Superman, when written well, is an aspiration hero, an ideal for us to try and live up to. He has the power of a god but thinks of himself as an ordinary person trying to help out. He's also not the least bit insecure about being made fun of for wearing his underwear on the outside of his outfit.
Superman is extremely emotionally open and basically free of the posturing and fronting that defines much of toxic, insecure masculinity. And there's a reason for that.
Toxic masculinity is all about being afraid. Every behavior is a defense mechanism, a bit of armor against the threat of violence that men deal with every moment of every day of their lives. In the absolute knowledge that no one is coming to save them, men mutilate their entire personalities in order to lessen the chance that they'll be the victim today.
The reason that the wealthy and powerful are less bound by the strictures of masculinity is the same reason that Superman is. They've got less reason to be afraid. The less the world is willing and able to hurt you, the less you need to pretend to be the most dangerous person in the room so it'll think twice and move on to an easier victim.
We all want to be like Superman deep down, to live our lives reaching out to one another instead of lashing out at one another. It absolutely isn't a lack of desire that's holding us back from being like him. It's lack of ability.
Because the thing is, Superman gets shot all the time. People are always trying to outright murder him for being who he is and doing what he does. It's exactly that reaction men very reasonably expect if they tried to emulate him, and the rest of us aren't bulletproof.
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
I'm Sorry But . . .
No. You aren't.
I've previously made it quite clear that I detest liars and lying.
Expressing false sympathy with a person just before you attack them holds a special place in my worldview. People think such meaningless, obvious lies grant them the moral high ground. They think that by expressing their false sympathy they can avoid the problem of, as the Social Justice Warrior crowd calls it, "punching down".
In their own minds, such justifications might well let the abusers sleep at night. Meanwhile, the best case scenario is that their victims see through the facade, and worst case the attack is compounded by the obvious insinuation that the victim is in the wrong for being upset at someone who expressed "sympathy" for their plight.
This is a favorite tactic of bullies everywhere, and is never meant any more sincerely than an offer to call the whaaambulance. If you're genuinely sympathetic, you'll never utter this phrase.
"But what if the person is genuinely hard done by but is also legitimately acting inappropriately?" you may ask.
Then you call out the inappropriate behavior OR you express sympathy. You do one or the other, and you have to make a decision which is more important to you. Because I guarantee that no one has ever felt sympathy when it's coming from someone who's in the process of telling him/her off.
Pretend sympathy is a form of abuse.
I've previously made it quite clear that I detest liars and lying.
Expressing false sympathy with a person just before you attack them holds a special place in my worldview. People think such meaningless, obvious lies grant them the moral high ground. They think that by expressing their false sympathy they can avoid the problem of, as the Social Justice Warrior crowd calls it, "punching down".
In their own minds, such justifications might well let the abusers sleep at night. Meanwhile, the best case scenario is that their victims see through the facade, and worst case the attack is compounded by the obvious insinuation that the victim is in the wrong for being upset at someone who expressed "sympathy" for their plight.
This is a favorite tactic of bullies everywhere, and is never meant any more sincerely than an offer to call the whaaambulance. If you're genuinely sympathetic, you'll never utter this phrase.
"But what if the person is genuinely hard done by but is also legitimately acting inappropriately?" you may ask.
Then you call out the inappropriate behavior OR you express sympathy. You do one or the other, and you have to make a decision which is more important to you. Because I guarantee that no one has ever felt sympathy when it's coming from someone who's in the process of telling him/her off.
Pretend sympathy is a form of abuse.
Friday, October 24, 2014
Saturday, May 31, 2014
My Psychic Powers
Apparently I have a plethora of psychic powers that I've just been too lazy to develop my whole life. Funny world, isn't it?
I apparently have the power to molest children with my thoughts through a photograph. It's strange, but apparently all pedophiles have this power. It's why the government thinks it's so important that pictures of children should never be in the hands of pedophiles. At first, I thought this was only supposed to work if the kid was being molested in the photo, but apparently it works just fine whether the kid has ever been molested or not, and the effect isn't blocked by clothing. Pity it only works on pictures of children, but at least it works long after those children have grown up.
I've also apparently got laser vision. If I look at someone long enough, I'll bore a hole right in their bodies like Superman. Only good explanation I have for the fact that folks work so hard to control which direction I point my eyes. Weirdly, this one apparently has nothing to do with the powers I get from being a pedophile. Apparently all men have this ability.
I hear women get mind reading powers. I think I'd have more use for that in my everyday life than the heat vision.
I do at least get the power to unconsciously and undetectably mind control women and children. It's apparently impossible for either group to refuse to do anything I ask of them. In fact, apparently I don't need to say a word for it to be me controlling their actions.
