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Roderick

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I can totally understand why people would "hate" Dan Savage for advising his readers to be tolerant and respectful of other people's gender identities and desired pronouns even if they don't understand them.

 

Yeah. I know he's being a flippant and snarky about it, but Dan Savage gonna be Dan Savage.

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My issue with Dan Savage (while not hate, definitely moderate abhorrence) is that he often mixes just enough good, basic advice on how to treat as human beings in with some of the more odious opinions he's had over the years about anyone that's not a straight, white cis gay man that people want me to give him a pass but I'm not going to. He's doing some really basic stuff and I expect better/more from him or anyone. He's just the guy with the loudest mouthpiece. 

 

Saying that "it's just how he is!" is a really huge cop-out for me, everyone (and I mean everyone, including myself) can always strive to do better, especially if we have the ability to influence others with our words. Having an audience means you have the most responsibility to do due diligence by whomever might be listening to you or be on the receiving end of your platitudes.

 

that being said, cis people don't get the right to be flippant or snarky about gender identity, even if that's your schtick. Savage's letter is confronting someone who's obviously a much older (queer?) person who doesn't "get" it and his responsible not compassionate nor helpful if he couches in cis gender "special snowflake" "oh those Tumblrinas!" stuff. Respecting people's gender identity means being not snarky about even the stuff you don't understand. 

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I'm all for people criticizing Savage.  I mean, absolutely hold people accountable for their words/actions.  He says things that I occasionally groan at, and dude gets seriously fucking grouchy some days, to the point that he needs to apologize for being shitty because he's in a bad mood. That said, he's been writing an advice column for almost a quarter of a century, and doing a regular podcast for most of a decade.  Write and talk about people's love lives for that long, and you're going to put your foot in your mouth occasionally.  Some of the things people hold against him are many, many years old and its clear that he's learned, grown and changed his opinion.  Asexuality is a good one, where he said some shitty, bigoted things in the past but now makes a concerted effort to talk about asexuality differently and have asexual educators on the Lovecast.  Same with bisexuality.

 

Context matters too.  There was a viral tumblr going around awhile back about the X number of worst things Savage has ever said that took a whole bunch of things wildly out of context. 

 

I've said this before around here, I have a real soft spot for sex/love advice columns.  I've been reading them since I discovered Ann Landers at around 10 or so.  I even love the bad ones I vehemently disagree with.  I honestly think part of the hate for Dan comes from people being ready to have a new person fulfilling Dan's role.  To have someone high profile doing his job offering advice to people outside of the mainstream.  But there's a massive inertia existent in all the current columnists, and it's super hard to build up a sizeable following unless you take over for one of the big dogs for awhile.

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I didn't meant that in defense of Dan Savage as a columnist, he definitely appears to be missing that part of the brain that thinks before it blurts out shit, but after 2 decades of this I just don't have the energy anymore to get worked up every time he says something tone deaf that he thinks is funny. Maybe it's cynical, but this is progress from some of his past remarks about trans and non gender conforming people.

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My actions re: Dan Savage are just to let my fingers/support do the talking and I just never link to anything he does or speak about him in glowing terms. I don't get worked up over it, just more that I have no interest in supporting him vs. voices that could use the promotion and do a better job, even if it's not a sex/love advice column. 

 

Interesting juncture from this though is that advice columns had more cache when the internet was not a widely used thing but there's so many places that one can go for discreet, knowledgable information on any topic (in this vein, even) without needing one person as the sole source, especially if they aren't as progressive on topics outside of their purview.

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Interesting juncture from this though is that advice columns had more cache when the internet was not a widely used thing but there's so many places that one can go for discreet, knowledgable information on any topic (in this vein, even) without needing one person as the sole source, especially if they aren't as progressive on topics outside of their purview.

 

I find value in Dan Savage because I don't really know what I don't know and the internet as a fat pipe isn't an efficient way to parse a broad swath of information. For instance, I wouldn't know much of anything about polygamy/monogamy, kink (shame), asexuality, bisexuality, etc if I didn't listen to his podcast where he generally talks intelligently about those topics. I might not even think to find out anything about those topics independently.

