Note that Metafilter is an online forum open to anyone willing to pay a one-time $5 fee. Although the membership generally skews towards college-educated Westerners, there are tens of thousands of members from a pretty wide range of backgrounds. All accounts are strictly anonymous.

For the responses to this article, the following were of particular interest to me:

hincandenza dislikes the items in the article, and provides his own list
uncanny hengeman offers his experience as (I think) an Australian man
desjardins ponders her sexism in expecting her husband to fix the dryer
kyrademon challenges the folks who dismiss the claims of sexism (and there were a lot who did) with a thought experiment

The cool thing is that the authors don’t provide much commentary on their own, but do a great job translating all the comments into very readable English (complete with slang explanations and roll-overs showing the original Chinese). Of course, you must bear in mind the fact that the authors necessarily pick and choose, and there is no way to tell how representative the comments are. Still, I get the impression that they do a good job of conveying the general feeling on the Chinese ‘net.

It’s also quite important to bear in mind that fact that only around a third of the population on China uses the internet, meaning that even if these curated comments were truly representative of Chinese online thought, they’d still leave out almost a billion folks.

Still, I find it fascinating. Take, for example, this recent post, “Male Cross-Dresser At A McDonald’s In Shanghai“. This was a post on the largest internet discussion board in China: mop.com. It’s just a series of photos of the back of someone in drag at a McDonalds. Not a terribly remarkable photo, except that their dress is really quite short, and they have closely cropped hair with no wig. The other remarkable thing about the photos are the sheer number of them, and the number of other folks also taking pictures. Hard to imagine anyone taking photos like that in Chicago.

The poster says, “I really didn’t have the courage to take a photo from the front!!”, and the general tone is pretty frightened. It’s not especially hostile, however. There are some comments like “Brother, I’m old now, society progresses too fast for me.” that could have been made by Tea Partiers in the States. A couple a more bigoted, aggressive comments are also presented, but there are others like: “A large tree has all kinds of birds.”

I also really liked this comment, by 飙车BOY:

To tell the truth, I like and even approve of these bizarre and fantastic things appearing. Yes, it can be to become famous, to get people’s attention, any mess for any reason is all fine, I just hope that as long as it is not against nature or reason, people can freely express themselves, onlookers can naturally accept them, and then a kind of creative, vibrant, cheerful, self-confident new atmosphere can develop [in society].

(Note that he mentions “becoming famous”–I’ve noticed this a lot in other ChinaSMACK comments. Chinese netizens seem to be much more judgmental about self-promotion than Americans are. I have no idea what is meant by “as long as it is not against nature or reason”.).

The irrelevant side note is that the author of this software, Jordan, is a trans person who often identifies as female and is male bodied. At the start of this youTube video, she spends five seconds addressing this in the most straightforward, “This doesn’t matter but people are often distracted by it” way.

The result? youTube comments like make me feel like there is totally hope for humanity, like this one:

You know.. My first thought was about if you we’re a girl or boy.
But when you made it clear it felt so.. “why the fuck did I even think of that? Doesn’t matter at all!”

Kind of gave me an appifeny (spelling?)

Hah! youTube for the win! Also, Jordon for the win, as she is an awesome drummer:

Anyway, Peggy Orenstein’s essay is not at all dogmatic, but articulates some worrying points quite well. Oh, and here’s the commercial to which she was referring:

However, one thing that it does have (and the reason I’m reviewing violent video games for Queeresque) is this innovation: it’s the first videogame I’ve ever played that separates sex and gender.

More accurately, it separates sex from gender presentation. The main character seems to be a sociopathic thug regardless of sex, so there really isn’t a way to play it as a culture-typical woman.

When you create your character, you choose whether you want to play as male or female. This choice effects height, secondary sexual characteristics, and nothing else*. After choosing sex, ethnicity, body type and skin color, you choose a voice type, hair style, and walking animation–it’s a pretty robust character creation process!

