I caught the HBO documentary Resolved the other night and was totally fascinated. It's about the highly competitive world of high school debating, which is a totally different thing than I assumed it was. My idea of high school debate teams was more along the lines of something out of Rushmore, but they're actually way weirder than that. The kids try to pack as much information as they possibly can into the time that they have, so they developed an ultra-fast way of speaking that involves a sort of manic breathing technique. Rather than characterized by persuasive arguments and poise, the debates are almost scientific in the way they are crafted, and the desired result of every debate is that whatever being argued about will end in nuclear war and human extinction. Clip above.
Gloriously salty bitch and Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing gave an interview to Time and she was hilariously cranky as usual. "As you get older, you don't get wiser," she says. "You get irritable." Click on Doris' mug to read more zingers.
Doris on her Nobel win: "If I may be catty, Sweden doesn't have anything else. There's not a great literary tradition, so they make the most of the Nobel." Doris on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe:"He's a monstrous little terror." Doris on being called the "epicist of the female experience": "Well, they had to say something…I can just see somebody sitting there thinking, 'What the hell are we going to say about this one? She doesn't like being called a feminist so what'll we say?' So they scribbled that." Doris on Doris: "I tend to speak my mind, which is not necessarily a good idea. I do not think I am the soul of tact." [Time]
Also girl crush material: sofa king gorgeous Indian models<
Speaking of models, Kazakh model Ruslana Korshunova jumped from her apartment building on Sunday night and died. Our Tatiana weighed in on the depersonalization and loneliness rampant in the modeling business.
But hey! It's not all a bummer this week: we discussed the swoony fanmail we wrote as wee ones.
So enjoy the long weekend, bitches! This bitch will be celebrating her tail off for the fourth and so should you.
It seems that Amy Winehouse's record company has put her on a sort of house arrest in an attempt to keep her clean. According to a source, "There is also a security guard stationed outside her house around the clock to vet any undesirables. From now on there'll be no more waifs and strays - or fans - coming into her place, wreaking havoc." • Lindsay Lohan went on Ryan Seacrest's radio show to talk about turning 22. "I just want to live a happy healthy year…and be with the person that I care about," Lilo told Ryan. Awwww. • A "source" says that A-Rod's wife Cynthia doesn't believe that her hub and Madonna are "just friends." Eh, already soooo over this Lenny Kravitzy love quadrangle! [Perez, TMZ, Us]
Pregnant man Thomas Beatie gave birth to baby girl today via Cesarean natural birth! Congrats! • Two prominent female activists from the group Women and Men of Zimbabwe Arise have been detained for 6 weeks for peacefully protesting Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. • A Canadian doctor and Holocaust survivor who fought to legalize abortion in Canada will receive the country's highest civilian honor despite condemnation from anti-choice advocates. • A new art exhibit aims to break Western depictions of Muslim and Arab women by highlighting female artists (Muslim and non-Muslim) from the Islamic world.
Australian crime victims are demanding that convicted rapist Mike Tyson be barred from entering Australia and "totted out as a celebrity, like some kind of Mother Theresa." • Former Indian septic-tank cleaners and other female "untouchables" put on a fashion show at the U.N. honoring a for-profit organization to help untouchables. • A teen girl in Colorado is sentenced to 18 years in prison after killing her half-sister in a "Mortal Kombat" fight reenactment. • Bob Dylan's ex-girlfriend and muse (and the woman pictured with him on the iconic cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan) breaks her silence in a new memoir about the '60s. • Victims of a peeping tom case in Seattle are blamed by the peeper's wife for "putting on a show" because of their broken blinds. • Two more teens videotaped themselves beating up a fellow classmate and putting it on the internet. One word for these girls: idiots. • Gender-based violence and harassment in the workplace continues to run rampant in Bangladesh. • Game makers attempt to woo young girls with a new game that is essentially a lamer version of Guitar Hero.• Could the HPV vaccine cause teen paralysis? • Deliriously cute Leftovers video: ducklings in a bathtub!
Beatrice Biira, the "Beatrice" of Beatrice's Goat, graduated from Connecticut College last weekend and is headed to the Clinton School of Public Service in Arkansas for her Master's degree before going back to Uganda to work for a non-profit. Beatrice's family's rise out of poverty was aided by Heifer International, which allows people like us to purchase livestock for families like Beatrice's. The goat Beatrice's family received served as a source of nutrition and income for her family, which allowed Beatrice to attend school, which led to scholarships and to her being the first person in her village to get a college degree from America. [NY Times, Heifer International]
Welcome back to Missdemeanors! This is where we issue virtual wrist-slaps to popular gossip bloggers for Crimes Against Womanity. This week, Christie Brinkely wasn't satisfying her husband; Sienna Miller has three holes; Harlow Madden looks "unfortunate"; Rachel Hunter looks like a "Lesbian Lumberjack Circus Clown" and Britney's ass.... well, she seems to have some hair on it. As so many humans,male or female. Of course, if you're male and the only naked woman you have ever seen was in a porn film, you won't know this. Anyway, folks: It's been another great week of "writing" "gossip" on the Internet. Bloggers' continued degradation of female celebrity bodies and their corresponding punishments, after the jump. Let the Jezebel Justice system begin!
The Accused: Perez Hilton The Crime: Blaming the victim. The Evidence: Regarding the Christie Brinkley divorce, Peter Cook's affair and $3,000/month budget on internet porn, PH writes,
"Maybe Christie wasn't satisfying him??? Seems like that was DEFINITELY the case!"
Or! The dude is a cheating sex-addicted dirtbag! That could DEFINITELY be the case! Additional crime: Reducing a woman to her orifices. The Evidence: On a post about Sienna Miller dating two new men:
"Hey, she's got three holes - that's enough to keep three men happy easily."
Yeah, not funny. The Sentence: 500-page essay on the objectification and dehumanization of women in our culture, with a 100-page well-researched addendum on the psychological state of children whose mothers have been cheated on by husbands who hooked up with teens not much older than the children themselves.
