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.

The Male as Boogeyman in Evolutionary Biology? Gee, What a Surprise!

Three days ago I read this Slate article and felt a familiar sinking feeling. I doubted I could articulate my reaction at all, let alone in a way that spoke to anyone. I started writing about it anyway, because I am not a concept. I am not The Patriarchy. I am not misogyny, feminism or misandry. I am not my resentment or my despair. I am my experiences.

I was born in 1970. My mother was forty-one and my father was forty-six. They, like most of their generation, knew little of the social movements of the late twentieth century. They passed their World-War-II-vintage conceptual frameworks on to me, so those were the lenses through which I viewed their interaction.

My mother was an unhappy housewife and my father was oblivious. Looking back, I see auras around them, each having a distinct color and texture yet both suffused with self-conscious melodrama. Each of my parents played a long-suffering and benighted character on a separate stage.

I grew up seeing my mother as her character, sympathizing with her. Sometime during my teens I started to see that she had made me into her confidante. I began to resent her, and to appreciate my father more. He had faults, but at least he never tried to get me on his side.

My mother inhabited the role of the harried, underappreciated housewife. My father inhabited the role of the hard-working, henpecked husband. She made me her confidante because she could. He tuned out because he could.

My parents followed generational tropes down diverging paths. By the time I was in my teens they'd started sleeping in separate bedrooms. Playing those clichés must have been easier than working together as a couple. Already I saw gender roles as tools of sad convenience.

I went away to Cornell and was exposed to those late twentieth century social movements and their antitheses. Struggling to make heads or tails of it all, I erred on the liberal feminist side. I internalized the rampant assertion that I was at fault for being a white male oppressor, and for the most part I kept my mouth shut dutifully.

As I grew to resent having been marginalized, I began to see a pattern. Arguments between males and females seemed to boil down to the former saying "You're ugly" and the latter replying "You can't get it up." Feminism and misogyny were the tools that came most readily to hand as each fumbled for something hard and sharp with which to hurt the other. My cynical view broadened and deepened. I began to see not only gender roles, but movements such as feminism, liberalism and conservatism, as further tools of convenience.

Cornell taught me to disdain political correctness, but not enough. I became involved with a woman who used feminism as a cudgel. She was verbally abusive to the extent of trying to convince me that I had a developmental disability. She was physically abusive to the extent of hitting me in front of our daughter. I became more convinced that feminism, whatever it once may have been, had become just another tool of convenience.

Thirteen years ago I met a woman whom I continue to love more than ever. She showed me that the kind of relationship I'd always wanted wasn't a dream. The thought of seeing her as merely a woman is laughable to me, and I aspire to be worthy of a commensurate laughability. Neither of us retreats into the convenience of gender roles. We are partners. We do the work.

During those thirteen years I stayed out of gender dialogues. Recently I saw those dialogues as more dysfunctional than ever, and felt compelled to enter them. In retrospect, it was inevitable that my old bitterness over the misuse of feminism would surface and muddy the waters. I expressed myself clumsily, coming across as anti-feminist.

The clumsiness was necessary. As I write, I process old experiences and my vision clears. I see that feminism is not the handful of people in my life who used it as a cheap veneer for misandry. I concern myself less with feminism having been misused, and more with pursuing its goal of equality.

Then I read an article like Ms. Waldman's and descend into bleak befuddlement, resentment and despair. Here's the part where my heart began to sink.

Fine. But then Wade derails the whole thing with a perfectly silly evolutionary biology just-so story. He quotes Joshua Akey, a geneticist at the University of Washington in Seattle, as saying it all comes down to pretty ladyparts.

As Wade summarizes Akey's point: “thick hair and small breasts are visible sexual signals which, if preferred by men, could quickly become more common as the carriers had more children.” In fact, as Wade paraphrases Akey, “the sexually visible effects of EDAR are likely to have been stronger drivers of natural selection than sweat glands.”

Basically, the genetic mutation flourished because men wanted to do the no-no-cha-cha with women who carried it. Oops, I’d forgotten that science, the world, etc., revolves around what males find attractive. Never mind that this assumes an alarming passivity on the part of the females. Did they have no say in their mating partner? (That’s a rhetorical question: Studies throughout the animal kingdom show that it’s usually the females who decide who gets action and who doesn’t.) And even supposing that the women had no agency, were prehistoric East Asian men really so very picky? Did they typically refuse intercourse with large-breasted or fine-haired women? I am trying to imagine a caveman turning down a willing sexual partner on account of a triviality like insufficiently luxuriant tresses, and not just one caveman but the entire sperm-producing Pleistocene population.

