Tuesday, May 31, 2011

"Scott was just a regular guy until one bite changed his life forever." A rant.

Firstly, the new "Teen Wolf" TV series is coming out on June 5th. That's five days from now. I am so pumped.

I know it's going to be terrible. It will be full of melodrama and teen angst and privilege denial; you know, the usual. I'm hoping, at least, that it will be the kind of terrible that I can stand to watch instead of the kind of terrible that makes me throw up my hands and wail in despair.

It's not looking good, though. I was browsing the promotional website and I found this gem:

Scott was just a regular guy until one bite changed his life forever.

At first I was like...
And then I was like...

It boggles my mind how the phrase "just a regular guy" is still considered a valid descriptor. It shouldn't, I realize, but it does. It really bugs me that this descriptor is being applied to this Scott guy, who judging by the promo videos is anything but regular. I mean, he's...
  1. White.
  2. Straight.
  3. Cisgender.
  4. Completely able-bodied and -minded(as far as I can tell).
  5. Middle-class.
  6. Late teen-aged.
  7. Conventionally attractive.
  8. A sports player (lacrosse, specifically).
  9. A citizen of the United States.
Do you know anyone who is like that? Anyone at all? I certainly don't. And I'm not just saying that because I hang around queer circles. I'm saying that because I have never (knowingly) met a human being who was that privileged. For instance, nearly my entire extended family is low-class. Most of us are not conventionally attractive (a few of us are bald, in fact), nearly every one of us who would actually admit to it is gay, bisexual, or pansexual, several of us are gender-nonconforming, the majority are over the age of forty, and nearly all of us are disabled somehow. It's the same basic thing on the Internet. You run into a few people like Scott, and a lot more people who are outside the cishetero demographic, physically or mentally disabled, poor, homeless, conventially unattractive, into unconventional fashion, members of plural systems, non-white, and/or non-States citizens. Most of us don't fall under all of these categories, but very few of us fall under "none."

So when these guys say that Scott is "just a regular guy," it occurs to me that it has no real-world applications whatsoever. Scott may be regular for someone with as much privilege as he's got, but he's not regular as a human being. Regular people, near as I can tell, aren't almost completely perfect until we get bitten by werewolves. Regular people want to be cheerleaders but don't make the cut. Regular people are lesbians. Regular people are middle-aged, single bookworms who wouldn't know how to date if the opportunity was staring them in the face. Regular people become construction workers because they can't afford college. Regular people become independent, then run out of money and have to live in their parents' basement. (True story.) Regular people are smart enough to be lawyers but aren't because even if they wanted to, they haven't had the opportunity. Regular people fall in love for reasons that don't make any sense, with people whom they have no business falling in love with for actual reasons that have nothing to do with societal expectations, and sometimes it works out anyway but usually they just break up. Regular people don't make the same predictable mistakes over and over - instead, they make ridiculous, embarrassing, mind-blowing, life-ruining, and/or trivial mistakes that most writers aren't creative enough to think of.

So until you can make your characters at least as normal as the casts of Buffy and Angel, don't call your protagonist "just a regular guy." The only thing regular about Scott is that he is exactly the kind of person people use as a cheap protagonist.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Transcript: "Chris - I Am An Ex-Mormon"

I wanted to know so, so bad, that God was real.

I remember praying so hard that finally, I got this feeling. I got this buzzing feeling. And I knew that God had answered my prayer.

I remember "Those aren't just trees, those are trees that God made. And those aren't just mountains - God made those mountains." And everything just started to change; my whole perspective started to change.

Then I started preparing for my mission, and finally I got to go on my mission, called to serve in Japan. And, tragically, at one point in my mission, news came that my dad had died. And I didn't go home; I didn't think twice, I didn't even consider the idea of going home. I felt, "Dad would want me to stay here where I am and serve the Lord." And so that's what I did. I doubled up my efforts. I taught them that all you have to do is read this book - the book of Mormon - and pray about it, and the Holy Ghost will bear witness to you that this book is true.

At the very end of my mission, I felt sort of sad. That part of my life was coming to an end. I remember praying, and I was in tears, and finally came home. And it was a wonderful two years. I grew a lot, I overcame shyness, I made some friends, and I love the Japanese people now. And it was a very good experience. So after that, I started to move forward with my life. I went to college, got married.

Just before my first boy was born, my younger brother died. He committed suicide. And this was, I think, one of the turning points in my life. It wasn't his death, per se, that changed my perspective. I believed in the afterlife, I believed in Jesus. And right away, a friend of mine, a friend of the family's came to the family and said "I have this patriarchal blessing that tells me I have this gift, that I'll be able to raise people from the dead. I feel that now is the time to use this gift." So me and everybody in my family were excited. I was an extreme believer in the Church. I knew that the Holy Ghost doesn't lie, the Holy Ghost is real, here's this opportunity where God has come and said, you know, like, "It's hard enough. You've already lost your dad. Your mom has lost a husband. She doesn't need to lose her son. This is a time in your life when you're going to see a miracle. And here is someone who has been blessed with the ability to raise someone from the dead."

It was Sunday, and my mom was going to church, and she was praying and praying, and she actually heard the voice of Jesus tell her that this priestly blessing was going to work. It would be fine. Her son would be raised from the dead. This was reassurance to me, because she told me, and my faith was through the roof. I was excited. I was like, "This is the true Church. This is why we're Mormon, because miracles happen. This is what makes our church different, because we have the power of God in our church."

