As it may be obvious by now, I’m a tad bit annoyed by much of online radical feminism.
And one of the things that bothers me about it, and bothers a whole lot of other people too, is the whole tone of the radfemosphere – the breathless drama of it, complete with agrrieved-sounding blog names like “The Margins” (they’re on the margins, dammit! No one cares about them!) or “Rage Against the Manchine” (which actually sounds pretty clever, until you understand that the author is Always. Dead. Serious.) or “Gorgon Poisons.”
Considering that these people want to change the world, the rhetorical hand-wringing is just… hilarious.
So, me and some other people decided to help the Radical Feminist Online Project by coming up with a list of pithy names for true radical blogs. You know, none of that frivolous, sparkly stuff. So people know you mean business.
The list got kind of long, as most of us, though dying of vicious laughter, were unable to stop ourselves. And here are the greatest hits. Nearly a hundred of them:
A Meaningless Waste of Breath
Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here, Wipe Your Feet Too
Aggrieved
And Such Small Portions (an anti-porn blog)
As Flies Are To Wanton Boys, Are We To The Patriarchy
As Private Parts Are We to the Gods, They Play With Us for their Sport
Asphyxiated By Recto-Cranial Inversion
Bad Taste in My Mouth
Boils and Blinding Torment
Burned Alive by Balrog
But What To Me Is This Quintessence Of Dust?
Buttsecks is Wrong
Cannibal Donuts
Clasping An Asp To My Bosom
Collecting My Discharges
Cooked Alive in Vegetable Oil
Curse Them And Crush Them, Preciousss
Death Before Lipstick
Death by a Thousand Paper-cuts
Defenestrated By Enraged Bacteria
Digested by that Creepy Guy from the X-Files Episode with the Lonely Hearts Thing
Dip Me In Non-Oppressive Vegan Jelly And Throw Me To The Fire Ants
Disemboweled by Dinosaurs
Don’t Worry About Me, I’ll Just Sit Here In The Dark, Alone
Drinking Bile
Eaten Alive (By Rahm Emanuel)
Fetch Me My Smelling Salts
Fuck You Too
Glared At By Disapproving Rabbits
Gnawing My Own Arm Off In A Frenzy
Golden Apples of the Sun, Silver Apples of the Mooncup
Guess I’ll Go Eat Some Worms
Haunted by Evil Clowns
Hell Is Other People (Especially You)
Here I Am, Brain The Size Of A Planet…
I Am A Woman More Sinn’d Against Than Sinning
I Can See Despair From My House
I Whacked My Thumb When Using The Master’s Tools So Now I Don’t Use Them Anymore
Impaled On Phallocentrism
It’s Not Easy Being White
It’s the Internets that Got Small!
Life? Don’t Talk to Me About Life…
Make Sure Your Sackcloth Isn’t Too Slutty
Man Delights Not Me, Nor Woman Neither
Mauled by a Mammoth
Menaced By Garden Gnomes
My Ass! I Can’t Find My Ass!!
My Jelly Beans Are All Vomit Flavored
My White Lady’s Burden Is Too Heavy For Me To Put In The Overhead Compartment
Oh God Not the Lizards
OPPRESSED – A Blog
Pecked to Death by Ducks
Pelted with Rotten Grapefruit and Left to Die Overnight of a Ruptured Spleen
Plague of Locusts
Pluck’d Mine Own Eyeballs From Mine Head, O Woe
Pregnant By Satan
Pregnant With Evil Then Death
Pursued By A Bear
Rending of Garments
Robbed Of My Precious Bodily Fluids
Sex Is Really Not Much Fun
Sexualized by Menacing Wallaby
Staked Out in the Arugula Patch
Stampeded to Death by Monkeys
Stapling Myself To Death
Stung To Death By Pro-Porn (W)Hornets
Sucking Down Sackcloth and Ashes
Suffer and Die
Swimming with Stones in my Pockets
Tearing My Own Head Off
The Fainting Couch
The Hangnail Catastrophe
The Lime Green Shag Carpet Muffles My Screams
They Kill Us For Their Sport
Took The Hemlock, Didn’t Help
Tormented By Bedbugs
Trampled By Ferrets
Trapped At An Endless Party Full Of Excruciatingly Dull People
Unhappy That I Am
Wailing and Beating our Breasts
We Are All Filthy Grubs
Weeping at the Heavens
Why Are You Looking at Me Like That?
