‘Shrill’

aka Schrodinger’s Pussy

I know you guys are busy right now, hell, if you’re living in the US, you’re probably busy punching neo-nazis right now, you’re busy putting out fires right now, but you have to put your fists and hoses down for one second and read ‘Shrill’ by Lindy West. I read it this last week while I was at my parents’, and it gave me that feeling, you know that feeling, when you wanna contact and be like ‘listen, I know you’re famous and probably hear this ALL THE TIME and god knows there are a lot of weirdos and sickies out there but I’m harmless and totally not obsessive, and you and I should hang out some time, or at least become IG pals and like each other selfies and leave each other cute comments, and slay twit trolls together, because you are just so awesome and magical and ON.

And I will not go into all the stuff West covers in her book (it’s a loose collection of candid, funny, casual and sometimes so painful thoughts on feminism, body issues, fatphobia, internet trolling, family, loss) but she covers extensively a topic that has fascinated me for so so so so long (namely, why is comedy, much like patriotism, the last refugee of the scoundrel? why is ‘comedy’ one of the last frontiers where individuals are allowed to so casually borrow OTHERS’ pain for a cheap laugh.  Running very parallel to this issue is the concept of the Schroedinger’s Asshole, ie, the person who makes an offensive statement and then based on the reaction of their audience, flees into the ‘lighten up, it was just a JOKE.’) So yeah, she covers the Schroedinger’s Asshole phenomenon (stand-up comedy edition) quite extensively in her book and manages to weave in with it the threads of an equally devastating phenomenon I will now dub: Schroedinger’s Pussy.

Schroedinger’s Asshole was a noun (the one who does it is the asshole) Schroedinger’s Pussy encompasses more the entire thought process that goes something like this: In today’s day and age, especially, most especially, on the internet, where we are all afforded some anonymity–some men’s ability to take the ideas that come out of another party’s brain and attach value to them, so that they may counter and rebut these IDEAS (and not irrelevant secondary details of the other party, such as appearance, weight, promiscuity or proclivity to take a dick)–is inversely proportional to how much this person they are arguing with seems to have a vagina.

If the person does NOT appear to have a vagina, these men seem to have no problem engaging with the person’s ideas. w e i r d

If the person DOES appear to have a vagina, these men stray very quickly from engaging with what is coming out of the person’s brain— to talking about what they would like to do, or what they believe should be done, with this person body–or NOT be done with this person’s body. They will start to expound on how this person should be raped–or how they would never be raped, because they are too ugly. It’s almost as if—-some—–men—-don’t respect women (and femme peoples) like ‘i hope you die and get raped lol’ level don’t respect women, and if you spend a day on the internet these days, you will see it most anywhere.

And the saddest, the absolute absolute saddest is not just that there are an untold amount of adult and teenage men out there who think telling an anonymous woman online that she should be raped, is a reasonable or justifiable thing to do. The saddest is, that even more men, who conceivably (hopefully?) are below such cowardly interaction, are too cowardly to tell their fellow men that acting like this is disgraceful. Like, they’re too coward to tell their fellow men to stop being fucking cowards.And they think this is being tough, unlike those emasculated cucks who know how to respect women.

Cause you know, respecting women is for PUSSIES.

It is mind-boggling.

They have two choices–tell other guys to knock it the fuck off, b/c it is sick and pathetic–

Or to tell women to ‘suck it up’ ‘leave the internet if you can’t handle it.’

And they will pick the latter. Every. Every. Time. Or be silent on the issue.

Like a turd in the grass. (Hungarian saying)

To give a tiny backstory, West, who was part of the Seattle comedy scene in the middish 2010s, was asked to participate in a televised debate after the whole Daniel Tosh shitplosion happened. She was arguing against comedian Jim Norton–and her argument simply was that comedy, like everything else that comes out of our mouths, does not exist in a vacuum and should not be beyond reproach. There is a more than casual connection, she argued, between the ‘boys club’ feel of the comedy circuit and the increasingly violent sexism and sexual assault women face today, on and offline (around this time is also when Steubenville happened). Norton countered that she was wrong: that comedy was a valve for releasing tension and tackling rough topics, that no ‘reasonable’ person who heard a Daniel Tosh rape riff, however crude, condoned rape. Even as a rapey dove flies from his charming lips, Tosh respects women! Norton insisted. His audience, respects women! And none of them would ever, ever, ever. And ever after that, wish actual rape on an actual woman. Because we’re all sane adults who know rape is WRONG.

