ovo

The content of these links may not be appropriate for all readers and all environments. – Trevor Blake

Furry Girl, Introduction, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Non:

After working on the outskirts of the porno industry since 2002, I have steadily been moving from wanting to modernize and re-define the concept of feminism to wanting to stop beating that dead horse entirely. Many of my friends and favorite people consider themselves feminists. A lot of my enemies consider themselves feminists, too, and they exist in larger numbers, with better funding, and with better brand recognition as the face of feminism. [...] I spent way too much of my own time trying to shoehorn myself into feminism, and I look back on that as an embarrassing waste of my energy.

Feminism as a word/identity is used to describe so much of everything that it has ceased to mean anything at all. Is fucking people for money feminist? Is climbing the corporate ladder feminist? Is wearing an abaya feminist? Is shaving your pussy feminist? Is being a stay-at-home mom feminist? Is BSDM feminist? Are sewing and crafting feminist? Is makeup feminist? Is being a woman in the military feminist? Is broccoli soup feminist?!?! You have people lined up, ready to fight to the death over their absolute certainty over whether or not such things are truly feminist. (What the word “feminism” stands in for, of course, is deemed permissible by the “right” kind of people.)

In general, I’m tired of “feminist” being used as a blanket qualifier to mean “awesome”, especially when it comes to the concept of feminist porn. I think “awesome” works just fine as a qualifier for awesome. I seek to advance the idea the first person in any debate to propose that their position is correct because it’s the most “feminist” has hereby lost the argument. I have been guilty of this one plenty of times in the past, but I can learn from my mistakes.

Furry Girl, Biography of a Pornographic Polemic:

Why would you NOT want call yourself a feminist? That means you’re sexist, then, right? Pick a side! We’re at war!
I don’t call myself a suffragette, either, but that doesn’t mean I am against women being allowed to vote. I still consider myself super-duper anti-sexism, because sexism is still a problem in my society. Unfortunately, it’s frequently perpetuated by people who call themselves feminists.

What could you possibly have against feminism?
For starters: “feminism” doesn’t have anything close to a singular meaning, so it’s too hard to have rational debate about it when it means opposite things to different people; the feminist pendulum has run its course and too often turns into pointless misandry; feminism used to be about women’s right to be more than just barefoot and pregnant, and now it fights for the “right” of women to be barefoot and pregnant and be given a ton of government and corporate handouts for churning out babies; feminism is commonly embraced by people who’s underlying beliefs are that women are stupid, feeble creatures who need to be controlled and saved; feminism these days focuses way too much on imaginary first-worlder problems like women choosing to feel badly about themselves because they think they’re not pretty enough, rather than real-world problems in the Global South where women aren’t allowed to own property, vote, or have a safe abortion; some feminists are obsessed with fanning and exploiting insecurities in women in order to indoctrinate them to their style of victim feminism, rather than being positive and helping women see that they’re strong and powerful. Last but not least: it’s REALLY FUCKING DIFFICULT to spend your entire life being viciously picked on by girls and women for various reasons, then swallow the idea that women are your true solidarity sisters and that men are the cruel enemy that oppresses you.

Dear Friends,

Thank you all so much for the generous support you’ve given me over the years!  I could never have reunited my family and gotten my life back if it wasn’t for all of you, so thank you once again for everything you’ve done!

I’ve finally received the paperwork for the Appeals Court dismissal of my ex’s bid to keep the case in New York State.  You can view them on Google Docs, page 1 here: http://tinyurl.com/yara369 and page 2 here: http://tinyurl.com/ydrzh2k.  Some people have asked me about the court order preventing me from having my own artwork and writing inside my home, so I have put those orders up on the web also.  The legal prohibitions against me having any SubGenius materials in my home are found in numerous court docs.  In the latest, currently standing order from Judge Punch it is found at the bottom of page 2 and top of page 3 here: http://tinyurl.com/yc727s9 .  It is also seen affirmed by Judge Adams on page 17 here: http://tinyurl.com/y8wozzt .

Essentially, the upshot of the latest Appeals Court decision is that for now the case is dismissed, but my ex has one year from the date stamp, September 22, 2009, to make another attempt to complete this appeal.  After that deadline, if nothing further is filed, the case will finally move beyond the jurisdiction of New York State entirely.  Never again would my family face the prospect of having to split up and find lodging in New York for months or years on end to fight the case.  Never again will I be handicapped by not having any of my local friends and people who know our family available to testify.  Although this doesn’t guarantee the case would be completely over, it would return it to a fair and level playing field.

