Fear, Fascination and the Holy

One day over the summer I went up to the roof of our apartment building to water my wife's tomatoes. A pair of abandoned vodka bottles drew my attention, and then my eye latched onto a familiar object suspended in the air between them: a neat vertical stack of mottled grey wadding, about the size of a lollipop stick. It was the smallest trashline, and the smallest Trashline Orb Weaver, I'd ever seen.

Trashline Orb Weavers are so called because of their ingenious method of camouflage. They bundle up their trash, i.e. insect remains, into packets of webbing, and arrange it into a vertical line running through the center of their web. Then they fit themselves neatly into a gap in the line. Without scrutinizing the line, it's impossible to tell what's trash and what's spider.

But the camouflage extends beyond preparation and coloration. If a Trashline Orb Weaver is disturbed by, say, an experimental puff of air from my lips, one of two things happens: it drops off its web; or it shakes the web vigorously. In the latter case, the trashline becomes a frenetic grey blur for several seconds. Neither I nor, presumably, a predator could possibly tell where in that blur the spider is located.

After bothering many Trashline Orb Weavers and watching their responses, I've noticed a comical aspect of the performance: the web vibrates frantically and then stops abruptly. There's no gradual dampening of motion, as one would expect from the elastic web. Clearly the spider "knows" that its camouflage works best when it's either a blur or motionless, so once its burst of energy is spent, it clenches down to resume its static strategy.

I've often wondered if evolution gave Trashline Orb Weavers such an extravagant body shape to support their web-shaking habit. To see what I mean, imagine you were trying to set up sympathetic vibrations in a rope bridge by yanking on the railing as you flexed your knees and bounced your body up and down. Now imagine if you had a big backpack sticking out behind you. You could shake the bridge harder because the pack would give you the mechanical advantage of extra potential torque. Likewise, a spider with an unusual protuberance on its opisthosoma could give its web a little more oomph. Of course, my conjecture could only be proven through painstaking research on many species of spiders to see if a correlation exists between opisthosoma shape and web-shaking behavior. I'd love to see that.

A few days after noticing the tiny trashline, I noticed another one strung between stems of a tomato plant on a stoop near the center of Larchmont. I smiled for two reasons. The first was that proud feeling of intimacy at seeing as only someone with my years of spider-hunting can see. The second was the gratification I always feel when I see a nonhuman creature exploiting the human landscape.

On August twelfth I got both feelings again. I examined a stop sign, knowing how spiders love just such a surfeit of angles and crevices, and found a cute little Salticid with fuzzy white pedipalps. Of all spiders, I find Salticidae by far the hardest not to anthropomorphize. With their huge anterior eyes drinking in the world from on high, and the fiercely attentive way they twitch their bodies and waggle their pedipalps toward me, they seem torn between pugnacious obstinacy and a curiosity that borders on rapture.

On August nineteenth my wife and I found a meadow full of Black and Yellow Argiopes in Teatown Lake Reservation. Everywhere we turned there was another seamstress, perched motionless at the center of her zig-zag stitching or devouring her wrapped prey. I say "her" because Argiope aurantia exhibits a sexual dimorphism that's extreme even for spiders; the male is so comically small in comparison to the female that it appears to be a different species.

Argiope aurantia evokes a singular fear in me. With its vivid black, white and yellow body, its grey head and its black-stubbled legs, it's one of the most arresting sights I've seen. Light seems at once to fall into it and to explode from it. It's as if some trickster god raked its talons across the obsidian surface of primal terror, and the cascading sparks fell to earth and started spinning webs.

Back around 2004 I got into a feedback loop with spiders; the more I photographed them, the more fascinating they seemed, the more I wanted to photograph them. After accumulating pictures of many species I didn't know, I went to a spider identification website. After spending an hour or two looking at pictures of spiders, I had identified most of my subjects. I had also become nauseated.

Up until that day I thought my childhood fear of spiders had diminished, leaving me free to explore my intellectual curiosity. But that's not what happened at all. My fear had not dissipated; it had sublimated. I understood then that fear and fascination are not distinct. They are intertwined. Each fuels the other, each flows into the other. Fear and fascination dance.

And here I was, eight years later, in a field full of creatures from which the young me would have turned and run mindlessly. I was more than fascinated. I was ready to commune with my fear: to feel it dance with my fascination. I'd seen videos of Argiope aurantia crawling on human hands and read that they're harmless to humans. I wanted to see if I could get one to crawl on my hand.

Well, I did try. But the specimens I encountered were as invested as most spiders in having nothing to do with humans. I brought my fingers together gently around each one, trying to scoop it into one hand, but it scrambled out from between my fingers. Its body thumped against my flesh with a brittle heaviness, reminding me of a cicada.

On September first, as Grace and I were walking along Route 73 in Keene Valley, I searched among the raspberry plants for leaves with a particular fold. After years of getting to know Enoplognatha ovata, I can quickly spot its handiwork. I didn't expect to find any so late in the year, when mating season is long past and most spiderlings have left the crèche that their mother built back in late July or early August.

After a minute or two of searching I got a pleasant surprise. I turned over a folded and web-bound set of leaves, and there was a gaggle of adolescent spiders, some of which scattered and dropped as I upended their tiny crèche. The wispy webwork inside looked old, and there weren't as many spiderlings as I'd expect from a recent hatching, so I didn't worry over having hastened their diaspora; they were ready to follow their precocious siblings into a broader world. I smiled, happy for them and for their mother, and grateful to have glimpsed one tiny bubble in the froth of life coursing through the foliage and the forest litter.

On September third I was sunbathing atop Silver Lake Mountain when I felt something crawling on my exposed skin. I looked, and was unsurprised to find yet another tiny Salticid. Now that I've trained my eye to catch the motions of arachnidae, I see them everywhere.

Salticidae are the overcaffeinated neurotics of the arachnid world. I've never had an easy time photographing them, and I only just now realized that I don't find this truly irritating. On the contrary, their twitchy, jumpy obstreperousness endears me to them. As a rule I don't anthropomorphize, because it's irrational at best and dangerous at worst. But Salticidae have such a striking constellation of anthropomorphic attributes that I make an exception in their case.

This little one was no exception. When I brought my hand close in an attempt to bring it up short, it leaped at my finger and bounced off. It was the equivalent of me attacking a blimp. Pound-for-pound, this peppercorn-sized spider was the scrappiest creature it's ever been my pleasure to meet.