Worst. Life. Ever.
You Are All BASTARD PEOPLE
Many people participated, including such luminaries as my boyfriend, Trinity, Belle, Donna, Sarah, Philomela (herself a radical feminist – the badass kind), Lisa Harney, Helen G, Morrigan Reborn, Queen Emily, Arrogant Worm, etc.
I don’t list everyone else here, because I have misplaced the links to several people’s sites. Holler at me in the comments, and I will remedy the situation.
This list is by no means complete.
Write in your recommendations, and a second glorious edition will be forthcoming.
For death and glory, my friends! To war!
Natalia A. 
heheeh
I still liked “Chased by a Bear”…hee…
I laughed until I cried all over again!
Excellent! I get fits of the giggles if I reread too often.
Oh and I agree with Rebecca, you need to add “Chased By A Bear” to the list.
“Pursued By a Bear” is up there. 🙂
Oh, this is truly wonderful to wake up to.
I laughed ’til I snorted, all over again. However unfeminine that may be of me–or wait, I’m supposed to be unfeminine, right?
My favorite is “Clasping An Asp To My Bosom.”
oh oh oh can I add one? Have vagina will travel. I love the list.
How about “My Virtual Vagina (Dentata)”?
The Patriarchy Sucks (But I Refuse To)
Shaken By Oppression, But Not Stirred
Bondage. Patriarchal Bondage.
(Can I just interject here to say I love how a lot of these come from Hamlet? Emo Shakespearean characters FTW.)
Patriarchy Is a Man of Infinite Jest (And He’s Not Funny)
Light Bulbs of the Fertile Moon
Flowers for Demeter
Clear Eye for the Marginalized Feminist
Outmuffed and Outgunned
Yonilympics
The Fempire Strikes Back
Brassiere Bomber
Soldier in a Skirt
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Oh, and I like that due to the random magic of alphabetization, “quintessence of dust” and “buttsecks” are next to each other.
I think you mean, “Light Bulbs of the Fertile Moon(cup)”
I love the Fempire Strikes Back!
Alright, every time I write a blog responding to radfems, I will link back to this post because I’m going to use these names as blog titles. Brilliant. Fucking brilliant. My favorite though, “The Fainting Couch”.
My goodness. Where are my ovaries? That’s exactly what I meant.
Hell, let’s toss in “where are my ovaries” for good measure, too:
Where Are My Ovaries
Tying The Internet Tubes
Righteous Wars on the [Wh]Oregon Trail
I Declare She-had
Sappho’s Sea Sponge
Lilies of the Vulva
In terms of REAL blog names that have this weird maudlin thing to them, I always really loved “The Female Stain.” It’s got that “Yeah, I can’t tell whether this person sees herself as dirt or loves her period” thing to it. (I get that the idea is probably that the Pat sees her that way, and it’s reclaiming language of some kind. But it just sounds so MAUDLIN. “Yes, I’m a STAIN.” Especially when I doubt this person would be OK with reclaiming language from our side.)
Fake ones:
Clutching My Pearls In a Pale Gothic Deathgrip
Woe, For I Did Bear a Boy-Child, And Now He Hath Teen-Age, and Lo! He Doth Ogleth The Porn.
Persephone Pining
I Danced In The Rain, But Now My Hair Is All Soggy
As with most things, the Gollum reference got me laughing the most. 😀
Stamping The Patriarchy To Death
Holding My Breath Till The Patriarchy Collapses
Shooting The Patriarchy From A Helicopter
I Blame The Democrats
Flinging Myself To The Republicans (You’ll All Be SORRY)
Too Pure For This World
You Can’t Make Fun Of Me, I’m A GIRL I Mean FEMINIST
Oppressed By Your Bad Thoughts
…Where Is Everybody?
Alas, Poor Patriarchy. I Knew Him, the Bastard.
