This Post Has No Title, These Words Have No Clue

Insofar as a common and significant link ‘twixt the intimacy of driving a knife into another person, to the one, and coital penetration, to the other, is testosterone, the act of shooting the place up starts to seem very nearly masturbatory.

The psychoanalysis^α of that proposition is probably as fascinating as it is grim. At some point it seems to denigrate the American shooting crisis while exploiting the very notion of rape culture, and it is easy enough to call any mass-murderer a pathetic wanker. Yet the analogy persists, and it is easy enough to regret, before it is written or uttered, any phrase about shooting his load in public.

Killing is intimate. Killing is also distal.

He can tell her he loves her; she can believe him; it can be true; and the link between this passion he shares and the violence he might commit against another is testosterone.

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^α The temptation to dismiss, out of hand, expected pop-culture strains of evolutionary psychology according to their obvious weakness presuming coital penetration as inherent to the existential justification of sexual differentiation, would be erroneous in at least one context, as the apparent fault becomes at least symbolically relevant; to the other, invoking semiotic values might be an overstatement. But where the pop strains of evopsych would discuss men evolving to penetrate women, Y previously evolved, and, indeed, continues to this day to adapt and select and evolve, not as delivery unto X, but as environmental distribution of gamete for X. Where human males may have specialized for gamete delivery, this is merely specialization of gamete distribution. And while it is true enough that word games are easy, and phagogenesis could, artistically, at least, be argued an intimate precursor to general environmental gamete distribution, the greater danger is the potential for evopsych to finally recognize the argument that masculine raison d’être really is to be a wanker.

Follow-Up: #MyNextToTheNthPowerBandName

[#nevermind]

Anatomical Futility is the name of my . . . ¿sixteenth? . . . yeah, something like that . . . next punk band.

Read Not, and Forever Hold Your Peace

A reflection on anatomical impossibility:

“I gave it the ol’ college try—well, you know, everything short of binging to blackout so someone else could cram it in for me—but, no, it ain’t happening.”

(#nevermind)

Priorities: A Snapshot

As much as people complain about the media, it is occasionally worth attending the self-inflicted wounds. To wit, Huffington Post readers:

• “Pro Wrestler Comes Out As Bisexual After Video With Boyfriend Hits The Web”

• “7 Signs Of A Nervous Breakdown”

• “7 Reasons Your Pee Smells Weird”

• “‘Girls’ Is Now Officially Unwatchable”

• “These Will Be The Best Places To Live In America In 2100 A.D.”

So, yeah. Trending. According to HuffPo’s metrics, this is what people are reading and promoting.

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Image note: “Trending” sidebar widget noting popular articles at the Huffington Post, 17 March 2017.

Live Through This

#FightWinLoveLive:

Question Are state same-sex marriage policies associated with a reduction in adolescent suicide attempts?

Findings This difference-in-differences analysis of representative data from 47 states found that same-sex marriage policies were associated with a 7% reduction in the proportion of all high school students reporting a suicide attempt within the past year. The effect was concentrated among adolescents who were sexual minorities.

Meaning Same-sex marriage policies are associated with reduced adolescent suicide attempts.

(Raifman, et al.)

On Morality and Hitting Children With Cars

Honestly, after everything else, to see a photo of Pietro with his arm in cast and sling―

Transgender mother Bárbara Pastana, and her 2 year old son Pietro, were victims of a transphobic assault on Tuesday October 4th in Belém do Pará, Brazil. The attack occurred when she was taking her Pietro to the kindergarten by bike.

“Every day I go out (in the Bengui neighborhood) and take my son to school by bicycle, in a front seat. Today, a car approached and followed me slowly. I kept pedaling but the driver sped up the car and hit on the bike, “she said.

Bárbara fell toward the sidewalk above her child and said that after the impact, her only concern was the health of the child. “I could not see anything, just saw my injured son. I do not know who did it, I can not imagine, “she said.

(Santos)

―is just too much. Today is one of those days.

Then again, today is one of those days insofar as I get to have such days. Brazil is a killing field for transgender, and I won’t tell anyone to feel thankful we Americans are merely fighting over restrooms, or anything like that. Still, though, I don’t know: Is there comfort that it’s not so bad up here, or are we just not there yet? And, you know, it never really helps to tell anyone to cheer up, at least they’re not running you down or … or … okay, at least they’re not doing all that stuff as much. Right. Never really helps.

I don’t know; this reminder that they would kill the children, too? Attacking children is hardly unique, but remember, these are the moralists.

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Santos, Eduarda Alice. “Transgender mother and son victims of hit and run”. Planet Transgender. 1 November 2016.