The Accused: Webster's Is My Bitch The Crime: Bodysnarking an infant. The Evidence: On a photo of Nicole and tiny, helpless Harlow Madden:
"Yikes. That's uh, some baby ya got there, Nicole. At any rate, if 'getting fat' isn't enough to dissuade Paris Hilton from procreating with Benji Madden, hopefully this oughta do it. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the Madden brothers are perfectly nice and everything, but I don't know that "pasty, big head" are necessarily qualities I'd look for when choosing a sperm donor. Put a pair of ray bans and a fedora on that thing and I'd think that there was three of 'em."
The Sentence: A public apology and 60 hours community service in the neo-natal unit of your local hospital.
The Accused: Yeeeah The Crime: Mocking a woman's weight, calling an average-sized woman "fat." The Evidence: This description of Rachel Hunter:
"She looks like the East German hammer throwing team’s secret weapon, not a former swimsuit model turned reality star. It still doesn’t explain why her face got fatter, though. Maybe the folks at NBC made her maintain a strict circus diet of peanuts and cotton candy for her role as Bertha, the Lesbian Lumberjack Circus Clown. Rod Stewart sure dodged a bullet on this one!"
The ensemble is unfortunate, but she is on a circus show. And! Know what? She is 38 and makes way more money that you do. She doesn't have to put people down on the internet to feel better about herself. Shut yer trap. The Sentence: A strict diet of peanuts and cotton candy for 90 days, followed by a bikini shoot to be plastered worldwide.
We interrupt this post to bring you… The Drunken Stepfather Rant Of The Day:
"So, I went out to KFC to get my wife a bucket of chicken, and this black chick in the shortest fucking skirt and low cut shirt walks in like she’s Naomi Campbell and should be walking the runways in Paris and not the line-up at a fried chick place. Her body was lean, her legs were long and her tits were huge and she made me mad that I never bagged a black girl because I was always too scared they’d rob me. About a minute later, her pimp or boyfriend or dude she’s fuckin’ walks in and motherfucker was definitely packin’ heat, so I just minded my own business as they went at each other and her fondled her ass and stuck his tongue down her throat and she grabbed at his dick one minute, like they were at a swingers party but were really just at a fried chicken place, something equally sexy to some people. I just looked the other way because I wasn’t going to get shot and ignored them as they fought over their order and dude turned around and slapped her across the face for stepping out of line because he only had enough money for 1 drink and she called him a broke ass nigger in front of the whole restaurant, the next minute. It was a beautiful experience, one of total dysfunction and ghettoness, one far more beautiful than Naomi Campbell in a bikini kissing some rich white dude."
…You may now return to your regularly scheduled ennui.
The Accused: I Don't Like You In That Way The Crime: Nasty nitpicking of a woman's body. The Evidence: A "upskirt" photograph of Britney Spears, which is, in and of itself, a gross invasion of privacy, though, unfortunately, legal, is accompanied with this text: "If you have a short gag reflex, you might not want to look at these pictures of Britney Spears at Sur in West Hollywood the other night. Mostly because it looks like Britney's ass is growing a beard. I don't know the level of self-esteem it would take to wear this dress with hair growing out of your ass, but needless to say, Britney Spears could teach the class. If Britney's ass was bent over in front of me, I would be pretty sure that I was gay." The Sentence: Any suggestions?
Want to report a Crime Against Womanity? Send the link to tips@jezebel.com with "Missdemeanors" in the subject line.
New African Lion cubs at the Riverbanks Zoo are shown to the public Wednesday, July 2, 2008, in the Bird Conservation Center in Columbia, S.C. The four cubs were delivered via cesarean section on June 7. The zoo plans to have a public naming contest for the three females and one male. — AP
A lot of electronic ink has been generated this week talking about the story that 3 Welsh Parliamentarians anonymously admitted that they had been sexually assaulted and hadn't reported it. A separate survey of students, also conducted by Amnesty International, showed that 34 percent of the 700 students surveyed believed that "a woman was totally or partially responsible for being raped or sexually assaulted if she was drunk or had been flirtatious." Under normal circumstances, I would use this sentence to summarize the shock evinced by people and the unsubtle implication that these (relatively powerful) women — without anyone knowing the circumstances or the timing of their sexual assaults — should have reported it, and then I would leave it be. But it made me recall the times in my life that people I cared for disrespected my decision not to report mine, so I figured it was about time to throw down the gauntlet.
My sexual assaults (yes, it's now happened twice) are not a political peg for other women to hang their hats on, and I should not and will not apologize to anyone for making decisions that were best for me. My body is mine — it doesn't belong to Feminism anymore than it belongs to the men who sexually assaulted me — and what I choose to do with it, or about it, is supposed to be my choice. To be told, subtly or otherwise, that my choices are invalid or anti-feminist is demeaning and condescending and in violation of the whole concept that feminism is about giving women choices and letting them make them.
I was sexually assaulted when I was 17. Without getting into the gory details, I was out on a date with an older guy, I was in a foreign country, I was comfortable with what I was doing (making out) until I wasn't anymore, and then he decided that it was a little late for all of that. My mind and, to a degree, my body, clicked off in the minutes that followed, and I guess most of my memories of it now involve the humidity that night, the dark, hearing his roommate snoring in the next bed and both hoping and fearing that he would wake up, and the rapidity and ease with which I began to immediately deny and justify what had happened to me. He drove me home and kissed me goodbye, and I never saw him again.
It took a couple of years before I stopped saying that I'd just had sex when I didn't want to.
Could I have reported it? I guess. On the other hand, I was 17, in a conservative country where I didn't speak their language or the (completely different) language of the man involved. I had 2 more days in the country. And the thing that I needed to do was not to tell the friends with which I was staying, and try to go to the police and explain and/or be castigated for going to his place, or making out, or having some sangria (or telling him I was 18), I needed, desperately, to deny it. I needed for that night to not occupy the place in my mind that it would've occupied if I could have called it by its name. I needed time, and healing and knowledge and I wasn't going to get that from a foreign police station or the legal need to revisit it constantly.