There Are More Things that Oppress than are Dreamt of by Your Little Sparklepony Head
Out! Out! Damned Patriarch! (Lady MacBeth was Framed!)
Strutting and Fretting My Hour Upon the Stage
Boys Are Dumb, Throw Rocks At Them
Syliva just killed me. I am dead from laughter.
Ack!
Lizzie Bordenville
ok. I’m stuck. I had to stop as soon as I came across the word “radfemosphere.” I have never heard this word before, so like a good little man, I went and looked it up starting at google with “definition: radfemosphere” which then instantly gave me a “did you mean “Did you mean: definition: rademosphere” which of course I did not, so I then tried “urban dictionary: radfemosphere” to which i received “your search returned SFA” (my paraphrase).
So then I just used “radfemosphere” which then, put this blog at the top of the search results. :-\
so then… as I do read most of your blogs, I am now stuck. I can not continue, as the entirety of the blog will be completely lost on me.
Help poor blog reader with definition, link etc … anything that will help me understand a more involved definition of the word and or it’s iteration so that I can understand what it is I’m reading….
help !!
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL.
Radfemosphere – like blogosphere, only a specific kind, encompassing most radical feminist bloggers.
ahhhhh! thank you 🙂 i just clued in
rad ~ fem ~ osphere…
well I’m glad I could give you a chuckle and glad you helped me through that 🙂
I was actually laughing at the suggestions in the comments above.
kewl
Waiting for Genderpocalypse
Fly Away, Lesbian Seagull
Mammary Wasteland
Moon Juice Ritual
Disinclined to Empathy for Male Neonates
Sports Corset
I can’t believe how early I had to wake up today… But this list is gonna make my shitty day better!
Thanks!!!
You’re welcome!
*snort*
Tied To The Railroad Tracks
Suffering From The Vapors
Appalled By Your Vulgar Language
Contaminated By Boy Cooties
Must You Wear -That-?
“Sex is really not much fun” – I am dying, DYING, laughing…
I have been meaning to ask you for ages: Are you on The Face? If you are, let me know and we’ll hook it up….x
oh super. one of the bloggers who I generally see as quite open-minded and balanced is now baggin on one of the “sides.”
i so wish i could laugh at this, but i’m starting to see the whole feminist blogosphere dissolve into a complete waste of space fully devoted to catfighting between the various who likes their sex and how cliques, while real issues, that we can probably all agree on, and work together on, for example human trafficking, go largely neglected.
Y’know, lesigh, I do think that both “sides” agree on trafficking, but one thing I don’t see much of from either one is a plan, a solution, something to get behind to end trafficking. One of the reasons I no longer talk about it is because it increasingly seems to me to be something that gets used on the Internet as a talking point, rather than something that people are actually working toward stopping. Can you offer me some resources for real-world work? Because all too often it seems to me that people are bringing “trafficking” up as a discussion trump card, rather than actually starting a coalition and doing the required hard work. So where’s the coalition, and what’s it doing?
Lesigh, I have been on one side for a long time.
As for trafficking – I’ve written about it and continue on behind-the-scenes stuff when it comes to it. Or try, at the very least. I think one of the ways to cut down on trafficking is the creation of improved work-visa programs and, on a more basic yet less realistic level, the bettering of developing world economies. Which… considering the crisis… *ahem*
Yet ANOTHER way to decrease trafficking is to decriminalize and, furthermore, DE-STIGMATIZE sex-work. Of course, radfems throw rotten grapefruits at me on that account.
“Yet ANOTHER way to decrease trafficking is to decriminalize and, furthermore, DE-STIGMATIZE sex-work. Of course, radfems throw rotten grapefruits at me on that account.”
Heh. 🙂 Yeah. I’m not so sure how much I think that will do. It seems to me that real traffickers wouldn’t be the sort to give a damn about treating their workers (that’s the wrong word, but I don’t want to get into using the term “slave” as I’m even more wary of that one) well, so I’m not sure quite how much it would help. It would make it hard for some people to hide on the periphery, but I don’t think it would be a solution.
I DO think it would clearly help almost everyone else, though. 🙂
“I have been on one side for a long time.”
That was always my impression.
