Today David Brooks said something dumb. The link there goes to Charlie Pierce's takedown of the article because you don't want to read the actual article. It's pretty much the normal Brooksian ravings about how the rich deserve our gratitude because they are our betters. But it is interesting only because it pretty much captures the way that these people really think.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Friday, July 6, 2012
Why Ladies Love 50 Shades
I am uniquely qualified to talk about 50 Shades of Grey, the best-selling book series based off a Twilight Fanfiction where light BDSM replaces the vampire stuff. Before law school I worked about about a year supplementing my income by writing porn. Erotic stories. Ghost blogging for porn stars.
This work also meant a lot of reading different stories (sometimes I was paid to re-write them, or to add additional scenes to a book). I didn't always do well at this because I can't write passive female characters. In some ways this made writing gay porn easier than the straight stuff because it eliminated the weird baggage people bring to female sexuality.
In female erotica, and 50 Shades, the protagonists are almost always inexperienced virgins. The scene where they lose their virginity is always identical. The guy makes them come with hands or mouth, then penetration happens. There is pain and bleeding, but only for a moment (in that moment the guy will always suggest that he will stop because he is such a nice guy) and then she'll magically get into it and come at the same time as him. It is ALWAYS THE SAME. It is a ritual that happens again and again. So often that the books that don't have it almost seem subversive. Stories with non-virgins in the starring roles, or virgins who don't have their maidenhead, are the minority.
It's all part of the culture that festishizes female virginity as well as denouncing female sexuality. Young teens are shown media figures (Miley, Britney, Lindsay) who are shown in sexually provocative poses and outfits but are also haled as role models because they are virgins. Even if it isn't actually true, the young women can still claim virginity. When they get older, however, the claim no longer can be believed and suddenly they are unlikeable sluts. Does Miley really dress or act differently than she did when she was on Hannah Montana? No, but now the behavior is bad. It was okay when she was doing it because people told her to. It's bad when she starts doing it because she wants it.
Women aren't supposed to WANT sex. And Anastasia in 50 Shades spends pages and pages of the book feeling bad about the fact that she likes kinky (well, the vanilla version of kinky) sex. She talks about her conflicted feelings about sex and ultimately gives in over and over again to the pleasure. Of course, if Ana just openly enjoyed it (or was the one who tried to introduce her male lover to her kink) it would turn off many female readers. Books featuring sexually aware protagonists don't resonate with female readers. Read some of the reviews on Amazon and they focus on not liking the sluts. Women live in a society that tells them that they must walk a balance between being sexually available to men (or risk being labeled frigid or ugly) while also needing to be the moral gatekeepers of sex. Ana walks this balance by spending most of the book talking about the conflict. Seriously. There is more navel gazing in the series than sex.
50 Shades also has one other feature that makes it so popular. The series starts out with Ana being given a no strings attached sexual contract with Christian. But by the second book he loves her. He marries her. She has made him change. How did she do that? TRUE LOVE, I guess. And it is that old idea that a woman can change a man if she just loves him enough. Meet a guy with a huge kink and fucked up issues. Well, if you just stand by him he can change.
But the change is needed for the happy ending. If Ana and Christian didn't live happily ever after then it would be a dark book indeed. Ana would have given up her virginity and her precious sexual innocence for nothing. She'd be left with sex and pleasure, but no husband which would be a terrible fate indeed.
And that's why 50 Shades has been so popular. It is able to tell a story of sexually excitement and introduce a taboo level of kink, but it still fits into the cultural story of how terrible female sexuality is. As for the kink...ugh. It isn't. Handcuffs and ropes and some spanking. Boring. In a world where one of the fastest growing male fantasies is pegging a little light S&M is nothing.