And so, it was one of those amazing moments in my life, where I was very much expecting a miracle. We were very excited. We fasted, we prayed. So when we layed our hands on his head, and nothing happened, I was a little bit disappointed. But I thought, "He's cold, he's in the morgue, he's frozen. We need to thaw him out first and try again." So later we took him to the funeral home, we got a few more faithful members who believed that this priestly blessing would work, we laid our hands on his head again and blessed him to rise from the dead. And I remember it didn't happen, and of course to this day he's still dead.

So it was disappointing, and as everybody does in the church, we take these moments to say "You know, people of weak faith would fall away at these points. So we will be strong. We will be strong, and we will move forward." So that's what I chose.

I had this one little tiny question: Why did Jesus tell my mom that my brother was going to be raised from the dead, from this priestly blessing, if in fact that was not going to occur? Just this one little nagging question, because sure, maybe my brother has his free agency and he didn't want to come back, or maybe he wanted to be with his dad - all this - but Jesus should have known, you know? If it's Jesus talking - he knows things that we don't know. He's God. So why would he come down and comfort my mother if this was not going to occur? Just this one little nagging question.

We took a vacation and - we needed a little break from this whole experience - and I remember sitting down; I was talking to one of my brothers, my older brother Dwayne. This one little thought occured to me as I was talking to my brother: Do we forget on purpose? Do we forget certain parts of our lives just so that we can maintain faith? He thought maybe that's what we sometimes do. And I didn't really know; I thought, "Maybe we do that. Maybe we don't. It makes sense." I just asked my mother, "Do you remember that revelation you got when you were at Sacrament meeting, and Jesus told you that this priestly blessing was going to work? Do you remember that moment?" And she said "No." And that was a little bit earth-shattering. Here's Jesus talking to my mom, and she didn't remember. And I thought, "Why would you forget that? Unless... we always do that. Maybe we're always forgetting those moments that contradict, just so that we can maintain our faith." And then I started finding memories coming back to me in my life.

Here's a memory that I shoved aside. I went to the temple for the first time. This was with my parents when I got my endowments. And the experience was, to be honest, a frightening, terrible experience. I remember being in tears that day. I had forgotten. My whole mission, I hadn't thought about it; after my mission, I got married in the temple, I hadn't thought about this. It seems that I had been purposefully or subconsciously neglecting a whole side of my life. I'd been selectively forgetting certain parts of the equation.

My older brother left the Church, and he was somebody we really looked up to; he's a very intelligent person, he's a really good person; to me, he seemed like (indistinct). He always did the right thing. He always made the right decisions, and he left the Church. I thought, "Why? Why would he leave the church? This thing is true, he served a two year mission, and he left." I felt so bad.

I talked to him over the course of a few months, and I tried to help him, bring him back into the fold. I knew that I couldn't get through to him if I came across as "I know more than you, you need to repent," so I just told him straight out: "I don't know everything. Maybe you are right, and maybe I am wrong, or maybe I am right and you are wrong. But it can't be both. It can't be both ways. This church is either true, or it's either false. And if it's false, I will leave it. If it's true, then why don't you come back?"

I remember people telling me stories of people dying for the truth. Pioneers, martyrs, people that died for the truth - that was driven into my brain since a young age, and I wanted to do that. I wanted to follow the truth no matter what. No matter how much it hurt, I wanted to follow the truth. That's how committed I was to the truth.

Through my whole life, truth has always lead me back into the Church. It has never led me out. It always came back to, the Church was true. And so I knew that it would lead me back into the Church. I wasn't worried. I had no worries. But I started to learn a little bit more about truth.

This is one interesting example that I came up with to explain truth. Somebody could give me this glass of water and tell me that it's water. But there's a lot of clear liquids out there. And I might actually have a real case that this might not be water. Now, (in) most cases, when something like a liquid is in a cup, it's water.

A good way to find out if it's water is to test if it has two hydrogens per oxygen in each molecule in the glass. So I could test that. If it evaporates like water, tastes like water, freezes like water... the more tests we apply, the more sure we can be that it's water. However, it if was some kind of acid, and we started to test it, we found out, "You know, the hydrogen count is off, the oxygen count is off, it doesn't taste like water, it doesn't behave like water, it doesn't freeze like water, it just looks like water," if we start to do these tests, the more we will know the true nature of the liquid in this glass. That is how we find truth. We can test it any number of ways. The more we test it, the more we know the truth of what it is that we're dealing with.

It's the same with religion. If we only test it one way, then we might be duped. If we test it two ways, three ways, four ways, a hundred different ways, eventually you will know what it is you're dealing with. And you need to know how to test things. Recognizing your own bias is a very, very honest and good start to finding truth. Knowing that you want to be right. Well, get rid of that bias. Stop wanting to be right and start wanting the truth. It's important to have a healthy attitude to both sides of the equation. To look at this side, and that side, and compare. Any honest religion would say, "Look at both sides." I had to look at the Church from many different angles to see if the church lined up with what it said.