A few days later we had a cold snap. My usual bittersweet autumn feelings swept in on the first gust of cool air. One morning, while walking to Aroma, my eye caught a dark blotch suspended in the air among the shrubbery along the sidewalk. It was a cross spider perched at the center of its web.

It's hard to go anywhere near a scrap of foliage in the northeast without running into Araneus diadematus. I've probably seen thousands of them. But this one was posted in a peculiar way. Its front three sets of legs were folded, but the rearmost set was extended straight back. Most adult spiders die at the onset of cold weather, so I wondered if I was seeing a final rigor.

On September eleventh I made the same mistake I make every year; I tried to escape the sadness of that day. In the midst of it, I had an encounter that seemed unrelated. I noticed a familiar tiny movement among the papers on my desk, investigated it carefully, and found a small green spider. Its coloration wasn't quite ostentatious enough to be called "emerald". It was more like polished jade.

I deposited it among the dusty cords at the back of my desk. It crawled down through the slit to the darkness beneath, as I'd intended. Only then did I realized that, in such a sterile environment, it would have no bugs to catch. It would slowly starve. I felt a tiny prick of regret for not having put it outside. But, knowing that it would've died soon anyway, I forgot about it.

The next morning I got to the office and saw two or three small clots of white fuzz suspended in the air between my chair and my desk. A frisson of gladness blossomed in me as I saw the slender line, understood that the fuzz hanging from it was cribellate webbing, and finally noticed the same little green spider from yesterday perched there! It had crawled out from under my desk and made a cast that it could never know was hopeless.

I grabbed my Iron Man pint glass and scooped it up, web and all. And as I brought it outside, I smiled almost to laughing. The gesture meant nothing. The gesture meant everything. It was absurdly profound, profoundly absurd. In its expanse of meaninglessness, meaning burgeoned.

I doubt one in ten thousand people share my fondness and fascination for spiders. Most people would have swept away web and spider in a gesture of shuddering pique. But it wasn't most people. It was me: my chair, my desk. That little green almost-jewel situated itself for the work of my transported hand.

I don't believe the spider came to me through teleologic animus. I don't believe I made a difference in the universe, or that the act conferred on my soul a measure of redemption. I don't believe my act of grace lifted a bit of the previous day's darkness, as chaff lifts toward god.

I believed such things when I was a kid. Sometime during my teens I stepped back from belief, and there I stood for decades, wanting belief but never feeling it justified. Then, in the aftermath of a dark day, I brought a tiny piece of that day outside and put it on a bush. With that act came understanding. In mere wanting, there is meaning.

Some people want to believe that God gives meaning to human affairs. Some people want to believe that the patterns they see around them are the tips of meaning protruding into the observed world. I disdain their irrationality. Then I turn around and want to believe that moments of grace can imbue my existence with meaning.

We cast about for patterns in the static, just as hopefully as that spider cast its line for prey. We train our eyes to catch glimpses of meaning, the way I've trained my eye to catch flickers of motion or folded leaves. We extract and process meaning. We cherish and horde our product. We are meaning-making machines.

Bees can calculate geometric relationships. Termites and ants can build marvels of engineering and thermodynamics. Aphids have adapted their waxy excretions to a panoply of uses. Howe and Cornwallis were avoiding open engagement with the Continental Army in 1776. It could have been bees, ants or aphids that most caught the eye of my intellect. It could have been George Washington or Jesus, language or science, music or math, code or poetry. My lapel could have sported any blossom from the summer meadow of the mind.

Spiders terrify me. Spiders fascinate me. So I picked spiders.

I've long suspected that, in the words of J. Michael Straczynski, "We are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out." Now I more than suspect. I see the way we cast about for meaning. I see how fear and fascination are bound to faith, and how they inform the holy.

The universe behaves like a meaning engine, and we its hungry eyes.

Isoentropic Dreams

Wherever I look, I see people searching for meaning. They get a string of bad luck and they start wondering if someone is sending them a message. A happy coincidence seems like a sign. This piece of wood is not just a piece of wood; it retains an imprint of the spirits of all who have worn it smooth. That ritual is not just a communal habit; it's a thread of continuity that embodies us as a people across time.

We seem built not to allow the perceptible to bound our world. It's as though our reality is merely a membrane stretched taut over a hidden landscape. The membrane throbs and hums with tectonic rumblings from the world of meaning beneath. Exceptionally violent upthrusts stretch the boundaries of our reality thin enough for us to perceive them. The patterns are too clear to ignore; they must come from that rich transmundane landscape.

There is a cost in fixating on that landscape. When we demand that every thing bespeak hidden depths of meaning, we do not allow a thing to be only itself. We trivialize it by neglecting to seek its intrinsic value. One sees this rejection of reality as ungrateful, almost Manichaean. Where does it come from?

The bluegrass gospel music I've been listening to, particularly the song "Gloryland", helped me find an answer. Listen to it.  Read the words below. See the sadness underlying the faith. The speaker's keening lament over the pain of life drives his belief in a better world beyond.

If you have friends in Gloryland,

Who left because of pain

Thank God up there, they'll die no more

They'll suffer not again.

Then weep not friends, I'm goin' home

Up there we'll die no more

No coffins will be made up there

No graves on that bright shore

The lame will walk in Gloryland

The blind up there will see

The deaf in Gloryland will hear

The dumb will talk to me

The doctor will not have to call

The undertaker, no

There'll be no pain up there to bear

Just walk the streets of gold

We'll need no sun in Gloryland

The moon and stars won't shine

For Christ Himself is light up there

He reigns of love divine

Then weep not friends, I'm goin' home

Up there we'll die no more

No coffins will be made up there

No graves on that bright shore

That's the voice of a human who's looked around at the pain of living and has had his heart broken. Unable to bear the thought of his loved ones enduring that pain only to pass into merely nothing, he believes this world to be a shoddy prelude. Those friends of ours have passed into a world where there is no pain: where our bodies don't break down, where we don't need to worry or suffer.

He's dreaming of an isoentropic universe.

This song exemplified the relentless questing after meaning I'd noticed. I listened, and asked myself why people seem hard-wired not to accept the universe around them at face value. Why do they demand that reality not be merely itself?

