nixsight

The post I sent out yesterday, about my problems with the way articles about gang-rape and prostitution were being written at both the BBC and The Guardian, was more controversial than I had intended, garnering a comment from a gentleman I hadn’t heard of before, Julian Real, which sought to come down quite heavily on me over some perceived issues with my argument.

Though I was initially quite shaken by the comment – aggressively worded criticism always gets the adrenaline flowing in uncomfortable ways, after all, especially when you’re too responsive to verbal bullying like I am – and people told me not “to feed the troll”, in Real’s arguments I actually saw some places where I could make my points more clearly, and also gained a little more confidence in the points I was initially hoping to make, as well.

I know I sometimes appear quite opinionated, but personally at least, I’ve always seen an initial statement as a jumping off point, from which all the people in a discussion can inform, correct and self-correct, and my opinions, though idealistically quite consistent, are always fluid where details, clarification and validation are concerned.

So Mr Real’s comment gave me the opportunity to look over what I’d written, and explain what I meant on the bits he disagreed with, and that’s been a fun exercise. I don’t think I will have changed his mind, but then, that’s not really what I hope to do to people. I barely know my own mind – it’d be a bad idea to try and change anyone else’s.

Anyway, I was quite happy with my response to his comment here, but then I realised that I didn’t know what he’d said over at his site. If he’d pointed his readers at my post, and his comment, I didn’t want my clarifications to pass them by. So over I went.

The first paragraph said this:

I found this silly blogpost today. And I responded. The the post by nixsight follows, and where I found it can be seen by clicking on the link in this sentence. On his own blog, his words are not so rudely interrupted by mine. But that was then, and this is here.

Things kind of went downhill from there.

So again, I found myself with a problem. There were some glaring spots where Real had misinterpreted my words to fit me to a particular archetype that I obviously represented to him. I’m not a machine, so the thought that I’d mis-represented my views to the extent that they could be so misunderstood niggled at me. I also knew, this being the internet, that there was a strong possibility Mr Real was doing it deliberately, in which case an attempt to talk to him would be a waste of time. I didn’t want to try to change his mind – I just wanted him to know mine a little better.

So I wrote this, and posted it there. I noticed that at least one person has responded to Julian already, in the time it took me to write the reply, and they seem to agree with his take on what I’d written. They have, like the Creationists, got an answer for every possible rejoinder, so I’m starting to think they might be right, but oh, well.

I apparently am a professionally denier of something. Or lots of things. I have lost track of the things that I apparently am. But here is the reply I wrote to try and head off any more misunderstanding…

Hi, Julian!

I’m pleased that someone has finally taken the time to critically examine something I’ve written – it’s taken long enough – but there are a few deficiencies, and assumptions made – in your arguments in the comments over on my site.

I can see that you haven’t been quite as restrained over here, which is as it should be – it is your space, after all – but there are a few things that I didn’t clarify enough in my post, which I’ve addressed in my response to your comment, and rather than swamp your comments by reprinting them here, I thought it more politic to give your readers the option, if they want, to come find them. (Same link as you gave up at the top of the post).

If you’d rather not drive more traffic to my site, I’d be happy to copy/paste it here. Or, you know, leave it if you’d rather not have the clarification.

One thing I would like to address are a couple of the points that you make here, that you didn’t make over there.

Your title: White Men Who Are “Tired” of Women Speaking Negatively about “Men and Sex”
For a dramatic deconstruction of a blogpost that is about misleading journalism, that title creates a lot of false context. I don’t at any point complain about women speaking, negatively or otherwise, about men and sex. I made what I saw as a very clear and deliberate complaint about the journalistic quality of one particular article, in which the writer was speaking on behalf of men. That the writer was female is irrelevant, or was to me, anyway – I didn’t really notice that she was until I was already irritated by the article.

You picked up, heavily, on my use of the phrase “getting a little bit tired of sex-negative writing at the moment”, going as far as to reflect it in your title. I picked up on this in my response to your comment at my site, but should repeat here, that though I made the statement on this post, it was an accumulative feeling I had from reading the Guardian article, and this one. In both articles, a writer was allowing an individual man, or men, dictate the terms of a woman’s sexuality and her right to control it; that one article took an anti-female view, and the other an anti-male one, wasn’t as offensive to me as the fact that in neither case were the women allowed a voice. If we’re talking matriarchy and patriarchy, my view is that we should be working to help people get to a position where they can speak for themselves… not have old women and men, and angry white guys speaking for them.

