Sexist Beatdown: Ejaculations of Surprise Edition!

Why, hello there! I hope you have pleasant plans for the weekend. Me, I have to take my mother and brother out on the town. They will ask, "what precisely is it you do all day, Sady?" And I will say, "today, I posted a chat about whether or not you should let dudes ejaculate in your vagina. OR ELSEWHERE ON YOUR PERSON."

Yep! Science agrees, apparently, that pulling out is a "reliable" form of birth control. Tracy Quan believes this to be some BS - BS, perhaps, that will maybe result in you getting The Deadly Crotch Rot or an accidental fetus from when the dude in question "forgets" to utilize this cutting-edge birth control method! Meanwhile Jessica Grose thinks Tracy Quan needs to chill and give folks a little more credit.

Of course, this means that it is time for a Sexist Beatdown. Join us, as the incisive and funny Amanda Hess of Washington City Paper's The Sexist and I discuss the cutting-edge sperm-placement technologies of the modern age!

ILLUSTRATION: Oh, sure, he LOOKS cute and cuddly.

AMANDA: 9:23 a.m. is a great time to talk about the ups and downs of not ejaculating into vaginas.

SADY: yes. personally, when i heard that not ejaculating into vaginas was a "reliable" form of birth control, i had my suspicions! i was like: apparently all of the dudes i have argued with about birth control have become scientists! who knew?

AMANDA: published in the renowned peer-reviewed journal of medicine, Maxim.

SADY: right. it strikes me as some flawed science, is what i am saying! for, even if withdrawal is a semi-effective method of "birth control," it strikes me as a highly ineffective method of Not Getting Various Diseases Such As The Herp Control. which i think is what Tracy Quan is saying, which is good common sense.

AMANDA: of course, but at the same time, real scientists who are not your ex-boyfriends have worked very hard to come up with dozens of methods of birth control that also don't prevent STDs

SADY: fair enough! the scientists, they do these things! i suppose i am a person who likes a certain modicum of control over these situations. and withdrawal as birth control, TO ME, relies on your partner having (a) really good timing, and (b) a solid commitment to not getting distracted or losing track of whatever he is supposed to be doing, during a moment that (AS I UNDERSTAND IT) can be kind of distracting! (I AM REFERRING TO THE MALE ORGASM. In case my incredible tastefulness and subtlety are working against me.)

AMANDA: this is a point that Quan made as well, and I agree that for a lot of people withdraw would not be a good option for this reason. But all forms of birth control come with a degree of human error, or in some cases, shit ripping inside your vagina error. say you're a couple who doesn't want to use condoms. and the woman takes her birth control pills, but the man, like you, can't trust her---for whatever reason---to take them at the same time every day. maybe she forgets sometimes!

SADY: fair enough!

AMANDA: he might not want to rely on her, either. and so if you forget a birth control pill, or a condom breaks, or you ejaculate into a vagina, you know, you can take emergency contraception as well. one of the interesting things to me about this study---and i'm just going to assume the study is accurate for argument, because i don't know anything about methodology with these things. is that it placed withdrawl slightly below condoms, right? and still, most of the response has been, 'there's no way this could ever work, this is some frat dude conspiracy.' and so perhaps what this study reveals isn't that withdrawl is a very good option, but rather that we have a bit too much faith in condoms

SADY: a fascinating point! and i agree, some of this may have to do with the fact that, as long as i've been alive, anyway, Birth Control has been less important to the discussion than Safe Sex. and most of the sex ed i have ever received has been like, "USE CONDOMS, also there are other methods but seriously just USE CONDOMS." and i'm still a fan of the condom, because it is cheap and does not require a prescription and has a lower failure rate and higher disease protection rate than other things! the withdrawal method, to me, requires what is (in many or most circumstances) a perhaps unrealistically high level of trust for one's makeout partner. but maybe this just has to do with the fact that i have been culturally conditioned to trust other people less than i trust the Trojan corporation.

AMANDA: of course. and the method is really counter-intuitive, because pulling out is something that irresponsible 15 year old boys are supposed to do, when really it's something that would be more appropriate for, say, mutually monogamous STD-free old people.

SADY: right. it is odd for me that something which is the centerpiece of much heterosexual porn is now a meaningful expression of committed monogamous trust. NEXT UP: how having sex on a bus can keep you from getting cancer!