All of these little concerns that I'd put away for many, many years, I started to look at them honestly rather than just toss them to the side and say, "oh, we need to have faith." I started to ask a few more questions. I said, "Well, if the book of Abraham is real, then all of this should be verifiable now, with current archaeological discoveries that Joseph Smith had no access to." In the book of Abraham, Abraham talked about Egypt being named after Aegyptus(sp?), who was the daughter of Ham. So I wonder how this lines up with what we know about the word "Egypt." The word Egypt didn't come from Aegyptus, it came from a male god; it just didn't make sense. And also, the original word wasn't even Egypt. It was Kemet or Mizra (sp?). So this is, this is really starting to - it was like one slice, I took one slice into the book of Abraham, compared it with reality, "Let's take a look, does it match with what reality says about Egypt?" It was just a little bit surprising, actually, because I wasn't used to taking a little slice at something and analyzing it like that, saying "Does this match up with reality?"

See, the reason I took this one slice out of the book of Abraham is because the book of Abraham talks about real history. I asked a few more questions, and I started to wonder, "Doesn't it come down to the book of Mormon, though?" So I wanted to know: is the book of Mormon true, or false? This is a big question, this is a good question. You can pray about it and get an answer that way; that is one slice. That's like looking at this cup and saying, "Well, it looks like water, so it's definitely water."

There could be a lot of different things in this cup, though, that look like water and feel like water. So you can't take one slice and say, "That's it." In fact, taking that one slice is actually very deceptive. To take a book, and say "Because I read this book, and I prayed about it and got a good feeling, it's true." Because historically, there have been other books, including the book of Jerenich(sp?) the Mentan(sp?) archives, the Quran - other people have read other books, prayed about other books, and they have received confirmation that these other books are true. And they completely contradict the Book of Mormon or the LDS Church or a number of other things. And so you can't do that and say that that's all you need to know that the Church is true. Because if that method tells you that contradictory books are also true, then you know that method is flawed. And, so that has a bunch of issues with it in and of itself, like "Why do we use that method if it doesn't really work?" but put that off onto the side for a minute.

That's one slice. You can take a slice of the Book of Mormon that way and say "Well, you can pray about it and you'll feel good." Is that enough? There's a lot of other slices you could take out of the Book of Mormon to test it. Because the book claims that it's real history. They're not claiming it's a fairy tale; they're not claiming it's a parable. They're claiming that this is a true book. This is the foundation of the LDS Church. So I had to take other slices. I can't just take one slice, one analysis, and say "Yep, it's true because I prayed about it." There's got to be more to it than that, so I started to look at it: "Well, what else can we test?"

And I ended up finding a DVD called "DVD Evidence for the Book of Mormon Geography." And I found this to be my lifeline. Because I needed something solid to base my faith in. So I watched this DVD, and I felt so good by the end, that I felt "Finally, somebody is talking sense. Finally, somebody has got a good case for the Book of Mormon being true." And I started to look into it a little bit more, and the DNA that this man was proposing, which was supposed to be Niphite(sp?) DNA - the timing was off, the DNA was off, I mean, the DNA didn't even fit. So here I am again, looking at the Book of Mormon, and I'm like, "Now I have no DNA evidence."

So how does God take a whole civilization and plop it onto a land and then erase every trace of their DNA? And then give us a book and say "Just pray about it, and you can get a good feeling, just like all these other books, you can get good feelings." This is really starting to feel weak to me, so I started to wonder, "Is there any other way I can slice the Book of Mormon and maybe compare it-" I was starting to get desperate, because I wanted this church to be true. I had a temple marriage on the line, I had kids, I have my eternal family, I have my eternal salvation, is on the line. This is not something I take lightly. This is a very serious concern. I want this church to be true. The reason I was going into all of this is because my brother having these questions - I wanted to help him, I wanted to understand him.

Well, there's got to be people in BYU that still believe in the Book of Mormon, so I looked a little bit closer at some of their DNA evidence, and some of their theories went something like this: "Well, we can't really find the DNA, because it's just - it's been so long. It's been two thousand years, and it's kind of like trying to find a little drop of DNA in an ocean of people," and... they're trying to make it untestable. I found that to be a little bit disconcerting. They're trying to make the Book of Mormon not testable. That's like a magician: "Abracadabra, there's no DNA evidence, because we don't expect there to be any DNA evidence, even though Joseph Smith said that the primary ancestors of the Native Americans are Niphites and Lamonites."

What else is there? Is there anything substantial that can really back up the Book of Mormon?

Truth doesn't contradict itself. Truth doesn't contradict reality. There's only two explanations: either the Book of Mormon is true, or it's false. So if it's not a true history, then it would be based on... what? If a scam artist of a fraudster was writing the Book of Mormon, what type of mistakes would they maybe make, even if they're very smart? What would they overlook? What could they perhaps not see? What blind spots would a con artist have back in the 1800's?

The Book of Mormon actually lifts parts of the King James version of the Bible and inserts it into the Book of Mormon. So here's the litmus test, here's the ultimate test, here's the way to slice it: the King James version of the Bible has certain errors that show up in the Book of Mormon. Why would they have the same errors as a contemporary version of the Bible? The Book of Mormon was supposed to be an ancient book, copied from ancient plate from two to three thousand years ago. So if it has contemporary errors, and there's no DNA evidence, it's kind of like, got nothing to stand on.

And that's when my life started to completely fall apart. I didn't want that answer. I wanted it to be true. And I had a really hard time at first. I didn't know what to think. It's like my whole life (starting to choke up) - why was I alive? What was I living for? This whole thing, it just, it all started to feel like "Well, this... this is worthless, this whole life, my w - what is my wife going to think? Is she even going to listen to me if I tell her this stuff?" Nobody wants to know this! Everybody wants the church to be true so they can live with their family forever.