If you couldn't tell I hated 50 Shades. I hated Ana and her constant talking about how conflicted she was about enjoying sex. I hated the fact that we were supposed to believe these two people had true love when they didn't even have very interesting conversations. I hated that the first wildly popular book series in my generation to deal with sex completely reinforces our cultural view of the virgin/whore complex. I wish that 50 Shades was Fear of Flying. I wish that our culture was less repressive than we were in the 1970s.
This work also meant a lot of reading different stories (sometimes I was paid to re-write them, or to add additional scenes to a book). I didn't always do well at this because I can't write passive female characters. In some ways this made writing gay porn easier than the straight stuff because it eliminated the weird baggage people bring to female sexuality.
In female erotica, and 50 Shades, the protagonists are almost always inexperienced virgins. The scene where they lose their virginity is always identical. The guy makes them come with hands or mouth, then penetration happens. There is pain and bleeding, but only for a moment (in that moment the guy will always suggest that he will stop because he is such a nice guy) and then she'll magically get into it and come at the same time as him. It is ALWAYS THE SAME. It is a ritual that happens again and again. So often that the books that don't have it almost seem subversive. Stories with non-virgins in the starring roles, or virgins who don't have their maidenhead, are the minority.
It's all part of the culture that festishizes female virginity as well as denouncing female sexuality. Young teens are shown media figures (Miley, Britney, Lindsay) who are shown in sexually provocative poses and outfits but are also haled as role models because they are virgins. Even if it isn't actually true, the young women can still claim virginity. When they get older, however, the claim no longer can be believed and suddenly they are unlikeable sluts. Does Miley really dress or act differently than she did when she was on Hannah Montana? No, but now the behavior is bad. It was okay when she was doing it because people told her to. It's bad when she starts doing it because she wants it.
Women aren't supposed to WANT sex. And Anastasia in 50 Shades spends pages and pages of the book feeling bad about the fact that she likes kinky (well, the vanilla version of kinky) sex. She talks about her conflicted feelings about sex and ultimately gives in over and over again to the pleasure. Of course, if Ana just openly enjoyed it (or was the one who tried to introduce her male lover to her kink) it would turn off many female readers. Books featuring sexually aware protagonists don't resonate with female readers. Read some of the reviews on Amazon and they focus on not liking the sluts. Women live in a society that tells them that they must walk a balance between being sexually available to men (or risk being labeled frigid or ugly) while also needing to be the moral gatekeepers of sex. Ana walks this balance by spending most of the book talking about the conflict. Seriously. There is more navel gazing in the series than sex.
50 Shades also has one other feature that makes it so popular. The series starts out with Ana being given a no strings attached sexual contract with Christian. But by the second book he loves her. He marries her. She has made him change. How did she do that? TRUE LOVE, I guess. And it is that old idea that a woman can change a man if she just loves him enough. Meet a guy with a huge kink and fucked up issues. Well, if you just stand by him he can change.
But the change is needed for the happy ending. If Ana and Christian didn't live happily ever after then it would be a dark book indeed. Ana would have given up her virginity and her precious sexual innocence for nothing. She'd be left with sex and pleasure, but no husband which would be a terrible fate indeed.
And that's why 50 Shades has been so popular. It is able to tell a story of sexually excitement and introduce a taboo level of kink, but it still fits into the cultural story of how terrible female sexuality is. As for the kink...ugh. It isn't. Handcuffs and ropes and some spanking. Boring. In a world where one of the fastest growing male fantasies is pegging a little light S&M is nothing.
If you couldn't tell I hated 50 Shades. I hated Ana and her constant talking about how conflicted she was about enjoying sex. I hated the fact that we were supposed to believe these two people had true love when they didn't even have very interesting conversations. I hated that the first wildly popular book series in my generation to deal with sex completely reinforces our cultural view of the virgin/whore complex. I wish that 50 Shades was Fear of Flying. I wish that our culture was less repressive than we were in the 1970s.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
What Would Washington Tweet?
One of my pet peeves is seeing how the legal system often times misunderstands technology. So, I think I should give a thumbs up to this decision involving a request for information about tweets from the Occupy Wall Street Protest.