AMANDA: hhahaha. yeah. i heard if you put a donut on it and then seductively bite it off it lowers the risk of kidney failure, or something

SADY: WOW. a doughnut, you say! i guess i've been doing it all wrong with the bagels.

AMANDA: i'm with the critics of Quan with this one, though - something that PEOPLE DO turning out to be less sexually risky than we thought is probably a good thing. she says a bit of anxiety is good, but i actually have a lot of that! and so reducing that is probably a good thing for a lot of people. maybe not for Quan, but it's not like we're getting rid of condoms! The Trojan lobby (sponsored by Tiger Beatdown) would never allow that.

SADY: true enough. i guess i am just concerned with the fact that there is already pressure on girls to be the "cool" ones who don't "make" the dude use condoms. i do not know why i think that the sort of dudes who apply that pressure are all going to show up with scientific studies and go through a careful risk-benefit analysis! yet i do. in conclusion: withdrawal is totally fine, if you want to do that and are reasonable about it, and not fine if you do not. CONTROVERSY!

AMANDA: agreed. DON'T LET HIM NOT EJACULATE IN YOUR VAGINA IF YOU DON'T WANT HIM TO NOT DO THAT, KIDS.

SADY: there, problem solved. everybody does what they want to do. the real winner? the paper towel industry. hurrah!

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Sexist Beatdown: Revenge of the Nerds' Girlfriends Edition

Why, hello! Welcome to Friday! Friday, in case you have not noticed, is Sexist Beatdown day. It is also the end of my blogcation!

But what, you ask, could be so troublesome as to lure me from my blogcation paradise? (I read two books! I went to a concert! I learned to bake! It was nice.) Why, THE EVILS OF THE INTERNET ITSELF, of course. Also, nerds. For, behold! The lovely (and recently vacationed) Amanda Hess of Washington City Paper's The Sexist has uncovered a tragic tale of a young man who shared his hatred for his girlfriend (and love of bacon soap) (???) on the Reddit, a popular nerd website. His fellow nerds approved! His girlfriend, however...

ILLUSTRATION: Nerds, beware - if you post unflattering comments about Kelly LeBrock on the Internet, she will FUCK. YOU. UP. That includes you, Shockingly Young Robert Downey Junior!

SADY: why hello! i hear the nerds are UP TO NO GOOD.

AMANDA: are they exacting their ... revenge?

SADY: this is what they tell me! at least there are no gorilla masks and disturbingly rape-like scenarios this time around, though. only comments on the internet! and UNFORESEEABLE CONSEQUENCES.

AMANDA: so, why do internet commenters hate girlfriends?

SADY: well! i have been spending a really regrettable portion of my day looking up youtube clips of men railing against "feminists" on their "vlogs," so, one idea: it gives them something to talk about? also, the people who rail against girlfriends the hardest give the unmistakable impression that they are angry because they don't have them.

AMANDA: yes! this is what i wanted to talk about, because i need to figure something out and i think you can help me. i once (okay ... 2 hours ago) thought the very same thing: the phenomenon of "nerd sexism" may be a result of guys who think they're not cool, or attractive, or whatever, lashing out against the people who can make them cool and attractive: girls. and they can sort of get away with this, because it's not as if they're privileged or anything, like most men. they're pathetic nerds, and they're at the bottom of the social ladder

SADY: right. well, i also think so many of the things that are Nerd are gendered in the dudely direction: video games, comics, internet whozimatronical codes and what have you. not to say that girls don't use them, but they are generally considered For Boys. so the nerds end up in these all-dude or 99%-dude environments most of the time!

AMANDA: but then, some dude, who is really into kickball, posted this comment on my blog about why he doesn't like me, and he diagnosed exactly why i don't enjoy kickball: because i need a good fucking. and i realized that this is something i hear over and over again as a feminist: you "hate men" because you're single, you can't get dudes to fuck you, and you're ugly, etc. and they can tell all of this based on about 300 words i wrote about kicking balls in the air. and not to brag, but i do fuck, so i thought, maybe i am wrong about the nerds? maybe they do all have girlfriends?

