media bollocks – Page 10 – Another angry woman

Dear David Blunkett

Dear David Blunkett,

I was surprised and disturbed by your somewhat revisionist historical analysis. In case you’ve forgotten the speech you gave, these is the alarming sentiments you articulated:

“The Lib Dems in Glasgow debated this and decided they were against automatic protection unless people chose to over-ride it, in terms of pornography on the internet and the protection of children. I think they were wrong.

“I think we have a job in this country, in a civilised, free, open democracy, to protect ourselves from the most bestial activities and from dangers that would undermine a civilised nation.

“In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Berlin came as near as dammit to Sodom and Gomorrah. There was a disintegration of what you might call any kind of social order.

“People fed on that – they fed people’s fears of it. They encouraged their paranoia. They developed hate about people who had differences, who were minorities.

“There always has had to be some balance, in terms of the freedom of what we want to do, for ourselves and the mutual respect and the duty we owe to each other in a collective society. I think getting it right is the strength of a democracy.”

See, the thing is, David, I’m not convinced that Weimar was the worst era in modern German history. It was a pretty decent time to be queer, really; we were accepted. It also wasn’t too bad to be a woman: our sexual agency was accepted and abortion was actually legalised in some cases, almost a century ago! The music was cool: they embraced music like jazz. It was progressive, in short, and marginalised people were treated more like humans than the little bit of history that came later.

That little bit of history that came later, David, was Nazi Germany, the spectre you raise as a consequence of not treating marginalised people like shit. Those who were accepted in the Sodom and Gomorrah times suffered heavily under Nazi Germany. The queers were forced to wear pink triangles and herded into camps, murdered in droves by the state. The women were treated as breeding machines, nothing more than a means of reproduction. The rich art and culture made by people who were not white, once embraced, was now illegal, degenerate. It was a period of history which sucked absolutely enormously for basically everyone who was not a straight, cis, able-bodied white man.

For some reason, you think this was the responsibility of exactly the people who suffered the most. You know who else thought that? Hitler.

I am writing to you, David, to express concern because I am fairly sure that you have ripped a hole in the space-time continuum by twisting Godwin’s Law so much. I presume you’re decrying Nazism and saying it’s bad, while simultaneously using some rhetoric with a distinctly fascist flavour. Of course I’ll help out if some of the Sleeping Ones awaken and pass through the portal you have opened, but I’m a little annoyed that I have to, to be perfectly honest.

On the other hand, David, I’m grateful. What could I possibly be grateful for, when you are essentially blaming millions for their own genocide?

I am grateful, David, that you have laid bare the inherent authoritarianism in the moralistic attitude towards banning porn. I am relieved to see that you have managed to point out that ultimately this isn’t about porn itself, but it is far wider, and far more chilling. It is rooted in a hatred of all that is not straight, a rejection of sexual freedom for women. It reflects a disgust at the queer. You have demonstrated this with your words far more clearly than all of the commentary that comes from the marginalised.

So fuck you, and all who share your views. You frighten and sicken me, as do all who agree with you.

No love,

Stavvers

EDIT 02/10/13: I made Blunkett feel sad.

Shitbrained media bollocks about polyamory: Julie Bindel edition

Beginning to wonder if I ought to perhaps set up a regular “tear apart ill-informed media shitfoolery about polyamory” section. A mere week after risible media “discussion” of polyamory, Julie Bindel has rocked up to the party with her own brand of piss-awful nonsense.

Bindel asserts that “rebranding polyamory does women no favours” in a confused piece which I find it difficult to work out where to start.

I suppose let’s start with her utter insistence on conflating polyamory and patriarchal polygamy. Now, Bindel asserts that there is such a thing as ethical non-monogamy, which was invented by 1970s lesbian feminists, the factual basis of which I seriously question. I’ll concede that maybe they practiced it, but this has been going on for far longer than a couple of decades. Anyway, according to Bindel, there’s stuff that her mates did in the 1970s, and then there’s polygamy.