Once you finish constructing your character model, you can dress it with clothes that you buy throughout the game. In all of these areas every possible choice is available, regardless of whether is “appropriate” for your sex–every other game I’ve ever played segregates certain things (clothing, for example). As a man with three times as many skirts as pairs of pants, that’s unacceptable!

As your character walks around the city (and dances, too, I’ve just discovered!) the way that ze walks is animated using a process called “motion capture recording”. Basically, they took a variety of male and female actors and had them strut and swagger in character while wearing a special suit that allowed a computer to record their motion. So when you create your character, you choose one of these recordings to be how you walk (and dance). The choices are labeled according to the actor and style (e.g., “female sway”, “male swagger”) but the game is perfectly content to let you pick any of them that you wan. My character is definitely male, but not terribly macho–he swings his hips and bobs his head in the “female, perky” manner.

You can choose from a wide variety of voice acting, ranging from a Lil’ Kim-style voice to (my choice) a macho Guy Ritchie accent. In addition, you are allowed to pick any hairstyle you like from long, luxurious, flowing locks; to a high pile of dreads; to a short military-style haircut. Finally, as I mentioned before, this is the first damn game that will let me buy a skirt for my (male) character.

Actually, it gets better–I’ve been playing more, and I just discovered that you can visit a “plastic surgeon” to change your character model at any time, for $500. Oddly, this is the price just to get a new hairstyle, but it also covers a complete sex change. Even cooler, though, is that one of the settings (completely independent of the “sex” setting) is labeled “body type”. If you move the slider all the way to the right, your body type become stereotypically “male”, if you move it to the left you develop breasts (and a bra magically appears to cover them!). So for one thing, paging John Stoltenberg. For another, the game allows you to play as in in-transition trans person holding up liquor stores and fighting gang battles to earn money for another operation or two. (Although apparently that opperation only costs $500 in this world, and is instantaneous).

Politically, the gameplay itself is interesting. Now, it’s important to understand that the most salient (and least laudable) element is the violence–although the game doesn’t require you to do anything (and this is very rare for video games) the vast majority of things that it’s possible to do are extremely violent. Essentially this game is calling Jack Thompson’s bluff. You can play the game as a non-violent racing simulator, driving your car around, but sooner or later it is likely that you’ll run someone over on accident. At which point it’s highly likely that someone will pull out a gun and you’ll shoot them to death (and take out a few cops, as well).

Given this violent premise, the game had a more-or-less free pass as far as the rest of its politics are concerned. If they had wanted to make a game that was as sexist, racist, and generally unpleasant as it was violent I doubt that it would have cost them anything. They’d already alienated any audience that would care,  so why not stock the game with offensive Chinese stereotypes and degrading depictions of women?

For some reason, however, they decided to go (more or less) the opposite direction. The writing is hardly Faulkner, but it compares favorably to any action movie I’ve seen as far as characters are concerned. All of the characters, regardless of ethnicity or gender, are treated as characters–your gang lieutenants are Carlos, Shaundie, and Pierce, not “hispanic guy”, “white girl”, and “black guy”. The central cast thus manages to seem diverse (especially because the gang leader can be whatever phenotype you choose) without seeming too heavy handed or tokenist. The only supporting female role, so far, is an assertive and capable (and very wealthy) black woman.

From a gameplay perspective, there are characters with speaking lines (usually in cinematic cutscenes) and then a bunch of people walking around the city: enemy gang members, cops, and lots of innocent pedestrians. The gender of the gang members and police officers is random, so you’re as likely to get your ass kicked by someone presenting female as male. It’s certainly true that the female pedestrians are much more likely to be presented as sex objects (the game is gynephilic, it turns out) but are as likely as the male pedestrians to either run away or attack you if there is a conflict. So that’s nice.