So, any suggestions on a costume for my new career as a Superhero?
I apparently have the power to molest children with my thoughts through a photograph. It's strange, but apparently all pedophiles have this power. It's why the government thinks it's so important that pictures of children should never be in the hands of pedophiles. At first, I thought this was only supposed to work if the kid was being molested in the photo, but apparently it works just fine whether the kid has ever been molested or not, and the effect isn't blocked by clothing. Pity it only works on pictures of children, but at least it works long after those children have grown up.
I've also apparently got laser vision. If I look at someone long enough, I'll bore a hole right in their bodies like Superman. Only good explanation I have for the fact that folks work so hard to control which direction I point my eyes. Weirdly, this one apparently has nothing to do with the powers I get from being a pedophile. Apparently all men have this ability.
I hear women get mind reading powers. I think I'd have more use for that in my everyday life than the heat vision.
I do at least get the power to unconsciously and undetectably mind control women and children. It's apparently impossible for either group to refuse to do anything I ask of them. In fact, apparently I don't need to say a word for it to be me controlling their actions.
So, any suggestions on a costume for my new career as a Superhero?
Monday, May 26, 2014
Spree Killers
This is obviously in response to a recent event, but unfortunately, what I'm going to say is pretty timeless, so I won't bother linking to the specific stories that inspired this post, since it's almost certainly going to apply equally well to whatever recent mass murder has captivated the public eye at the time a reader finds this.
I have something of a history of empathizing with the manifestos of spree killers more than most folks are willing to admit. I look at their arguments and say, "that all sounds reasonable up until the point of the random mass murder". Over and over again. Makes a person a bit paranoid when no one else around you seems to think there's anything but crazy and evil in there.
I have never gone on a killing spree. I have fantasized about doing so. I've been tempted numerous times. The world isn't a just place, and it's easy to just say "fuck it, let's burn the whole thing to the ground" rather than commit to the impossible Sisyphean task of fixing everything that's wrong with the world.
I'm the sort of person who thinks the world ought to be reasonable, equitable, and just. That belief crops up in almost every one of these spree killer manifestos that I see. They look at the world, see that it isn't fair, and can't deal with that fact. This isn't about entitlement, at least as far as their writings go. They don't just think the world's unfair TO THEM, though that's usually what made it impossible to miss that the world was unfair. They think the world's unfair to whole categories of people, and once those proverbial scales have been ripped from your eyes, it's a long journey of seeing all the ways the world is unfair and unreasonable.
I was in elementary school when I got my first taste of this. I noticed age based discrimination. It was compulsory education I noticed first. The problem, as I saw it, was not that I was being forced to attend school. It was that people who lacked the knowledge base that I was supposed to be aquiring in school were not being likewise forced to attend simply because they had passed an arbitrary age line. I considered violent revolution as a potential solution to this problem, since history classes had made it clear that was how you accomplished change on that scale. I lacked both the martial skills and the personal charisma to organize such a revolution while in elementary school, so that plan didn't get anywhere.
The problem I was looking at wasn't just childishy whining that I was being forced to go to school. It was recognizing that an entire category of people, of whom I then happened to be a member, were being systematically discriminated against, and deciding that something needed to be done. I was repeatedly told I'd change my mind as I got older, but the fact of the matter is, I'm still that young boy who saw a problem, and occasionally toys with the idea of violent revolution in order to fix it.
The reason I never went on a shooting rampage is that I came to the conclusion it wouldn't be effective. I've seen so many of these spree killers over the years, and each time it's the same thing. People handwring over "what could have brought this on" and then people utterly ignore the efforts those killers made to explain exactly that, instead preferring to cynically exploit the killing spree as a means of advancing their own pet issues.
I'm still looking for a way to fix the obvious injustices in the world. I've eliminated random mass murder as a likely avenue. Irrationally, I hold out hope that one of these days I'll find a tool that will work.
I have something of a history of empathizing with the manifestos of spree killers more than most folks are willing to admit. I look at their arguments and say, "that all sounds reasonable up until the point of the random mass murder". Over and over again. Makes a person a bit paranoid when no one else around you seems to think there's anything but crazy and evil in there.
I have never gone on a killing spree. I have fantasized about doing so. I've been tempted numerous times. The world isn't a just place, and it's easy to just say "fuck it, let's burn the whole thing to the ground" rather than commit to the impossible Sisyphean task of fixing everything that's wrong with the world.