Brother, Can You Spare an Answer?

Every once in a while a question occurs, and it’s true I only ask it in limited circumstances. Still, it persists, because I never have encountered an actual functional answer.

Okay, guys, work with me, here.

Why is female reproductive and urogenital anatomy an insult?

This Has Nothing To Do With You

Really?

This is a bridge too far?

So, let me get this straight: It’s important to be out of the closet as a homosexual, but just don’t act like it?

Is that really what you want to stand on?

The strange thing is that we’re drilled for this. We’re practiced. We know what to say and what to do and how to handle ourselves.

But to sit in one’s own living room, and have that conversation?

Really?

This is one of those things that is supposed to be happening out there.

It is not a shadow you want looming over your name.

You will not behave this way.

You will not leave me to feel this way.

This is not how it goes.

I promise.

Question Time

With many thanks to Sean, a friend who pointed out this particular iteration of the morbid spectacle otherwise known as ¡Jesus’ fucking tits! Westboro Baptist Church―see Anna Merlan’s report for Jezebel about the latest Westboro wannabe Christianishesque clodhopping―a certain question arises, a reiteration that occasionally demands address:

• Is it wrong that I only pay attention to WBC at all anymore because they’re like a comedy troupe performing a Christian version of The Aristocrats? I mean, it’s true: It was cruel of kids in my junior high to encourage the overweight, developmentally impaired kid to do stupid and humiliating things just so people could have a laugh. The Westboro heritage is similar; there is a tinge of guilt about paying attention to anything they do, as if we’re denigrating them just by watching.

The Zuckerberg Atrocity

How about some crass humor?

For some, the costs are higher. In 2010, 12-year-old Amanda Todd bared her chest while chatting online with a person who’d assured her that he was a boy, but was in fact a grown man with a history of pedophilia. For the next two years, Amanda and her mother, Carol Todd, were unable to stop anonymous users from posting that image on sexually explicit pages. A Facebook page, labeled “Controversial Humor,” used Amanda’s name and image—and the names and images of other girls—without consent. In October 2012, Amanda committed suicide, posting a YouTube video that explained her harassment and her decision. In April 2014, Dutch officials announced that they had arrested a 35-year-old man suspected to have used the Internet to extort dozens of girls, including Amanda, in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The suspect now faces charges of child pornography, extortion, criminal harassment, and Internet luring.

† † †

Hildur Lilliendahl Viggósdóttir, decided to draw attention to similar problems by creating a page called “Men who hate women,” where she reposted examples of misogyny she found elsewhere on Facebook. Her page was suspended four times—not because of its offensive content, but because she was reposting images without written permission. Meanwhile, the original postings—graphically depicting rape and glorifying the physical abuse of women—remained on Facebook. As activists had been noting for years, pages like these were allowed by Facebook to remain under the category of “humor.” Other humorous pages live at the time had names like “I kill bitches like you,” “Domestic Violence: Don’t Make Me Tell You Twice,” “I Love the Rape Van,” and “Raping Babies Because You’re Fucking Fearless.”

Thus:

• zuck/zucked/zucking: Shorthand term describing online rape threats for the sake of humor; named after Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook.

• Raping Mark Zuckerberg page on Facebook: Why not see how long Facebook lets that one stand as a humor page? Doll up photos of Mark Zuckerberg and have at it.

• Taking the Piss: A bit of a twist on the classic English phrase; put photos of Mark Zuckerberg in urinals, snap the photo, post them to a Facebook “humor” page.

• Use your imagination: Really, I can’t keep thinking like this. It’s actually uncomfortable. (See below.)

One would think the problems are obvious. To wit, how do we define fair? Do we really think this sort of thing would stay confined to activism? Of course it wouldn’t. And while fair is fair insofar as Zuckerberg is apparently just fine with how things go at Facebook, so why not treat him the same way, isn’t that also kind of the point? It’s wrong to treat any person that way, regardless of how much the Facebook CEO might occasionally look like he’s hoping you don’t get squirt in his face, and please not in the hair. (Spit or swallow?) Poor Mark. But then, billions of dollars do a lot to relieve the stresses of having a conscience.

Then again, it would be a good thing to hear people on television starting to refer to how a person got “zucked”. Shame might be the only way to test whether or not Mark Zuckerberg has a conscience left.

And if you’re confused? Just read through Catherine Buni and Soraya Chemaly’s article for The Atlantic. There’s a reason Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg are atrocities against humanity.

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Buni, Catherine and Soraya Chemaly. “The Unsafety Net: How Social Media Turned Against Women”. The Atlantic. 9 October 2014.