 

As a consumer of information, this is why I follow and listen to his podcast as well as follow many feminists on Twitter that decry the things he says. Because for me, I'd like that curated approach to learning about these unfamiliar topics plus the accountability where he gets called out on his crap and I can seek a better voice on the particular topic that he didn't get quite right. I also appreciate that Dan gives time on his podcast to callers who directly disagree with his advice.

 

Honestly, I follow a lot of feminists on Twitter that don't agree with each other on everything (or sometimes anything). I find it a worthwhile challenge to nuance my own opinions on various topics when for instance a PoC feminist has a unique take on an issue that "white feminism" may have trouble parsing or a queer feminist feels a certain way (not better or worse) while CIS feminists may feel another way.

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:tup: to everything JC just said.  But particularly:

 

I might not even think to find out anything about those topics independently.

 

To put my own bias out front here, I genuinely do not think that either I or my lady's lives would be the same if we hadn't been fans of Savage for years. That curated introduction to topics (and sometimes the dissent of those who disagree with him), has got us to learn about so many more things, from a huge variety of sources, than I think we would have otherwise.

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cis people don't get the right to be flippant or snarky about gender identity 

 

At the risk of catching another snide remark from Clyde's high-horse, I don't think this turn of phrase is very helpful because 1) cis people do have the right to say flippant or snarky things about gender identity and  2) this can frame your entire response as coming from someone who thinks cis people shouldn't have the right to free speech on this topic...

 

Anyway, I've also listened to/read Savage for years, and I do think that his irritation at people putting a lot of importance on semantics can lead him to bullishly dismiss those semantics completely (I wasn't impressed when he responded to complaints about his use of the word "retard" by replacing it with "leotard"). Plus his approach/schtick is to give the 'no bullshit' answer (be sensitive but be aware there will be posers) as opposed to the carefully ideal answer (be sensitive), which if not a justification is at least possibly a more forgiving way to read his responses. But I guess all I'm saying is that for me the good outweighs the bad (and I do agree that a lot of stuff held against him is out of context or out of date).

 

EDIT: hey, shouldn't this be in the QUILTBAG thread?

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To put my own bias out front here, I genuinely do not think that either I or my lady's lives would be the same if we hadn't been fans of Savage for years. That curated introduction to topics (and sometimes the dissent of those who disagree with him), has got us to learn about so many more things, from a huge variety of sources, than I think we would have otherwise.

 

I don't disagree, but I think that the best thing a prominent cultural voice like Savage offers is a clear position with which more informed people can dissent, so while I appreciate Savage's existence and much of his work, I never fault anyone for speaking out against him. Honestly, like most advice columnists, he exists to be disagreed with.

 

At the risk of catching another snide remark from Clyde's high-horse, I don't think this turn of phrase is very helpful because 1) cis people do have the right to say flippant or snarky things about gender identity and  2) this can frame your entire response as coming from someone who thinks cis people shouldn't have the right to free speech on this topic...

 

I have complicated feelings about what you've said here, but I don't know quite how to unpack it, so I'll just rephrase it to be about race and see if you still think that the basic sentiment holds true. If you do, that's fine.

1) white people do have a right to say flippant or snarky things about racial identity and 2) this can frame your entire response as coming from someone who thinks white people shouldn't have a right to free speech on this topic...

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At the risk of catching another snide remark from Clyde's high-horse, I don't think this turn of phrase is very helpful because 1) cis people do have the right to say flippant or snarky things about gender identity and  2) this can frame your entire response as coming from someone who thinks cis people shouldn't have the right to free speech on this topic...

 

Maybe "don't get the right" was a poor choice of words, since people have "the right" to say anything, about anything, pretty much any way they'd like. And if they're privileged enough, they may even get to exercise that right.