(Returning to more neutral emotional state.)

So here I was, basically at the edge of a cliff. I felt like I was just teetering over the edge of this cliff, and I was taught my whole life that if you fall away, you will turn evil, you will be in the Devil's hands; all of these fears started coming over me, I started feeling like "Well, what do I do?" If the Church isn't false, all that stuff doesn't matter, but I still feel like I'm doing the wrong thing. It's like, you're taught against this your whole life. You're taught that this moment is the moment where you're supposed to say "No, I've been tricked by the Devil," come back into the arms of Jesus. But I couldn't. Because the evidence was blatant, it was there in my face. If I was an outsider, looking into the LDS Church, and I saw, okay, no DNA evidence for this book, this book is completely fraudulent as far as copying errors into it from a contemporary source, I mean, what is this thing? No outsider who saw this information would jump in and say "Yeah, it's true!"

And so here I am, basically full of emotion. I remember feeling really, really angry - extremely, extremely angry, and I felt like my life was over... and then things started to get better. And better and better.

And I just wanted to explain a little bit about that. Because I know there's a lot of other people out there that probably just found out, and they're probably still trying to figure out what to do with themselves. I'm not going to tell you what church to join; I'm not going to tell you what's true, but I can give you a little bit of hope. It gets better. It gets way better.

I started just turning to science and technology. I started to learn a little bit about "well, how does science work?" I knew from a kid what the scientific method was, but for the first time in my life, it became extremely relevant and extremely useful, and I started to realize a whole new world. Things slowly got better - very slowly at first, because I didn't know where to go, I didn't know where to turn to. I didn't really have any friends outside of the church; I felt extremely lonely. I felt like nobody understood me. And there were times when it felt like I was going to possibly lose my wife, maybe I would lose my family... I didn't - it was such a mess, I just feel so glad to be where I'm at right now.

Things do get better. I tell you, it took about a year, maybe, to really get myself back on - back together. I started to figure out what life, for me at least, is all about. I started to realize that we don't need to be told what our life is about. Something from within me started to guide me in my life. Rather than something on the outside manipulating me and moving me and trying to do things - I'm talking about the Church as an organization, you know. Giving you callings, or telling you what you can or can't wear, or say, or do, and it just kind of feels like there's always these guidelines that try to manipulate you into a certain kind of way, in a certain position. But then I started to be genuine, and just be me, and I felt at peace. The loneliness started disappearing right away as I started to reach out and say "Hey, what do you do on Sunday? I mean, what do you do if you don't have a religion?" And I started to learn that, like, people actually have great lives outside of religion.

You know, they tell their kids that "The boogeyman's going to get you if you do that, so you'd better smarten up," and you think of that, and you think of that same message that the leaders of the church, or other churches - religions in general - are telling us "Better smarten up, 'cause there's this boogeyman to get you." And then you start realizing - the best - (becoming giddy) - it's just - okay - it's the happiest thing (laughing), there's no Satan, like, it's just like, BOOM (gesturing with hands), all of a sudden, the boogieman's gone. (Still grinning broadly.) This fictitious character hiding behind the shadows (gesturing to indicate), all of a sudden he's gone. And I'm like, there's all my stress! (Grins) Like, nothing is going to get you! Woo-hoo! Like, you just want to climb on top of the roof and scream, but there you have it. (Calms down somewhat) And that was one of the happiest moments. I loved telling people that, but people in the church kind of looking at me like, "Okay, this guy's a little too much, you know, like, he's too happy that there's no Devil." It's like, "He's obviously deceived," or something.

One of the things that started to look up for me, as I started to realize: right off the bat, I stopped judging people. You make mistakes because you're you. You do the things you do, I do the things I do, and we all do the things we do, because we're unique. We're different. We don't need to measure up to being like Molly Mormon - all these different ideals, we don't have to do that.

I don't care what kind of afterlife there is. It could be a lie, it could be a guess. But what I know for sure is we're alive today. And we need to live for today. We need to live to make this life, and this world, the best thing that we've got, because this might be the only thing we've got. (He becomes sentimental.) And that makes me excited, because I see progress like never before. The Church taught me that this world is corrupt and doomed to destruction. The Internet is changing the world. Our technology is making us live longer, happier lives. We are in the best age that we've ever been in. And it continues to get better. This is the best time to be alive, and I want to make this even better for our children and our children's children - this is what I live for. When people say "Well, what do you have as a purpose? Once you've left Mormonism, what do you have? If you're going to die, that's it, so why do you live? Why do you even care?"

And I say, "Because I care more now. I care a lot more now. Because this life matters more now than it ever did. And my children's lives, and their children's lives. And this planet. We are here together, and this life is important to me."

I am filled with hope. I am filled with a love for life and a gratitude that is much, much deeper than I ever had when I was a member of the Church.

My name is Chris. I'm a father, I'm a husband, I'm an entrepeneur, I believe in a wonderful future, I love life, and I'm an ex-Mormon.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

"Is it evil of me to want to do good?"

An ask on the Tumblr blog F Yeah Privilege Denying People from a would-be ally yields the following quote:
It is when you seem to claim that people like me have /no/ option that is not evil, nothing we can do that is not hurtful. This line of thinking describes a problem with no solution. It is probably arrogant of me to think that /I/ can be part of the solution, but is it really evil of me to try?
Ah, it reminds me of my early days in the kyriarchy-fighting business. As in pre-blogging days.