SADY: true enough. perhaps there is an unfair nerd stereotype! for example, I will now brag by telling you that i had a roommate who specialized in the internet whozimatronical codes, and he had the various anime DVDs, and he suggested starting a concept band about robots. and i would say that this is Nerdy, but - BUT, and this is important - he was totally cool with all that. and he did have lady friends, sometimes lady friends who worked in the whozimatronical code industry.

AMANDA: the whozimatronical what now

SADY: I HAVE NO IDEA. the computer skills, i lack them! but it's easy to forget that Nerd or Geek or whatever is its own subculture, and the people therein are enthusiastic and happy about it. it is not like they are all in a leper colony. YET, they are marginalized, and looked down on, and here is a thing i have noticed about dudes who are marginalized and looked down on (and live in a very male-gendered environment): they DO, in fact, tend to lash out at the ladies!

AMANDA: i see. but they lash out at the cool dudes, the football players, too, right? but i guess the problem is that the quarterback is rarely actually an unseen minority lurking in the nerd forum, like female nerds are. although i love the idea of a quarterback wearing his football jersey and crying silent tears when his after-school activity is pwned on some WoW forum

SADY: oh, I BET IT HAPPENS. OFTEN.

AMANDA: haha. oh the layers

SADY: well, it's weird. because, basically, nerds are culturally emasculated. right? like the stereotype is that they are all unsuccessful, and can't get ladies, and can't beat anyone up, and that is what men are supposed to do. ALL THE TIME. like, if you are a dude and you are not either having sex or punching someone in the face right now, you're a gigantic pussy. unless you're just waiting for your truckload of cash to show up. so one way for dudes who feel emasculated to, like, reclaim their iron john manhood or whatever, is to talk shit about ladies. OR - just a suggestion - basically bring kelly lebrock to life using a computer and a barbie doll (RIP JOHN HUGHES). whereas, the nerd ladies i've met all tend to be really awesome and feministy! which, dealing with the double-stereotyping of Nerd and Lady, I can see why you would get tired of stereotypes and spend a lot of time talking about them.

AMANDA: NERDS.

SADY: oh, and also? some of this might be due to the evils of the internet itself? and not nerds?

AMANDA: that's true. there are a lot of assumptions made on these internets, and while i like to attribute stereotypes about women and feminists and lesbians or whatever to misogyny, i think a lot of times it's just carelessness. and it's still misogyny, but it's misogyny that can be addressed and explained and all a lot easier in face-to-face conversation

SADY: yeah, exactly. OR - controversial statement here - the fact that you can develop a fake personality on the internet for attention. like the dude you posted about! i am not saying he is not a douche, but the odds are high (in my mind) that a lot of his offensive statements were conceived, not while thinking, "oh how i hate the women of the world," but while thinking, "this will piss people off and/or prove what a loose cannon i am." see his shock when his girlfriend read his comments and was like, WOW, you come off as a dick here! if she thought he was a dick of that order in the first place, they wouldn't be dating.

AMANDA: yeah. totally. he then goes on to say that he's joked about her being a bitch to her face and she doesn't care when that happens. but obviously, there was some sort of disconnect where he didn't understand that the internet is not his real life, and taking the bitch joke behind her back to share with his internet friends she didn't know existed was not on the same plane of reality as he thought it was

SADY: right. there is a difference between tomfoolery and being like, "oh, ha ha, BITCH" in private and basically showing up in a googlable forum for all the world to see and saying that your girlfriend is a bitch because she doesn't like bacon soap (???). which: lesson for us all, there! with the twitters and the facebooks and the blogspots and what have you! people post hundreds of thousands of words a day and i think a lot of us don't understand that YOU CAN NEVER ERASE THEM and ANYONE IN THE WORLD CAN FIND THEM. as someone who has read my bosses' craigslist ads, i can attest to the foolishness of this endeavor.

AMANDA: and yet, for the people in this googlable forum, it's perfectly obvious that she IS a bitch.

SADY: yeah, people do show up to call his girlfriend a bitch. but that's their own form of posturing. like, i am so sure that the "don't let that girl push you around" "take the stick out" people would not weigh in this way were it a lady and a dude that they both knew.

AMANDA: that's probably true.

SADY: OR - alternate take - people on the internet are just jerks. i don't know. personally, i would have dumped him just for having the intense alternate life on reddit! NERD.

AMANDA: NERD!

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