Elevatorgate

If you have not notice, there has been much discussion over something that happened to Rebecca Watson in a skeptical conference in Dublin. A guy asked Ms. Watson for coffee in an elevator at 4 AM and was turned down, and Ms. Watson asked men to not put women in such uncomfortable positions. Doesn’t seem like much. Guys get turned down all the time, right?
Well, it is more than that really. You have to remember the social contexts that this all happened in. Unfortunately, men have not made women’s lives very easy in our society. We tell our boys that it is appropriate to be aggressive – to be the go-getter and get the ladies. We are told we need to be fierce and intimidating because that is what our modern ideal of men details. It is all about virility and getting laid. And if you cannot get laid you become the butt of comedy. Unfortunately this backfires when it comes to our interactions with women. Women are told that they are to be subservient, docile, and forever vestal. Well you can see what happens next. Men feel the “need” to force sex out of women, and it gets nasty. Even in our developed “civilized” world, 1 in 6 women are sexually assaulted. This is complicated by the fact that we call women “accusers” of rape and often we say “they deserve it” because of the way they acted or dress. They are made the criminals despite the fact that they are the victims. And that is the sad fact of our culture.
Okay, well men get assaulted too, right? Yes. Duh. But how often does one hear that a guy was “asking for it” because of the way he dressed or how flirty he was that night. In fact, how often does guy get sexually assaulted? Most guys (baring hate-crimes obviously) are assaulted because they have resources available to the mugger. Women can be assaulted because they are women. It is a guy’s privilege. We aren’t victims because we are guys – despite all the paranoia of a Femi-Nazi conspiracy against us. And we have a lot of privilege in this situation. Here, if we were on an elevator with a creeper we have these privileges:
• We don’t have to worry if that guy will rape us. We’re going to assume coffee actually means coffee and not something else. This is due to the fact that we don’t have to be cognizant of it as it rarely, if ever, happens to us. Women don’t have this privilege, not even here in “first world”.
• Due to our Western culturing to be aggressive, we are more likely to fight back if the guy did try something.
• The other guy will probably be more intimidated by us as guys. Despite movements forward, our culture still tells us that women are weaker.
• If the guy successfully assaults us, we won’t be blamed for acting slutty or anything like that. While you are tempted to use the popular parable of a rich looking guy being responsible for his own mugging because he shouldn’t be dressed like that in a ghetto neighborhood consider these things: when is anyone ever deserving to have their rights violate? Is a slutty girl more deserving of it than prime-n-proper Mary Sue? Does she not have the same basic rights to human dignity as the rest of us? Also the circumstances are different. The rich guy is being mugged for his resources; the “slut” is being raped because she’s a woman. Finally that scenario is unlikely because of a lot class privilege that I won’t get into right now.
Hopefully you understood that. But you’re probably still thinking. “But what if all he wanted is a coffee?” The answer is “How the [expletive] is she supposed to know that?” The matter of fact is that we men are all potential rapists. In technical terms we are Schrödinger’s rapists. They cannot tell which one of us is “the Nice Guy” or which one is the assailant. [Expletive] even I, a gay guy, am a Schrödinger’s rapist. I am “straight acting” and enough of a dude where women may see me as a threat. But I am not mad about it. Considering the context of the situation, it is reasonable. It was a potentially dangerous situation. I understand that, given our societies problem, a woman has every right to view me as a potential rapist. And if you are a nice guy, you shouldn’t be made either.
We really are the one to blame for this. We’ve given many women no reason to trust us. Our culture makes us out to be monsters for women. And we perpetuate it. We try to be the “bros” and the Tucker Max of our society. We assume things about women that we shouldn’t. We make them feel inferior or foolish with says like “dumb bitch”. We make them feel unwelcome when all we do is wank about ourselves. Even now, when all Ms. Watson try to do is explain that men at skeptical conferences make women uncomfortable by objectifying as potential sex dolls, we tell women to shut up. Even Richard Dawkins try to shut her up by saying her issue was trivial compare to women in other parts of the world. (And it is quite ironic too given our culture and the recent GOP legislation is effectively making it just as bad for women here as it is anywhere.) We cannot even give women space to talk. That’s how intrusive men come off as.
If you are really a nice guy, then consider this. Women owe nothing to us as a class. Don’t think that being a nice guy gets you a pass to do or say whatever to women. In fact, insisting that women listen to you, or that you are entitled to her time whether she wants it or not is a hallmark of a Nice Guy™. Being a Nice Guy™ is essentially being an entitled dick. A Nice Guy™ is not a nice guy. So this is from a dude to other dudes: If a woman says your being a creepy, listen to her. And don’t be a [expletive referring to male genitals] about it.
If you want, you can read Greta Christina’s take on the situation.

Art History Cat understands the finer points of art

Art for sale

Yeah! It's my first artwork that I've put up for sale!

Water color and pencil

"Coccinellidae"

Available at Redbubble.

Recent things that I've been working

Drawing

I've been working on a few drawing and sketches lately. They're nothing great but it pleases me I guess. I always have the hardest time ading color to anything. I can work well coloring different shades of grass, but I can't seem to get flowers right. I have the most trouble in trying to work with a back ground. Anyways here is a sketch.

Ayutthaya

11" x 7" pencil on paper

Transphobia and video games

In general, our society is still very transphobic. There's elements of it that lingers in the LGBT community, because all to often people don't want to remember the T part. Video games are no different. More often then not, it reflects the gender normativity of our society that often portrays androgynous or abigious people negatively. I can't claim to know much about the transgendered experience, but I try my best to understand their posistion. (And don't get me wrong. I love the RE series yo. But I can love them and critique them at the same time.)