The first time I really told someone, he said I was making it up, obviously, since I didn't report it. Of course, he didn't say it to me, not then, he said it to the girlfriend who came after me, who threw it in my face when she next saw me and told some other mutual friends that I was making it up for the sympathy. (Lisa, by the way? Fuck you. I'm glad he got so stoned he puked on you at that party.) In a Women's Studies class later that year, I didn't admit to it even as we went around a circle and talked about our experiences with sexual violence because the mood in the room was definitely of the tell-for-the-good-of-the-Sisterhood variety. Several years later, during a fight with a boyfriend in which I told him he had to stop speaking to me in a certain way or else, he said, "Or else what? You didn't report your rape, what are you going to have the backbone to do to me?" I hung up the phone.
Legally, I can't talk about the second assault yet. Suffice it to say, it was far from a date-rape scenario and it was reported and the legal processes were as emotionally traumatic as the assault itself. Had I known how the system really worked, despite the fact that it was a stranger, I don't know that I would've reported it, had the situation not obliged me to involve the police in the first place in a state where you don't get to "choose" to press charges. What I eventually chose to do after weeks of increasingly disappointing meetings with prosecutors that left me feeling judged, crying, frustrated and angry, was to get myself a lawyer to represent me to the prosecutors, whose salaries I pay with taxes...and who should be representing my interests. It was far from a pleasant experience, and it makes me even more certain that I made the correct decision for me the first time and solidifies my position that it is not for me to decide or judge the reporting decision for anyone else.
See, the thing is, it's great to say that we should do this or we should do that for the sake of women everywhere. But no one — and especially not other women and supposed feminists — has the right to tell me or any other victim of sexual assault that being victimized and being traumatized leaves us responsible for making the world a better place (as though that's what's accomplished by reporting a rape, actually). We all have a responsibility to try to prevent them, to create a world where they are much more of an exception than the rule, where drunk girls or slutty girls or drunken slutty girls don't have to explain their behavior to anyone — regardless of whether they have been assaulted, or after having been assaulted — and where victims don't have to explain to non-victims the choices they made. My pursuing the prosecution of the one made no more difference in the world than not prosecuting the other. But maybe my talking about them both, maybe helping to ease the stigma of it for other people and create a space where I don't have to be ashamed of being a victim (or of how I chose to deal with that) will. Assembly Survey Reveals Unreported Rapes [Independent] Sleeping Around: Are Women Still Afraid To Report Rape? [IndyBlogs]
Best Comment of the Day, in response to Pig Face "There's always a fly in the oinkment." We say: not kosher, but very funny. • Worst, in response to Pig Face: "This is bullshit. Has anyone seen Miss Piggy lately? She is not aging well at all ." Miss Piggy responds:: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye."
It's time for another installment of Pot Psychology, the "advice column" in which everyone's problems are solved with an "herbal" remedy. (Remember, kids: Don't do drugs!) In this episode, Rich and I got help from our pal Sasha Frere-Jones again, to tackle problems like leaky vaginas, syphilis, and boyfriends who drool during oral sex. Got a burning question? Send it to potpsych@jezebel.com. (Please keep them short; they're verrrry hard to read when stoned.)
People often wonder what the fallout of a Crap Email is like. We don't often know! This guy contacted us once, thinking his ex-girlfriend had changed her name to Anna Holmes, even though her name was not Anna; when he finally figured out the deal he good-naturedly defended his doghouse-building skills and retreated back into his proverbial own. Truthfully, he seemed really nice, and I felt a little bad. The same cannot be said for "Christopher Davis," the Ayn Rand prostrating author of last week's "I Am, Right Now, Involved In Something More Important," which many of you felt to be the Douchiest Email Of All Time. Here is definitive proof it was not! A tale told in two parts: one note sent to his ex girlfriend after discovering his Crap Email on our site, one sent to us. (And yes, I bought Ayn Rand's journals last weekend and have been crafting a primer on why she is to be avoided. Although that will seem rather unnecessary in a moment.)
On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 7:15 PM, Christopher Davis wrote:
Well done, Class Act.
For the record, I did rather dig you, but on the whole I found you . . . insufferable. And my ex going crazy on you — well, I'm sorry you had to go through that, but, Christ, that's a lot for *me* to deal with. You were already high maintenance enough, but if I had to do damage control every time someone I had no control over sent you a crazy, unsubstantiated email, it just Wasn't Going to be Worth It. I had school to think about. Or was it work? (I honestly don't remember when this was). In any case, something Very Much More Important Indeed, and you just Weren't Being Competitive.
But, honestly, you **remembered**? And you **kept the email?** I didn't even remember your **name**. You've sent me emails before now, and since then, haven't you? And I thought they were spam and deleted them. ("Who the hell is Cynthia O'Brien? Probably a phishing scam." That's what went through my head.)
The thing I don't get, is why this got to you so. You must have really liked me. Which, I mean, if the point is "look out for Ayn Rand fans", then I guess if I wasn't so gosh-darned attractive, brilliant, and good in bed, it wouldn't ever really be an issue, now, would it?
-oh, whatever
—-— Forwarded Message From: Chris Davis Date: 30 Jun 2008 20:55:22 -0500 To: moe Cc: anna
Hi Moe!
This is Chris Davis, whose letter you reprinted in your article, "Crap Email From a Dude: 'I Am, Right Now, Involved In Something More Important,'" which one can see here:
http://jezebel.com/5020396/i-am-right-now-involved-in-something-more-importa nt
Now, I could be writing to tell you that your feature is tasteless, promotes sexism, and secures its readership by offering slanderous and sensationalized accounts of events not only to which your staff writers are not party, but of which they (or you) do not undertake to make yourselves fully informed before offering your shamelessly inflammatory editorializations.
But! that is not why I am writing at all!
No, I am actually just writing to direct you to cease and desist immediately, under peril of potential legal action, your continued publication of my intellectual property, the exclusive rights to which I, as the sender of the correspondence in question, retain, which you are currently publishing without my permission.
Your use of my intellectual property does not constitute "fair use" for the following reasons: 1. You have reprinted the entire work in question, and not just a portion.
2. The use is not transformative — you printed the work in question word for word and in its entirety, and there is no question of a lack of constructive comment or criticism, but rather the purpose of the reprint is to incite and inflame the passions and frustrations of your readers, for the purpose of drawing them continually to your website.
