Dudes, get some self-awareness!

Cracked.com, the humor site that has mastered the art of making lists of stuff (and sometimes making them funny), recently posted a list of the The 5 most ridiculously sexist superhero costumes — which is funny, but is kind of an easy target, one that is addressed elsewhere, too.

What made it especially funny, though, are the comments: comic book fans came out in a furious horde to complain that someone dared to criticize the cheesiness and sexism of their beloved medium. So the author turned around and wrote The 8 Stupidest Defenses Against Accusations of Sexism. It’s amusing its own right, and has a nice explanation for why people who like comic books ought to care.

Loving comics is why I’m annoyed at major publishers deciding “We’ll only target half the population, then much less than that” by turning it into expensive fake softcore: ridiculously stupid characters and more camera angle than character development. It’s also why I’m excited by new characters who exist in their own universes, and so are allowed to actually do things that won’t be erased in the next story arc. Atomic Robo features women who kick ass and wear clothes at the same time, as if not being naked were some kind of combat advantage. Empowered proves that joyously, blatant fan service doesn’t preclude a personality or character development. It turns out you don’t need a Y chromosome to have a lead role or protection against chilly breezes.

But, you know, it was inevitable — the comments again steal the show. It’s an interesting mix of people who get it and agree, and other totally clueless pig-people who respond to being called out on their sexism with…more sexism. Here are a couple of quick ones that made me laugh, ruefully.

Damn dude, get a life. Why do you waste your time bitching about this stuff?

Dude, you’re a comic book fan griping about an article about comic books.

Exactly what is so terrible about sexism anyway?

Well, gosh, he’s got me there. I guess if you never want to talk to half the human race, sexism is just peachy.

The latest Sinfest fits in right about here.

At least Bill Donohue has been poked savagely

The divorced Bill Donohue is in full-blown apoplexy over Obama’s tepid support for gay marriage.

I want the law to discriminate against straight people who live together — I used to call it shacking up, now it’s called cohabitation — I want the law to discriminate against all alternative lifestyles, against gays and unions.

Donohue’s argument against gay marriage is that it would open the door to all kinds of abominations…like brother and sister marriages, for which he cites a case in the courts. He asks the other guest on the show if he approves of that.

You know, if I were asked that question, I’d say…yeah, it ought not to be against the law. My personal squeamishness about how two people relate to one another ought not to be legally enforced; I’m sure there are people who consider what my partner and I do in the bedroom to be utterly disgusting, and I don’t think anyone should have to defend their private, consensual preferences to a team of strangers. I think prospective sibling marriages ought to be confronted with extensive genetic counseling, at the very least, and I might be willing to consider limiting the reproductive rights of such a relationship (because it would bring a third person into it, who does not deserve the potential genetic afflictions that can result from inbreeding) as reasonable, but otherwise…it’s not my place to police what other people do.

That answer would probably turn Donohue purple.

I have a song for you, Bill. Perhaps it will soothe your furrowed brow and bring your blood pressure down a few points.

“At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

Jebus Teetotalin’ Christ. That’s the best we’ve got from Obama? Seriously? It’s taken him this long to “evolve” to the point where he can take a personal (not even a political) stand on civil rights?

I am not impressed.

Those few words were the bare minimum I’d have expected from a Democratic candidate running for office last century — they are so self-evident, so clear and obvious to any decent human being that I’m appalled that anyone thinks this is a remarkable achievement. Our standards are apparently so low for our politicians that we clap and applaud when they make even a token declaration against bigotry.

Hey, maybe if he’d taken a stand a few years ago, we wouldn’t have had debacles like the recent anti-gay ballot in North Carolina.

He might as well have. In response to that tepid and qualified and ineffectual statement, American hate groups like the American Patriarchy Association, the Patriarchy Research Council, and the Catholic League are already denouncing him furiously. In for a penny, in for a pound, I say — I dare Obama to now stand up and fight for this right. None of this pussy-footing around — he’s going to get screwed by the haters already — so he might as well take a strong stand and earn the goddamned liberal/progressive vote.

He might earn a little respect, too.

Why, yes, we do have douchecanoes in Minnesota

It’s not just Michele Bachmann! We have a whole fleet of Rethuglican douchecanoes paddling away in our state legislature. Allow me to introduce you to Senator Paul Gazelka, who introduced a bill that would require a doctor to hover over women who use RU-486 (this bill, another example of Republican meddling in women’s lives, was fortunately vetoed by our Democratic Governor Mark Dayton). Gazelka was asked whether he also favored similar intrusions into men’s sexual lives, for instance in requiring that Viagra only be administered under a doctor’s supervision. Ho ho, you say, you already know how quickly he’ll back away from that one.

comparing Viagra to RU-486 was comparing apples and oranges or more like comparing life and death. Viagra is a wonderful medical advancement in that can help couples with sexual disfunction issues…it can even help in producing life. RU486 always destroys life by taking the life of the unborn child.

So that’s why Republicans like drugs that combat erectile dysfunction — it’s so they can create life. How sweet…so they never use the combination of Viagra + contraception, I presume?

Robin Marty asked a somewhat different question.

I also asked Sen. Gazelka if, in light of its "wonderful" qualities, he himself used the medication, or would consider sponsoring legislation that would create a database of information such as name, address, medical history, familial history, phone number, age and sexual history for those who are prescribed Viagra, to be handed over to the state department of health, such as databases created in various other states to gather information on women who obtain abortions.

He told me no comment to both questions.

But I think that’s perfectly fair! I say, let them have full access to Viagra, but as long as we’re snooping on women’s sexual histories, it’s entirely reasonable to apply the rules equally and have comparable databases of men’s sexual purchases.