Abraham Heschel would say that the very prevalence of the quest for the transcendent is evidence for the transcendent. I find his faith breathtaking. I love the way he answers the question I've been asking for decades, "Is there objective beauty?", with a resounding "Yes". I wish I could buy it. But I don't.

However, when I started with the assumption of a makerless entropic universe, and thought it through, the results were eye-opening.

Imagine you have a universe with nothing but an initial state and a set of physical laws: a gravitational constant, Pi, a proton-to-electron mass ratio, that sort of thing. And entropy, of course. Never forget entropy. The fabric of our universe is dyed in it. I doubt a human could imagine a universe without it.

Entropy is another way of saying that the universe trends toward disorder. Air rushes into a vacuum. A hot object imparts its heat to its cooler surroundings. Watches wind down. Everything winds down.

Think of the universe as a river. The vast majority of the water molecules are moving downstream. But here's the interesting thing: our universe seems not only to support, but to actively encourage, its equivalent of eddies. Within isolated pockets, some of the water can move in an upstream direction. That's negentropy: little bits of order, like you and me, existing within the overall disorder.

The direction of the entropic stream guarantees that negentropy always comes at a price. Those eddies get their power to buck the trend from the trend. The energy of the stream drives the eddies; without it, they could not swirl. To maintain our ordered selves we create disorder. We break down food for energy, and we slow heat loss from our bodies by burning wood and by tearing apart plants and organizing the pieces into clothing. To exist, we must destroy.

But we do more than exist, don't we? We aren't insensate self-replicating patterns, like viruses. We conceive of ourselves, and of our relationship to the rest of the universe. Where does this sentience come from? Why would a machine imagine itself more than a machine? Why would it imagine itself at all?

Richard Dawkins articulated a convincing explanation of sentience. Like a general pushing toy soldiers around a tabletop to simulate battles without risking real troops and equipment, an organism can use cognition to simulate interactions with its environment without risking its life. Sentience is what happens when the simulator grows complex enough to include the organism in its own simulation.

Our brains let us exploit our environment, arguably more than any other organism. They also cost us dearly, using about 22 times as much energy to run as the equivalent in muscle tissue. So presumably sentience confers a potent adaptive advantage.

Imagine a topography of adaptive strategies. One might think that sentience leads species to the global maximum except that, in the words of Michael Creighton, "The survival value of human intelligence has never been satisfactorily demonstrated." Perhaps sentience can lead only to a local maximum or, worse, to a catastrophic plunge into the global minimum. But regardless of where sentience leads, for the sake of this argument we need only suppose it an evolutionary attractor.

The moment its species gets pulled over the threshold of sentience, the organism has a problem. As it develops, it begins to include itself in its simulation. Seeing itself in relation to its universe, it has more options, and so seeks a firm basis for choosing among them. It looks for causation. And when it discovers that its progenitors are organisms like itself, they no longer suffice.

As it casts about for a causative agent, the organism finds nothing obvious. Cognitive dissonance leads to anger over having wasted processing power on dead-end scenarios. It sees no intent in its creation: not even malice or indifference. Either of those would be a kindness, because it would at least give the organism an implied focal point for its rage. But it is denied even that. It sees only a lack of intent. It is merely a resultant of the interaction of abstract forces.

With sentience comes existential horror. Staring into that abyss, the organism might recoil into quiescence, or it might see what Camus saw: that the argument for suicide is at least strong enough to warrant a counterargument.

Sentience is highly adaptive. Existential horror is highy maladaptive. How can a species have the former while minimizing the latter? Simple. Throw more processing power at the problem. Give the organism a predisposition to include another world in its simulation: an invisible world beyond what Plato called the sensible.

The overall entropic gradient of our universe fuels pockets of negentropy. Those negentropic patterns which develop better methods of exploitation carve out larger pockets for themselves. Sentience is one attractive strategy. With sentience comes a thirst for meaning. We slake that thirst with a profligacy of abstraction.

Everything in this argument is predicated on the assumption that no cause, either efficient or final, exists. I don't speak to the validity of that assumption. I say only that we behave like organisms that could reasonably be expected to arise within a universe having only the observable attributes of our own.

Chainsaw

My difficulty with the charged language of feminism reminds me of another polarizing topic. I wrote the article below to articulate the frustration I've felt when talking about religion. Everything applies just as well to feminism, except that I believe feminism has done much more good than harm.

Occasionally a friend sees my writing as bigoted against religious people. The following metaphor explains why that perception is inaccurate.

Every so often I write about a chainsaw murder. I point out that the killing was deplorable, and decry the misuse of such a dangerous tool. I say that the act was despicable, irresponsible and childish, and that it never should have happened. My friend replies as follows.

"Hugh, how dare you? I own a chainsaw, and I use it responsibly. I keep it locked away in my garage so that no one else can get to it. I use it for landscaping, and for cutting up firewood. I even make art with it. Have you seen my chainsaw sculptures? I'm not hurting anyone! I am so sick of your bigoted attacks on chainsaw owners!"

I was not criticizing owners of chainsaws. I was criticizing the misuse of chainsaws.

To understand a tool, look at it the way the universe looks at it. The essence of a tool is force multiplication, and the universe looks at force multipliers the way Maryland cops look at New Jersey plates. Whether it's a gun or a plow blade or a computer, the universe exacts a heavy toll. Folks have to digest the food to get the muscle power to dig up the ore and cut down the trees to make the tools to dig up more ore and cut down more trees to make machines to harvest more materials to burn and filter and mix and process and press and stretch and purify and heat and cool and hammer and quench and assemble that tool. Without all that work bound up in it, the tool in your hand could not allow you do do that which you could not do without it.

When I look at a tool, I see vast swaths of energy gathered over time and concentrated. I admire the power of a tool used wisely, and fear the power of a tool used fecklessly.

Religion is one of the most powerful tools humankind has ever seen. And even the most cursory glance at history reveals its potential for misuse. Its potency, and the wantonness with which that potency has been directed, terrifies me. I have every right to point out the misuse of the tool. I do not deny that the tool is also capable of doing useful work. I do believe the tool has done more harm than good, but this belief does not invalidate my screeds against the tool's misuse, nor does it equate to bigotry against those who use the tool responsibly. And while we're talking about those who use the tool responsibly, they should understand that there is a connection between the purchasing power they exercise when they buy the tool, and the continued existence of a tool that is so often misused.

The Abnegation of Empathy

Today a lot of people were praising the article "I Am Not Your Wife, Sister or Daughter. I Am A Person" on The Belle Jar. I couldn't disagree more. I abhor it.