As for the rest of the piece, it’s all the standard compulsory lesbian bollocks, with a smattering of cheery erasure of vast swathes of people who practice polyamory. It’s actually kind of impressing how much she manages to miss the point, and fails to critique anything worth critiquing while attempting to shame women who don’t behave exactly as she says.

Patriarchy has historically attempted to control women’s sexual behaviour. We’re madonnas, we’re whores, we’re sluts if we fuck and bitches if we don’t. This keeps us in our place. I note parallels with the compulsory monosexuality which is enshrined in ideologies from Bindel and her ilk: again, we are told what we are and are not supposed to be doing in our bedrooms. The root causes of these are, of course, different: the former is a product of patriarchy; the latter a woefully misguided attempt to bypass these power structures. Convergent evolution has produced similar effects from both sides of this pincer manoeuvre.

The three step solution proposed by Bindel et al goes like this:
(1) Stop fucking men
(2) ???
(3) Revolution

My scepticism about Bindel is not about being really into fucking men or slutty, and I wish good luck to those in monosexual relationships, for love, sex or whatever, with five, six or 20 other folk. But let’s not pretend that rebranding control of women’s behaviour will bring on the revolution any time soon. A true sexual revolution will have happened when there is liberation, which is a far bigger beast than who has sex with whom. Until then, Julie Bindel is simply another manifestation of a system which gives far bigger weight to those with staff columns who chat nonsense.

“Journalistic” bollocks of the day: “polyamory” edition

A lot of people just don’t get polyamory. Unfortunately, a lot of these people not getting polyamory also happen to be “journalists” who write ill-informed “articles” about it while “talking out of their arses”.

The latest in this stream of bollocks comes from one “Adam Sherwin”, who appears to have found a jar of scare quotes at the back of the fridge, and, realising they were close to their sell-by date, decided to throw them all over his regurgitation of a BBC press release. Here is a sample of phrases “Adam” “Sherwin” felt were scare-quotable:

“polyamorous”: are we a made-up word? (it’s scare-quoted throughout)
“feminist and a liberal”: also imaginary concepts, apparently.
“open relationships”: seriously, motherfucker, what the fuck is wrong with you?
“date”: OH LOOK THEY THINK THEY’RE PEOPLE.

Then there’s a load of bollocks, such as an obsessive focus on it all being about sex. I know for a fact that in at least one of the cases reported it definitely isn’t as I actually happen to know the people in that relationship. Even if I didn’t, it’s fairly obvious that it isn’t all about sex, when the actual quote from Charlie clearly points out that it’s a long-haul relationship rather than “wife-swapping”. It’s worth noting here, that “wife swapping” was one of the few phrases not scare-quoted by “Adam ‘Sherwin'”, by the way, which is pretty fucking charming and rather betrays the moral judgment he has made there.

Then there’s “Adam’s” vague pearl-clutching at the end here:

Another participant, Alice, interviewed for the programme, says she would be happy to leave her male partner to look after the children while she goes out seeking casual sex.

Excuse me while I put my monocle back in so I can side-eye this fucker. Yes, “Adam”. Sometimes women don’t stay at home looking after the kids. Again, note the lack of scare quotes.

It’s a perfect piss-storm, this piece of shit, and it represents the collision of two execrable fronts: society being awful, and journalism being mostly awful.

There is a societal tendency to circle the wagons around the institution of monogamy, expressing horror at the idea that anyone could happily live outside of this. Those who do are often stigmatised, portrayed as somehow broken as people. On top of this is the general negativity towards women’s sexuality: we’re not supposed to have sexual agency, and if we do we are somehow broken as people.

On top of this, journalists often aren’t particularly well-informed on issues. They regurgitate press-releases rather than research. It is kind of obvious that “Adam Sherwin” knew about as much about polyamory as Jon Snow does about survival in the snow, sex, and general Wildling politics. Even the scare quotes seem to be a product of ignorance, a kind of admission that he has never heard these words before and therefore stuck them in quotes in case they weren’t real.

Put together, all you get is more stigma coming from sources which are seen as credible. “What” “a” “load” “of” “pigshit”.