I wonder if Ms. Waldman understands the irony of her words. The idea that male preference drove genetic selection seemed reasonable to me: not, as she might think, because of misogyny or androcentrism, but because of feminism and liberalism.

None of those women could have dismissed and abused me had I not let them. My knee-jerk response to guilt was to accept all offers. The reasons for this general acceptance are beyond the scope of this article, but my specific acceptance of misandry cloaked as feminism is not. I accepted it because I was trained to accept it.

In order to grow, progressive social movements must convince people that a playing field needs to be leveled, so they tend to present that field as always having been vertiginous; they emphasize the contrast between the world of the past and the new world they want to build. The feminist culture of the nineties did this by telling the story of human history as a story of male oppression and female victimhood. The capital T and the capital P in The Patriarchy are made of those stories.

I cut my teeth on those stories. I was trained by those stories. I was brought to heel by those stories. And now, Ms. Waldman, you scorn a man for thinking that male sexual preference caused a genetic shift. You put words in that man's mouth, scoffing at him for thinking "that science, the world, etc., revolves around what males find attractive".

Ms. Waldman, that man thought up a story about male oppression and he believed it. And if he's anything like me, he believed it for reasons diametrically opposed to misogyny. He believed it because feminism has trained people to believe stories of exactly that sort. He believed it because, for the purposes of feminist ideation, that image of women having had "no say in their mating partner" is pure gold. He believed it because he was trained to make the most odious possible assumptions about his gender.

Say he was stupid, that I was stupid. I won't argue with you. I don't claim that my acceptance of such "dingbat" sexual selection theories is smart. But I know my own mind. I know where my credulousness came from. It came from feminism. So go ahead and take your cheap shot. But when you're done, I want to know one thing.

What did you expect?

STILL NOT ASKING FOR IT (first draft)

A friend posted the above image. A conversation arose which so disturbed me that I know my mind's teeth won't let go of it until I write about it.

I'll begin with full disclosure. Much of what follows arises from bitterness. I'm bitter over not having better defended myself against the misandry that passed for feminism while I was at Cornell twenty years ago, and over not having defended myself against an emotionally abusive woman whose idea of feminism was to hurt me as much as she could, because she could.

But I wouldn't be writing this if it were merely, or even mostly, about my own discomfort. I'm not that small. I'm writing this because I'm terrified that my culture so fears sexual desire that it's warped itself beyond all hope of useful dialectic. And that's exactly what I saw in the conversation that unfolded around this image. My comments are in bold. My friend's comments are italicized.

Oh god, the ambivalence I am feeling.

Ambivilence? (spock eyebrow)

Two voices in my head jockeying for position: 

1. Wow. I'd hit that like a depleted uranium rod dropped from an orbiting tactical satellite. 

2. Wow. What an inspiring and thought-provoking image of empowerment.

Wowzers!!!Not the phrasing I'd use but yeah, she's enticingly audacious in her declaration of her right to be safe in her own skin.

(continued conversation)

... If you detected a hint of criticism in my statement above it's because "I'd hit that" is an objectifying phrasing that was not what I thought you intended to convey.

...Yes, I thought I heard criticism, but it wasn't unwarranted. People who don't know me could well misunderstand my intent in choosing an expression that implies militaristic violence, so at the very least it bore elaboration...

(much more conversation between my friend and some other folks)

May I say though, libertarian theory aside, I'm a little disturbed that I couldn't post this pic without the subject of her desirability, looks, "fuckability" etc... being brought up, even lightheartedly so.

Something wrong with that.

Jay, why do you think there's something wrong with her desirability, looks and fuckability being brought up?

She went out to make a statement about her rights. Seems like discussing how desirable she is kinda missing the point.

On the contrary, it *is* the point. We can't discuss the vital distinction between my desire for her, and my right--or lack thereof--to act upon my desire, without acknowledging the former.

It's a difference between the abstract and the personal.

