promethea.incorporated

“Punching Down” in a curved social spacetime metric

frustrateddemiurge:

So, a friend posted this on Facebook:

I just read a text exchange in which a guy tried to flirt with a stranger on Facebook by sending her a picture of his penis. The woman responded by ridiculing him, sending him lots of pictures of other men’s penises to demonstrate how horrible it is to receive dick pics, and suggesting that his dick was small and diseased. He got angry, and asked to end the conversation, which she didn’t do. Then he asked her not to share the conversation, and she posted the whole thing publicly, along with his name. Now it’s on my news feed because lots of people are reading it and finding it hilarious.

I hope I’m not the only one who thinks this is tragic.

The perception of dick pics as disgusting, low status, and worthy of ridicule is part of the larger perception of sexuality as shameful. I would much, much rather live in a culture where I sometimes received unwanted images of strangers’ genitals as part of clumsy flirting than to live in a culture where being open about sexuality is about as safe as making violent threats.

I would love to live in the nearby world where “you’re cute, wanna see my dick/vulva?” is a polite way of finding out whether an attractive stranger feels like sharing a casual online sexual interaction. The man’s actions in this exchange make me feel a lot more like I live in that world than do the woman’s.

I recognize that, given we *don’t* live in that world, *and* that the world we do live in includes a lot of people who feel women should be grateful for male attention and never allowed to protect themselves let alone retaliate, dick pics are often (usually?) more of a harmful spam tactic than a kind of benign if inept way of flirting.

I think it’s a good idea to discourage spamming people, and also to discourage treating women as if they have no right to refuse sexual advances.

But please, please, do not confuse strategic choice of social norms with the rush of a cheap status-boost. Do not play along with the game where we all punish each other for having bodies in the context of Christian purity and original sin.

So I gave my take on it:

The boy in question may not, himself, have realized he was performing an aggressive move. He may have just been emulating a move that he saw as successful, because when aggressive men make that move they often *are* successful.

It’s generally the less aggressive males, attempting to emulate aggressive strategies without even realizing that the underlying structure of the strategy is aggression, that get piled on for being aggressive.

The actual aggressive males get away with it, because no one wants to fight them.

Then I read this cracked article:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/why-internet-gun-aimed-at-everyones-face/


Now, spread this ridiculously important meme:

If you’re winning the fight against a particular person, I guarantee you they aren’t the kind of person you think you’re fighting against.

If you’re making some fedora-wearing neckbeard cry delicious man-tears, if you’re viciously shaming some size 0 fetish model for promoting unhealthy body standards, if you’re screaming at some transgirl for “invading your safe space” and “not being a real woman”, if you’re savaging some internet pundit for using “transgirl” because they haven’t kept up with the lingo-of-the-week… you’re almost certainly attacking someone who’s probably been hurt worse by the Patriarchy than you have.

Because if you’re successfully attacking, and they aren’t successfully defending, then that almost certainly means you have more structural and institutional power than they do.

Feels nice, doesn’t it?

This is a pretty important heuristic.

no, actually…

This is a VERY IMPORTANT HEURISTIC.

However, anyone who sends me unsolicited dick pics will be at my mercy nonetheless. There Will Be Consequences, regardless of one’s position in the hierarchies, because I mostly* don’t want to receive unsolicited dick pics and anyone disregarding my explicit preference on the topic deserves the Consequences, and I believe that it’s more fair if I make these things explicit so a) benign but inept people would know it isn’t okay and b) malign people could not pose as benign but inept people.

(* It has been hypothesized that there might exist a category of people for whom the Consequences and “being at my mercy” would be net positive things, but I will not say explicitly which that category is, because I can’t give people foolproof definitions of when unsolicited dick pics could be okay and thus even ridiculously cute trans girls might end up misunderstanding the boundary and thus causing a net loss of utility when I would have to reject a ridiculously cute trans girl and that would be sad. So anyway even ridiculously cute trans girls please be careful about sending me dick pics and should probably ask first because asking first is a very good side to err on.)

(via wirehead-wannabe)

2 weeks ago · tagged #bad sj cw #steel feminism · 261 notes · source: frustrateddemiurge · .permalink

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    Winning doesn’t automatically make you wrong; lots of people have “won” good things and anyway if you could only win if...

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    ….aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

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    Being autistic, I’m annoyed that the original argument implies a lack of social awareness (le autisc beta male blah...

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    This is such a stupid masturbatory argument from the Pro-Dicksender side (check THAT pun) and honestly reeks of the...

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    2 things here:a) the greater purpose of public exchanges is that the original offender is not the only one who has a...

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    OK, I think you have something of a point; I decided to go back and re-read the whole exchange, as well as my response,...

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