Another surprising thing: one of the few non-violent activities that you can do in the game is to visit the sex workers at the pier. In Grand Theft Auto this activity was illustrated by a long shot of your car, rockin’. In this game, however, you have to play a DDR-style mini-game (behind closed doors–there’s no visual accompaniment) to satisfy her–I find it odd that such a cold blooded sociopath would be so concerned with sexually pleasing hookers, but it’s certainly nice of him to do so (and, again, far from the misogynist angle that the game might have been expected to take).

As I may have mentioned, it’s a very violent game, and it doesn’t have much that’s good to say about any of the characters. They are likable, but male or female, no one in the game is a good person. Stereotypes are tricky, and it feels weird to applaud when they are countered in such a negative fashion. However, it’s cool that the game can portray an skinny, effeminate man in a skirt beating the crap out of people; or a latina chick in a wife-beater and combat boots with an M16 and a gruff voice; or even a macho, over-muscled black guy who (unbeknown to anyone else) is wearing pink panties. Personally, I’d much rather play a game that allows women to be mass-murdering drug dealers than any game in which they are forced to be wholesome and maternal, and the pink panties are just a bonus.

One more surprising thing about Saint’s Row 2 is that, for all that it’s marketed (and designed) as a gangland shoot-em-up “murder simulator”, one of the mechanics at the very heart of it is simply earning enough cash to buy better clothes. I’ve spent a lot of time in-game just buying and customizing them, and then trying them out on my character. As you can see form the really bad photos below (bizarrely, this game has no “screen capture” button!) I’m rocking a nice black blazer and an awesome skirt, just like real life (actually, I’d love that skirt in real life–Kate?). I just need to save up and get some better shoes…

It isn’t just me, by the way–a lot of the forums I’ve been on have folks (who seem male to me, whatever that’s worth online) bragging about their outfits and enthusing about how much time they spend on their “look”. In a way, it seems that Saints Row has created an environment in which is is culturally acceptable for boys to play with dolls (on account of all the macho violence that also gets done), and they love it! I would really like to see this replicated in a scientific fashion (with custom software, obviously, not Saint’s Row)–how likely are young boys to play dress up with dolls in a “standard” virtual environment, and how likely are they to do so in an environment in which this aspect is presented as secondary to a culturally acceptable (or hyper-masculine) activity. Also, how much time would young boys spend on dress-up, compared to time spent on the “acceptable” activity? Given the same setup, how much time would girls spend engaging in whatever hyper-masculine “cover” activity was given? And the reverse–a pink dollhouse environment that also allowed, “secondarily”, players to engage in some non-feminine behaviors–crashing trucks or something.

The second surprising thing is that the vast majority of the stuff I’m all excited about here–the whole separation of sex and gender thing, the fact that men on women on the street have the same reactions to conflict, &c.–could well be the result of laziness on the part of the game designers. They didn’t do anything extra to make the game gender agnostic–they actually did less work. Typically the programmers would have to add a whole bunch of lists and checks (“Player wants to buy item: skirt. Player sex is: male. Is this item on the list: Male-acceptable clothing?”) that these folks skipped. This means that in every other game I’ve played, programmers have had to work harder to enforce gender stereotypes. Surely this is a metaphor for day to day life, as well?

And here’s my unnamed gangster, with and without automatic shotgun. Note the stylish hat, and hopefully I’ll get some better shoes.

* See, GTA was a game with a strong “inner city gang crime” story. It was very good at letting you ignore that, however, and you could simply explore the world. Sure, you could gun down a bunch of rivals, but you could also steal a sports car and drive out into the desert. Or steal a plane–it was actually a really fun flight simulator! I don’t know if Saint’s will have the same kind of depth.

* So far as I can tell. I’ve only played as male, and there  has already been at least one mini-game involving screwing female sex workers. I’m curious about whether the game is heteronormative or simply gynephilic, although for all I know there are also male sex workers. I strongly suspect that both male and female characters prefer women, however.