Agreeing with her by saying, "No matter how naked she is or how men may feel when seeing her, she has a right to be safe and unmolested." Versus us talking about how desirable we find her to be but conceding her point.

It's too much akin to sizing up a rape victim to try to judge if she was really attractive enough to have been assaulted for me to NOT be disquieted about it.

By this point, I knew I was compromised. I was so disturbed by the implications of the conversation that I doubted my ability to continue it usefully. This is my attempt to do so.

Take another look at the image above. Are you shocked? I believe that woman wanted you to be shocked. She had a message to convey, and she knew people would respond viscerally to that message if her naked skin were the medium. She knew some would see her act as needlessly provocative and indecent, and that she would alienate those people. She also knew that some, like me, would see her choices as legitimate.

"Still not asking for it" say the words framing her near-naked breasts. The meaning is clear: "Rape is wrong regardless of how much or how little the victim wears. No matter how much skin I expose, it's still my skin."

Her message derives its power from the tension between a man's desire for her, and her right to control her body. The tension could not exist without both elements, and my response spoke to them. Here it is again.

1. Wow. I'd hit that like a depleted uranium rod dropped from an orbiting tactical satellite. 

2. Wow. What an inspiring and thought-provoking image of empowerment.

Not only is my first sentiment relevant to any conversation about this woman's act, but any such conversation that does not acknowledge this sentiment is worse than useless. I'll explain. But first I need to address some troublesome terminology.

Some folks don't like sentences like "I'd hit that." Well, tough shit.

Adults know that consensual sex ranges along a spectrum of physical roughness; sometimes we're gloriously relaxed afterward, and sometimes we're gloriously sore. When we're sore, we're not sore because anyone was doing anything we didn't want them to do. We're sore because friction exists and because the thing that happens when a pelvis whacks against another pelvis is called an impact, otherwise known as hitting. We all know what "I'd hit that" means. Grow up.

Now, let's talk about the word "objectify".

I am done with the word "objectify".

"Objectify" is a nonsense word. No. That's not true. If only that were true! No, "objectify" is worse than a nonsense word. It's a code word. It means "I don't like what you're saying, and because you're a man, I get to make you shut up now without even considering the merit of your words."

I am not objectifying that woman, because she is already an object. Women are objects. Men are objects. I am an object. Every human on this earth is an object. We each have a corporeal aspect. It's called a body. And my body, like every other body, is programmed with sexual desires. When I see a face like that, and shoulders like those, and breasts like those, and an abdomen like that, and hips like that, I want to fuck the person attached to them.

Do you think there is "something wrong with that"? Do you think I am "missing the point"?

I am missing nothing.

You want to talk about rape? Fine. Let's talk about it. Given the incredible statements by political figures during the months leading up to the presidential election, there's probably never been a better time to talk about it. And by "talk", I don't mean "spout feel-good talking points". I mean "dialectic". Dialectic is never comfortable, and dialectic about rape is bound to be damned uncomfortable. Let's accept that discomfort. Let's be adults.

People wouldn't be sharing the image above if the woman were less physically attractive. The conveyance of her message depends upon her desirability. Her fuckability is not beside the point. Her fuckability is the point.

I am in a twelve-year monogamous relationship with a woman I love more than ever, so I wouldn't fuck the woman in the picture, despite my desire. And even if I weren't spoken for, and even if I somehow found myself alone with with this woman, I wouldn't fuck her unless we each wanted it.

You may understand why I wouldn't fuck her. You may believe, as I do, that my reaction to her state of undress is my problem. You may understand that my desire does not give me sanction over her, regardless of what she's wearing. But statistics tell us that a terrifying percentage of men don't understand that. That's worth talking about. So let's talk about it!

This woman has a right not to be raped. To put it another way, no man has a right to rape her, regardless of how much skin she shows. And if our conversation is limited to congratulatory platitudes about her being comfortable in her own skin, we're missing half of the equation. We have to talk about the reasons why she's bloody well not comfortable in the first place. If we don't, the conversation ends there, in solipsism.

I want to fuck this woman, and I'm not saying a damned thing that the vast majority of adults have not thought. At some point in your life you've almost certainly seen a scantily-clad human and felt a similar desire. Maybe you didn't use those words, but the feeling was commensurable. There is nothing shameful about that feeling.