You see, one of the first things that happens when you start to learn that things are phenomenally messed up is that you want to make them better. That's human nature. You want to fix it, make the problems go away, make the world a nice place again. I touched on this in a different post.

Yet when you actually start reading, you keep hearing the same kind of things from people: Don't try. Don't be pro-active. There's nothing you can do that will fix this.

That's a pretty confusing message when you're new.

The person on the receiving end of this message then generally has the same question this person did: Okay, maybe I'm going to screw up, but you guys keep saying that I'm being complacent in this by NOT doing anything. So why are you now telling me that it would be a bad thing for me to make the attempt?

"Are you telling me that it's evil to want to do something good?"

At first glance, this seems like a reasonable philosophical question. Since, after all, good and evil are opposites, and by that logic you can't be evil if you're trying to do good.

However, in reality, this question is both disingenuous and loaded.

It's disingenuous because there is no right answer, absolutely no possibility to both resolve this "problem" and proceed to actually explaining what you mean. If you answer "yes," then you may as well just tell everyone "Hey, I'm a hostile jackass who would rather whine about my problems than get them fixed!" (It doesn't matter if it's true or not, that's the impression that people will get.) On the other hand, if you answer "no," then what are you complaining about?

It's loaded because it begs a lot of questions. Firstly, it assumes that there is only good or bad, right or wrong. We're talking Saturday Morning Cartoon morality. Secondly, it begs the question that someone who wants to do something that they think will have good results must have pure motives for doing so. Thirdly, having declared the "urge to do good" an unquestioningly laudable position, it places that desire to do good in the position of utmost importance, above things like "actual results."

As for the first problem - Saturday Morning Cartoon reality - sorry, but I find it so freakin' unbelievable that there are still people who think like this. IRL, there are only a handful of actions (rape, genocide, etc.) that, for all practical purposes, can be considered inherently "evil." I.E., there is no possible way that you could ever have a good motive or even a good reason to commit these acts. However, there are many other acts, a number of which are frowned upon in modern society, which aren't so cut-and-dried. Theft? Oh, it's regrettable, but so is a system which denies humans the basic rights of food, clothes, and living space. Attacking and/or killing someone? Prove that it was self-defense and you won't even be prosecuted. Lying? Lies can harm and even kill, but they can also save a person's life. Maybe Ray Comfort thinks that all of these things are unquestionably evil, but when did it get to be a good idea to learn morality from a guy who thinks that bananas prove the existence of an all-powerful father deity?

The second problem is motives. Yes, there are many people who want to start "fighting the good fight" out of pure altruism. But there are many others who have more selfish reasons for doing it. Maybe they're feeling guilty for the system that they have unknowingly helped to perpetuate, and they want to soothe their wounded conscience. Maybe they just want to stop feeling like everyone on Tumblr is telling them off all the time (a very privileged perspective). Maybe they want to reassure themselves or the world that they are a good person so that they don't have to deal with the ugly reality that no, no one is truly good, and everything your first-grade teachers taught you is a load of lies.

I'm not saying that motive IS everything. You can have a bad motive and still end up doing something good, just as you can have a good motive and end up doing something bad. Which leads me to the third problem: prioritizing the abstract concept of "doing good" against its ability to actually make a difference. You simply can't do that, because not only do motives differ, but they play a huge role in the success level of a person's act. If xe's in it to soothe xir conscience or impress someone, xe's not going to waste any of xir time learning the minutae or bothering to find out if xir actions are actually helping anybody. But if xe's really in it because of altruism - because of a genuine desire to do good in the world - then xe is much more likely to come around. It might take xem a while, because xe's still got a lot of privilege and insecurities and instincts that make "sit down and shut up" seem like the least practical thing xe could possibly do, but if someone really, genuinely cares then xe will make that effort. We should know. Cameron would love nothing more than to go stomping all over everywhere doing whatever he thinks is the right thing to do, but he recognizes that if it's not done right - or at the very least, if he isn't making a genuine, good-faith attempt to get it right - then it isn't worth doing at all.

That's why the first step in fighting oppression is "sit down and shut up." That's why you should spend a good six months focusing on learning and understanding the things that people are saying, and why they are saying them, before you let your good intentions wreak havoc all over the place. Because you don't get an "A" for effort in activism. Do the best you can do, not the best you want to do. Or else keep your butthurt to yourself when your Good Intentions aren't given the due you think they deserve.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

In which Spike has opinions.

For those not familiar, Spike is one of my headmates. Which means that he's technically "not real," but don't let that bother you, because he's got something to say.

Now, by that I don't mean that I have something to say but I'm hiding behind Spike because I think that this opinion is silly or something to be ashamed of. Frankly, it takes a tremendous amount of courage (and a real willingness to risk looking like an asshole) to admit that you have a headmate with his own opinions in the first place, much less that he is a vampire.

Did I mention that he is that Spike? In fact, he is. Not literally; that's the mental form he takes.

And oh, yes, he has opinions.

Spike has loads of opinions, but the opinion that we're presenting now - and if you don't want to hear it, feel free to stop reading/unfollow/whatever - concerns modern media.

Spike's not a perfect guy, you know. It's not even on his list of ambitions, which run mainly toward "eat, do whatever the heck you want, repeat as necessary." So he's not big on the whole social justice thing.