In Resident Evil Code: Veronica and Resident Evil Dead Aim, transgendered people are portrayed as in the stereotype of being obsessive (which is why they changed their gender), vain, and untrustworthy. Alfred for RE CV is the obsessive part. He's crazy and obsessed with becoming what he's not (his sister). The idea that transgendered people are what they are "not" has been used to justify the vilification of them. Morpheus is also an obsessive who transform into a female like creature in order to obtain beauty, which is another stereotype of transgendered people (that they are always trying to be beautiful). Sometimes, transgender chose to change their sex because they are trying to become what they truly believe they should be. They're not doing it to become what they are not, because to them they are that way.

Yes I know I haven't been on

So here's a hot guy to keep you interested.

But why should we?

Joe. My. God has posted on the subject of gay culture fading away to a more heteronormative view of the world. As noted by the author of the quote, some LGBT people sees this as a fair trade-off. I say "oh fuck no!"

I understand where people would say that the assimilation of LGBT culture into the mainstream culture is a good thing. We have been fighting for our rights to be viewed as normal people and normal citizens. We want to show people that we are harmless and productive members of society. Most of us are!

But that doesn't mean we should lose our culture. The very thought makes me think of all the forced assimilation that Native Americans went through. Or the Aborigines. Or Asian Americans. Native Americans were force into a European imposed hegemony. They lost traditional culture. Where one culture was more egalitarian in their treatment of sexes and gender, the hegemony made sure they reflected their ideals about sex and gender. This is what worries me about the assimilation of LGBT culture into the mainstream; The will lose something that could be valuable later on. Furthermore, it implies a superiority of one culture and one group over another. Asian Americans were seen as "model minorities" because they assimilated faster and fitted into the the Western ideals of how proper people should act. If LGBT culture were to do the same, it would be like admitting that the fundies are culture is better. As I've put in my Southeast Asian culture class, we are internalizing the colonialism, making the struggle for autonomy all for naught.

Mind you that I'm not cultural relativist. Practice that are detrimental to society as a whole should be done away with ("honor" killings, burning witches, headhunting, institutionalized sexism, and things like that.) Still, I don't see how being a diva or dressing in fabulous colours make you a determent to society. In the end I think we should not seek to erase LGBT culture for a normative view. Instead it should be a piece of the picture like a part of a grand mosaic. So be productive, be normal, but be a flaming diva if you want to be too.

Haegeum

Ethnography

Here is a modern Apache person. The reason I chose this photo is because I want to question our perception of indigenous people. In our society, we tend to look at indigenous people as archaic and outside of time. This is false. Indigenous people are, in fact, contemporay people.

Here is another indigenous group, the Ainu:

Random Model: Joel

Random Model: Hugh Plummer

Gisaeng and Geisha: Then and now

Notice that modern portayals of Geisha and Gisaeng tends to emmulate western notions of orientalism and the hyper-feminization of Asian women.

Random Model: Nick Youngquest

I'm not dead

Just hella busy. I've been doing school relate stuff and haven't had the time or the will to update regularly. I've also started doing Native American beadworks.

Balloons

I've been playing Pokémon Platinum. One of the pokémon is a ghost creature called Drifloon. It's supposed to be a balloon animal of some sort.

Balloons were originally made to be instruments of science, where one could research weather patterns. It's still used to some extant but it's being phased out due to more efficient methods. Balloons have since been used for transportation, decoration, entertainment and even medicine. There are now even balloon art, which is a form of non-permanent sculpture.

Balloons are made out of a number of materials ranging from rubber to polycholorprene. Balloons are popular with children, and is ubiquitous with celebrations. They do, however, pose many problems. Airborne balloons can easily become pollutants as the material they are made off are not easily degradable. They pose a danger to wildlife. For children, balloons are suitable only for a certain age range due to choking hazards.

Ube macapuno cake

2 1/2 cups cake flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup ube (purple yam), cooked and finely grated
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup corn syrup
7 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil
7 egg whites
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup white sugar
6 drops red food color
6 drops blue food coloring
1 (12 ounce) jar macapuno (coconut preserves)

1 cup evaporated milk, chilled
3/4 cup white sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 drop violet food coloring

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Line bottoms of 3 - 9 inch pans with parchment paper, but do not grease. Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
Place grated ube in a large bowl. Mix together 3/4 cup milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla; gradually blend into ube until smooth. Blend in corn syrup, egg yolks, and oil. Beat in flour mixture until smooth; set aside. In a large glass or metal mixing bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy. Gradually add sugar, then red and blue food coloring, continuing to beat until stiff peaks form. Fold 1/3 of the whites into the batter, then quickly fold in remaining whites until no streaks remain. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the center of cake bounces back when lightly tapped. Invert pans on a wire rack and let cool upside down. When cool, run a knife around the edges to loosen cake from pans. Fill between layers with coconut preserves, then frost top and sides with butter icing.
To make Butter Icing: Combine evaporated milk and 3/4 cup sugar. set aside. Cream butter until light and fluffy; gradually add sugar mixture, and continue beating to desired spreading consistency. Add food color, one drop at a time until desired tint is achieved.

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Archäologie

Dvaravati was an ethnic Mon kingdom occupying what is now much of central Thailand.

Random Model: Stephen Bamber