3. Per #2, given the target audience of your website and the likelihood that they have experienced similar situations in their lives, it can safely be assumed that your sole purpose in reprinting the copyrighted work in question is to further your revenue by strengthening the loyalty of your readership, and not for purposes of parody, comment, or criticism on the artistic merits of the original work.
If you do not comply with this directive within 15 days of the time you receive this e-mail message, I will reserve the right to initiate civil litigation for some portion of the revenue that has resulted from the sales of advertisements that have appeared on the article in question.
Welcome to 'Fine Lines', the Friday feature in which we give a sentimental, sometimes-critical, far more wizened look at the children's and YA books we loved in our youth. This week, writer / reviewer / blogger Lizzie Skurnick reads 'Happy Endings Are All Alike', the 1978 Sandra Scoppettone novel about two young lesbians who want to be together in the worst way.
Sometime around the invention of email, slowly drifting into cubicle death, I sent the following email to a high school friend I hadn't spoken to in years:
Hils, What's the name of the book where there are two lesbians and the girl gets raped under a tree? Not My Sweet Audrina. There are two girls on the cover. How are you? Lizzie
The friend in question did not even bother to respond to the perfunctory closing query. Addressing only the former, she zinged back simply:
HAPPY ENDINGS ARE ALL ALIKE!!!!!
Such is the power of this novel, which I had borrowed from the friend in question for months until I was forced to finally return it, then commenced idly thinking about roughly every three days since. It wasn't only that there were lesbians, or rape, or pretty girls in polo tees with shiny hair on the cover who I might grow up to look like. It was that, like so much of the work of Paula Danziger or Paul Zindel, it presaged a world for us filled with more than gym teachers hurling basketballs at us (see Plotfinder), alive with teenagers struggling with the new complexity of adult relationships—one in which gym teachers, lesbian or no, weren't anywhere near the center of the drama.
I'd like to provide the nut graf for Happy Endings Are All Alike, but Scoppettone's first paragraph does it so admirably it seems a shame to mess with it:
Even though Jaret Tyler had no guilt or shame about her love affair with Peggy Danziger she knew there were plenty of people in this world who would put it down. Especially in a small town like Gardener's Point, a hundred miles from New York City. She and Peggy didn't go around wearing banners, but there were some people who knew.
Considering the hullabaloo about teenage sex—ANY kind of teenaged sex—nowadays, pretty much every sentence of that paragraph is mind-blowing. But remember, this is the fictional world 1978, where parents might mention Susan Brownmiller as quickly as they asked you to set the table. Castigated by her sister, Peggy thinks resentfully to herself, "You weren't a pervert just because you loved someone of your own sex, for God's sake!" And, as the preternaturally well-adjusted Jaret puts it to said mother: "Look, I know where you're coming from, Mom, but don't let it freak you out. I'll tell you this: Whatever I did with boys I found really boring. I didn't get turned on, okay?....And it's got nothing to do with you and Dad. I mean, you didn't make some terrible mistake in raising me or anything. And it's not so terrible. In fact, it's pretty nice. So don't lay a guilt trip on yourself, okay?" Okay! And don't forget the napkins!
But just because Peggy and Jaret — and, nominally, their semi-informed families — are not completely up in arms about their relationship, it doesn't mean they are off the hook entirely. The ancillary characters are brought in to project the basic prejudices of their time— a narrative conceit that might seem clumsy in an adult novel but it, be-LIEVE me, provided crucial info for an eight year old girl.
First to hold a nasty grudge at the girls' love is Peggy's sister Claire, who is jealous not only of her sister's favor with their father but her looks:
She lit another cigarette, sending up a smoke screen between herself and the mirror. Again her mind fixed on Peggy and Jaret. Both of them were attractive. Jaret might even be considered beautiful. Dammit, she was beautiful...by male standards, she was a knockout. And that was what really made Claire crazy. Jaret Tyler could have had any boy or man she wanted and she wanted none. Peggy, too, could have had her pick. And who did they choose? Each other. It was sick. Crazy. Enraging. Why, when they could have the cream of the crop, did they want each other?
Okay, first lesson—people think if you're a good-looking, not getting with a man is a waste. Lies! Check. Scoppettone's second lesson: Not all heterosexual relationships are happy, or free of complication—but that doesn't mean married women are all oppressed. Jaret's parents are a case in point: While Kay, her mother, muses her husband is madly in love with her, she thinks with irritation how she's truly invested in his looks, even if she allows him to think it's the other way around:
He often accused her of regarding him as nothing more than a sex object and she had a hard time denying it. "Well, kid," she often said, "I can't help it if you're a looker." "What about my mind?" he'd ask. Kay would shrug and say, "Who needs it?"
Of course, she didn't really mean it. She just said it to keep Bert aware of the way women were treated. And he knew that. What he didn't know what that Kay was not overwhelmed by his mind.
Kay is an interesting character—an aggressively liberated Mom who is deeply disturbed at how disturbed she is about her daughter's new relationship:
She lit a fresh cigarette. [If you're thinking of lesbians, grab a smoke.] Kay had read everything she could find on the subject of homosexuality and lesbianism and what she'd read wasn't that helpful. There were many theories as to why a person turned out to be a lesbian—environment, chromosomes, choice—and a lot of big, fat blanks. No one really seemed to know. Nevertheless, Kay couldn't help blaming herself and Bert. But why blame? Why the need to put it in those terms? She knew it was because she still had one foot in the fifties and a lesbian life-style was not what she'd had in mind for her daughter; it was not something she could fully accept as normal, no matter how liberated she might be
Oh, what a fraud she was! Pretending to Jaret is was all fine with her, simply swell, because she wanted Jaret to like her, to think she was cool! What she really wanted to do was throw herself at her feet and beg her to see a psychiatrist so she'd get over this thing.
Equally equivocating is Peggy's friend Bianca, who reacts to the news with blase sophistication until one day Peggy, chatting with her in the bedroom, tells her sweating friend to take off her clothes, then is shocked and appalled to realize she thinks she's hitting on her:
"Besides," said Peggy, "do you think I'm interested in all females?"
"I thought...I don't know," she said, somewhat ashamed.
"No, I guess you don't. I thought you understood. I mean, are you interested in every guy you see?"