Trolls and silly season: Brendan O’Neill is not a stopped clock, he’s a weeping syphilitic chode

Brendan O’Neill has come out against the media reaction to trolling. I’d wondered if this might be a “stopped clock” situation: could it be that for once, Brendan O’Neill actually has a point? Oh course not. He’s a chode that never fails to disappoint (and also weeps, syphilitically, obviously).

The latest dribble to come from his desk is entitled “The hysteria over trolls is a classic moral panic“, which neatly genders the debate right off the bat, because let’s not forget that Brendan O’Neill is a gigantic steaming misogynist. It follows his usual line of argument of fighting with imaginary people out of history. To his credit, this time he is not battling imaginary Victorians, but rather, imaginary people from mere decades ago. They’re still imaginary, and O’Neill’s problem is clearly still blah blah blah political correctness gone mad pearlclutching blah blah don’t call me a rape apologist blah blah why can’t women take it blah blah I am a weeping syphilitic chode.

It’s tedious as all fuck.

Thing is, there is a critique to be made of the sudden media prominence that “trolls on Twitter” are getting. This is hardly a new story, and furthermore hardly an issue with one particular medium or another.

The media being the media, this issue is not being discussed particularly adequately. There is no focus on the root cause of this shit: a general desire from oppressors to put the oppressed in their place. None of this has been tied in to how much such harassment happens in offline spaces. It has just been the most superficial and dull discussion, because ultimately the media doesn’t actually give a quarter of a flying fuck about what marginalised groups face on a daily basis.

So why are they giving this issue any column inches whatsoever? Simply put, it’s silly season. It’s that of the year where government goes on holiday, so the things that the media want to report on are also on holiday. Sometimes a child will go missing, and they can put that on their front pages, but a lot of the time there isn’t even that.

Last year, there was a lion loose in Essex terrorising tourists, which turned out to actually be a large cat. There’s all sorts of inanimate objects which look a bit like Jesus which find themselves with spreads, and arrangements of stars which look like Victor Meldrew which find themselves on the front page of a national newspaper. Simply put, the news industry needs to keep on going, even when there is no news.

This year’s hot topic, then, is trolling, covered with all the nuance and sophistication of those without a semblance of a fucking clue what they’re talking about. Things like Twitter scare the shit out of the traditional media, precisely because suddenly they’re no longer the gatekeepers of communication. And so they instrumentalise women who have received abuse to perpetuate their own agenda of attempting to reinforce their gatekeeping role. I cannot stress this enough: for the most part, the media’s agenda is not social justice, it’s control.

I hope fervently that someone will discover a breadstick that looks like a zebra that will knock all of this uninformed bollocks off of the front pages, because far from letting us have a conversation it is framing the debate into something it is not, and should not be.

Let’s talk about abuse. Let’s talk about misogyny and oppression. But let’s not let hacks and weeping syphilitic chodes be the arbiters of how we have this conversation.

When #ibelieveher goes out of the window

Content note: This post discusses rape, transphobia, apologism and the effect of not being believed when reporting one’s experiences.

We are seeing a slow shift how we think about survivors, guided by the phrase “I believe her*”. It inverts the status quo; politically siding with survivors, a statement of undoing the way things are by believing the story of a person who we are socialised into not believing. Disbelief in the accounts of survivors of rape, of domestic violence, of child abuse creates the conditions of silence necessary for such abuse to continue. Fear of not being believed is a weapon, wielded by our culture to keep our lips sealed and prevent anything being done about it. It is an attempt to create a safer space.

It is gaining momentum, this culture of believing survivors, and has been broadly adopted by many groups striving for social change. Sadly, while the ethos of believing survivors is perhaps becoming increasingly accepted, the practice itself is often not. We have seen this, for example, too often amid left-wing groups who will happily say they believe survivors until it turns out one of their mates might be a perpetrator, and cognitive somersaults begin in order to justify what is going on.

