ethical dilemmas, etc

The purpose of this blog is to be a forum for the thoughts, writings, bad photoshop jobs, etc. that don't fit with the "editorial" focus of Edicts of Nancy, which I consider to be my main blog. I've actually felt the need for another outlet for these ideas for some time now, but don't relish going in & out of character over at Nancy, thus Sister Nancy Beth After Dark. I guess I'm giving myself permission not to conform to the stylistic mandates I've placed on myself.

I started Nancy as a parody of the paranoia, stupidity, bigotry, and projection of rightwing bloggers, and have been alternately flattered and disappointed when people haven't quite gotten the joke. I had assumed the utter wretchedness of my pen name would have tipped them off to my satirical intentions, as I like to think of it as a potential character in a John Waters movie. And here's more back story, for those of you who care: I'm a gay man living with my boyfriend, and my giving up my carefree days of whoring around and committing to a monogamous relationship is the model upon which the fictional marriage of Nancy Beth & Jesus is based. For the record, "selfish hedonism" is the Alan Keyes' description of homosexuality.

Michelle Malkin is an obvious inspiration for parody, and I had briefly posted an item today based on her typically shrill and disingenuous reaction wherein she claims racism, sexism, etc., in Wonkette's gag about her shooting ping pong balls out of her ladyparts. If I may weigh in on the Wonkette ping pong ball reference, despite this controversy already having passed its expiration date by late Sunday, I thought it was funny. The most uproarious scene of the movie Priscilla, Queen of the Desert involves an Asian woman shooting balls in the same manner across a crowded bar, to the hoots and hollers of her appreciative audience, despite her husband's determined efforts to keep the balls under lock and key. For me, the humor is the irony of Michelle Malkin (or Hillary Clinton, or Dick Cheney, for that matter) doing something so gleefully sexual and in direct opposition to her dour public persona. I thought the gag works, mostly as a reminder of a hilarious scene from a funny movie, and I don't equate the act exclusively with women of a particular ethnicity, but rather with an exuberant sexuality that I doubt Malkin even possesses, and would probably demonize in others.

The thrust of the piece I had written is that because American women were doing the same ping pong routine (go here, scroll down to "Volley Folly"), "The Left" had engaged in shoddy research, were intellectually lazy in their racism, hated America, etc. There was even a photoshop number of Michelle at her favorite 7-11 with a blurry ping pong ball in mid-flight behind her... oh, just trust me, it was funnier than it reads here. However, when I further investigated the woman in the "Volley Folly" anecdote mentioned above, it became evident that she made her living making pornographic films, a field ripe with exploitation and distinctly unfunny. While I'm confident Malkin entered into her position as rightwing mouthpiece on her own free will, I doubt the woman in the story did. Anecdotally, it appears that a majority people who enter the sex trade do so due to a lack of options; addiction, sexual abuse, and debilitatingly low self-esteem, if not actual physical coercion, all seem to be factors. My own second-hand experience with the sex trade is through my ex-boyfriend, a high-functioning autistic who works as a "massage therapist" to supplement the disability benefits he receives. So while I don't mind insulting Malkin, I do draw the line at making sex workers the butt of my jokes. I don't particularly enjoy the doctrinaire finger-wagging that constitutes the bulk of the discussion at some of the more academic-oriented blogs, though sometimes they have a point. I'd rather be thought of as a bitchy fag than an insensitive jerk, so I removed the post.

In my opinion, Michelle Malkin deserves every insult that comes her way, because she cashed in the last chips of her human decency long ago. Her sole purpose as a commentator is to invalidate the injustice and discrimination others in her situation (female, ethnic minoriy) routinely face so that the her readership (and the people they vote for) can continue to deny their responsibility in perpetuating these injustices. Her pretenses at having feelings and occasional lapses into crocodile tears would be laughable, were it not such a blatant call to arms for her readers to defend her "honor" while engaging in some of the most brutish behavior imaginable, such as levying credible death threats against Michelle's "perpetrators" -- c.f. the unfortunate UC Santa Cruz students whose press release made its way onto her blog.

The blogosphere I am most familiar with is a giant elementary school playground where we throw the pointiest stones we can find at the opposing side. It so happens that the stones closest to us are insults based on easily recognizable differences -- age, weight, sex, sexual orientation, race, etc. The "best" bloggers on the Right don't avoid this, they just cloak their name-calling in the jargon of their respective professions and hope we're gullible enough to revere it as erudition. Calling Malkin a bitch/slut/whore/cunt strikes me as little more than shorthand for what the right's revered political bloggers are doing, but done in a hurry and without the rhetorical flash. I don't begrudge anyone doing it; it's all part of the game. As shallow as it sounds, rhetorical flash is what I aspire to, albeit in a form that is organic to myself. If I were a skilled enough writer to insult Michelle Malkin without making light of the suffering of the women (and men) who make their living through what I perceive as sexual exploitation, we'd be yukking it up over at Edicts of Nancy. But the truth of the matter is I'm not. Until that day comes, though, please enjoy my offerings here.