 

But hopefully you knew what he meant, that a cis person really shouldn't say flippant things about gender identity, in that it's unlikely to be helpful and could easily be harmful. And that furthermore, since he's in the privileged position on this front, possible damage can only be done to the group he doesn't belong to.

 

I've seen this semantic argument used a lot regarding race recently, especially with regards to what "white people are allowed to say/talk about". The intent is never really about rights and liberty of speech, but rather about what a white person can or can't say without risk of negative judgement. And yet the reaction from the priviledged tends to be in the form of "Wait, are you saying I get no say?! I have a voice too!". Well duh.

 

EDIT: whoops, Gormongous beat me to this and said it more succinctly.

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EDIT: hey, shouldn't this be in the QUILTBAG thread?

 

This thread's all about a gay guy, the Ferguson thread's all about the CIA. It's chaos!

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Maybe "don't get the right" was a poor choice of words, since people have "the right" to say anything, about anything, pretty much any way they'd like. And if they're privileged enough, they may even get to exercise that right.

 

But hopefully you knew what he meant, that a cis person really shouldn't say flippant things about gender identity, in that it's unlikely to be helpful and could easily be harmful. And that furthermore, since he's in the privileged position on this front, possible damage can only be done to the group he doesn't belong to.

 

I've seen this semantic argument used a lot regarding race recently, especially with regards to what "white people are allowed to say/talk about". The intent is never really about rights and liberty of speech, but rather about what a white person can or can't say without risk of negative judgement. And yet the reaction from the priviledged tends to be in the form of "Wait, are you saying I get no say?! I have a voice too!". Well duh.

 

EDIT: whoops, Gormongous beat me to this and said it more succinctly.

 

Well, you actually unpacked it, so you get the points.

 

You're especially right that it's been most common in reference to #BlackLivesMatter lately. Fucking #AllLivesMatter... One of the biggest signs of privilege is seeing your own voice unrepresented or misrepresented in a conversation, regardless of its subject, and being able to insert it at will without fear of being ignored or abused for it, even if it drowns out the people whom the conversation is actually about. Arthur Chu compared it to crashing a stranger's funeral to talk about your dead great-uncle or breaking into a cancer fundraiser to bring up other diseases. It's not that people with privilege have no right, it's that they do have the right and they exercise it constantly and people without privilege get kind of frustrated sometimes, which is fine by me.

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Maybe "don't get the right" was a poor choice of words, since people have "the right" to say anything, about anything, pretty much any way they'd like. And if they're privileged enough, they may even get to exercise that right.

 

But hopefully you knew what he meant, that a cis person really shouldn't say flippant things about gender identity, in that it's unlikely to be helpful and could easily be harmful. And that furthermore, since he's in the privileged position on this front, possible damage can only be done to the group he doesn't belong to.

 

Yeah, exactly all this. (Although I think Apple Cider has already IDed as female elsewhere on these forums btw.) 

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I don't have anything to say about Dan Savage because I don't know who he is, but here's a different thing:

 

I can't remember if it's been brought up anywhere on these forums, but YouPorn is sponsoring a [no-name] Dota 2 team, and Philippa Warr of RockPaperShotgun (their resident Dota 2 expert) has written what I think is a good article about it: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/12/10/dota-2-youporn-team/

 

I'm not bringing it up to talk about Dota again (because we all know I do that too often) (although if you want to, go ahead), but rather because I'm now wondering what porn sites WOULD be an acceptable sponsor. Ones that aren't sexist (or are at least progressively less sexist?) and ones that aren't racist, etc. Or even if any exist?

 

(Well now it just sounds like I'm fishing for porn recommendations which... I'm not! I swear!)

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Arthur Chu compared it to crashing a stranger's funeral to talk about your dead great-uncle or breaking into a cancer fundraiser to bring up other diseases. 

 

Kris Straub's take on the same joke, because it made me smile:

20141204-patreon.png

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The only specific porn I've heard of being held up as female-friendly/non-sexist is Anna Span's films.

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(Although I think Apple Cider has already IDed as female elsewhere on these forums btw.) 