We see it too when people talk about their experiences of microaggressions. While it’s easy to believe when women talk about gendered microaggressions, those times when we are made to feel less than human by something which is often dismissed as trivial by patriarchal society, this is not extended to women experiencing intersecting oppressions. We see, for example, trans women talking of feeling invalidated and attacked by high-profile cis women to a reboant chorus of dismissal. Far from being believed in these scenarios, trans women end up being on the receiving end of the same old apologist tropes: the victim blaming, the trivialisation, the gaslighting and the flat-out denials. We see similar things happening to women of colour, to disabled women, to sex workers and queer women. Suddenly, it’s not “I believe her”. It’s a demand for a case laid out, meticulous documentation of “evidence”. If evidence is produced, it is thrown as an overreaction or not really evidence at all. Or perhaps everything is explained at the survivor having somehow “brought it on herself” by not behaving exactly according to some unwritten, unknowable, ever-shifting code.

It’s the same tune played on a different instrument. Whatever happened to “I believe her” in these situations?

As a cis white woman, sometimes I find it difficult to recognise where exactly the problem lies. I am not sensitive to some microaggressions, because I am not subjected to them day after day after fucking day. I am never on the receiving end of cissexism or racism, and, as such, sometimes I fail to recognise very veiled abuse. Which is precisely why, when a woman of colour or a trans woman says it is happening, I believe her.

As a cis white woman, it’s not my place to explain that something isn’t racist or cissexist, because I don’t get to define what these things are, and what is crossing a line and what is not. So, when I listen to a survivor, I believe her.

I feel like this is the least I can do. I’ve had experience with not being believed, I’ve had experience of being on the wrong end of victim blaming, I’ve been gaslit and dismissed when I talk about horrible things which have happened to me. I know how awful it can be, that sense that either the world will end or you will, that you’re mad and you’re wrong and you’re twisted and disgusting. I also know that feeling of the light coming in as you hear the magic words “I believe you”. Not being believed hurts like fuck, and being believed makes the pain more bearable, like you might just be able to get through it. It’s helpful when someone else sees the gas go down, too, even if they don’t quite understand it as well as you do.

And so these are the principles I use. I believe those who talk about microaggressive abuse. I believe those who talk about rape. I believe survivors. I believe her.

*This is not to say abuse does not happen to people who use male and non-binary pronouns. Of course it does, and the sense of belief ought to be extended to anyone reporting such experiences. However, this short phrase also encapsulates the gendered nature of such abuse.

Against a Twitter “report abuse” button

Apparently the latest thing that people want to campaign for is a “report abuse” button for Twitter. Once again, it is my sad duty to say that while I agree with the principles, the idea itself is actually quite silly and might make things worse. To be honest, I’m considering automating my blog, so often do I come to this conclusion. The same piece, over and over again, just inserting the name of whatever liberal feminist campaign du jour is about.

But I digress. What could possibly be wrong with a button to make it easier to report abuse on Twitter, and automate suspensions of abusers? Rather a lot, actually. I can foresee, within seconds of it happening, that I would disappear off of the face of Twitter, for starters.

See, I have a habit of being pretty fucking rude to people who behave oppressively. I use rude words and tell people to choke on various bodily secretions. I don’t let things drop. I hold people to account, sometimes seriously and sometimes by gleefully engaging in some pure, unadulterated puerile trolling. I subtweet shade, leaving it where it can be found by the vanity searchers, and I’m not afraid to call out the racists, the misogynists, the transphobes and homophobes and ableists of the world. That would get me banned pretty fucking quickly, only taking a few powerful people to get pissed off at me. And my goodness, I piss off the powerful.

But surely any new measures would have differentiation between abuse and a good old-fashioned flaming targeted at an utter dicklord? Probably not. Already, I have seen good feminists and anti-racists suspended from Twitter for hurting the precious feelings of the poor misogynists and racists. This goes through the current Twitter abuse channels. A “report abuse” button would speed up this process considerably, allowing for an ever-greater greater quantity of marginalised voices to be silenced completely, to be left unable to fight back. Making reporting abuse easier will just create a larger volume of tweets which must be sifted through, making it take more not less time to weed out the abuse from the vexatious complaints.