[Can I take a moment here to say, watching this video made me so fucking sad. I mean, I’m a pretty tough dude with no feels anymore, you know me, but I almost teared up. I thought this. Motherfucking THIS. Is the fight. Squeezed in a 16+ minute clip. You had West and she was just so ON. Her ideas were poprocking. She was magic. She was energy. She was wit. And Norton was this dull lump of clay. Ad hominem? yeh, I’m petty and going for it. He looked like a gray lil lump of clay stuffed into a tired polo shirt and his ideas were gray little lumps of clay. they were so TIRED. they were so. CLICHE. And you read the comments on the video, of all these bros actually thinking he had nailed it. That’s how tired their minds were too.]

So the video clip of the TV segment was put online, it went somewhat viral, and at some point had garnered thousands of comments. Norton argued that comedy, and male comedians’ casual mockery of  domestic violence and rape ala Tosh had NO place in real life and yet in the comments’ section, men…. in the hundreds that passed to thousands… were coming out the woodwork.

Not to unpack flaws in West’s logic–but to talk about what they felt needed to be done with her body.

She should be raped.
She should be killed.
She should be raped and killed.
She should be killed and raped.
She was too fat to rape.
She was too rape to fat.
Rape rape rape. Kill kill kill. Fat fat fat.

This…. woman. They talked of raping and killing a woman they did not know and had never met, for daring to speak about how comedy that makes light of women being raped and killed—might actually be contributing to men thinking it’s okay to openly talk about women getting raped and killed.

This was some heady Twilight Zone SHIT. Then the bass dropped.

You would think this was all the proof West or ANYBODY for the rest of all humanity ever, needed to prove the Schroedinger’s Pussy theory. ‘We need to refute these ideas with word… wait a minute, boys! The vessel that released these ideas seems to be of the woman varietal! No intelligent rebuttal needed —to quote Norton– ‘TO RAPE!’

West has more critical thinking capacity in her goddam pinkie TOE then these dudes had COLLECTIVELY. I mean, even the debate. Norton was a JOKE (hah) prob funnier than his actual stand-up.

Nuance?
I think he thought that was a city in Southern France.
Subtlety. Context?
Those are hipster cocktail names, or??

She was a butterfly DANCING around his stonefooted, shitty ideas and now, a slew of orcs too intellectually brutish to know they were proving her point, poured in to PROVE HER POINT. She won that fucking debate TWICE, and all they could do was rail and rail and rail b/c they had reason to believe this house of flesh and stone that had released these ideas about comedy harbored a pussy and seemed to align with a feminine being.

1:     You can attack her OPINION, I mean fuck, I don’t agree with her opinion. But like, because we debated rape jokes, they were like…
2.     [expectant pause]
1.     …she should get raped…and…
2:     [groan]
1:      And, I don’t tell people how to write or how to tweet, i don’t like to do that, i hate that thought-policing shit…
2:      …Hate it.
1:      But come on, at least just go after her opinion. Cause you’re not helping anything by doing that. She’s not DUMB… […]

This is an excerpt from an audio clip from the Opie and Anthony show that talked about the aftermath of the West/Norton debate. And I listened to this, and I got sad all over again. Forget even how ….incredible it is that they saw no link between these hateful dismissive comments, West being a woman who dared to voice an opinion, and her point entirely.

These guys had an audience of I assume, a sizable body of male listeners. And they talked about the clip and they seemed genuinely PERPLEXED as to why so many men reacted to West the way that they did. But they could not criticize these men nor call them on their cowardice. No, that would be ‘thought-police shit.’ And I do realize this clip is some years old, but being active online myself, I would say it’s stayed just as bad. Yes, world.

The apex of our social civilization where grown men actively SUPPORT other grown men’s validity to anonymously tell a woman online exactly how she should be raped, instead of focusing on her ideas.

Because a man telling his fellow men that the anonymous graphic harassment is the wildlife refuge of pathetic, cowardly fucks–the very pinnacle of loserdom– is ‘PC bs.’

Common human decency and respect has become ‘PC bs.’

But yeah, don’t punch alt-nazis, because violence is bad uwu and we should calmly listen to ppl’s views no matter how despicable ;—-;

These people will legit defend a CERTIFIED NEO NAZI before they defend a woman getting harassed with rape threats on the internet.

I’m out.

And to Lindy West, wherever she is today, may her coffee be hot, may her writing come easy, may the trolls be torpid, and I hope she is having an awesome day  ♡ ♡ ♡

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Note: Aaaaand just as I was looking up West’s twitter URL to attach it to my post, I find this article explaining why it’s–gone. ;—; 

Buy her book here.

Watch the West – Norton debate here.