So basically, I’m counting down to September 10, 2010!!  I’ll be sure to send out an update then if all is well so you can rest easy!

Of course the legal bills are still a huge burden.  I have a monthly payment of over $500 to pay back a legal loan that my father secured with his entire retirement savings, so until that is paid off I am always living under the fear that I won’t be able to pay it and everything my father saved over decades of hard work as a letter carrier will be snatched away from him.  Any donations would be greatly appreciated, as always!  The link to donate is: http://pledgie.com/campaigns/90

Another way to help is to visit my new blog!  http://revmagdalen.blogspot.com/2009/11/welcome-to-my-new-blog.html I started this blog because I’ve begun to feel like the terrible numbing effect all these troubles have had on my mind is starting to wear off, and I’ve begun really wanting to share my opinions and hopefully make some people laugh!  And I’ve monetized the blog with ads, so every time anyone just visits and casts their eyes upon the ads, perhaps clicking any that are of genuine interest, it helps out my legal bills!

I’m still in a legal grey area as far as whether or not I can blog about my case, so I’ve chosen not to risk anything by doing that, but I have become pretty involved in activism for the Iranian Green Movement, so I do blog about that and a variety of SubGenius topics.  There’s even a section where you can “Ask Magdalen” any questions on SubGenius doctrine, your love life, anything!  I’ve also written a post explaining in more detail the answer to that infamous question, “Why a goat?” referring to a costume I wore at a SubGenius event that caused much controversy in the courtroom.  Get all the answers here: http://revmagdalen.blogspot.com/2009/11/because-goats-are-funny.html

You can also follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/revmagdalen where I also plan to occasionally serve ads, so the more followers I have, the more it will help my legal fund!  Feel free to tell your friends to check out the blog and follow me on Twitter, for a great free way to help with a good cause!

Thank you all again so much for everything you’ve done for my family, I don’t know how to repay you except to tell you that you have made a huge difference in a family’s life, and without your help we would still be separated and miserable, but your generosity has allowed us to be reunited and we are so happy and grateful for that!!!

Thank you so much!!
-Rachel Bevilacqua

The Internet Archive suggests that The Raving Atheist started some time in 2002.  By September 2002 the site described itself as “an atheistic examination of the culture of belief: how religious devotion trivializes American law and politics.”  The site and its author have had a curious history.

The Raving Atheist (TRA) was influential on me in three ways when I found it in 2004.  First, TRA’s essays clarified for me the importance of distinguishing between religious belief and theocracy.  TRA wrote (quote): “any person asserting a special individual right or attempting to dictate social policy based about a belief in god must first 1) define the god, 2) prove that the god exists and 3) demonstrate how the right or policy follows from the belief in god.” Religious belief can be foolish, harmful and sad (or clever, helpful and joyous) but it is largely a matter of personal choice.  The trouble for all of us starts when religion is enfranchised into law.  The Raving Atheist helped me understand theocracy is where my criticism should primarily be addressed, with criticism of religion in general coming behind.  I often fail, but I’ve tried to criticize theocracy more harshly than religion or any particular religion.

Second, TRA reminded me that no set of beliefs is a package deal.  Just because a person is an atheist does not mean they are necessarily also a capitalist or a communist, although some capitalists and some communists would like to claim otherwise.  In this case, the reminder came in the form of TRA being strongly in favor of atheism and strongly against abortion.  That’s a combination I’d never seen before, TRA himself said it was rare and which remains a minority view.  TRA was banned from anti-abortion Christian sites for being an atheist, and looked at askance for being anti-abortion by atheists.  This rare combination of beliefs was helpful to me, whether or not I shared them.  Just as the Dalai Lama is not a vegetarian, The Raving Atheist and you and I pick and choose and invent our beliefs from a variety of inspirations.  Sometimes they seem to go together, sometimes we find others that share our beliefs and they appear to form a self-consistent ideology.  But it is just as likely we’re dressing up our preferences in fine justifications.

Third, for better and for worse The Raving Atheist influenced my writing style.  He didn’t just use reasoned criticism to address his concern.  He also heaped scorn and mockery on those he opposed.  TRA took news stories about theocracy and changed the wording so their absurdity and cruelty was emphasized.  I do these things as well.  If you like my work in this style, thank TRA.  If you don’t, blame me.