The problem is, a lot of the supporters of this seem to consider anything other than utmost deference and politeness to be “trolling”. Take, for example, Caitlin fucking Moran, who has been exceptionally vocal in this, and with good reason: people are often cross with her for saying really fucking horrible shit. She disingenuously pretends that this instant accountability afforded by the Twitter age is somehow an orchestrated campaign of silencing and abuse. She wants to continue being able to flaunt her privilege and announce to the world that she’s kind of racist, kind of classist, kind of ableist and kind of transphobic. She wants to do all of this without ever being called out on it.

The thing with politeness is that it’s a rule of communication which is inherently slanted in favour of the white, economically-privileged person with the luxury of considering other people’s problems a purely academic question. It’s easy to be polite if you are questioning someone’s very existence, and not so easy when it cuts the other way. When I see misogyny, I don’t want to be fucking polite. It’s not a matter for fucking debate. And the same goes for any injustice I perceive. We’re never going to get fucking anywhere if we continually defer to our oppressors.

But because of their position of power, they see our questioning their role as the oppressor as abuse, and they will gladly use any new measures to silence those who have found the voice to question the status quo. Any new abuse policy Twitter would implement would have to accept the difference between calling out and abuse, and I don’t think it would ever do that, as to acknowledge the direction in which power is directed is far beyond far too many people. These people focus on “equality”, and “equality” is precisely how white people declare anti-racism campaigns to be racist against white people, and misogynists cry MISANDRY whenever a woman challenges them. Imagine the outcry if Twitter did the right thing here: we would be drowning in white male tears, and Twitter would back down before one could finish typing “your a dick” and sending it to a well-known evolutionary biologist. Furthermore, abuse can be polite. Indeed, the polite stuff is often the most insidious, given that that the privileged who insist on politeness at all times fail to recognise it as abuse. It remains an enormous problem.

So instead we’d be stuck with what I’ll call the “silence marginalised voice that hurt your privileged fee-fees button”. And I can’t get behind that, because there are a lot of good voices who will be further silenced by those with the power and the platform.

What can be done, instead? After all, oppressive abuse does still run rampant in the online environment. The thing is, that is a reflection of the general oppressive and abusive culture we inhabit. And therefore, the same measures need to be taken. We need fucking solidarity. Stand with people fighting oppression, and support their struggles. Offer help when someone is getting shit, and chase the fuckers off. Accept your own role in oppression, and strive to mitigate it, accepting that you will likely be told off from time to time for fucking up, and that it’s not going to be polite. Kick up, don’t kick down. Don’t work within the system: tear it down and salt the earth beneath it. Show compassion for those who are having a hard time.

Unfortunately, we live in an age where people want quick fixes, no matter how inadequate they are. We live in an age where people will gladly forge a weapon which may be used against them. And then there are some who would seek to punish anyone who criticises them, and are salivating at the consequences of this measure.

The good news is, a lot of them will be sulking off of Twitter on August 4th. The commentariat Cult of Nice will be “boycotting” Twitter that day, displaying that they don’t really know what a boycott is. That day will be a good day for marginalised voices. No longer will they be silenced and drowned out by those who like to talk over everyone and silence the voices that we should be hearing. That day, Twitter will be ours. I propose we spend the day listening to one another, building solidarity and laying the groundwork for changing the world. We have a day unpoliced by oppressors. Let’s use it.

Not that porn-blocking bollocks again

Once again, the politicians have decided to enter into the “WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING!” pissing contest over a race to block as much porn as possible in order to… do something involving children. The language of both sets of press quotes seems to conflate a hell of a lot of things with each other, so it’s kind of complicated unpicking exactly why they want to do each of the things they’re planning on doing.

In the blue corner, David Cameron wants ISPs to set up filters which automatically block porn, block certain search terms and have more power to shut down file-sharing networks, as well as banning “porn depicting rape”. In the red corner, Labour want to do kind of exactly the same thing, but vaguely say that the government aren’t going far enough (despite them doing exactly the same as Labour want) and that they “know it works” in reference to porn-filtering.