The NYPD has requested Twitter to turn over user information and records of tweets made by
@destructuremal (real name: Malcolm Harris). After a court ruled that Harris could not quash the subpoena because he didn't have standing the microblogging site took up the cause.
Twitter's first argument was that the user should have the right to challenge the subpoena instead of Twitter having to do it. As a practical matter Twitter doesn't want to get involved with these things. If the court found that tweeters had standing to challenge subpoenas it would make life easier for Twitter. If someone was challenging one they would sit back and wait for the court decision. If a user decided not to challenge it then Twitter could hand over the records without looking like they aren't fighting for their users. By making Twitter the person who has to be in court it places the company is a terrible bind. Do they do the easy thing and hand over the data or do they try and argue for protection of this data?
While the court understands this problem, they don't buy it as an argument to create standing. They also don't care much for Twitter's argument that the user has an expectation to privacy in the information they share with them. "There can be no reasonable expectation of privacy in a tweet sent around the world," the court said, distinguishing it from an email, direct chat, or IM. Even though this is new technology, it isn't a new problem. The court compares this case to one where a person yells something at someone else on a street and is overheard by other people. Of course the people overhearing the conversation can testify to it. The fact that it was tweeted instead of yelled doesn't change anything.
So, Twitter has to turn over the tweets. I've already heard some people upset about this from a privacy aspect, but it isn't really an issue. The police could get these tweets either from the account or from one of the many sites that allow you to search deleted tweets. The reason they need it from twitter is so that they can get it into evidence. A printout of a tweet without verification from twitter connecting it to that particular user account (as opposed to something photoshopped) won't be able to make it into evidence. The information was already out there. This just makes is admissible in court.
The final interesting bit from the opinion is this musing on what the founders would think of Twitter.
The NYPD has requested Twitter to turn over user information and records of tweets made by
@destructuremal (real name: Malcolm Harris). After a court ruled that Harris could not quash the subpoena because he didn't have standing the microblogging site took up the cause.
Twitter's first argument was that the user should have the right to challenge the subpoena instead of Twitter having to do it. As a practical matter Twitter doesn't want to get involved with these things. If the court found that tweeters had standing to challenge subpoenas it would make life easier for Twitter. If someone was challenging one they would sit back and wait for the court decision. If a user decided not to challenge it then Twitter could hand over the records without looking like they aren't fighting for their users. By making Twitter the person who has to be in court it places the company is a terrible bind. Do they do the easy thing and hand over the data or do they try and argue for protection of this data?
While the court understands this problem, they don't buy it as an argument to create standing. They also don't care much for Twitter's argument that the user has an expectation to privacy in the information they share with them. "There can be no reasonable expectation of privacy in a tweet sent around the world," the court said, distinguishing it from an email, direct chat, or IM. Even though this is new technology, it isn't a new problem. The court compares this case to one where a person yells something at someone else on a street and is overheard by other people. Of course the people overhearing the conversation can testify to it. The fact that it was tweeted instead of yelled doesn't change anything.
So, Twitter has to turn over the tweets. I've already heard some people upset about this from a privacy aspect, but it isn't really an issue. The police could get these tweets either from the account or from one of the many sites that allow you to search deleted tweets. The reason they need it from twitter is so that they can get it into evidence. A printout of a tweet without verification from twitter connecting it to that particular user account (as opposed to something photoshopped) won't be able to make it into evidence. The information was already out there. This just makes is admissible in court.
The final interesting bit from the opinion is this musing on what the founders would think of Twitter.
Can you just imagine the tweet fight @TheRealBurr would have with @AHam?While the U.S. Constitution clearly did not take into consideration any tweets by our founding fathers, it is probably safe to assume that Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson would have loved to tweet their opinions as much as they loved to write for the newspapers of their day (sometimes under anonymous pseudonyms similar to today’s twitter user names).
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