I want to fuck her. I have no right to fuck her. There is a world of dialectic between those statements, and it's a world we'd damned well better be comfortable in. Because that world is the only natural habitat of a distinction that we absolutely cannot live without. It's the distinction between a man's desires and his rights, and a lot of people seem unable to see it. So we'd better make like David Attenborough and get down on our bellies in the foliage and examine that little son of a bitch.

The men who say "She was asking for it" don't see the distinction between their desires and their rights, or they don't want to see it. We need to show young men that distinction. We need to teach them that our desires are not shameful. Only then can we teach them how wrong it can be to act on our desires.

I want to fuck her; I have no right to fuck her. I own my desire; I do not own her skin. We cannot talk usefully about the latter if we shy away from the former.

When Rewriting Becomes Mitosis

When I posted my Homeland article two days ago, the first few paragraphs looked more or less like they do now.

I give writers the benefit of the doubt. When I see a flawed female character, I assume the writer intended not to impugn all women, but to create a flawed character who happens to be female. So I usually disagree with articles like the one Kathleen J. McInnis wrote for the Atlantic: "How 'Homeland' Undercuts Real Women in Government".

In the case of "Homeland", however, I'm on the feminist side. I agree with McInnis and disagree with the nasty comments on her article: not because Carrie, the lead character, is a flawed woman, but because those flaws, considered both in relation to one another and to a broader context, have troubling implications.

The point of the article is to convey my concern over a character which trivializes strong women. I lead with a rhetorical device: the contradiction between my usual reaction, and my reaction to this particular character. The first paragraph sets up the contrast, and the second brings it home as it states my theme. It's a simple one-two punch.

Since then I've been revising the parts that didn't flow well, especially the first paragraph. I kept wanting to expand upon it, to explain why I give writers the benefit of the doubt. Eventually I succumbed to the temptation to expand the first sentence into a separate paragraph. Here's what the lead-in looked like when I went to bed last night.

Writing is never easy. Writing words that are true to the ideas in my head is fiendishly difficult. Writing words that convey those ideas to other heads with even a modicum of fidelity is well-nigh impossible. That's why I give writers the benefit of the doubt.

When I see a flawed female character, I begin with the assumption that the writer intends not to impugn all women, but rather to write a flawed character who happens to be female. So I usually disagree with articles like the one Kathleen J. McInnis wrote for the Atlantic: "How 'Homeland' Undercuts Real Women in Government".

In the case of "Homeland", however, I'm on the feminist side. I agree with McInnis and disagree with the nasty comments on her article: not because Carrie, the lead character, is a flawed woman, but because those flaws, considered both in relation to one another and to a broader context, have troubling implications.

It was too much, and I knew it. It lengthens the simple one-two punch into a three-part rhetorical chain. By the time you reach my theme, you've gotten turned around twice, and you don't know what the article is supposed to be about. But I couldn't resist.

Today I whittled that first paragraph back down to one sentence to bring the lead-in back to two paragraphs. Then I expanded upon the first sentence until it was several sentences, and calved it off into its own paragraph once again. Then I whittled. Then I expanded. Whittled. Expanded. By the time I reined myself in and reverted to something like my first draft, I had the following pile of fragmentary beginnings.

There's a nothing harder than translating an idea into words, and nothing easier than for readers to go ahead and misconstrue those words anyway. That's why I like to give writers the benefit of the doubt.

There's a uniquely bitter feeling of deflation in finding that readers have misconstrued words I thought perfectly expressed an idea in my head.

The bitter thing about writing is that the words seem exactly as perfect as they aren't. can be every bit as easy to misconstrue as they were hard to write.

Readers will misconstrue your words to a degree proportional to your belief in their perfection.

As hard as you believe your words are perfect, a reader can come along and misunderstand them even harder.

are exactly

We make plans and God just laughs. Likewise, we write and the reader misunderstands. The words seem as perfect as they aren't.

There's a law of equal and opposite reactions in writing.

I write words that I know to be perfect, then the reader shows me I don't know a damned thing.

