sort of fundraiser. The flyer is about three feet by 4 feet, I would estimate, and it’s hanging as a sort of banner in one of the most frequented parts of campus.

I know, who would have guessed from that picture?

I have nothing against rowing, or the Vassar College Rowing Team, but I’m so tired of seeing flyers just like this one posted all around campus, from all different orgs.

Why do we feel it is necessary to objectify women, and to reinforce dangerous hegemonic ideas of what it means to be sexy, just to get people to give money or come to an event. What, just because I see a white, skinny, half naked girl, I’m supposed to contribute some money to your organization? Thanks but no thanks.

To be fair there was a smaller poster I saw later on which had a white, muscular man, wearing a kilt, with the same message, “It’s gonna be hot”. And with this I’m forced to wonder, what’s going on? Is this some kind of irony? Regardless I still think it’s reinforcing these hegemonic notions of what is “hot”.

And of course, even if skinny, white, and half naked is what “hot” looks like (which I wouldn’t agree with), who cares? Why is “hot” such a big deal? Why wouldn’t it be enough to simply say, come to the Ergathon and see women show their athletic strength!? Why isn’t that something that makes us get excited?

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i can haz dignity?

Warning – some links NSFW

My ex and I share a flagrantly offensive sense of humor and a taste for the repulsive, but I’m a feminist, and he does college sketch comedy. We’ve been communicating a little bit recently, and doing what comes naturally—I sent him a link to a cookbook incorporating semen in every dish, he sent me a recipe for roast placenta; I made a Donner party riff on the Aristocrats joke, he posted LOLClits.com on my wall four times in a row…wait, WHAT?

LOLClits is a website where users submit photos of female genitalia with “funny” captions. They usually involve googley eyes or hats or something added to the genitals in Paint or Photoshop, and may I be the first to say that they are really not funny?

The original photos are almost all close-ups of female genitalia, never including the women’s faces. The women are all exposed—not only are they in front of a camera, they’re opening their legs and spreading their lips. A lot of these photos include or imply male presence—there are many in-and-out shots, and male-looking hands spreading labia and yanking on clits and piercings. Most of the pictures seem originally intended for someone’s sexual gratification, but on LOLClits, clits and vaginas play the roles of hungry monster, nasty old wizard, ray gun target, shocked plutocrat, dog, Diglett, and even a pimple. And, of course (this is LOLClits—LOLDicks just wouldn’t be funny, right?), the penises are never ridiculed. The male presence in the original photos functions only as a pretext to knock down the women—once you’ve got ‘er exposed, quick! Does her hymen look more like Homer or Flanders? And that’s all she wrote.

The original close-up photos of vulvas and clits and vaginas are completely one-dimensional acts of sexual openness. There’s no push-up bras, no bar-hopping, no multiple partners—in other words, none of the social expressions of sexuality that our culture tries to shame women for—in these photos. In the world of LOLClits, just having a pussy makes you fair game for rotten tomatoes.

And that is incredibly disturbing to me. I know that femaleness marks us for special shame, ridicule, and disregard in boys’ clubs the world over, but I’ve never seen hatred and disdain so pure before. What a wake-up call.

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My Beautiful Cervix

Much thanks to Emili for letting me know about this one.

Oh the internet and all of it’s wonders! There is a woman who is posting pictures of her cervix of every day of her menstrual cycle on the internet. While I must admit it does feel a bit graphic and exhibitionist to me, and not exactly something to peruse over breakfast, I have to say it’s pretty interesting, and certainly food for thought. While personally it made me feel a little strange to see it at first, I think it’s so important to know ourselves, I recommend it for anyone with a cervix who wants to know their body a bit better. It’s strange that we should be so grossed out at our own anatomy.

Yay for science and pussies and the internet!

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