This was not only a revolutionary piece of transitory logic to a third-grader, but also a good schooling in the minor injustices visited on people who are different by well-meaning people, particularly (primarily!) their own friends. But if the emotional travails of their friends and family were the only ones in store for the girls, this would be a fairy story, not a political coming-of-age. There are deeper dangers in a character named Mid, a friend of Jaret's brother Chris and no less disturbing for being stereotypically disturbed. Musing he'd like to "knock [Jaret] on her ass" for being so good-looking and aloof, he stalks her and finds out that she and Peggy have been making love in the woods. Not realizing Peggy and Jaret's rareifed world is only agonized about their girls' predilections, not apt to disown them for them, he decides he can rape her with impunity.
The rape scene is long and awful and I APOLOGIZE for their being like 88 rape scenes in these columns lately. But the introduction of sex to girls, however it is rendered, is such a constant trope in the novels, it is instructive to think of how it's handled by the character—in this case, Jaret, who is shocked and destroyed, though not permanently—and by the author, whose scene is neither maudlin nor lurid, but simply chilling:
"I hate your guts," he whispered.
Why then? she wondered apathetically. His movement continued. Her head was turned to the side. Breathing became difficult. Month after month passed. Staring at the landscape, she wondered why the seasons didn't change. Where was the snow? She longed for snow, cool, white. Snow would stop the burning inside. She felt her body rock as Mid's movements quickened. Would she break apart? Explode into pieces of flesh, bone, blood, flying through the air, sticking to trees, bushes?
Was 8—or anything but 18, for that matter—too young to be exposed to this kind of thing? As horrifying as it was, I don't think so. The early exposure to injustice from someone on Jaret's side absolutely is a powerful tonic to defend against the crappy justice system the reader is going to grow into. The sheriff Jaret has to deal with after the rape is cut from the same cloth as Are You in the House Alone's awful lawman, and as awful to watch as the parents who stand up for their girls are a relief:
"What's the name of her boyfriend?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" Kay asked.
"Pardon?" said Foster.
"Why do you want to know about a boyfriend? She was horribly beaten. It has nothing to do with a boyfriend."
"Pardon, Mrs.," Foster said, "but you're out of your element here, so to speak. The girl was raped and we have to find the perpetrator. Now, please, let me do my job."
"This is a crime of violence," Kay went on, "not a sexual one."
Foster cacled, took a swipe at his nose with thumb and forefinger. "Well, if rape ain't sexual then I don't know what it is."
"Well, I have news for you," Kay persisted, her voice rising. "It ain't sexual. It's aggressive and it's violent and it's based on hatred of women, not desire for them."
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH DON'T YOU WANT TO KILL HIM! (Just wait until he gets to the part later about how it didn't matter that Jaret was raped because a) she's not a virgin and b) she's a lesbian.) So, say what you will about early exposure, but it definitely gave you your feminist talking points—of which I have personally amassed a very large collection ever since.
But—despite these handy fillips—what's wonderful about Happy Endings Are All Alike is how it chooses to not devolve into a paroxysm of blame. Not only is Jaret's lesbianism not Kay's fault—it's not a fault—but it or the rape doesn't turn Jaret bitter against men, which is another prejudice Scoppettone uses the book to debunk. After Jaret's brother, Chris, beats up Mid, he realizes it was unnecessary:
"Chris, you know, we never talked about what you did that day. Going after Mid like that."
"What's to talk about?"
"Why'd you do it?"
"What d'you mean? He hurt you, I wanted to hurt him. Simple." He looked past her shoulder.
"Is that the only reason?"
"Sure, what else?"
"I don't know." She touched his hand. "Are you angry with me? Do you hate me?"
He was shocked, sat up. "Me? Hate you? No. I thought....I mean, wow....I thought you hated me."
"Why?" she asked, dumbfounded.
"Well, I'm a....a guy."
"I don't hate men, Chris."
"You don't? Then how come....I mean, you come you're a...."
"A lesbian? It's not such a terrible word. I'm not sure why but it definitely isn't because I hate men."
"Not even after what happened?"
"No. I'm angry with him, Mid, but not all men. Not you."
"I thought for sure"—he cleared his throat—"lesbians hated men."
"Well, we don't. But what's that got to do with you going after Mid? And don't tell me it was just because he hurt me because I won't buy it."
Christ stood up, shuffled back and forth at the end of the bed. Then he said, "I thought if you saw a guy do something good, you know, kind of breave....well, I thought maybe you wouldn't think all guys were so bad."
"Oh, Chris." Jaret loved him more then than she ever had.
I started this review talking about how this book was brain-searing simply for its depiction of an adult romantic relationships, and I think that's true, for an eight-year-old read. But what I find so interesting as an adult is not the depiction of the romantic relationship, which, happily, seems very normal to me now, or the depiction of the rape, which, unhappily, also does, but what passes between all the family members once Jaret and Peggy come clean, and then when Jaret is assaulted. Both are huge bombs dropped on the people who love them, but Instead of making the family and friends betray the girls, Scoppettone instead deals with the ways they feel they are—and especially why they feel they are. No family members, including Peggy and Jaret, are at fault for anything. That's a good lesson to know. But, in a novel where all of the relationships are as complex as Peggy and Jaret's love, it's nice to know that, in one author's view, family is not a fault.
• • • • •
Guys, I am sorry the columns of late have been SORAPE-Y! Seriously, no mas. Stranger With My Face has bodily invasion but no raping, and I am assured The Wolves of Willoughby Chase has neither. Whew!
Moving right along, Australia/France or no, once again you Plotfinders (that's a designation and an appellation) pulled through! The solution was Hating Allison Ashley, and the winner, by email, was one un-hateable Andria A. Andria, write me at jezziefinelines@gmail.com to claim your prize of the choice of one column.
This week's Plotfinder comes from reader Patricia C., and is the last misery I will do before embarking on a summer of happy happy happy:
a teen whose parents own a gym gets pregnant her father actually tries to get her to miscarry by throwing one of those gym balls at her hard she leaves home gets forced into prostitution after having her baby i'm guessing it gets worse for her (how can that be?) so she goes back home to the gym leaves her baby on the floor and drowns herself in the hot tub.