Then again, I’m admittedly hopelessly partisan on this one. I was much more sympathetic to radical feminism years ago, and I really found it emotionally damaging to me… and I’ve since seen similar dynamics go on with other* ex-radfems, like Debi and Kim.
*”other” isn’t quite it — I was never really in agreement with the Heart types. I did believe that “getting to the root” was important, that “the root” was patriarchy and other such systems, and that they are truly nefarious systems that impact everything from our sex lives to our jokes.
I still pretty much believe those things (well, not quite, I now think talk of “roots” is actually incoherent, but I agree with the idea that ___ist ideas are pretty deeply ingrained in people raised with them.) But I found that the focus on everything in life as tainted is really emotionally damaging and leads to the sort of maudlin outlook we’re all lampooning here.
How about this:
“No If’s Ands or Buttsecks”
One of the reasons that trafficking thrives has to do with the fact that people are desperate. If they have better employment opportunities where they’re at – their desire to risk it all and hook up with someone who will traffic them will go down.
Which is why I think decriminalization and destigmatization are such important steps. You help sustain an industry that’s out in the open, where traffickers can’t make as much money by poaching desperate people and then enslaving them once they’ve gang-raped them and taken their passports away in a foreign country somewhere.
Of course, this also means cutting down on corruption – and that looks like it good take billions of years.
But we will fight the good fight.
The Shaming of the Shrew
Supercalifeministicexpialidocious
Sword of Menses
XXvictim-at-birthXX
That makes sense, Natalia. But I’m not entirely sure that what drives them to “risk it all” is stigma on sex workers, at least not if I go by the standard trafficking-story I usually hear, which is that people offer women some kind of nice job in some other country. Like, they say it’s waitressing, etc. The woman goes and finds herself trafficked into prostitution.
My point is that decrim etc. won’t help those people have better opportunities — they may well be being deceived in the first place wrt what kind of work they’re being “hired” for.
Unless you’re saying that usually, women actually do know where these people who’ll “get you a job” in some prosperous country are actually offering, and just pretend to think not.
So the actual issue for *those* women is just plain old fighting poverty, so far as I can tell. Not that I’m not for decrim and destigmatization, I’m that too.
Trin – we have to look at both trafficking when it happens internationally (women, children and yes, men, taken from one country to another) and when it happens internally (women, children, men from a certain part of the country or city get trapped in a brothel/construction site/etc.), and see how these people are being recruited today.
Traffickers are smart, they know that society is on to them, so they “level” with their would-be victims. It becomes, “I’m not going to lie to you, honey, you’ll be having sex for money. And it won’t be great money either. But it will be much better than what you make down at the chicken plant. And I’ll protect you and make sure you’re not mistreated. And hey, you’ll see Spain! Shit, girl, you might even meet the man of your dreams! Anything can happen…”
The offer no longer seems to good to be true. It seems like a standard business proposition to a woman who’s in a fairly abysmal situation – bad job hours, bad pay, possibly an abuser at home. So she’ll risk it all and take it, even though the chances of her ending up an actual slave are still huge.
The same goes for women who are living in the countryside and just want to get to the big city – be it Kiev, Moscow, St. Petersburg, etc. They are told – hey, it’s going to be sex work, but it will be the decent kind. For a woman who’s working a dangerous job at a factory, it will seem like a step up.
But what happens when there are no checks on the industry, because it is underground, is that in 99% of cases, she will end up locked away somewhere, with no recourse for help. And she won’t be able to go to the police, and neither will her relatives, because a) Most cops are bought off anyway, b) She was an “idiot” who “knew” what she was getting into to begin with, and c) In some cases, she will be able to send some money back home, and by that point, all of the abuse and beatings in the world would have broken her to the point that the situation seems OK – hey, at least her little boy is getting a few new toys for the holidays. She’ll have Stockholm Syndrome, at that point.
But that’s not all there is to it – decrim and the radical suggestion that sex-workers are people above all, it hurts the industry of trafficking in another way. It directly challenges the dehumanization tactics that society has in place toward any woman who is a sex-worker, whether willing or unwilling.
Look at it this way:
Me: Oh my God, Sasha, this is terrible! These women are being trafficked, Sasha!