The author does a fine job of summarizing the Steubenville rape trials and their troubling implications. The rational part of her article ends with a summary of the rhetorical device that concerns her.

You should stop defending the rapists and start caring about the victim. Imagine if she was your sister, or your daughter, or your wife. Imagine how badly you would feel if this happened to a woman that you cared about.

Abruptly the piece lapses into a flurry of logical fallacy.

You know what, though? Saying these things is not helpful; in fact, it’s not even helping to humanize the victim. What you are actually doing is perpetuating rape culture by advancing the idea that a woman is only valuable in so much as she is loved or valued by a man.

Nonsense. Utter nonsense. Of course imagining your sister, daughter or wife helps humanize the victim. That's how empathy works for primates. Beyond a certain number, we literally do not see others as human. To see one of those others as having the same nature as those we hold dear helps us to value that other. I'd like to know what evidence the author has to support her assertions to the contrary.

I'm stunned at her dismissal of the rhetorical device, but that's nothing compared to her baseless assertion that what I'm "actually doing is perpetuating rape culture". Again, where is the evidence? I'd like to know what, aside from the author's overweening self-satisfaction, gives her the right to tell me not only that I've not helped, but that I've contributed to the problem.

This is just the kind of peremptory narcissism that makes men throw up their hands and walk away from the entire conversation. I know, because that's just what I did. Over twenty years ago I was stupid enough to buy into the constant barrage of accusation. No matter what I did or said, I was always an oppressor who would never deserve to take part in the conversation.

Twenty years. Twenty goddamn years. Maybe I could have been useful during those twenty years. Maybe my words could have prevented one woman from being raped. But I kept my mouth shut. Because of horseshit just like this.

Do you think I'm being harsh? Do you think I'm letting my anger control me? Maybe. But what I'm doing is nothing compared to what the author does. On my very worst day I would never write anything as inhumane as what follows.

This rape, and any rape, was wrong because women are people. Women are people, rape is wrong, and no one should ever be raped. End of story.

No matter how angry I got, I would never presume to co-opt objective truth, as though anyone who dares disagree with me is a rape enthusiast. And I damned sure wouldn't write "End of story." Because I know that those words are the guillotine of dialectic and the death knell of empathy. And that's the greatest irony of this article; in seeking to define true empathy, the author achieves its abnegation.

But it gets even better. Near the end of the article, she says this.

I have value because I am a person. Full stop. End of argument. This isn’t even a discussion that we should be having. 

So please, let’s start teaching that fact to the young women in our lives. Teach them that you love, honour and value them because of who they are. Teach them that they should expect to be treated with integrity because it’s a basic human right. Teach them that they do not deserve to be raped because no one ever, ever, ever deserves to be raped.

Oh, yes, it all sounds so bloody easy to agree with, doesn't it? Applause all around. But once we've all come down from the high of masturbatory self-righteousness, let's breathe for a moment and see what we've accomplished.

First, we've imbued the word "should" with a power that will never, ever be more than imaginary. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, go back and read the article carefully. The word "should" appears a number of times. Take 'em in. Then come back to that last pair: "This isn't even a discussion we should be having... Teach them that they should expect to be treated with integrity because it's a basic human right." 

Wonderful. Teach them not to even listen. Teach them never to seek dialectic. Teach them that the way they think the world should be is the way the world is, so they need never prepare themselves for a reality that has never once given a shit about your "should".

The author talks a lot about how women are people, and how we need to teach this notion. What I'd like to know is "How?" Now that she's taken away the most obvious, effective and common-sense tool of empathy, what's her lesson plan? All I see is a blueprint for giving young women a sense of entitlement that enhances their already dangerous sense of invulnerability.

A Feminist Rant, Part 2: Emulation for Female Audience

The other day a friend tipped me to "A Feminist Rant", a wonderful article by "pruriginosus". I had an unusually strong positive reaction that compelled me to understand the author's rhetorical methods. The more I analyzed the article, the more I needed to emulate it. 

In the first step I took notes, which turned into an exercise in parsing my reactions to the piece. This was to be the second of three steps, but as I tried to write my own version of the first sentence, I realized it would be the second of four. I'm too scattered to write a single version to all the people in my life, both male and female, whom I'd want to read this. So this one is addressed to women.

The original article appears on the left. My version, with notes, is on the right.