Our gym teacher really did throw gym balls—HARD—at us, but just because this was the days before they made them stop doing that kind of thing. I will not throw anything at you if you guess this incorrectly. Answers in the comments or by email to jezziefinelines@gmail.com, and fame and fortune to the first in.
For your reading information, next week is Lois Duncan's...
Stranger With My Face
and the following week the marvelous Laura Lippman guesting with...
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase!
I haven't yet decided on where we'll be after that. I have all of your WONDROUS suggestions, but if you want to really really get me when I'm vulnerable, be all vociferous and shit for your desired work, and I will probably be swayed. As ever, send your requests, valedictions and remonstrations to jezziefinelines@gmail.com.
Also, you may have heard: There is to be a book! Do you want to read all about it? Do you have a better title for me than "Read All About It"? Fantastic! To be on the mailing list for any events and news regarding the upcoming creation, send me an email to jezziefinelines@gmail.com with the words I'LL HELP YOU THINK OF A TITLE in the subject line and I'll put you on it.
(One last thing: here is one commenter who has asked several times if anyone has heard of Constance C. Greene's Beat the Turtle Drum and remained unanswered. I can't stand to let anyone wander in the wilderness this way. Reader: I read it. It was one of my faves, too, and I will try to get it into the column soon.)
Vivienne Westwood has created what have to be the coolest caps and gowns ever for King's College, London. The line, which will premiere in a catwalk show in the campus's Great Hall, contains twenty different robes, including fuschia (Dental Institute) and silver (Law School.) Says the colorfully-coiffed designer, "Through my reworking of the traditional robe I tried to link the past, the present and the future. We are what we know."[Daily Star]
Men are simple creatures, and yet it is they who by necessity run the world and so we must stop distracting them with our dirty pillows (when we eventually get them) and bare midriffs and — horrors! — back tattoos lest we taunt them into such a state of perpetual arousal that they utterly fuck up the world (though some might argue it's too late). Or so says Kathleen Parker, whose new book Save the Males is out to save the poor, battered men of the world by forcing us libidinous sluts of all ages from taunting them with the possibility of sex. We'd rip her so-called logic to shreds some more, but were saved the trouble by our new blog crush, Jeff Fecke, who responded:
The fact is that when I see a woman who is attractive (or dressed attractively, which is not necessarily the same thing), I know that she isn't being attractive for my enjoyment. She is not a thing for me to use. She's a human being, doing her own thing.
Anna: Trust you're having a merry Fourth. Please don't let what I'm about to say put too much of a damper on it. Listen, you've been impeccable these past 20 years. You're British, everyone fears you, there was that movie, etc. etc. And let's face it: in your absence, everyone who works here will probably start eating again and that's bad for health insurance premiums. But when in the course of human events you have to cut off the clothing allowance of an old paramour, well…you give them the good news first! It's not Carine. No, I'm actually giving your job to Priya Tanna, the editor of Vogue India. Have you ever looked at Vogue India? I hadn't either, really, but the other day I was in Bombay or Mumbai or whatever they're calling it these days for a business meeting and it occurred to me that the whole reason we have ceded so much of the old "service economy" to them is that they know English there, and if they know English I might be able to read their magazines, not that stylish prose was the first thing on my mind when I walked into the newsstand and found myself face to face with the most fucking wildly gorgeous specimen of femininity I have ever seen. It not being some overspackled underfreckled overexposed celebublonde, it took me awhile to process that it was Vogue I was looking at.
See, all this time I'd been assuming the developing countries would always imitate the useless consumption fads and phony neuroses that comprise the sorry substitute for purpose we call "lifestyle" around here. Otherwise, what is the West even good for? Well, funny you should ask, because I have an answer for that: nothing. We are good for nothing. Because I opened the fucking magazine, Anna. I couldn't not open it. And in a few flips of the page I almost regained my belief in something I should know better than anyone is a cynical con designed to sell shit to insecure women and perpetuate a lucrative unending cycle of the creation of new wants, which is to say: beauty. Beauty, of all things! Seriously, I was surprised as you. But check her out.
Who is this stunning broad? Well, look here, they actually give you her name. How gauche — and yet, useful! Don't strain your eyes; it's Lakshmi Menon.
And look, I Googled her! Would you believe she's the new face of Hermes? Not Hermes in India, Hermes in Everywheria!
Of course I fucking would. Look at her.
This girl could start the next Peloponnesian War and I would be like, "And?"
But let's face it, maybe the photographer deserves some credit. Who is this guy?
Do you think the only reason I don't open my magazines anymore is just fatigue with the anemic staged Leibovitz-Testino-Meisel-guy ripping off that guy who got AIDS sameness of Vogue and all the magazines that hire photographers on the sole basis that you launched their careers in Vogue??
Nah, probably not. She's just motherfucking stunning. Look, she doesn't even have a pedicure. Hot.
So anyway, don't blame yourself. The world is flat as the saying goes. So are magazines. Now, once upon a time it seemed like magazines were there to inspire you to get outside, walk around, learn a language, buy a fucking swimsuit, look at the pretty colors, educate yourself on the internal politics of whatever country's populist leader the CIA is trying to depose, and whatever else you're supposed to do. The flatness could almost convey the roundness, if you will. Yeah, I totally thought those days were over too. Maybe not! Oh, and don't bother coming in to get your stuff. Like Samantha says, we have people who can take care of that for us here. People whose children will one day put Bee out of a job, too!