However, he HATES vampire stories.

According to Spike, vampire stories are nearly always messed up in some way. Taking a cue from the concept of the "male gaze" as described by feminists, he attributes this to an effect he calls the "human gaze."

Basically, very few movies about vampires are written by anyone who actually gives a shit about vampires. They're written to entertain humans. So the vampires are made out of whatever mythos people think are neat or funny or catchy, they talk with funny accents and get into ridiculous relationships with humans *cough* (Spike begins communicating directly now) - no, see, the kind of humans that a vampire would break just as soon as look at, because our self-control isn't that good. Unless we're being human, which is another story entirely. But yeah, you've got this vampire character who sees this human for five minutes, decides he's in love, spends four books trying not to eat her and you just wish he'd put her out of his misery already.

Or else the vampire is some big, bad villain who's out to get some helpless maiden - Jason Patric counts in that - and it's up to the heroic human man to save her from certain death at the hands of Count Large Ham. Of course, he dies. It's usually a he. Though for some reason woman vampires are all preying on other women, as well. No respect for the fact that a real vampire woman could take out a 6'4 male bodybuilder if she put her mind to it, no, the victim has to be someone that a human woman could take on. It's bullshit.

If he's not the Big Bad Villain, there are only a few other roles: the Seductress (basically the same as the BBV but with tits and a lot of hair), the generic, probably-not-even-sentient mook type (seen in 30 Days of Night and there's a bit of that going on in The Lost Boys as well, not to mention Buffy; let me tell you, the creators of that show are slanted), and of course the "good" vampire; usually the same romantic lead I talked about earlier, he might eat people but he hates it, or he lives on animal blood (you know, to make his heroism more palatable to the audience), and just to prove that he's really not a bad guy he tends to embark on some quest to become human. If he can't, he just spends every possible minute reminding his audience that he really, really would be human if he could.

The other recourse is to do a story from the point of view of a human who as just gotten turned into a vampire, and has to learn to cope with OH MY GOD, BEING UNDEAD and basically it turns into one colossal excuse to fill the story with teen-age angst fits. You know, we do have those, but I'm not exactly happy with humans putting them on display for their own enjoyment. That's really sick.

Anyway, the point is, it's always really about the humans. Human wish fulfillment. Humans overcoming some big, shadowy demon in order to earn their place as a man. Or just proving how utterly fucking amazing they are by taking out one of Humanity's oldest fears. Humans using vampires as a cheap replacement for whatever kind of romance is taboo during their time. Dear Mrs. Rice and your thinly-veiled gay stand-ins: who's supposed to stand in for the gay vampires? No one, that's who. It doesn't work.

You never hear about the day-to-day lives of vampires. Stories are never told from our point of view unless we pass some ridiculous standard of heroism set by humans. More often than not, we die, because no one really knows what to do with a vampire who is unapologetically a vampire after the end of the story. You've got to change - learn to play by their rules - or you die. Hell, learn to play by the rules and you'll probably die anyway, because how else is a good heroic vampire supposed to redeem himself?

Oh, and don't even get me started about the few stories that do try to get it from our perspective. Vampire Diaries. Vampire Knight. That's not realistic. It's nothing but wish fulfillment, a glamorization of vampire lives; it has nothing to do with how we live and everything to do with humans looking for a socially-acceptable medium to express their vicarious hedonism. Sorry to be the one to break it to everybody, but real life was never so interesting. And it's pretty fucked up of you to think you can keep pretending otherwise just because you, personally, don't know any vampires.

Thank you for your time, you probably think this is complete bullshit and I don't have a leg to stand on because oh, gee whiz, I'm actually an imaginary person and I just inconveniently forgot about that in earshot of real human beings. It's okay. I'm ready for it.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Enough with the "watchmaker" argument already!

I am so fucking sick of the "watchmaker" argument.

It goes like this: "If you see a watch, you don't think that that watch must have always been there. You assume that there was someone around to make the watch. So why don't you assume that someone must have made the Universe?"

Or something like that. I have a hard time understanding this argument because it is so full of fail. The gist of it is that because a lot of complex objects had to be assembled meticulously in order to function correctly, that must be the same for any complex object.

But there's no basis for that claim.

First of all, we can break down everything into two categories: man-made, and not man-made.

In the first category, man-made, we have objects such as:

  1. Watches
  2. Bread loves
  3. Boeing 747's
  4. Books
  5. Doorknobs
  6. Polyester threads
  7. Electric ranges
  8. Etc.

In the second category, non-man-made, we have everything else. Including:
  1. Trees
  2. Rabbits
  3. Mountains (which are hugely complex, given that they often have the ability to grow crystals and whatnot)
  4. Grass
  5. Gold
  6. Plankton
  7. Stars
  8. Etc.
Now, for one category - the first - we know, or can reasonably figure out where these objects came from. They were assembled from other objects by a human being (or other animal - many animals have decent tool-making and home-building skills, among other things).

But for the second category, we don't really know where these came from originally. Yes, we can make some educated guesses, but it's a mystery. Humans weren't there to see it. However, what we do know is that one of these categories things can be found in the universe with the assistance of a human agent, and one of them can without.

And that is all that we really know.