Addressed to the male friend whom I will probably be forcing to read this in the near future:	Addressed to any woman willing to read.
I can understand why you might not, at first, be inclined to see things from a feminist perspective. This is one of many aspects in which I see sexism as akin to racism: I don’t think about race – at all, ever – because I don’t have to. It doesn’t adversely affect me. I was born white, so society gives me the default settings. So it follows that most men probably don’t think about gender because they don’t have to; it isn’t a constant detriment to them. But I don’t expect men to apologize for being men any more than I would be willing to apologize for being white. We didn’t choose to be what we are, and we can’t always help the shitty things that other people do.	I can understand why you might not, at first, be inclined to see feminism from a male perspective. This is one way in which I see sexism as akin to racism: I've spent my life working to be a version of myself who did not have my racist upbringing, yet as a white man I tend to be disqualified from conversations about race. So it follows that most women probably don't think about a man's pain because they don't have to; it can't compete with their own. But I don’t expect women to apologize for being women any more than I would be willing to apologize for being white. We didn’t choose to be what we are, and we can’t always help the shitty things that other people do.
So understand that I’m not trying to assign blame. I’m not trying to evoke sympathy or make you feel apologetic. I just want you to understand this stuff because it’s important to me; understanding feminism is crucial to understanding me and my perspective. And I only care that you understand my perspective because you’re important to me. So really, the fact that I’m trying so hard to make you get it is a compliment. Trust me.	So understand that I’m not trying to assign blame. I’m not trying to evoke sympathy or make you feel apologetic. I just want you to understand this stuff because it’s important to me; understanding my involvement in feminism is crucial to understanding me and my perspective. And I only care that you understand my perspective because you’re important to me. So really, the fact that I’m trying so hard to make you get it is a compliment. Trust me.
Commencing rant:	Commencing rant:
Over the past year or so, I’ve come to the conclusion that the worst thing about being a woman – at least, in the context of my own time, place, ethnicity, age, etc. – is the notion that women are for fucking. Sure, it’s the 21st century; you can become a scientist or major in business. You can be tough, smart, funny, whatever – as long as you’re also, first and foremost, sexy. Because sex is what women are for, and sexy is the most important thing for them to be.	Over the past two months or so, I’ve come to the conclusion that the worst thing about feminism – at least, in the context of my own time, place, ethnicity, age, etc. – is the notion that men have no place in it. Sure, it’s the 21st century; you can become the feminist equivalent of an LGBT ally. You can be sensitive, tender, supportive, whatever – as long as you’re also, first and foremost, passive. Because passivity is what men are for, and passive is the most important thing for them to be.  "Obsequious" feels a tad overwrought, but "deferential" seems too weak. I went with "passive" because it connects with the point I want to make about having always felt constrained from violence when the women around me showed no restraint.
That’s the message I feel inundated with on a daily basis. Even when I was a kid, before I’d started really analyzing these things and forming concrete opinions, I noticed it. When confronted by various media, I wondered, “does it seem like the women are only there for the men? Why do the men get to be serious and dignified, and the women are just coquettish and exposed? Why is it that every attack on a woman seems to involve rape?” These things unnerved me, but I hadn’t quite figured out why.	That’s the message I've feel inundated with ever since I was four years old. One day my sister had me pick up a large hammer so she could show her friend how strong I was. I could hold it in one hand, and she couldn't. Until that moment, I had no idea that I was already far stronger than her, even though she was more than two years older. Over the following years my sister would lash out at me verbally, hit me, spit on me, pull my hair, scratch me until I bled, and spray hair spray in my face. And I always took it, because I'd been trained all my life never to lift a finger against a woman. During my twenties I was in a relationship with a woman who was emotionally and physically abusive. Among other things, she tried to convince me that I had a developmental disability, destroyed my possessions, and threatened, in front of our daughter, to hit me. Once she did hit me in front of our daughter. I never lifted a hand. Again, I am not comparing the sort of abuse I suffered to that of a woman who's been bruised and broken. I just want you to understand. I want you to know what it felt like to have been socialized to be big and strong, to have a body that was surging with hormones and was much stronger and tougher than the bodies around me, and yet to be utterly forbidden to manifest that strength.  Can you understand what it's like to feel the rage well up as someone you could kill with your bare hands is bellowing at you, pounding on your chest, drawing your blood, and hurting you worst of all with their words? Can you feel the implacable conditioning that blunts every natural urge to defend yourself? Can you feel those urges being bottled up inside you? Can you taste that particular flavor of madness? All my life I've wondered, “Why do the women get to be fiery and violent, forcing me to be the calm and rational one? Why is it that I'm full of guilt over how men have treated women, yet every argument I have with a woman escalates into her abusing me as I lapse into helpless passivity?” These things unnerved me, but I hadn’t quite figured out why. To say that I feel inundated with this message on a daily basis would be dishonest, so I truncated the first sentence. I'm showing that I don't try to equivocate my experience with a woman's. I had to abandon the close emulation on this paragraph. Again, it didn't feel honest. I haven't had her experiences, so it started to feel like I was aping her. Now here's the main problem I've noticed: when I deviate from strictly following her framework, I speak from personal experience rather than making general statements. Usually I consider generalizations a bad thing, because I don't consider someone who presumes to speak for men in general, or about women in general, to be a trusted narrator. However, in this context, my method of writing about personal experiences has a drawback; the reader may think I'm equivocating my experiences with those of women.
Turns out, it’s because sex is depicted as women’s ultimate purpose. This makes it quite easy to feel, as a woman, that you can be 1 of 2 things: a sex object, or invisible. If you suit the Western heterosexual male standard of attractiveness, then congratulations, you get to be masturbation fodder. If you don’t, then you’re worthless. That’s why inadequacy means so much more than undesirability – it means being disregarded entirely. I think that’s why “unattractive” women, or women who refuse to indulge certain socially imposed practices like shaving, are the object of so much hostility; lots of men seem to feel this sense of entitlement toward women, like it’s our obligation to make ourselves attractive to them. So when you don’t, you’re an affront to them; you’ve failed at what they see as your most basic purpose. Bear in mind, these are usually men you don’t even fucking know, yet they still think that you owe it to them to please them and that they’re within their rights to comment on you and your choices.	Turns out, it’s because passivity is men's primary requirement. This makes it quite easy to feel, as a man, that you can be 1 of 2 things: passive, or a villain. If you suit the white liberal heterosexual male standard of obsequiousness, then congratulations, you get to be included. If you don’t, then you’re the bad guy. That’s why inadequacy means so much more than undesirability – it means internalizing the sins of your gender. I think that’s why "unenlightened” men, or men who refuse to intone certain politically imposed Shibboleths, are the object of so much hostility; lots of women seem to feel this sense of entitlement toward men, like it’s our obligation to make ourselves deferential to them. So when you don’t, you’re an affront to them; you’ve failed at what they see as your most basic purpose. Bear in mind, these are usually women you don’t even fucking know, yet they still think that you owe it to them to agree with them and that they’re within their rights to comment on you and your choices.