I realized that this was true for me, regarding Girls and Boys. I’ve always seen it as a song in celebration of sex, regardless of orientation, prejudice or kink, with the important addendum that it “always should be someone you really love“. I’ve always like it for that reason.

Imagine my surprise to read on Wikipedia that it was a series of “withering putdowns of trendy pansexuality and aimless hedonism satirise the party culture in the UK”. I went back and studied the lyrics, and lines like “Following the herd / Down to greece – on holiday”, “You are very beautiful / but we haven’t been introduced”, “Count your thoughts – on one two three four five fingers” and, of course, “You’ll get nasty blisters” certainly seem condemnatory.

So that’s too bad–I’m certainly ambivalent about mindless sex, but I had rather enjoyed the song as a song about enjoying sex regardless of the social conventions. Instead, it seems more like a reiteration of the “bisexuality is just decadence” bigotry. Which, in 1994, wasn’t so surprising. Still, anyone want to cover the song with slightly different lyrics?

In examining the lyrics, I noticed a bunch of other (much more silly) ambiguities which I will put after the “cut”, as it were.

Remember, Blur tells you that you should:

Take your chances looking for
1) GIRLS WHO ARE BOYS
2) WHO LIKE BOYS TO BE GIRLS
3) WHO DO BOYS LIKE THEY’RE GIRLS
4) WHO DO GIRLS LIKE THEY’RE BOYS

ALWAYS SHOULD BE SOMEONE YOU REALLY LOVE

My first reading was that:

1) You are looking for girls who are boys. What kind of girls-who-are-boys?
2) The ones who prefer that the boys they have sex with are girls. What kind of girls?
3) The kind of girls who have sex with boys as if they were actually girls, specifically
4) The kind of of girls who have sex with other girls as if they were boys.

Or is it

1) You are looking for girls who are boys.
2) In addition, you look for girls who like boys to be girls.
3) Furthermore, they must have sex with boys as if they were girls.
4) And finally, this girl must also have sex with girls as if they were boys.

Much more simple, but still a bit of a tall order, I fear. There’s further confusion, however–these “girl’s who like boys to be girls”. Is this meant literally? I.E., do they prefer transfolk who are biologically female, but present as male? Or does it mean that the girls prefer boys who enact traditionally female roles in sex play–submissive boys, in other words?

Finally, there’s a problem with homophones. Do the girls do boys like they’re girls? Or do they do them like their girls? Not, “act like a girl for me!” but, rather, “When we have sex, I will pretend that you are my girl, even though you are not my girl and are, in fact, a boy!” In that reading, it isn’t about gender roles at all, but has the rather melancholy sense of longing for a lover who is too far away, and seeking momentary comfort in the arms of a stranger.

This post is not about “Booty Shaking”, however. This post is about artist Dennis Knopf, whose ongoing project “Bootyclipse” involves using digital editting techniques to remove the dancers from these “Booty Shaking” videos entirely.

Most of these videos seem to be impromptu–personal effects are strewn around, beds are unmade. In the absence of sexy dancing I was much more aware of this environment, which gives ambiguous clues about the dancers’ personalties. So, ironically, these empty videos end up showing a good deal more about the performers as individuals than the original videos that actually featured the performers themselves.

Note that the comments on these videos are about what you would expect from folks searching youTube for “booty shaking”.

I found this on Metafilter, and thought that a one of the comments there was well worth repeating:

Removal of context or content is a fine conceptual trope. Not a new one, by any stretch, but a fine one. In that sense, I like the videos for “what they are.”

By contrast, “what they are” is also a gesture of class/cultural expropriation by some honky from Stuttgart, and those do get tiresome.

posted by wreckingball at 12:22 PM on May 27

I wish that I could report differently, but make no mistake: Twilight is disturbing. Its implicit messages are probably as bad as you feared for all of the reasons that you assumed.

