Pull My Finger

So, my sometimes-friend pointed me in the direction of some blog I’d never heard of, and it’s so hilarious you have to go read it.  It’s got some occasionally non-hilarious stuff, like posts reminding us that even Marxists can be victims/perpetrators of partriarchal norms.

But its also full of of some high-octane wackaloonery which is entertainment par excellence.  For example, this exchange that occurred during one of the internet’s usual arguments about circumcision:

Clarissa: I don’t think anybody is likely to get an STD when one is a newborn. At least, unless we are talking about families of pedophiles. So I don’t really see the point of bringing up STDs in the context of newborn boys.

SciLiz: So is it wrong, from a public health standpoint, to vaccinate 9 year old girls with the HPV vaccine because they aren’t sexually active yet?

Clarissa: I am profoundly opposed to the HPV vaccine.

SciLiz: Why? (full disclosure- my best friend from grade school got cervical cancer at age 21; my best friend from grad school researched HPV- although not on the vaccine. It is possible I am not terribly impartial on this issue)

Clarissa: https://clarissasblog.com/2010/04/30/why-im-against-the-hpv-vaccine/ (Summary: Patriarchy sees women as inherently icky and diseased and in need of being modified to help maintain control and ultimately the patriarchy.  Feel free to correct me if I’ve got that wrong.)

SciLiz: Uhm, hate to break it to you. but it’s an HPV vaccine. Not a cervix vaccine. The pathology is the (nasty, excessively mess-with-your-cell-cycle strains of the) virus.  I don’t see how the HPV vaccine is “pathologizing” women anymore than the measles vaccine is “pathologizing” children. Also, they are now recommending it for boys as well. Or are you pro-anal cancer?

Clarissa: I’m against the unhealthy American dependence on medication.

SciLiz: And I’m against cancer. I win.

That would have normally been hilarious enough, with SciLiz winning the internets, but the retort deserves some deconstruction:

Clarissa:  This country has been addicted to guzzling down meds for three generations already. And there is still as much cancer as ever. I understand that people want to assuage their anxiety about cancer this way but there are less unhealthy, non-chemical, non-invasive ways of doing that.

As is usual in such exchanges, people have a tendency to let their anger lead them to places of profound ignorance.  The points enumerated by Clarissa are wrong and idiotic:

• Addicted to guzzling down meds: what does this statement even mean?  That pneumonia patients are addicted to antibiotics and should suck it up?
• There is still as much cancer as ever: reminds me of the “then why are there still monkeys” retort.  There is still a lot of cancer in the world.  We have gotten very good at preventing and treating many cancers (you have to follow that link deep into the article).
• People don’t want to “assuage their anxiety about cancer”; they want to not get cancer, and here’s where she fails to understand some fundamentals of medicine and feminism simultaneously.

One thing the HPV vaccine does is give a little control back to women.  A woman who has sex may or may not be given a choice to have sex.  Additionally, she may or may not be given a choice to use a condom.  She is never given a choice about being raped.

The HPV vaccine prevents a sexually transmitted cancer, allowing women to feel just a tiny bit safer.  Would it be better if women had complete control over every sexual encounter?  Of course.  Should we punish a woman for not having that control?   Or for choosing not to use a condom?  Or for her significant other fooling around on her without her knowledge? (HPV affects women who exclusively have sex with women too.)

Imagine this: you  live on some hypothetical planet with some hypothetical bipedal sentient beings.  Some of these  beings (we’ll call them “gumans” for the sake of argument) have domesticated a certain bearded tetrapod, called, for the sake of argument, “roats”.  Some gumans will use them for the secretions from their mammary glands, or for their (tough) meat.  Others may use them for certain “capral” pleasures.

Imagine further that the roats are very useful animals of unknown sentience (they cannot speak other than muttering a useless warble).  Now, some gumans will think, “roats may be sentient, but they are tasty”, and other gumans will think, “roats are very nice and I like their mammary secretions and by using this stuff I can help roats live longer.”

Others will want to have capral pleasure with the roats, and think nothing of it.

Now, lets say that some of these gumans invent an “enternet”, a form of electronic communication used mostly for masturbation of various kinds, but also for the dissemination of roat-knowledge.  Let’s say that one guman has a “rlog” on which she writes about roat-lore, and includes, simply for educational purposes, roat-fucking.  Let’s say some of her “kommenters”, many of whom love roats, use this information to improve their capral knowledge of roats.

Is the rlogger responsible for the roat-buggery?

Something to think about.

Jingoistic shitbags often complain about the dilution of Real American Culture ™ by invading hordes of Mexicans, Jive Talking Negroes, Pushy Jews, and the like. What they’ve failed to anticipate is a new threat, one that cannot be stopped by border fences, draconian immigration laws, English-only statutes, or restrictive housing covenants.

That’s right, it’s l33t, being pumped right into your home, and you may not even know it. Even after you’ve installed every sort of porn filter on the family “computing machine” your children are “chatting” with each other in a new language, and forming a new culture.  Like all invading hordes, they should be feared and ridiculed, but most importantly, they must be oppressed.  The interwebs must be assimilated, and therefore it is our mission, as red-blooded ‘mercuns to stamp out the “l33tsters” before they try to take over our culture with video games and porn.

Overheard at diversity seminar:

You know, the internet is a great opportunity to increase diversity.  If you can do most of your work online, there are no differences between people other than skill.  You don’t even know if someone is female or black or whatever.

Yeah, that is exactly the solution we’ve been looking for.  As long as you erase your identity, you’re welcome to join the rest of us in ruling the world.

Try to remember what a good idea you had when you’re lying awake tonight going to work from your laptop and reveling in the power of  nothingness.