It was foolish to include the sex-negative comment without explaining that it referred more specifically to the prosecutor/judge/journo in the gang rape case, but I hadn’t considered that anyone would crash-land in the middle of my post without already being aware of my previous attitudes and ideals, and with their own axe to grind. It’s a lesson the internet has tried over and again to teach me, and I forget it every time.

Okay, so…

When I say “a peculiar sort of person”, I don’t mean “feminist”. If the writer hadn’t referred to herself as a feminist, I wouldn’t have defined her as such. Frankly, I can’t be bothered with the label. People either respect other people, or they don’t. Anything else is distraction.

What I actually meant when I said “a peculiar sort of person” was “a peculiar sort of person”. The sort of person who can’t read some level of dysfunction in the content and syntax of a statement like: “Sometimes you might rape someone: you can go to a prostitute instead.” or “A desperate man who wants sex so bad, he needs sex to be relieved. He might rape.”.

Does that sound like something a “normal man” would say? Or put more bluntly, does it sound like something you, or any of the men you know, might say? I’d hope not – if it is, it might reasonably say more about the region you are in than men in the UK or western world in general.

Another thing I’d like to clear up: You’re talking about rape an awful lot. I get that you’re preoccupied with it. But at no point did I suggest in my post that rape wasn’t a bad thing, or even wasn’t a common thing, as you have portrayed here. My post, and the post I was responding to, was about prostitution, and the way that the article irresponsibly distracted the reader from the problems that do exist, and the places where those problems are worst, by reframing its very spare research to make the problems look endemic across a whole field. A field, it’s worth noting, where women actually on the ground, both working as and with sex workers, are more than happy to suggest ways that women in the industry would be safer, and more in control of their own destinies. The writer feels more qualified, having talked to a small sample of men who only visit that world, with deciding what the situation is, than letting the women speak for themselves. She doesn’t care about making the lives of those women better, so much as she does about making her point.

I’d also like to clarify that the idealistically attributed term “All women are bitches” didn’t come from me. I know you didn’t directly say it did, but as you have, in my absence, adopted me as straw man for all things typically male, and you used it as an example of things a typical male says, I think I should clarify for your readers that those are your words, not mine. I’m pretty sure I’ve never aired the sentiment, online or off.

But then, I suppose I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Further, you identify me as a white male, for some reason. A lot. I don’t know exactly where you’ve got it from, but it isn’t accurate. I don’t see why it merits mentioning in your post, but you did, so for the sake of honest, open communication, I should mention that it’s wrong. The supremacist thing? I’m not sure I get, but is idealistic and objective, rather than empirical, so I can see why you’d say it. You clearly see me in some higher hegemonic strata than I do. But I’ll let it go, as you obviously have a lexicon that is very personal to your movement. But the race thing? Nu-uh.

Can I ask, which atrocities exactly is it I’m denying? I’ve got a pretty clear sense of how evil the world is. Not sure where I gave the impression that I didn’t.

And if I can’t use the erudite (silver-dollar? Really? Oh dear.) sex-bloggers to make a point, silly or otherwise, because I am not a female sex-worker, can I ask how you get to speak for them, as a self-identified class-privilidged white male?

Also, how did you go about deciding that you weren’t a “typical male”? I assume you don’t consider yourself one, as you seem intent on setting yourself apart from them, but if you’re not, how come? Did you decide you weren’t, or did someone else tell you? It seems like the sort of personal statement one can only reasonably make by reflecting the observations of others. I mean, everyone thinks that they’re atypical, so what makes you different.

I’m genuinely curious. Prior to your comment on my blog, I hadn’t heard of radical profeminism, and I’m intrigued about different ideologies. I learn a lot more through discussion and debate than I do from manifestos and glossaries, so you, sir, are fascinating.

Anyway, thanks again for your comments. I honestly didn’t expect to learn anything new so late in the day today!

I literally only just posted this, and it’s now very late, and I’m starting to begrudge the amount of brain-time I’ve spent on the subject. Had the original articles been written with a bit more journalistic integrity and pertinence, maybe none of this wouldn’t happen.

Me and Mr Real should totally complain to the Guardian and BBC for time wasted. That’s what we should do. Maybe we could end up friends!