Man plans and God laughs, and there is no crueler God than the reader. It hurts when people can't see what I thought was perfectly apparent in my words.

as it is to write words that seem true, it remains both easy and

is exactly as easy for my words to be misunderstood as it was 

For me to write words that seem true is as difficult as it is glorious. For a reader to misconstrue those words is as easy as it is heartbreaking. That's why 

Obviously I need to express the pain of writing words that seem perfect yet are misconstrued. But that's not what the piece is about. That first sentence, "I give writers the benefit of the doubt," is fine on its own. To unpack it weakens the piece. I need to let it be. But damn it, it itches.

That itch has become familiar. It's a separate piece wanting to be born. I need to write about writing. I need to write about how necessary and painful writing has become. Then I have to cut the umbilical cord and come back to this piece with my full attention.

Homeland's Carrie Mathison: A Powerful Woman To Trivialize Powerful Women

I give writers the benefit of the doubt. When I see a flawed female character, I assume the writer intended not to impugn all women, but to create a flawed character who happens to be female. So I usually disagree with articles like the one Kathleen J. McInnis wrote for the Atlantic: "How 'Homeland' Undercuts Real Women in Government".

In the case of "Homeland", however, I'm on the feminist side. I agree with McInnis and disagree with the nasty comments on her article: not because Carrie, the lead character, is a flawed woman, but because those flaws, considered both in relation to one another and to a broader context, have troubling implications.

Carrie is assertive, successful and powerful. I have no problem with female characters who are assertive, successful and powerful. I'd like to see a lot more of them.

Carrie is psychotic, volatile and implusive. I have no problem with female characters who are psychotic, volatile and impulsive. Psychotic, volatile and impulsive people of both genders exist.

Carrie depends on deception and secret support in order to function. I have no problem with female characters who depend on deception and secret support in order to function. Such flawed people of both genders exist.

Carrie is sexually aggressive and irresponsible. I have no problem with female characters who are sexually aggressive and irresponsible. Humans have a strong sex drive, and follow it fecklessly.

I have no problem with any one of the traits above. But to combine them all in one character is to strain suspension of disbelief, and for that sin any writer must be held accountable. Why do the creators want us to believe that Carrie could function at such a high level despite her behavior, and why did they give her other particular traits? The answers to those two questions are connected, and that's what bothers me so deeply about "Homeland".

Imagine what would happen if you acted toward your boss the way Carrie acts toward Saul. Forget for a moment all her other uncontrolled impulses and consider just that one aspect of her behavior. Do you think that if you behaved that way, you would keep your job?

Now think about the very worst that could happen if you had a meltdown at work, and then consider that Carrie is entrusted with national security.

That Carrie retains a position of such responsibility and power despite her outbursts is a bolus of conceit. Looking for ways to swallow it, I find no better explanation than that she's a pretty, passionate woman whose father figure indulges her. He stands between her and her peers, blocking their view of her worst behavior.

The mere fact of Carrie's conduct, managed and indulged by those around her, strains suspension of disbelief. Yet it's nothing when you consider that her behavior would be vastly worse were she not getting secret support from her sister in the form of antipsychotic drugs!

It's not in my nature to see The Patriarchy lurking in every literary shadow. Yet when I see a female character who looks like nothing so much as a matryoshka doll formed from successive strata of implausibility, and when I see no male characters so constructed, I call bullshit.

Some humans aren't comfortable seeing a female in a position of power. When humans get uncomfortable, they seek explanations that discredit the source of that discomfort. To see that same matryoshka of implausibility beneath every successful woman is comforting.

Carrie is the worst kind of cipher: one that allows us to remain in our comfort zone. Why take a powerful woman at face value when one can imagine an unseen support network of pills and protectors? Why deal with the tension of a woman in power when one can assume she sustains that power only through indulgence and deception? Why see such a woman as anything more than an enabled homewrecker who, having obtained power by playing upon the tender sympathies of a man, now uses that power to elevate her hysterics? Why do all that work?

Do you think this is all overdrawn? Do you think I've drunk the feminist Kool-Aid?

You're wrong.

I'm not that guy. I'm the guy who usually rolls his eyes at articles claiming that this character objectifies women, or that character reveals the misogyny of the writer. I'm the guy who usually defends a writer's prerogative to create flawed characters of any gender. And that guy is telling you that the character of Carrie Mathison stinks to high heaven.

Still don't agree? OK. Tell ya what. I'll take it all back.

...If you can name one male television or movie lead who has all four of the traits listed at the beginning of this article. Here, I'll make it easy for you.