It’s hard to know where to start with this bollocks, so let’s start with all of the things that are being conflated here. Labour and the Tories alike have hit cross-party consensus in conflating images of child abuse, rape porn (where it sounds like they are throwing in the consensual stuff along with actual images of actual rapes, which are actually illegal anyway) and children seeing porn. These are all very different things, but it’s easy to see why they have lumped all of these things together. Start with the hideous, move on to raising the spectre of something that a lot of people find disgusting, and then finally park in raising concerns over just general, vanilla internet porn, because what if a child sees? It’s a clever way of gaining support for actions which will achieve very little on a social level, while granting politicians a world to win with increased internet controls.

Let’s talk about the specifics of some of the proposals here, and how woefully ineffectual they’re likely to be. Now, I for one am not a fan of letting providers put content locks on the internet. if you’re on O2, might I take this opportunity to say you smell of a dog turd on a hot day and you’re a suppurating dickmelon? It’s OK, I can say that as if you’re on O2, you’re almost certainly not reading this blog because apparently it’s porn and you’d have to pay your mobile provider in order to “verify your age” and get to see what I’ve written. Now, you might notice that my blog is not porn. I’d wager you’d have a hard time cracking one out to this blog, and even if you do, your kink is not my kink, but your kink is OK.

Obviously, it’s not all about me, and there’s a lot of stuff which gets blocked by mobile content locks, such as sexual health sites and LGBT sites. In short, things that definitely aren’t porn and information that young people ought to be able to access. A lot of social justice websites also disappear under content locks as many of us are talking about sex and rape and all that stuff which apparently young people ought to be kept completely unaware of, leaving them to learn about sex and sexuality and consent through the medium of terrible fanfiction.

It gets worse when you add in the possibility of blocking certain search terms. Sometimes, any given search term will be used by a survivor in order to make sense of what happened to them, in order to find support from people who have been through similar. By just flat-out blocking these search terms, access to vital support could well be blocked. Yes, David Cameron seems to think this can be safeguarded by blocking results and instead sticking up a helpline number, but sometimes a helpline is not what survivors want. Sometimes it’s a search for a community, sometimes merely an indication that what happened to them was wrong. This move could well prove to be dangerous.

As for throwing in rape porn, I’ve made my views on this matter perfectly clear. A ban isn’t the solution. What could solve these problems is hard, far too hard for a media-friendly quick fix, the appearance of something being done.

With all of this is the pervasive thread of, as the Labour press release said “we know this works”. But do they? Do they really? There is evidence supporting the idea that increased access to porn reduces the incidence of rape, and there is evidence for the other view. It’s not conclusive: pretty much all studies have used internet access as a proxy for looking at porn, and none have tested whether there is any impact of actually blocking porn. Indeed, it looks like what the politicians want is to produce is a major social experiment of this hypothesis, with the added benefit of being able to decrease access to anything else they find unpleasant.

And it is all for the sake of that media-friendly quick fix. The quick fix desire, the obsession with doing something shit with instant results, is pervasive throughout all of the political spectrum. This measure will no doubt garner the support of some feminists, feminists who have lost site of the fact that we need so much more than to push the things we do not want to see out of sight.

Banning and blocking will not stop abuse from happening, it will just drive it underground, making it easier to perpetrate. At all ages, we need better education about consent. And, as I have said before, we need better porn, ingraining consent as a process inherent in sex. We need to be better at looking out for communities, of responding to abuse that happens, rather than hoping it goes on in places we do not look. We need to make sure employment rights of porn performers are protected until capitalist patriarchy falls entirely. We need to destroy rape culture and grind it to dust.

And that all sounds hard, too hard for a lot of feminists who have lost sight of how deep the rot goes, preferring such inadequate quick fixes mediated entirely by a state with a vested interest in restricting internet access.

But it is only the hard work that can ever end rape of people of all ages; only the hard work which will eventually keep all generations safe. I see the appeal of the quick fix clearly, but we must continue to think, criticise and act. It is not better to do something untested with potential harms. It is not safe to trust the state with this task.