The seductive allure of vampires has long served as a metaphoric exploration of the dangerous, un-tamable terrain of human sexuality. That teenage girls are now the subject of and the market for these tales speaks volumes about the position they now occupy in our culture. Sexualized at ever younger ages, high school girls are indeed contending with the dark allure and sparkle of sexuality. More so than at any other point in North American history, teenage girls are finding themselves in the same position as Twilight’s female protagonist, Bella: left facing a world of romance and desire largely without adult guidance. Bella is a high school junior who moves in with her father when her mother decides to pull of stakes to follow her baseball-playing boyfriend (problematic, anyone?). While Bella’s mother is much more friend than parent, her father is emotionally unavailable. Upon her arrival, Bella’s father presents her with a car – our culture’s most potent symbol of teenage independence – and leaves her to her freedom.

Into this opening waltzes Edward, a sexy 17-year-old vampire who is irresistibly attracted to Bella’s scent and filled with a need to “protect” her. Edward tells Bella that he may be unable to resist her blood and that she would be wise to stay away. But quickly, Bella declares her trust in him and a romance blossoms based on Edward’s super-human powers of restraint. Bella literally flirts with danger.

Twilight really is a teenage girl’s fantasy – and it encourages the worst of teenage misconceptions. Edward is completely devoted to Bella – consumed with a desire that he must restrain. To use a term coined by Bust magazine, Twilight is abstinence porn. Bella is emotionally satisfied and sexually titillated and she’s freed from the burden of taking responsibility for her sexuality – a responsibility that I honestly believe few teenagers want to squarely face. But Bella is also denied all agency. Her relationship is based on Edward’s restraint – putting him firmly in control. When Bella takes sexual initiative, she is presented as responsible for endangering Edward’s self-control. It’s a fantastical situation that renders narratives of male desire and female responsibility physically incarnate.

When things go wrong for Bella, Edward jumps in to fulfill the script of male protector. Unsurprisingly, Bella takes as little agency in her rescue as possible . When she does take action, Bella conforms perfectly to rigid gender scripts. It’s like a bad caricature. Cultural scripts of male protectiveness and female submission are played through so thoroughly that it’s sickening – and predictable enough to be boring. And yes, Twilight is unfailingly heterosexist. That nearly goes without saying.

Twilight does present, however, one exception to the pattern of female submissiveness: female vampires. These “vamps” are autonomous characters with complete agency. They solve problems, defend themselves, disagree with men, and help to save Bella. They are also powerfully sexual. One can’t help but wonder if Bella’s wish to become a vampire is in part a desire to take control of her sexuality and thereby gain agency in other parts of her life. But as ever, Edward plays gatekeeper to her desires.

From romanticizing obsession and the warning-signs of abuse to a villain that video tapes his sexually charged attack on Bella like bad porn, Twilight employs an impressive number of misogynist texts. It even uses the classic abuse excuse “I fell down the stairs” to explain the injuries Bella sustains. I think I’m ready to wash my mouth out with some Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Maybe I need to go buy myself this t-shirt.

PS: As a bonus, here are a few more thoughts on the teenage vampire phenomenon from a friend of mine studying library science:

Teen vampire fiction meets ordinary orphan girl becomes princess fantasy! (1) hm, I am sensing a new trend here thanks to Twilight. It’s the vampire AU fan fiction trend. What will be next? Could it be…

-Vampires! With ponies! (bonus points if the ponies are telepathic)
-The Undead Babysitters Club
-This genre clearly needs something for the boys (2). Probably something about a vampire boy and his dog being stranded on a desert island, struggling for survival with only fish and/or fish blood to eat and only sticks and palm fronds to make a sun-proof shelter. Or maybe a book about vampire pirates.

(1) Note: I have not read this book. It may very well be good, as it was mentioned by the children’s book newsletter I get.
(2) Because clearly no boys would not like these books, nor would any girls like the “boy books.”

Oh, and ps: check out the “Nina Misses Her Husband” bonus video. Best use so far of one of my favorite phrases.