I'm the sort of person who thinks the world ought to be reasonable, equitable, and just. That belief crops up in almost every one of these spree killer manifestos that I see. They look at the world, see that it isn't fair, and can't deal with that fact. This isn't about entitlement, at least as far as their writings go. They don't just think the world's unfair TO THEM, though that's usually what made it impossible to miss that the world was unfair. They think the world's unfair to whole categories of people, and once those proverbial scales have been ripped from your eyes, it's a long journey of seeing all the ways the world is unfair and unreasonable.
I was in elementary school when I got my first taste of this. I noticed age based discrimination. It was compulsory education I noticed first. The problem, as I saw it, was not that I was being forced to attend school. It was that people who lacked the knowledge base that I was supposed to be aquiring in school were not being likewise forced to attend simply because they had passed an arbitrary age line. I considered violent revolution as a potential solution to this problem, since history classes had made it clear that was how you accomplished change on that scale. I lacked both the martial skills and the personal charisma to organize such a revolution while in elementary school, so that plan didn't get anywhere.
The problem I was looking at wasn't just childishy whining that I was being forced to go to school. It was recognizing that an entire category of people, of whom I then happened to be a member, were being systematically discriminated against, and deciding that something needed to be done. I was repeatedly told I'd change my mind as I got older, but the fact of the matter is, I'm still that young boy who saw a problem, and occasionally toys with the idea of violent revolution in order to fix it.
The reason I never went on a shooting rampage is that I came to the conclusion it wouldn't be effective. I've seen so many of these spree killers over the years, and each time it's the same thing. People handwring over "what could have brought this on" and then people utterly ignore the efforts those killers made to explain exactly that, instead preferring to cynically exploit the killing spree as a means of advancing their own pet issues.
I'm still looking for a way to fix the obvious injustices in the world. I've eliminated random mass murder as a likely avenue. Irrationally, I hold out hope that one of these days I'll find a tool that will work.
Monday, April 14, 2014
My Nightmare
Here's a bit of worst case scenario planning. What I fear would happen should my identity and sexual orientation become widely known in the same circles.
1) Loss of friends.
I'm an introvert who doesn't make friends easily. I build my social relationships slowly over time, and invest deeply in every relationship I have. If those friends reacted typically to the revelation that I am a pedophile, I can expect to have them all systematically reject me and cut me out of their lives. Additionally, even the ones who might otherwise be sympathetic might cut me off for fear of how their continued association with me would make others see them.
2) Loss of family support.
Being blood doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Sure, they say you can't choose your family, but the fact of the matter is, family can disown you almost as easily as your friends can. I've seen my family react to a child porn charge. Admittedly, there were other negative feelings about that individual which pushed things over the edge, but I can't just pretend I didn't see what happened, and that I didn't hear the words they used when talking about the situation.
3) Loss of employment.
Seriously, why would anyone willingly accept the public relations risk that comes with having a pedophile on staff, regardless of whether the job involves kids or not? It doesn't even matter if the boss is personally prejudiced or not. It's simple economics that unless what I can do is completely unique and indispensable, and the business will literally fold without me, I can't expect to have a job of any sort after this gets out.
4) Loss of freedom.
It doesn't matter that I haven't molested a child. Charges can be trumped up, and a jury will find it easy to believe any negative story told about me with my sexual orientation known.
5) Loss of life.
There are vigilantes who want me dead. Some have openly expressed such a desire to me personally, with my safety being guaranteed by my anonymity and their incompetence at finding me. Others have simply expressed a desire to hurt or kill anyone like me they come across. I am a socially acceptable target, and of course, any attempt I make to defend my own life will just lead back to worry number 4.
With these very real concerns, some of which I can see others living out in front of my eyes, it's a minor miracle that there have been three human beings in my life that I have deliberately trusted with this information, because I trust both their good intentions, and their competence.
1) Loss of friends.
I'm an introvert who doesn't make friends easily. I build my social relationships slowly over time, and invest deeply in every relationship I have. If those friends reacted typically to the revelation that I am a pedophile, I can expect to have them all systematically reject me and cut me out of their lives. Additionally, even the ones who might otherwise be sympathetic might cut me off for fear of how their continued association with me would make others see them.
2) Loss of family support.
Being blood doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Sure, they say you can't choose your family, but the fact of the matter is, family can disown you almost as easily as your friends can. I've seen my family react to a child porn charge. Admittedly, there were other negative feelings about that individual which pushed things over the edge, but I can't just pretend I didn't see what happened, and that I didn't hear the words they used when talking about the situation.
3) Loss of employment.
Seriously, why would anyone willingly accept the public relations risk that comes with having a pedophile on staff, regardless of whether the job involves kids or not? It doesn't even matter if the boss is personally prejudiced or not. It's simple economics that unless what I can do is completely unique and indispensable, and the business will literally fold without me, I can't expect to have a job of any sort after this gets out.