It may sound cliched, my repeated demands for a complete revolution across all facets of society, but this is what we need to address the real problem of rape and abuse. Creating a climate where we cannot speak openly about it is dangerous: these are the conversations that need to happen. Unfortunately, silencing these discussions is one likely outcome of the proposed measures, and let us not forget that the this outcome would only benefit those who profit from rape culture.

Irene Adler: how to not butcher a brilliant woman character

Spoiler warning: this post contains MASSIVE HONKING SPOILERS FOR ELEMENTARY. If you haven’t watched season 1 to the end yet, turn back now, because it’s actually really good and I don’t want to ruin it for you. You have been warned.

A year and a half ago, I wrote a little blog about how badly Stephen Moffat had fucked up the character of Irene Adler in his Sherlock. I complained that he had stripped Irene of everything that made her cool, removing all of her agency and turning her into a mere piece in a game between two men. I ejaculated with despair when this woman had to be rescued (by a man, obviously). I expressed dismay about how a story over a century old had better gender politics than something that was on the telly recently.

So when I started watching Elementary, I was slightly worried about how Irene Adler might be fucked up and fucked over by a writer, yet again. I probably needn’t have, as Elementary had managed, with a great deal of success, to not piss me off. It had a very strong female character who wasn’t a Strong Female Character™, and portrayed a non-sexual friendship between a man and a woman in a really touching way.

When Irene Adler finally emerged as a victim needing rescue, I had my palm ready to apply to my face. And fuck me, I didn’t need to.

See, as an audience, we’re conditioned to be surprised at a twist, even a twist that was pretty obviously foreshadowed. Dramatically, we needed a twist. And my goodness, it was a brilliant one.

Having Irene Adler as Moriarty was a delight. This Irene is not a passive pawn, but an agent. It goes beyond placing Irene Adler as the woman who outsmarted Sherlock once and elevates her to the status of Sherlock’s equal, a more than worthy adversary. While Moffat’s Adler ended her story with needing to be rescued by Sherlock, Elementary’s began this way, using her apparent rescue as a manipulation.

This Irene holds the cards at all times. This Irene Adler very nearly wins.

Dramatically, she can’t win, because Sherlock always wins. However, Sherlock’s victory was on points this time, atop a trail of bodies.

And yes, we might say something about her weakness being her love for Sherlock, but let us not forget that the only reason Sherlock fell for her gambit was that she was his weakness. Even here, they are equals. Even here, they have both used it as leverage.

And I don’t doubt we’ll be seeing more of this rather brilliant villain.

(apologies for all the squee, this is what happens on the rare occasion I actually like something. Fully concede that Elementary isn’t perfect, particularly in their fuck-ups on Miss Hudson, but Irene Adler is kind of a pet favourite character of mine)

Kickstarter and accountability

You know how Kickstarter were hosting funding for that godawful book which amounted to “how to be, at best, a vile creepy misogynist”? Social media was ablaze with ire, because, well, it was really fucking wrong.

Kickstarter has finally acknowledged this and published a fairly detailed apology aptly entitled “We were wrong“. Because they were, and they know it. And that knowledge was thanks to every single person who called them on this bullshit. Kickstarter have decided to change their policy on the basis of the negative reaction to their hosting this project, and will now no longer host those things which the vile creepy misogynists like to call “seduction guides”. Although the money has all already been transferred from some vile creepy misogynists to other vile creepy misogynists, Kickstarter have decided to donate $25000 to a rape support charity as a gesture of “holy fuck, we fucked up here.”

It’s a gratifying case study in call-out culture, with a few interesting points to note. Firstly, the project wasn’t pulled due to time restrictions. While social media permits instant accountability, unfortunately we are often up against organisations with the turning circle of the Titanic. This does not mean we should go easy on them for being glacial in their response, it just means that we shouldn’t expect instant results. Which a lot of us don’t anyway. Hell, a lot of us don’t expect any sort of fucking result. This means that damage cannot necessarily be instantly undone. Again, this is less our problem and more those who we hold accountable.