The better influences that TRA has given me remain, I hope, as I’ve changed in being an atheist and a writer.  TRA has also changed. There were few posts to the blog between 2006 and 2009.  Among them was a June 2006 post stating TRA “will never write another bad word about Jesus or Christianity on The Raving Atheist.” TRA also wrote:

“Neither Christ nor Christianity shall ever again be maligned on this site, I have vowed. In contemporary America continuing this blog under such constraints might appear to rival the composition of a thousand-page novel without the letter ‘e.’ Or perhaps without the alphabet, given that Christianity equates Christ with God, and that the denial of His existence could be fairly construed as an insult. The seeming impossibility of the challenge might suggest an abandonment of disbelief. Consequently charges of atheist heresy, of conversion to theism, have now been lodged against me. With such conversions I am well familiar. Often I have questioned whether a committed, well-read atheist has ever come to faith. No one is better able to recognize the symptoms of a religious transformation than I. But my own diagnosis I will not disclose. [...] I can only assure you that I will not be acting indifferently or agnostically. What has led me to this point, whatever this point is, is a firm conviction that I must go beyond words and set an example. I will not say whether what lies behind that conviction is God or not. You will have to content yourselves with the understanding that the truth of His existence, whether founded in fact, logic, or a combination of both could not possibly vary with what my words might command you to believe. But I will not tell you what I believe. And I will not tell you why I will not, and you will never trick it out of me.”

Reading that I wondered if I could write in favor of atheism without criticizing religion. I haven’t done so online, but I do have a book manuscript that attempts to do just that. Perhaps someday it will get that last bit of editing and see print.

On December 22, 2008, TRA wrote: “Three years ago, I promoted and appeared in the atheist documentary The God Who Wasn’t There, dedicated to the proposition that Jesus never existed. TODAY I DEDICATE THIS SITE AND MY LIFE TO THE WORSHIP AND SERVICE OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST.”  Is this evidence that some beliefs are package deals, that it’s impossible to stay atheist if you’re against abortion?  Some say yes.  But I’m going to stick with no.  Just because you’re a vegetarian or a nature-worshiper or an occultist doesn’t mean you’re also a fascist.  Just because you’re an homosexual it doesn’t mean you’re gay.  You are what you are by choice and by chance, and political correctness of every stripe be damned. I am still puzzled when friends have a mix of heresies that don’t match my own.  But it doesn’t threaten me like it used to.

As of September 2009 a Google search for “Raving Atheist” returns his blog as the first match, with the byline “Atheistic examination of American law and politics.”  The site’s own byline is “Dedicated to Jesus Christ, Now and Forever.”  The back content is mostly there, and what isn’t there is usually at the Internet Archive. TRA’s site isn’t as funny or inspirational to me as it used to be.  But the number of anti-abortion atheists was small, and the number of atheists-turned-Christian is also small.  TRA’s site is worth reading at minimum for its rarity.

Lubna Hussein, When I think of my trial, I pray my fight won’t be in vain: Next week I will stand trial in a Sudanese court, charged along with 12 other women with committing an “indecent act” – wearing trousers in a public place. I will face up to 40 lashes and an unlimited fine if I am convicted of breaching Article 152 of Sudanese law, which prohibits dressing indecently in public. As an employee of the UN I was offered immunity, and the chance to escape trial, but I chose to resign from the UN so that I could face the Sudanese authorities and make them show to the world what they consider justice to be. [The] director of police has admitted that 43,000 women were arrested in Khartoum state in 2008 for clothing offences. When asked, he couldn’t say how many of these women had been flogged. And it’s not just about clothing. After my arrest, two girls were arrested in a public place and the police discovered that their mobile phones had video clips of scenes from the hugely popular Arab soap Noor and Mohannad in which the main characters kiss each other. The girls were charged with pornography and given 40 lashes. [...] When I think of my trial, I pray that my daughters will never live in fear of these “police of security of society”. We will only be secure once the police protect us and these laws are repealed. I also pray that the next generation will see we had the courage to fight for their future before it was too late. We need Arab, African, American and European leaders to stand with us and help us make sure that the next chapter of our history is less bloody and brutal than the last. This will require conviction and boldness from their side. I hope they will display the qualities of those Sudanese men and women I most admire.