Yet people who use the "watchmaker" argument seem to think that these facts are somehow indicative of a creator. Their logic is that, since man/animal-made objects have a sentient creator, non-man/animal-made objects must also have a sentient creator. Why? There is no logical reason to infer that conclusion from the facts presented. Nowhere in the history of science is it acceptable to assume that a trait which is inherent to one set of objects is inherent to a completely separate set of objects which is missing the very property that makes that trait inherent.

Or, to try and make that legible, consider squirrels and flying squirrels. Flying squirrels, as their name implies, "fly" (or, more accurately, glide through the air). They do so through the use of skin flaps on the sides of their bodies. Regular squirrels, on the other hand, do no such thing. Therefore it would be both ridiculous and pointless to first assume that they also have skin flaps (if they don't fly, then there is no need to assume that they have a method to do so), and then make a load of assumptions based on the "fact" that regular squirrels have skin flaps.

It simply makes no sense.

The way I've framed the argument, at least to me, it seems patently obvious that this argument is absurd, full of false equivocation and so forth. So why are its proponents so fond of it?

I can answer that in one word: perspective.

Human beings, including scientists, have a tendency to view their studies through the lens of their own perspective. And most human beings, including scientists, have some amount of difficulty curtailing this behavior. Well, the perspective of most watchmaker proponents is that nearly their entire world is man-made. We live in man-made houses, use man-made appliances and man-made furniture, drive on man-made roads using man-made cars, eat man-made food - you get the picture.

So most of what we see is man-made, and ergo, by definition, has been created. So we start to see "things that we know were created" as the norm. Just as white Americans who see their culture as the norm tend to gawk at floor-level toilets and ask nonsense questions like "What do you do instead of Christmas?" when you live amidst complex objects that have been created, and especially when you learn more about how those were created, you instinctively search for a source of creation for the other complex things that you see.

It's a matter of perspective. It's also false equivocation and generally bad science.

There is one other flaw of the watchmaker argument, and again it's a problem of false equivocation. That is, people who make this argument typically conflate what we usually refer to as creation (one object being changed into something else via an outside force, which may or may not be sentient) with the universe's Creation (ostensibly, many objects popping out of nothing.)

Firstly, no human being (or other animal) has ever been able to create something out of nothing. Never, in the history of the Earth. So there is no reason at all to assume that such a feat would require an intelligent agent.

And secondly, even if you actually pay attention to the way that scientists currently believe the universe came into being - plain ol' creation, one thing being changed into another - there's no reason to assume intelligent agency. There are plenty of examples all around us of complex systems being created without guidance from an intelligent hand. Complex cave systems, beautiful rock and ground formations, etc. form naturally over time because of the flow of water. Rows and rows of rippling sand dunes are caused by wind flow arranging the sand into natural, yet patterned, shapes. Snowflakes form in beautiful patterns when water vapor is frozen at high altitudes - a completely automated function that produces sextillions of unique crystalline shapes.

Sure, some asshole will probably try and tell me that that's no different from, say, Minecraft. Because good ol' God had to put the water, stone, cold air, etc. there in order for all of this to happen. But there's no reason to believe that. There's no reason to believe that if a simple temperature reaction in the atmosphere can create an infinite number of entirely unique structures, a natural explosion in the pre-universe cannot create one planet out of sextillions that has the particular balance of water, rock, ground, minerals, etc. required to support life - or that life itself, which is incredibly simple in its formative state anyway, could not spring out of the sextillions of amino acid chains that formed in such an environment.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Word of the day: Prosopagnosia.

Also known as "difficulty or inability in recognizing specific faces." Also known as "problem that has plagued me and annoyed my mother for years."

It's not that I can't recognize faces; I'm just shitty at it. I have been to church with the same people for years on end and wouldn't be able to tell you their names if you asked me to. I have difficulty recognizing actors unless I've seen them in a multi-season TV show or unless there's something really distinctive about them (to this day, I do not know how people recognize Terry Thomas by anything other than his voice).

Watching The United States of Tara, it took me about three episodes to realize that the husband was played by John Corbett, despite the fact that I'd seen his name in the credits twice.

There was one point in my teenage years when I honestly could not make out the difference between Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby until I actually saw Kaye and remembered what he looked like (confusion that has since cleared up, fortunately).

I can't count the number of times I've heard my mother ask me "Do you know who that is?" like I should know, but I honestly don't recognize them at all.

It's a big enough problem that I've changed the way I perceive the world to compensate - when I'm trying to recognize someone, I usually start by listening to their voice, and then trying to pinpoint specific facial features that seem similar to me. It's a process. Usually works pretty well.

I don't know why I have his problem. Could be because I was dropped on my head as a baby (seems unlikely) or just something genetic (seems more possible). I also have some of the shittiest short-term memory retention of an otherwise healthy person that I know - unless it's personally significant, it will usually drop straight out of my head if I don't repeat it over and over. And not just long words like "prosopagnosia," but factoids like "you need to go to your grandmother's house to help her with something."

A consequence of that is that I end up writing stuff down a lot. Which impresses people, because I look all organized and premeditative. People really, really like that.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Introductions Part 1: The Dude and Nic

!Or, the start of a list of introductory posts for those who aren't familiar with my headmates. AKA the inhabitants of Hell. Some of us have decided that I am Hell and they're dead in it.

!Okay, so first there's me. The Dude, we'll call me. I have a name, and it's not even William (William was a name I went by once and kept it as a pseudonym when I picked out another one later), but I don't share it. I can use The Dude safely for reasons I'll explain in the next paragraph. -Right there! In the next little paragraph! How about that?