It does suck that this vile creepy misogynistic project got itself funded, due to the way that Kickstarter is structured. It sucks a lot. On the plus side, due to the vast negative publicity–a book so vile and creepy and misogynistic that it forced Kickstarter to change its policy–that it may not do as well as it should have. Certainly, I can see some vile creepy misogynists trying to buy the book to make some sort of point about WAAAH CENSORSHIP (spoiler warning: it’s not censorship. It’s good business sense), but for the most part, I can’t see distributors touching this fucking thing with a bargepole now.

Overall, I think Kickstarter have reacted well to the criticism levelled at them, although I’m sure they’ll forgive me for keeping an extra sharp eye on them to check if they really have changed. They’ve acknowledged the errors of the past, understood what it was they did that was wrong, and taken steps to ensuring it happens again.

I’ll be honest. It’s put me in such a good mood I’m even being charitable to all the vile creepy misogynist backers, and am therefore not calling them “wannabe rapists”.

Dick of the day: Roy Greenslade (and his apologist ilk)

I’ve been fairly quiet on the pictures of Charles Saatchi assaulting Nigella Lawson for a number of reasons. I feel like it’s a grotesque invasion of privacy, and that Nigella’s silence on the matter indicates that she probably doesn’t want these details of her life and marriage being discussed everywhere.

However, a lot of journalists haven’t been anywhere near so cautious, nor respectful. Our Ur-bellend here is some Guardian hack named Roy Greenslade, who yesterday decided to shit on an iPad and call it a column. Dear Roy urged us caution in interpreting what had happened, that we shouldn’t “rush to judgment”, as a picture of a man with his hands around a crying woman’s throat could have a number of different explanations (none of which Roy actually bothered providing). Oh, and also it’s totally OK to print those pictures because after all, it happened in public so it’s not, like, breaking any laws or anything. Then, to back up his non-argument, Roy edited the piece to include some quotes from the Evening Standard who, for some reason, thought it appropriate to run an interview with Saatchi letting him explain away what happened as a harmless tiff.

Self-satisfied, and throwing away a semen-encrusted sock, Roy declared that the whole incident must have been so embarrassing.

Less than a day later, Roy looked like even more of a dickhead than he had previously shown himself to be, and taught us all a cautionary tale in why in stories like this “keeping an open mind” is synonymous with “siding with an abuser”. See, contrary to Roy’s assertion that the police were uninterested in the event, Charles Saatchi was given a caution, which is a thing lawyers tell you to accept when you’ve really fucked up and probably don’t stand a chance in defending yourself in court.

So Roy pulled down his pants and began straining over the iPad again. Apparently his denial of the possibility of abuse was not that, and people had just interpreted it as such! Apparently–oh, ho, ho!–rather than Saatchi and Nigella being embarrassed, he should be! Apparently he only dismissed the idea of abuse because he is Nigella’s friend! Apparently up is down and left is right and there’s a few Vikings riding round on dinosaurs outside which is probably definitely not a portent of anything!

And of course, Roy isn’t the only dickish commentator to have denied or trivialised abuse. Most of the press has excitedly splattered the Evening Standard’s interview with Saatchi everywhere. A lot of commentators have articulated similar views to Roy. They’re all wrong, and they’re all thorough dickwhistles.

Yet this whole cycle of bullshit was woefully inevitable, precisely because this idea of “keeping an open mind” when it comes to violence against women and girls means that survivors are not believed. That it is apparently reasonable to doubt that men are capable of perpetrating this, despite the fact that it is hideously common. That the voice of the perpetrator is the one that we ought to hear and believe unquestioningly as it backs up our prejudices, backs up our bedtime story that violence against women and girls is something which is rare.

So of course the reaction has been shit, and I doubt it will get any better. Perhaps it will swing to a paternalistic, cloying form of pity which is steeped in benevolent sexism. Perhaps it will rumble on in its current form. What will not happen is precisely the thing which should happen–respect for what Nigella Lawson wants, and unconditional support if that is what she needs.