This creates very high stakes for women who don’t measure up. We live in a society that constantly tells you how important it is that you live up to this standard, while simultaneously telling you that you don’t. This can easily make you feel like you don’t count. After all, if the most important thing you have to offer is sex, and people don’t want to have sex with you – what are you good for? The answer, of course, is nothing, and countless women and girls really do start to believe that; so they become desperate to modify their appearances and begin to loathe themselves if they can’t.	This creates very high stakes for men who don’t measure up. We live in a society that constantly tells you how important it is that you live up to this standard, while simultaneously telling you that you don’t. This can easily make you feel like you don’t count. After all, if the most important thing you have to offer is obsequiousness, and people don’t want to listen to you – what are you good for? The answer, of course, is nothing, and countless men and boys really do start to believe that; so they become desperate to modify their behavior and begin to loathe themselves if they can’t.
So please don’t fucking tell me that there is nothing to be unhappy about. I understand that sexism is more understated here than it is elsewhere; women here are allowed to drive, own property, travel unaccompanied. It’s illegal to throw acid on us. Basic human rights, fantastic! Societies and governments that endorse human rights are not to be congratulated; the ones that don’t are to be condemned. There is a difference.	So please don’t fucking tell me that there is nothing to be unhappy about. I understand that sexism hurts women more than men; men have the luxury to think less about their sex appeal, command more respect, travel unaccompanied without worrying about being raped. It’s illegal to literally gag us. Conditional tolerance, fantastic! Movements that endorse conditional tolerance are not to be congratulated; the ones that don’t are to be condemned. There is a difference.
So don’t tell me, “So what if you feel dwarfed and invisible and worthless on account of being a woman? That’s nothing!” Yes, there is a difference between harming a group psychologically and harming them physically. But think about it: slavery, segregation, and unopposed lynchings are no longer norms, but that doesn’t mean that racism doesn’t exist here. We don’t have a Ugandan-style death penalty for homosexuality, but that doesn’t mean homophobia is not at play. So, similarly, you can’t use the extremes of misogyny to claim that nothing is wrong.	So don’t tell me, “So what if you feel dwarfed and invisible and worthless on account of being a man? That’s nothing!” Yes, there is a difference between harming a group psychologically and harming them physically. But think about it: slavery, segregation, and unopposed lynchings are no longer norms, but that doesn’t mean that racism doesn’t exist here. We don’t have a Ugandan-style death penalty for homosexuality, but that doesn’t mean homophobia is not at play. So, similarly, you can’t use the extremes of misogyny to claim that nothing is wrong.
The fact that people are so quick to deny the existence of sexism, in spite of the claims of innumerable women, just goes to show how deep-seated sexism really is. It’s a vicious cycle: we don’t take women seriously enough to assign validity to their perspectives, and yet somehow fail to realize that this, in itself, is a sexist mindset. We refuse claims of sexism because it’s women who are making them. We claim to know their perspectives better than they do, dismissing those who protest as oversensitive, irrational, overreacting. In other words, we reject sexism in completely sexist terms. And the roots of the problem run so deep that, somehow, people don’t even make the connection.	The fact that people are so quick to deny the existence of misandry, in spite of the claims of innumerable men, just goes to show how deep-seated misandry really is. It’s a vicious cycle: we don’t take men seriously enough to assign validity to their perspectives, and yet somehow fail to realize that this, in itself, is a sexist mindset. We refuse claims of sexism because it’s men who are making them. We claim to know their perspectives better than they do, dismissing those who protest as insensitive, irrational, misogynistic. In other words, we reject misandry in completely sexist terms. And the roots of the problem run so deep that, somehow, people don’t even make the connection.
It’s largely a problem of representation. Even I, with my adamant feminist ideals, have been socialized to see men as the default and women as something extra – an adornment to the human race. That’s how it feels when you look at almost any group, whether it’s a writing staff, a boardroom, a movie cast; you see the overwhelming number of men, and you start to think automatically, “Oh, but that makes sense, because there just are more men, generally.” Even though we all know that’s ridiculous! That’s sure as hell how it looks though; the raw number of men in the world appears larger than that of women because that’s the ratio you see represented. And the women you do see tend to be there for sex appeal; remember, it’s sex object or nothing. This narrowness of number and variety has a huge effect on the way we perceive real women, develop schemas about gender, and form expectations of individuals.	It’s largely a problem of representation. Even I, with my adamant humanist ideals, have been socialized to see women's opinions as the default and men as something extra – an adjunct to feminism. That’s how it feels when you look at almost any group, whether it’s couple, an office, an internet message board; you feel the overwhelming pressure to fall in line, and you start to think automatically, “Oh, but that makes sense, because women's opinions just mean more than men's, generally.” Even though we all know that’s ridiculous! That’s sure as hell how it looks though; the raw weight of women's suffering in the world appears to trump a man's right to express himself because that’s the notion you see represented. And the men you do see tend to be there for subservience; remember, it’s passivity or nothing. This narrowness of expression and assertion has a huge effect on the way we perceive real men, develop schemas about gender, and form expectations of individuals.
So how do all of these overarching societal themes affect me as an individual? Why does it all depress me so much? Because it makes me feel like, no matter what I do with myself, my worth will always be determined by whether guys want to fuck me. It makes me feel like I can never have sex with a man as an equal because my sexuality is nothing more than a commodity. It makes me feel like I can never have sex for my own personal satisfaction because society typically uses women as mere devices to please men; the media promote the idea that women exist to facilitate male pleasure, so women’s enjoyment of sex must be secondary. The message that sex is all you’re good for seems to be everywhere; get that message enough, and the psychological effect is pretty devastating.	So how do all of these overarching societal themes affect me as an individual? Why does it all depress me so much? Because it makes me feel like, no matter what I do with myself, my worth will always be determined by whether I toe all the right lines. It makes me feel like I can never talk to a woman as an equal because my sexuality is nothing more than a handicap. It makes me feel like I can never engage in feminist discourse for my own personal satisfaction because feminism typically uses men as mere devices to support dogma; liberal politics promote the idea that men exist to atone for men's sins, so men’s ideas must be secondary. The message that obsequiousness is all you’re good for seems to be everywhere; get that message enough, and the psychological effect is pretty devastating.
I didn’t even touch on sexual assault (though there is a reason, male friend, why I double-check my locks and do a quick sweep of my apartment every time I get in the shower or go to bed, and you sometimes forget to lock your front door), the pay gap (which, despite what Republicans like to say, does exist, both between genders and among races), or race- or LGBT-specific issues (being a straight, white female, I wouldn’t be entitled to comment on either; my only input would come from statistics and secondhand accounts).	I didn’t even touch on sexual assault (though there is a reason, female friend, why I scrutinize my writing, and you sometimes forget to accord me the most basic decency when you write about men), or race- or LGBT-specific issues (being a straight white man I would not equivocate my experiences with blacks or gays, but as a human being, and as a man who has been scarred by racism and who has lost a friendship because of his LGBT advocacy, I would be entitled to take part in the conversation).  I hope the manner in which I mirrored the original article doesn't come across as fatuous or disrespectful. That's not my intent. It's striking how well some of the constructions work when I do nothing more to a paragraph than substitute "men" for "women" and vice versa. It's both satisfying  and unnerving, like tipping a sacred cow.