4) Loss of freedom.
It doesn't matter that I haven't molested a child. Charges can be trumped up, and a jury will find it easy to believe any negative story told about me with my sexual orientation known.
5) Loss of life.
There are vigilantes who want me dead. Some have openly expressed such a desire to me personally, with my safety being guaranteed by my anonymity and their incompetence at finding me. Others have simply expressed a desire to hurt or kill anyone like me they come across. I am a socially acceptable target, and of course, any attempt I make to defend my own life will just lead back to worry number 4.
With these very real concerns, some of which I can see others living out in front of my eyes, it's a minor miracle that there have been three human beings in my life that I have deliberately trusted with this information, because I trust both their good intentions, and their competence.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Staring
Okay, this one's been bugging me for a long time. Staring is not a form of assault.
The concept of assault rests on the basis that people have an inherent right to control what goes on with their own bodies, and that doing anything to another person's body without their consent is wrong. Rights conflict in the real world, which is why we need to establish rules. The classic example is "your right to swing your fist ends at my nose".
I have a right to control my own body, and that includes what direction my eyes face. Since my eyes are devices for detecting radiation rather than for emitting it, what direction my eyes face impacts no one. In the conflict between my right to point my eyes where I please, and your right not to have someone point their eyes in your direction, the right to control one's own body trumps the right to force someone else to do something with their body you don't like.
I don't live in a society where we worship god-kings who can demand I downcast my gaze when they grace my presence. I will not live in such a society.
The last time someone tried to treat my gaze as an assault, I was quite ready to meet their explicitly threatened violence with violence of my own. I have no regrets about my actions in that incident.
The concept of assault rests on the basis that people have an inherent right to control what goes on with their own bodies, and that doing anything to another person's body without their consent is wrong. Rights conflict in the real world, which is why we need to establish rules. The classic example is "your right to swing your fist ends at my nose".
I have a right to control my own body, and that includes what direction my eyes face. Since my eyes are devices for detecting radiation rather than for emitting it, what direction my eyes face impacts no one. In the conflict between my right to point my eyes where I please, and your right not to have someone point their eyes in your direction, the right to control one's own body trumps the right to force someone else to do something with their body you don't like.
I don't live in a society where we worship god-kings who can demand I downcast my gaze when they grace my presence. I will not live in such a society.
The last time someone tried to treat my gaze as an assault, I was quite ready to meet their explicitly threatened violence with violence of my own. I have no regrets about my actions in that incident.
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http://joshderke2014.wordpress.com/2014/09/20/candidate-survey-public-advocate-of-the-united-states/
In short, an anti-gay hate group emailed a number of candidates with biased surveys conflating pedophilia with homosexuality in an effort to torpedo support for gay marriage. Josh Derke sent them a scathing response letter telling the hate group where to shove it. So far, so good, and were that all there was to it, I'd be fully endorsing the man.
Unfortunately, as part of his letter, he felt the need to bash pedophiles, treat us as though we were criminals, and generally demonstrate his antipathy towards us. If I hear about any candidate for public office expressing anti-pedophile sentiment, I won't vote for him or her. I recognize that such sentiments are common and likely unavoidable in elected candidates, but that doesn't mean I need to give my support to people who EXPLICITLY identify themselves as my enemies, regardless of what other positions they hold that I otherwise agree with.
I have posted the following response to his campaign website where he posted the survey and letter, though at the time of this post's writing, the comment is lingering in moderation.
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I’m sorry to say that you’ve just lost my vote, Josh.
I share your outrage at the discrimination LGBT individuals suffer, and I share your desire to see them get the rightful protections due to them in a free and fair society.
But as you say in your letter, “Pro-family is not demonizing and dehumanzing people because they’re different than you are. It is not labeling a group of people immoral because you don’t understand human sexuality.”
And unfortunately, that’s precisely what you’re doing to pedophiles, demonizing and dehumanizing them because they’re different than you are, and labeling them immoral because you don’t understand human sexuality.
Pedophiles are not the same thing as child molesters, and treating them as though they are the same is utterly unacceptable for a person holding a position of power. The overwhelming majority of pedophiles do not molest children, and this is something you should be aware of before speaking on the subject and certainly before hoping to make law.
To reiterate, I have no interest in defending the bastards who wrote that survey, since they’re obviously not actually concerned about minor attracted persons, and are just using them as a bludgeon against another sexual minority they want to hurt by the association.
I would have been 100% with you on the letter telling them off were it not for this issue, but you’ve crossed a line here, and until your position changes, I will no longer be voting a straight democratic ticket.
UPDATE:
He lost.