Guess what? Women's Wimbeldon schedulingsucks. The chief of the Women's Tennis Association, Larry Scott, says he is "disappointed and concerned" with the scheduling of women's matches and plans to discuss it with organizers. Serena Williams, Jelena Jankovic and defending champion Venus Williams were all pushed off the two main show courts for their fourth-round matches. Jankovic had to play in Court 18, which she described as "almost in the parking lot." Roger Federer , Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray have played all of their matches on the main courts. Serena, who played on Court 2, says, "Initially I thought, OK, is this the right schedule? I thought maybe there was a mistake." She is an eight-time grand slam winner, after all. According to ESPN, "the last time Federer was off the two main show courts at Wimbledon was the 2003 quarterfinals against Dutchman Sjeng Schalken — and that was before Federer had won his first title." By the by: Both Venus and Serena won in the semifinals, so they'll face each other in a sister showcase showdown for the Wimbeldon crown! [ESPN, ESPN, Guardian]
Baby Borrowers is only in its second episode, and one of the girls — Kelsey, the one who was the most gung ho about wanting to have kids immediately — has already learned her lesson. As seen last night, Kelsey began freaking out and crying about being left alone with the baby, so her boyfriend had to stay home with her so he could care for the child. The show's producers asked the baby's real mother to give Kelsey a talk, and she convinced the teen to keep on trying, in large part because she too was once a teen mother. (Um, isn't that negating the entire point of this experiment?) Clip above.
A recent study at UC Irvine has found that women over the age of 90 are more likely to have dementia than their male counterparts. Of the study participants, 45 percent of the women had dementia while only 28 percent of the men had it. The best-known form of dementia, of course, is Alzheimer's, and it can result in memory loss and gradual restriction of daily activities. According to the U.S. Census, people over 90 are the fastest growing age-group of the population, and two-thirds of those are female. [Eureka Alert]
Sometimes you can't even get to the heart of the editorial content of a magazine because there are so many ads. And while a few ads are innocuous, pretty or straightforward, many are just bad. Hence, Badvertising! After the jump, some of the worst advertisements from recent issues of Elle, Allure and Glamour.
Why hello there, dear. The words that come to mind immediately are "exquisite corpse." Yeah, it means something else, but damn. She is dead in the eyes. The lip gloss is purty, though! And positioning her mouth thusly doesn't make me think of swollen labia, no, not at all!!
Okay, so the copy claims that this product is "the end of overprocessed blonde," but over there on the right, Ms. Johansson's hair looks sorta overprocessed. To me. I know it's in the light, but is it supposed to look like cotton candy? Or is she imagining better tresses, hence the title "Dream Blonde"? Also, L'Oreal, You Have Taken The Title Case Thing Too Far, Methinks.
Look, I have no idea what the hell goes on under the hood of a car, but I do know that you don't need sunglasses to check out an engine. It's like they're trying to be pro-woman with a bad-ass chick mechanic, but from the way she's holding that wrench to the faux grease on her arms, it's clear she doesn't know what the fuck she's doing. "Genuine since 1937." Really? Also, this whole image is very Herb Ritts circa 1990, when Carre Otis was hot. Show me something new.
Guess what? If my birth control method fails I am not going to "Be Calm." I am going to freak the fuck out. Then I'm gonna read that thing Moe wrote about Plan B and throw up.
You know what else makes me freak out? When someone suggests that "we girls" should freak out less. We make less money than men, are expected to be thin and hairless and we have the crampy bleeds every 26 days. A body wash solves nothing. Fuck off.
Correct me if I am wrong, but waxing is not an orgasmic, kick up your heels, throw-your-head-back-in-ecstasy experience as illustrated here, is it?
The copy reads, "Unleash the enchantment of Brazil," and there's some sort of kudzu emerging from her crotch.
As a rule, if you have to put the word "SEXY" in electric lights behind you, then you are not sexy. And this is no exception. These ladies, none of whom are wearing pants, want me to believe that "big hair is sexy," and they appear to be in possession of yards and yards of extensions. And the bedraggled, voluminous crazytown hair, frankly, looks like crap. Try to count the number of times the word "sexy" appears, then ask yourself: Why is there so much going on in an ad for hairspray?
Oh, sure, I always wear a cropped white jacket and wedges to the beach. They match my enormous leather bag. Oh, wait: Is that actually Ms. Kimora Lee Simmons herself? Never mind, then. This is accurate. Move along, nothing to see here.
Pinocchio's sister dreams that someday, Diet Coke will turn her into a real girl. And cure migraines.
Haha, wow, OMG you guys, not having cellulite looks like SO MUCH FUN!
Aww, nostalgia! These happy white people have been in this same Newport ad since I was a kid. There's another one with happy black people. The greatest thing about Newport ads is how white everyone's teeth are. Smoking other cigarettes may discolor and rot your gums and give you oral cancer, but Newports are basically Crest White Strips!
The Weekly Standard is not exactly the place we'd normally expect to find a lesson on the historical and ideological unity of the movements to end institutionalized racism and sexism, but times are weird and last week's issue of the conservative journal looked at the lives of both abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the anti-Islam feminist activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. From the biracial background to the teetotaling to the claims that he got "elitist" in his old age, the life of Douglass could probably more easily be said to parallel Barack Obama's, but then it wouldn't be the Weekly Standard, it would be some 8th grade term paper. The point is, both crusaders get some pretty rad sentences in. Click the cover for inspiring quotes! [Weekly Standard]
That November, she attended a public debate on the subject "The West or Islam: Who Needs a Voltaire?" The first three speakers called for a new Voltaire in the West, a rational reformer to counter Western arrogance and neocolonialism and consumerist decadence. Only the last speaker, a refugee from Iran who taught law at Amsterdam University, spoke up for the "critical renewal" of Islam
I caught the HBO documentary Resolved the other night and was totally fascinated. It's about the highly competitive world of high school debating, which is a totally different thing than I assumed it was. My idea of high school debate teams was more along the lines of something out of Rushmore, but they're actually way weirder than that. The kids try to pack as much information as they possibly can into the time that they have, so they developed an ultra-fast way of speaking that involves a sort of manic breathing technique. Rather than characterized by persuasive arguments and poise, the debates are almost scientific in the way they are crafted, and the desired result of every debate is that whatever being argued about will end in nuclear war and human extinction. Clip above.
Gloriously salty bitch and Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing gave an interview to Time and she was 
It seems that Amy Winehouse's record company has put her on a sort of 
Pregnant man Thomas Beatie 
Beatrice Biira, the "Beatrice" of 
Welcome back to Missdemeanors! This is where we issue virtual wrist-slaps to popular gossip bloggers for Crimes Against Womanity. This week, Christie Brinkely wasn't satisfying her husband; Sienna Miller has three holes; Harlow Madden looks "unfortunate"; Rachel Hunter looks like a "Lesbian Lumberjack Circus Clown" and Britney's ass.... well, she seems to have some hair on it. As so many humans,male or female. Of course, if you're male and the only naked woman you have ever seen was in a porn film, you won't know this. Anyway, folks: It's been another great week of "writing" "gossip" on the Internet. Bloggers' continued degradation of female celebrity bodies and their corresponding punishments, after the jump. Let the Jezebel Justice system begin!