A Feminist Rant, Part 1: Notes

The other day a friend tipped me to "A Feminist Rant", a wonderful article by "pruriginosus". I had an unusually strong positive reaction that compelled me to understand the author's rhetorical methods. The more I analyzed the article, the more I wanted to emulate it. This is the first step of that process. The original article appears on the left, with my notes on each paragraph to the right.

Addressed to the male friend whom I will probably be forcing to read this in the near future:	The author starts with a rhetorical device: tension. I trust her because she has a male friend she cares about enough to write this, but mistrust her because she's going to "force" him to read this. She feeds my prejudice as well as my hope. I'm curious.
I can understand why you might not, at first, be inclined to see things from a feminist perspective. This is one of many aspects in which I see sexism as akin to racism: I don’t think about race – at all, ever – because I don’t have to. It doesn’t adversely affect me. I was born white, so society gives me the default settings. So it follows that most men probably don’t think about gender because they don’t have to; it isn’t a constant detriment to them. But I don’t expect men to apologize for being men any more than I would be willing to apologize for being white. We didn’t choose to be what we are, and we can’t always help the shitty things that other people do.	She empathizes with me, establishing common experience. She makes it clear that she doesn't hold me accountable for the actions of other men. She's already won more of my trust.  Her assertion that she never thinks about race seems fatuous to me. Be that as it may, it is the opposite of my experience. I grew up in a racist family. I think of race all the time. I'm glad she included this bit, though, because my view of racism and homophobia informs my view of sexism. A variant of this paragraph will be important to my version.
So understand that I’m not trying to assign blame. I’m not trying to evoke sympathy or make you feel apologetic. I just want you to understand this stuff because it’s important to me; understanding feminism is crucial to understanding me and my perspective. And I only care that you understand my perspective because you’re important to me. So really, the fact that I’m trying so hard to make you get it is a compliment. Trust me.	With this paragraph I am along for the ride. The thought of writing about feminism fills me with anxiety near to despair. I'm afraid that, no matter what I say, feminists will dismiss me as a whiny man trying to equate his suffering with that of women who have been marginalized, abused and raped.  I would never do that, and I would never ask for sympathy, much less apology. I crave understanding, though I've accepted that I may not get even that. So I intend to proceed according to my own lights, asking only not to be dismissed. I know that people will dismiss me anyway: that they will ridicule and hate me. I know the pain to which I'm opening myself, because it's the same pain I've avoided through more than twenty years of silence. I want people to understand why I'm bothering to break that silence. I'm horrified at the state of gender discourse. I want to contribute to a world where people hurt each other less. Bitterness and fear cloud my writing, yet my perspective can't be irrelevant. I don't deserve to be dismissed. I want people to see that I'm doing this because I care too much not to. The author shows me that she shares all these feelings. She ends with the words "Trust me," and I do.
Commencing rant:	She has already earned enough trust for me not to be apprehensive.
Over the past year or so, I’ve come to the conclusion that the worst thing about being a woman – at least, in the context of my own time, place, ethnicity, age, etc. – is the notion that women are for fucking. Sure, it’s the 21st century; you can become a scientist or major in business. You can be tough, smart, funny, whatever – as long as you’re also, first and foremost, sexy. Because sex is what women are for, and sexy is the most important thing for them to be.	I agree with this. I've seen the way men are. Take away the counterpoint, and it's how I am. Sometimes I look at a woman, and the first and most important thought in my mind is how much I'd like to fuck her. Yet I wonder if the phenomenon she points out represents an overeager capitulation. I never asked anyone to deform themselves according to my desire. I don't want that kind of power--not just over women, but over anyone.  Ah, but look what I'm doing: trying to assign blame, which is what she explicitly said she's not trying to do. So far she's given me no reason to disbelieve her. Now that I've noticed my own reaction to this paragraph, I'm struck by the absence of blame. Its actual content stands in counterpoint to what I was reading into it. She's not saying men make women feel this way; she's just saying that women feel this way. I see now how readily I cast the very sort of blame that makes me bristle. I'm left humbled, and determined to emulate this humane clarity in my own writing. She seems to think that we're all in this together, a belief that drives my own feminism. The least I can do is to see what she's saying, and what she's not saying, because that's all I want when I write.
That’s the message I feel inundated with on a daily basis. Even when I was a kid, before I’d started really analyzing these things and forming concrete opinions, I noticed it. When confronted by various media, I wondered, “Why does it seem like the women are only there for the men? Why do the men get to be serious and dignified, and the women are just coquettish and exposed? Why is it that every attack on a woman seems to involve rape?” These things unnerved me, but I hadn’t quite figured out why.	This rang true to me because I remember well the feeling of having a thirteen-year-old daughter and seeing posters in shop windows of highly sexualized teenagers. It seemed like our culture, and advertising in particular, was imposing sexuality on girls at a younger and younger age. I can't blame her for being unnerved.
Turns out, it’s because sex is depicted as women’s ultimate purpose. This makes it quite easy to feel, as a woman, that you can be 1 of 2 things: a sex object, or invisible. If you suit the Western heterosexual male standard of attractiveness, then congratulations, you get to be masturbation fodder. If you don’t, then you’re worthless. That’s why inadequacy means so much more than undesirability – it means being disregarded entirely. I think that’s why “unattractive” women, or women who refuse to indulge certain socially imposed practices like shaving, are the object of so much hostility; lots of men seem to feel this sense of entitlement toward women, like it’s our obligation to make ourselves attractive to them. So when you don’t, you’re an affront to them; you’ve failed at what they see as your most basic purpose. Bear in mind, these are usually men you don’t even fucking know, yet they still think that you owe it to them to please them and that they’re within their rights to comment on you and your choices.	This seems authentic, and it brings to mind my own experiences as a socially retarded youth. From the time of my adolescence to my twenties, I was baffled by relationships. Everyone I saw seemed able to fall into them effortlessly, and to treat them with a commensurate fecklessness. I looked at them the way a starving man looks at someone throwing away a half-eaten sandwich. And through it all, I saw how women seemed to just love men who acted like assholes. So I also felt that I could be one of two things: an asshole, or invisible. I also know what it's like to feel unattractive and therefore disregarded. I grew up morbidly obese, and by adolescence the assumption that no woman would ever want me was part of my landscape, like the ground I walked on. I would no more have thought to comment on my undesirability than a fish would have commented on the water.  Again, I am not equating my experiences with those of women. I am saying that my experiences help me understand the "death of a thousand paper cuts". I've felt the pain of regard and of disregard, so I know how both can press down on your skin like rain on a sagging tent, eventually soaking through.