1. He must be assertive, successful and powerful.
2. He must be psychotic, volatile and implusive.
3. He must depend on deception and secret support in order to function.
4. He must be sexually aggressive and irresponsible.

Go on. I'll wait.

Spring Hike on the Colonial Greenway

Video of the trashline orbweaver I saw in Saxon Woods

For more pictures from this hike see the Picasa web album.

Marsh Marigolds Blooming!

It's a gorgeous day and I'm glad I got out to enjoy it. The sun was beaming down and drawing both fauna and flora up from the leaf litter. It was flora that I noticed first, in the form of marsh marigolds holding forth in yellow.

Trout Lilies Poking Up Through Leaf Litter

One of the most reassuring and satisfying signs of spring is the sight of trout lilies poking up through the leaf litter. Blossoms will come soon.

Young Leaves Unfurling

I don't know what this little plant is, but I welcome it to the world.

Cowslip Just Bein' a Cowslip

Cowslips are another familiar sight from the walks of my youth in the wet woods around home.

More Trout Lilies Being All Trouty

In between this plant shot and the next one, I took my longest stop of the day. I saw some plants I wanted to photograph, and then I noticed a tiny web glistening between the twigs of the small tree in front of me. I took a step forward, took a closer look at the sesame-seed-sized spider on the web, saw the telltale orange chevron on its ventral opisthosoma (god I love saying "ventral opisthosoma") and smiled. The adolescent venusta orchard spiders have left the leaf litter and are getting on with it. It's like getting reacquainted with an old friend.

I got out my Canon XSi with the macro lens and started snapping away. I noticed more and more webs and took more and more shots. Hundreds. Then I took some not-quite-so-close-up macro shots of a beautiful budding plant whose every bud had a brilliant red collar.

Then I noticed that the camera readout had a blank spot where the number of shots remaining on the memory card should be.

I popped open the hatch and sure enough: I'd forgotten to put the memory card in the camera.

EPIC FAIL!!!

...but here are some shots I took in South Mountain Reservation in Millburn last year, just to give you a sense of the tiny packets of negentropy I saw flaring all around me this morning.

Wildflower With Silvered Leaves

I haven't yet identified this plant. The silver pattern on the leaves is quite extraordinary--if I didn't know better, I'd swear someone painted each leaf with Testor's chrome model paint.

Blown-Down Sign on the Hutchinson Parkway

During the fourteen mile hike I passed, climbed over, and was forced to find paths around ten or twenty downed trees. This, however, is the most dramatic evidence of the soaking rains and high winds we've had around Larchmont lately.

Trillium

I've seen millions of trillium in my day, and I'm reasonably sure I've never seen one like this. All the trillium I've seen have leaves of a uniform green. These have mottled leaves resembling those of trout lilies!

After a bit of Googling...

Holy crap! There are 40-50 species of trillium! I didn't know that! This one is Trillium sessile. The following is from Wikipedia:

Toadshade can be distinguished from other trilliums by its single foul smelling, stalkless, flower nestled in the middle of its three leaves. The three maroon petals, maintain a "closed" posture throughout its presence, the petals are occasionally pale green. The leaves are sometimes, but not always mottled with shades of light and dark green. Its species name comes from the Latin word sessilis which means low sitting, and refers to its stalkless flower.

Trashline Orbweaver

The trashline orbweaver has a distinctive appearance and behavior. It has a peculiar little "horn" protruding from the top rear of its abdomen; it has a brown speckled camouflage pattern like a quail's egg; it bundles its own refuse into a vertical line running through the center of its web; and, when startled, it shakes the web so that you can't tell the spider from the trashline! I spotted this little guy's trashline from ten or fifteen feet away.

Native Bleeding Heart

I'm used to the more showy pink bleeding heart, but this less flamboyant native bleeding heart is a joy to see festooning the forest with green and white.

Forked-Tongued Devil

I lay on my belly snapping away at this cute little guy for several minutes. It didn't back down easily; the reason I uploaded so many shots to the Picasa album was to show just how long it stood its ground and flicked its tongue at me every time I moved my hand.

Deer

Just before exiting Saxon Woods these two deer crossed in front of me and stood regarding me from a safe distance. They look like they're in mid-molt.