They have nothing to be ashamed of. I’m sure they’re only purchasing Viagra in association with conjugal and procreative relations, and they’ll be ably to proudly point to each and every child that they spawn with every bottle of Viagra. They could even make the receipt or prescription for their erectile aids the first entry in the kid’s baby book.

“First class problems”

I think I’m beginning to understand why the airlines have that nonsensical demand that we all shut off our electronic devices during takeoff (it’s very annoying when you’re using your iPad just for reading or listening to music) — and I’m beginning to think that maybe they ought to enforce the rule as soon as you step aboard the plane. The reason: have you ever noticed those assholes in first class who order a Scotch as soon as they sit down and then fire up their smart phones? Have you ever wondered what they were doing? They’re apparently doing an inebriated Neandertal in a locker room act.

Some Chicago newspaper columnist named Joe Cowley used that interlude on the runway to unleash his inner jerkwad over twitter. Apparently, he’s sexist and racist.

I’m more likely to see a Squatch before I see a hot flight attendant. Then again, I think the airlines are hiring Squatch’s to do that job.

Chick pilot. Should I be OK with that or am I just a sexist caveman?

Kid next to me looks like “Short Round.” Think I’ll give him a dollar to say to me, “You cheat, Dr. Jones!” #firstclassproblems

It always sets me back a bit to discover that people actually think like that, and worse, that they’ll openly babble that way. At least Cowley has learned that the latter is not OK — he has now deleted his entire twitter account.

It’s too bad his brain is probably still broken.

Truth will sometimes make you cry

Dan Savage upset some Christian students who walked out on one of his talks when he pointed out the hypocrisy of Christians who cherry-pick which rules to follow…and often seem to pick the worst rules, like “keep slaves” or “beat up gay people”. I thought it was very mild stuff — wait until those craven wimps get a load of me — but it has the right wing in a tizzy, and several of my fellow freethoughtbloggers have commented on it (here, here, here, and here, for instance.)

I just wanted to add one more link to your reading list. Zinnia Jones says Savage is right about the Bible, and she’s exactly right. Fox News can whine that Savage made girls cry (and isn’t that a weird complaint?), but when it gets right down to it, what matters is that what Dan Savage said was true.

Gaily frolicking squid

Some species of cephalopods are incapable of concealing their sexual history. The males produce packets of sperm called spermatangia that they grasp with a specialized arm that they then reach out and splat, poke into their mate. In Octopoteuthis deletron, a deep-sea squid, these spermatangia are large, pale, and distinctive, so every time a squid is mated it’s left with a little white dangling flag marking it — so sex is like a combination of tag and paintball. The males are loaded with ammo — 1646 were counted in the reproductive tract of one male — and the spermatangia can be counted using a video camera.

So a ROV went down deep into the Monterey Submarine Canyon and documented the profligate promiscuity of these squid. The females had been busy: individuals had between 21 and 147 spermatangia dangling from them.


(a) A female Octopoteuthis deletron showing implanted spermatangia in the ventral arms, the ventral lateral mantle and the ventral mid and posterior mantle (arrows) and the characteristic rugose skin of the anterior mantle in females. (b) A spermatangium showing the bulbous proximal portion containing sperm, and the trailing open end. (c) A male O. deletron with implanted spermatangia on the dorsal mantle; the trailing ends are visible in profile. (d) Close-up of (c).

The surprise was that the males were equally likely to have been inseminated multiple times in their life, between 15 and 25 times. They’re all manic bisexuals! They’re also creative in their sexual behavior; as you can see below, spermatangia are implanted everywhere, mantle, arms, ventrally, dorsally. It’s all one big gay orgy down there under the sea.


Frequency of occurrence of spermatangia present on the (a) dorsal and (b) ventral body of male and female O. deletron. The colours of the body parts correspond with the colours of the bars in the graph.

Most cephalopods, this species included, live short lives and the perpetuation of the species relies on rapid, successful mating. The authors explain this same-sex mating behavior as an adaptive response to a life-style in which discrimination is less important than simply getting the job done.

We have only observed them as solitary individuals. The combination of a solitary life, poor sex differentiation, the difficulty of locating a conspecific and the rapidity of the sexual encounter probably results in the observed high frequency of spermatangia-bearing males in this species. Apparently, the costs involved in losing sperm to another male are smaller than the costs of developing sex discrimination and courtship, or of not mating at all. This behaviour further exemplifies the ‘live fast and die young’ life strategy of many cephalopods.

I prefer to think of it as a brief happy life spent writhing constantly, passionately in the arms of love.

Hoving HJT, Bush SL, Robison BH (2011) A shot in the dark: same-sex sexual behaviour in a deep-sea squid. Biol. Lett. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2011.0680.

(Also on Sb)

Egypt shows respect for the dead

The Islamist-dominated Egyptian parliament is considering a law that allows a husband to have sex with his dead wife within the six hours following her death. Why? I don’t know. I guess if you think women are pieces of meat then it doesn’t much matter if they’re responsive or not. Although I think six hours is overly generous: rigor mortis is going to set in after 3 or 4 hours, maybe sooner in a warm climate. Maybe they should modify the law so you’re allowed to have sex with her corpse for three hours, and then you’re allowed to use her body as a surfboard for another twelve hours after that?

Oh, and they’re also considering legalizing marriage to 14-year-old girls and stripping divorce rights from women. The way they’re jumping up and down on women, I’m beginning to think they have delusions that they’re American Republicans.

(via B&W)