Nesrine Malik [bio: Sudanese-born writer and commentator who lives in London and works in the financial sector] wrote “any whiff of visible western practical support for Lubna Hussein for example, would have robbed her campaign of most of its credibility. What will help Muslim women is spending less time and effort being outraged on our behalf and more on differentiating the different faces and needs behind the burqa.”  Malik also wrote “The new date for the trial, 7 September, falls in the middle of Ramadan. This will work in Hussein’s favour. Ramadan is a month when Muslims are supposed to renounce violence and refrain from all intolerant behaviour, dedicating the fast to peaceful contemplation. Perhaps the government will invoke its faux piety and use this as an excuse to delay the trial yet again if no other solution can be negotiated in the meantime. Hopefully, the momentum the case has captured will not ease. Flogged or found innocent, the world will be watching.”  Apparently the West is heeding Malik’s suggestion to observe but not speak of Lubna Hussein’s trail.  Google is unable to find any mention of Lubna Hussein at the National Organization of Women, feminist.com, The Feminist Majority, Feminist Studies, The European Womens Lobby or Amnesty International. [thanks to Klint Finley for pointing out my error: AI does mention Lubna Hussein, here and here].  Against Malik’s wishes, there is a whiff of visible support for Lubna Hussein at Feminist Blogs and Ms. Magazine. Maybe most Western feminists consider dress reform to be old fashioned, having resolved the issue in the 1850s.  If their sisters in the Muslim world are being arrested and flogged for it, well, they just need to get with the times. There’s more support for Lubna Hussein at atheist sites such as Freethinker and OVO than at these feminist sites.  Who’s got your back, and who’s putting a whip across your back?

All praise to Lubna Hussein for her pointed and practical public protest against the contemptible sharia government of the Sudan.  Efforts such as hers, Muslims Against Sharia, the Institution for the Secularization of Islamic Society, Irshad Manji and others are the only way that Islam is worthy of existence in the 21st Century.  Like all religions, it should wither under the twin suns of reason and scorn.  But should Islam accept the secular neutering that Christianity has in the West, it can start to redeem itself.  For its evils past and present, the Muslim world is in need of redemption.

This blog will be videos of people treating me bizarrely. My video camera is mounted to my wheelchair (very discreetly) and I basically just press record whenever I go out and then edit the good stuff for you!

The Deal with Disability

Fourth in a series – collect them all! A few more examples of links I’ve posted (harvested in turn from other sources) showing up later at boingboing.net.

Heavy metal monk
posted by David Pescovitz on 18 March 2009.
posted by Trevor Blake on 18 July 2008.

Ritually Stolen Penises and Vaginas – Not a Joke Here
posted by Xeni Jardin on 18 March 2009,
posted by Trevor Blake on 23 April 2008.

Raymond Scott’s Powerhouse Performed by Harmonica Quintet
posted by Mark Frauenfelder on 16 April 2009.
posted by Trevor Blake on 16 July 2008.

Atheists Who’ll Take In Your Pets After the Rapture
posted by Cory Doctorow on 27 August 2009.
posted by Trevor Blake on 1 July 2009.

As J. R. “Bob” Dobbs said, “If you want to be known as a creative, original person, make sure you imitate the right people.” I know I do.  I don’t know where boingboing.net gets its links, and I doubt it is from me.  But I can say where I get mine.  You could do much worse than to spend all of your free time reading metafilter, Dark Roasted Blend, digg and Everlasting Blort.  Places I’d like to see quoted more often are Mutate!, Less Wrong, Overcoming Bias and The Hoover Hog.  And OVO.

hidden knowledge. witches & sigils.

fuck yeah occultism

Today is the second anniversary of OVO blog. Thank you to my readers, thank you to my critics, and thank you especially to two men who have influenced OVO online the most: Klint Finley and Daniel Rafatpanah.

In the 90s, the advent of the Internet age, many people, including myself, thought the Internet’s democratization of media would be vehicle for social progress. R.U. Sirius was correct that “consensus reality” would be demolished. But instead of a new enlightenment, we have a new dark age in which disinformation flows at will and even educated people can’t be bothered to check Snopes before hitting forward on the latest right wing chain e-mail. The thinking seemed to go: access to information outside the mainstream media would in itself cause the media establishment’s authority to crumble and foster a new age of critical thinking. “The people” would get a better sense of what was really going on in the world, and demand change. People, awash in unverified sources, would also become more critical thinkers. By 2002, in the wake of 9/11, and the rise of the “Warbloggers” it should have been clear that this simply wasn’t happening. [...]

There seems to be no point in speaking truth to power. Power does not care what is spoken to it. This should not be read as a reactionary rant. The yearning for a “golden age” of investigative journalism is a case of rosy retrospection. What to do then when the watchmen are evil, and the populace is mad? I have no answers. My only solace at this point is that every outbreak of insanity seems to die down eventually, even if society writ large learns nothing from them.

[Article continues. Highest recommendation for the works of Klint Finley. - Trevor Blake]

in.circles