A lot of electronic ink has been generated this week talking about the story that 
Best Comment of the Day, in response to 
It's time for another installment of 
Vivienne Westwood has created what have to be the 
Men are simple creatures, and yet it is they who by necessity run the world and so we must stop distracting them with our dirty pillows (when we eventually get them) and bare midriffs and — horrors! — back tattoos lest we taunt them into such a state of perpetual arousal that they utterly fuck up the world (though some might argue it's too late). Or 
Anna: Trust you're having a merry Fourth. Please don't let what I'm about to say put too much of a damper on it. Listen, you've been impeccable these past 20 years. You're British, everyone fears you, there was that movie, etc. etc. And let's face it: in your absence, everyone who works here will probably start eating again and that's bad for health insurance premiums. But when in the course of human events you have to cut off the clothing allowance of an old paramour, well…you give them the good news first! It's not Carine. No, I'm actually giving your job to Priya Tanna, the editor of Vogue India. Have you ever looked at Vogue India? I hadn't either, really, but the other day I was in Bombay or Mumbai or whatever they're calling it these days for a business meeting and it occurred to me that the whole reason we have ceded so much of the old "service economy" to them is that they know English there, and if they know English I might be able to read their magazines, not that stylish prose was the first thing on my mind when I walked into the newsstand and found myself face to face with the most fucking wildly gorgeous specimen of femininity I have ever seen. It not being some overspackled underfreckled overexposed celebublonde, it took me awhile to process that it was Vogue I was looking at.
Who is this stunning broad? Well, look here, they actually give you her name. How gauche — and yet, useful! Don't strain your eyes; it's Lakshmi Menon.
And look, I Googled her! Would you believe she's the new 
Of course I fucking would. Look at her.
This girl could start the next Peloponnesian War and I would be like, "And?"
But let's face it, maybe the photographer deserves some credit. Who is 
Do you think the only reason I don't open my magazines anymore is just fatigue with the anemic staged Leibovitz-Testino-Meisel-guy ripping off that guy who got AIDS sameness of Vogue and all the magazines that hire photographers on the sole basis that you launched their careers in Vogue??
Nah, probably not. She's just motherfucking stunning. Look, she doesn't even have a pedicure. Hot.
Guess what? Women's Wimbeldon 
Baby Borrowers is only in its second episode, and one of the girls — Kelsey, the one who was the most gung ho about wanting to have kids immediately — has already learned her lesson. As seen last night, Kelsey began freaking out and crying about being left alone with the baby, so her boyfriend had to stay home with her so he could care for the child. The show's producers asked the baby's real mother to give Kelsey a talk, and she convinced the teen to keep on trying, in large part because she too was once a teen mother. (Um, isn't that negating the entire point of this experiment?) Clip above.
A recent study at UC Irvine has found that women over the age of 90 are more likely to 
Sometimes you can't even get to the heart of the editorial content of a magazine because there are so many ads. And while a few ads are innocuous, pretty or straightforward, many are just bad. Hence, Badvertising! After the jump, some of the worst advertisements from recent issues of Elle, Allure and Glamour.
Why hello there, dear. The words that come to mind immediately are "exquisite corpse." Yeah, it means 
Okay, so the copy claims that this product is "the end of overprocessed blonde," but over there on the right, Ms. Johansson's hair looks sorta overprocessed. To me. I know it's in the light, but is it supposed to look like cotton candy? Or is she imagining better tresses, hence the title "Dream Blonde"? Also, L'Oreal, You Have Taken The Title Case Thing Too Far, Methinks.
Look, I have no idea what the hell goes on under the hood of a car, but I do know that you don't need sunglasses to check out an engine. It's like they're trying to be pro-woman with a bad-ass chick mechanic, but from the way she's holding that wrench to the faux grease on her arms, it's clear she doesn't know what the fuck she's doing. "Genuine since 1937." Really? Also, this whole image is very 
Guess what? If my birth control method fails I am not going to "Be Calm." I am going to freak the fuck out. Then I'm gonna read that thing Moe 
You know what else makes me freak out? When someone suggests that "we girls" should freak out less. We make less money than men, are expected to be thin and hairless and we have the crampy bleeds every 26 days. A body wash solves nothing. Fuck off.
Correct me if I am wrong, but waxing is not an orgasmic, kick up your heels, throw-your-head-back-in-ecstasy experience as illustrated here, is it?
The copy reads, "Unleash the enchantment of Brazil," and there's some sort of kudzu emerging from her crotch.
As a rule, if you have to put the word "SEXY" in electric lights behind you, then you are not sexy. And this is no exception. These ladies, none of whom are wearing pants, want me to believe that "big hair is sexy," and they appear to be in possession of yards and yards of extensions. And the bedraggled, voluminous crazytown hair, frankly, looks like crap. Try to count the number of times the word "sexy" appears, then ask yourself: Why is there so much going on in an ad for hairspray?
Oh, sure, I always wear a cropped white jacket and wedges to the beach. They match my enormous leather bag. Oh, wait: Is that actually Ms. Kimora Lee Simmons herself? Never mind, then. This is accurate. Move along, nothing to see here. 
Pinocchio's sister dreams that someday, Diet Coke will turn her into a real girl. And cure migraines.
Haha, wow, OMG you guys, not having cellulite looks like SO MUCH FUN!
Aww, nostalgia! These happy white people have been in this same Newport ad since I was a kid. There's another one with happy black people. The greatest thing about Newport ads is how white everyone's teeth are. Smoking other cigarettes may discolor and rot your gums and give you oral cancer, but Newports are basically Crest White Strips!
The Weekly Standard is not exactly the place we'd normally expect to find a lesson on the historical and ideological unity of the movements to end institutionalized racism and sexism, but times are weird and last week's issue of the conservative journal 