 

Nice, incorrect gender assumption, and in the feminism thread too! That has to be bonus points.

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Kris Straub's take on the same joke, because it made me smile:

20141204-patreon.png

 

I love that comic. Even if he gets a bunch of shit from his "fans" for them, I love when Straub does overtly political stuff.

 

Along similar lines, I've also had this tweet in my head for the past week or so:

tumblr_nfw8wkUoBB1sen06vo1_1280.jpg

Okay, digression over.

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im so angry about off topic posts in this thread that im going to go talk about mario in the sonic thread in protest

 

um we have a sonic thread right

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All threads are Sonic threads.

 

The only specific porn I've heard of being held up as female-friendly/non-sexist is Anna Span's films.

 

I think Crash Pad is one of the gold standards for progressive porn.

On the whole YouPorn thing, I just see it strictly as a marketing stunt that is meant to drum up controversy. My intuition is that progressive porn makers would never advertise or sponsor somewhere that did not 100 percent welcome them, so you'd never see a situation like this come up. They don't want to insert themselves somewhere they aren't wanted (I fucking swear I'm not even trying to lace this post with innuendo).

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On the whole YouPorn thing, I just see it strictly as a marketing stunt that is meant to drum up controversy.

Oh yeah definitely. This is especially evidenced by the fact that no high-profile team was willing to have them as a sponsor, and they ended up going with a no-name team that'll never make it anywhere, anyway. They already got everything they needed out of it, just by making lots of inquiries.

 

EDIT: I almost looked up Crash Pad and Anna Span before remembering I'm at work. PHEW.

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So I'm not going to look at any of those links here at work, but isn't youporn simply a distributor like youtube and doesn't produce porn themselves? In that case, isn't blaming them for not having progressive porn much like blaming youtube for not having more racialy diverse works? Theyr'e kinda at the mercy of what is submitted by users.

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The link has no naughty images (it does have naughty words, though, and does link to YouPorn's twitter). Sorry I forgot some workplaces are much more strict than mine.

 

At any rate, yes, you're correct that they are just a distributor, like YouTube. Her specific problem (as presented, anyway) is less with the content of the videos and more with the presentation (e.g., "horny sluts" being the title of a video, etc.). As you say, they're user-submitted. But that isn't really relevant to her point, as it's still an image that would be present at all tournaments at which the YP sponsored team competes. Compounded with the shitty eSports sexism/other-bigotry, it's just reinforcing problematic issues on BOTH sides of the fence.

 

In other words, she's not holding YouPorn specifically responsible, but just presenting the idea that a YouPorn sponsored team is problematic because of the way content is presented.

 

EDIT: I'm done editing my post now I swear.

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Nice, incorrect gender assumption, and in the feminism thread too! That has to be bonus points.

Oh, see I thought the "he" was in reference to Dan Savage! HA! But yeah, I'm a she.

 

And right was meant as "shouldn't" vs. "lawful means" etc. 

 

I honestly know people can get value out of Savage but as far I am personally concerned, I find his platform intensely disrespectful of the very people he has to talk about sometimes and for that, I don't wish to have too much to do with him and those are just my personal feelings. I feel his way of doing things rubs me the wrong way and unfortunately in a lot of ways that are emblematic of larger issues.

 

As far as Phillippa's piece on YouPorn, I found it intensely spot on. When I first heard about this earlier in the year, we talked about it on our podcast and came to the same conclusion: this does nothing for e-sports embracing a more inclusive position if they actually have a team sponsored by them. YouPorn might not make the porn themselves but they certainly profit off being a portal for it. They depend on people coming to their site and uploading content (much like YouTube does) because it drives ad sales. Many of those ads are also to other adult sites so they are the firehose, even if they aren't the water being pumped out.

 

Seeing YouPorn's logo on someone's jersey playing DoTA, especially because DoTA doesn't have the specific content rules like Riot or Blizzard does means that this is something they are okay with (or haven't legislated against) and same goes for the team. It is a net negative to me. And a lot of it is not just the association with that content but the fact that it is money. 

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