Sasha (my friend the cop): So? I’m supposed to care about thousands of these women because they were dumb enough to fall for it in the first place? Listen, there are REAL victims out there, and then there are people who just can’t take care of themselves. Grow up.
Me: Why do I have a feeling that you’re just disgusted with what they do, to the point that you would rather forget they exist in the first place?
Sasha: Maybe. But I see a lot of nastiness on this job, and you don’t get to lecture me about it. Look, I understand, they just want to make money. We all do. But I’m not going to shed tears for when it all goes wrong, because they should really know better.
etc.
For as long as society can afford to think about sex-work in one-dimensional terms, we cannot pressure our law enforcement or government to do what’s right.
Sasha is one of the good guys, when push comes to shove. But for the rest of us? The majority are still stuck in the mentality that a woman is “tainted” as soon as she comes into contact with any sort of sex-work, be it of her own free will or not. And this “taint” prevents us from adequately addressing the situation.
Which is another reason why I am all for decrim. I mean, look at the the Netherlands. It’s legal over there, but our traffickers and thugs prey on women to send them there, and we can afford to turn away from the situation and not see it for what it is. Or so we think, anyway.
Obots Ate My Baby
Dingoes Ate My Male Neonate, Let That Be An Example To You All
I’m Revolting As Fast As I Can
Let My Hives Bloom Bravely
Et Tu, Hillary?
Serena Joy/Aunt Lydia 2012PAC
The Eternal Sideshow Of “The Big Tent”
Talking Horses Confuse Me
Not I, Said the Radical Feminist
He Who Smelt It Dealt It
If You Prick Me Do I Not Bleed
Kotex Does Not Fit Me. Period.
If I Had a Dime For Each Catastrophe I Suffer, I’d Be Comfortably Middle-Class
Scourge and Ministrix
I Sleep Now In The Fire
I Will Go Down With This Ship (But Not On You)
Clear-Eyed Gazing Into Space
My Apple Pie Don’t Taste Too Nice
Been Tired of Wasting Gas Living Above the Planet
King Herod and the Pharaoh Were Right
I Bruise Easily
Your Head Is Turned But I Know You’re Still Watching
I’m Not Paranoid; I’m Just Omniscient
Oh wow! I didn’t know this thread was still going strong. Lots of good ones here too. I can’t wait for part 2!
I think Natalia is on to something regarding decriminalization and trafficking. Law enforcement is less likely to look at trafficked women as victims for one thing, so it’s like they treat both the traffickers and the trafficked as criminals at worst, and like Natalia said, at best they are seen as stupid women who knowingly went into sex work but got “a bad boss”, little to no sympathy. Decriminalization means the work itself isn’t criminal, what’s being done to them is the focus.
Laydeez,
If radfem blogs had titles like this I’d actually visit ’em.
so then you only empathize with newborn females?
I can’t believe you think I am Always. Dead. Serious. I spend a lot of time being totally un-serious on my blog, so that kind of bums me out. The name of my blog is one giant joke, in any case. I’ve spent the last ten years making fun of people who are overly angsty by referring to their raging against this or that as I think fans of Rage Against the Machine and the band itself are kind of funny. As such, when I spoke to my best friend about what I ought to name my blog, he suggested Rage Against the Man-chine, which we both thought was hilarious. I knew no one would get it.
Hi ND, and welcome to my neck of the woods. I’m sorry if I came off as a giant asshole here. For what it’s worth, it wasn’t my intention. From what I have read of your blog it did strike me as… very intense, especially in relation to gender issues and feminism (I usually make the opposite impression on people – as a very frivolous sort of person). The fact that I disagree with you on some things has inevitably coloured that impression. Obviously, I think that Rage Against the Man-chine is a pretty good blog name – and it’s funny too.
Perhaps I should try clicking links in my e-mails when I receive them instead of six months later. ‘Pecked to death by ducks’? ‘Haunted by Evil Clowns’? Pure. Comedy. Gold. Love the Shakespeare too. You could also have had ‘Devoured by Owls’ and ‘The Objectified, Objecting’.
“Eru köld kvenna ráð” my foot. In your face, Flosi Þorðarson .