This creates very high stakes for women who don’t measure up. We live in a society that constantly tells you how important it is that you live up to this standard, while simultaneously telling you that you don’t. This can easily make you feel like you don’t count. After all, if the most important thing you have to offer is sex, and people don’t want to have sex with you – what are you good for? The answer, of course, is nothing, and countless women and girls really do start to believe that; so they become desperate to modify their appearances and begin to loathe themselves if they can’t.	This is all clearly true. I need look no further than the memory of a singularly disturbing conversation with my daughter, again when she was about thirteen. She told me that she'd started plucking her eyebrows, and when I began to protest that she didn't need to, she said with exasperation "But Dad, I've got a monobrow!"
So please don’t fucking tell me that there is nothing to be unhappy about. I understand that sexism is more understated here than it is elsewhere; women here are allowed to drive, own property, travel unaccompanied. It’s illegal to throw acid on us. Basic human rights, fantastic! Societies and governments that endorse human rights are not to be congratulated; the ones that don’t are to be condemned. There is a difference.	I agree. People too often equivocate. Many times I've bristled at praise because my behavior that prompted it constituted mere human decency. I do not deserve praise for decency. I would be unambiguously deserving only if I did something both extraordinary and costly. Common decency is all too often extraordinary, but is usually not costly. My gay rights activism has cost me more pain than I can readily articulate. But simply acting as though women are human beings? That deserves no praise. Joss Whedon expressed this notion better than I ever could when he said, during an Equality Now speech, "I believe that what I am doing should not be remarked upon." A few years ago I wrote an article about that speech from the perspective of an LGBT ally, and it continues to spawn fresh resonances in me as I negotiate my relationship with feminism. The following words echo in my mind as I claim my right to express the pain that gender roles have caused me. "...Because equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality is like gravity, we need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and women who’s confronted with it."
So don’t tell me, “So what if you feel dwarfed and invisible and worthless on account of being a woman? That’s nothing!” Yes, there is a difference between harming a group psychologically and harming them physically. But think about it: slavery, segregation, and unopposed lynchings are no longer norms, but that doesn’t mean that racism doesn’t exist here. We don’t have a Ugandan-style death penalty for homosexuality, but that doesn’t mean homophobia is not at play. So, similarly, you can’t use the extremes of misogyny to claim that nothing is wrong.	I would never call feelings nothing. I've worked for decades to come to terms with my own racist upbringing, and have been an LGBT rights advocate for years, so I know that psychological harm is nontrivial. I don't think nothing is wrong. On the contrary, my certainty that gender discourse is fundamentally broken is what compels me to engage with feminism.
The fact that people are so quick to deny the existence of sexism, in spite of the claims of innumerable women, just goes to show how deep-seated sexism really is. It’s a vicious cycle: we don’t take women seriously enough to assign validity to their perspectives, and yet somehow fail to realize that this, in itself, is a sexist mindset. We refuse claims of sexism because it’s women who are making them. We claim to know their perspectives better than they do, dismissing those who protest as oversensitive, irrational, overreacting. In other words, we reject sexism in completely sexist terms. And the roots of the problem run so deep that, somehow, people don’t even make the connection.	I agree. And I have a knee-jerk reaction to point out that men are dismissed from feminist conversations in terms every bit as sexist. That wouldn't be useful in this context for two reasons: it would give the incorrect impression that I'm equivocating; and it would be unjustifiable as a response to an author who has been careful not to cast blame.
It’s largely a problem of representation. Even I, with my adamant feminist ideals, have been socialized to see men as the default and women as something extra – an adornment to the human race. That’s how it feels when you look at almost any group, whether it’s a writing staff, a boardroom, a movie cast; you see the overwhelming number of men, and you start to think automatically, “Oh, but that makes sense, because there just are more men, generally.” Even though we all know that’s ridiculous! That’s sure as hell how it looks though; the raw number of men in the world appears larger than that of women because that’s the ratio you see represented. And the women you do see tend to be there for sex appeal; remember, it’s sex object or nothing. This narrowness of number and variety has a huge effect on the way we perceive real women, develop schemas about gender, and form expectations of individuals.	This all rings true. It's hard to look at any form of popular entertainment and not see women as adjunct and adornment.
So how do all of these overarching societal themes affect me as an individual? Why does it all depress me so much? Because it makes me feel like, no matter what I do with myself, my worth will always be determined by whether guys want to fuck me. It makes me feel like I can never have sex with a man as an equal because my sexuality is nothing more than a commodity. It makes me feel like I can never have sex for my own personal satisfaction because society typically uses women as mere devices to please men; the media promote the idea that women exist to facilitate male pleasure, so women’s enjoyment of sex must be secondary. The message that sex is all you’re good for seems to be everywhere; get that message enough, and the psychological effect is pretty devastating.	Yet again I'm ambivalent. I accept as true both the author's feelings and the reasons she cites, and I feel frustrated that women care so much whether men want to fuck them. I never asked, never wanted, a woman to care that much whether I want to fuck her. There's a distinction between wanting a thing and thinking that I deserve a thing.  I accept that many, if not most, men do not make that distinction. I am aware that I say things that sound similar to what misogynistic men say. The tension between that awareness and my determination to express myself is why I'm working to improve my communication.
I didn’t even touch on sexual assault (though there is a reason, male friend, why I double-check my locks and do a quick sweep of my apartment every time I get in the shower or go to bed, and you sometimes forget to lock your front door), the pay gap (which, despite what Republicans like to say, does exist, both between genders and among races), or race- or LGBT-specific issues (being a straight, white female, I wouldn’t be entitled to comment on either; my only input would come from statistics and secondhand accounts).	It was a conversation about sexual assault that compelled me to reenter the gender conversation. I believe these are all real problems, and I want to work against them. However, I'm curious about the author's assertion that she wouldn't be entitled to comment on race- or LGBT-specific issues, and this leads me right back to my worry about being dismissed. If she believes that she has no right to comment on those issues, then presumably she believes I don't have a right to comment on feminism. I would disagree with both assertions. I've struggled for decades to be the person I want to be, rather than that child deformed by racism. I've worked for years to support LGBT rights because to give me any consideration over others because I happen to be straight is a personal insult to me. It lessens me. All of these inequalities lessen us all. Why on earth should either of us not be entitled to comment? Regardless of my disagreement on this point, I'm grateful to the author for her work. Parsing my reaction to this piece has helped me see the semiotic path I want to walk as I engage with people on all these questions and tensions.