!STFU, Doctor.

!Okay. The gist of it is, -long ago there used to be this person. Kind of a girl, but not really. Good at pretending to be a girl, anyway. !Whoever this person was, she had proprietary rights to the body for many, many years. Close to twenty. (Makes me feel like kind of a dick for stealing it, actually, except I didn't really. I'll explain.) This semi-girl - genderqueer person, I guess - was not the most healthy, mentally-wise. She was emotionally and physically abused by her parents, and as a result a lot of her (or the body's) natural personality traits were suppressed. She also had very little self-discipline, self-motivation, yadda - a problem I still struggle with. In ways, I think she was a shell for the actual body owner - kind of a personality-suit, if you will, with me behind the wheel. If you'll forgive my mixing comparisons. Anyway, she started to break down around the time I lost my faith (a hugely traumatic experience, but the thing that pushed us over the edge was losing our trust in our mother). Around this time, we/she/whoever was starting to try and get xemselves together, and manifested "The Dude." We didn't realize it at the time, but The Dude was basically a projection of everything we wished we were - confident, competent, good-looking, male. He wasn't a full-on personality/person, just a projection, and went dormant after a few months.

A year or so later, I was reading about transgenderism (I say "I" because at this point "she" was starting to break away,a lot of that old programming going dormant since I wasn't using it anymore) and I realized that I, too, was trans! Oh noes! The more I read, the more I was convinced, and the longer I was convinced the more naturally male I felt. There were other side effects as well - I started to feel more confident, more capable, generally more together. Not perfect, but better.

The Dude had integrated.

Okay, that took longer than a paragraph.

Next is Nic. I'll copy and paste his introduction from another source.

Nearly everyone in my head is an import of a fictional character, or else a composite of characters that seemed to be close enough to make a whole. Nic, for example, is based on Nicolas Cage, but is neither like the real Nicolas Cage nor a specific one of his characters - he is more of a composite.

...Not that I'm not a real human being. There's a difference between me and everyone else here. I couldn't describe it; I'm not a self-reflecting kind of guy. I'm a "get stuff done" kind of guy. I'm a eat-sandwiches-and-coffee-and-then-get-back-to-work kind of guy. I'm not afraid to speak my mind. Not afraid to speak Cameron's mind, either. Not that everything we say that isn't exactly blooming in the tact department is my fault. Cameron's got a big enough mouth to go around.

!An interesting fact is that in most situations, most of my headmates have difficulty actually talking through my mouth. They have voices, they just have difficulty bringing those voices to external space. Nic, on the other hand, is a very free talker when he has fronting time. On the other hand, he has difficulty writing - the above paragraph was semi-transcribed and is the only written word he's gotten out so far.

...It's not that I can't type. The Dude always seems to start fronting whenever someone tries to work a keyboard - !except when Spike is fronting; he's a pretty good typist. ...Anyway. So it's taken some practice to be able to run a keyboard without someone else getting in my way. That's why it seems like I don't talk much. That and I don't have a lot to say. I don't get out much, so what am I going to say? Hi, my name is Nic, I live here, I only come out when Dude needs me. Yeah.

!Like he said, Nic's a get-stuff-done sort of guy. He's kind of a work horse type personality - in contrast with me, who has been known to spend days on end playing Minecraft, Nic feels out of place if he's not working a steady job. That's his niche, his environment, you get the picture. He's also a defender kind of guy - well, everyone's defensive to a degree, but Nic is more proactive. He would carry a knife at all times if he could, and probably talk me into learning to shoot small firearms as well, just in case he ever has to get into an epic firefight with John Travolta or something. I think he thinks we're cooler than we really are.

Children with privilege are the only ones who matter.

I will asplain.

I just read this post on Womanist Musings: Oh Oh, Bigots Steamed Because Sheriff Woody Endorsed 'It Gets Better Campaign'.

According to Alan Chambers, an "ex-gay" fellow who spends not inconsiderable portions of his time turning his internalized prejudice onto his fellow GLBP folk, it is saddening and disappointing to see a children's movie character speaking up about something that, to quote a quote, "at this point children have no need to know about."

Where do I start with this?

Firstly, I assume he's talking about the bizarro version of gayhood wherein it is a horrible, horrible curse and everyone who has it struggles with their feelings of abnormalcy and just wishes they could be straight, unless they're complete perverts.

Secondly, he also seems to be talking about the bizarro version of gayhood that magically kicks in at puberty (whereas straight children are straight from the age of four or so).

And thirdly, as usual, the only children that Chambers is worried about are the straight children.

This is a typical claim from bigots who are trying to prevent education in "politically-charged subjects" from happening at an early age. (Ironically, these are usually the same people who believe that children need to learn Christian Creationism in public school science classes.) I read about this frequently on Womanist Musings. White people say that children don't need to learn about racism, because it is just too horrible for their delicate little minds and their innocence needs to be maintained - plus, by teaching them by racism we might encourage them to be racist! Onoez! Of course, "children" is a misnomer -as Renee points out repeatedly, children of color in the United States start learning about racism as soon as they are cognizant enough to understand what the words mean (pretty much as soon as they have a good grasp on English.) So what they're really worried about are white children.

The same argument has been made re: disability. In another post, Renee shares the story of a woman who, in the process of giving birth to her children, sustained an injury that has rendered her unable to move any part of her body except her eyelids. The children's father, with classic sympathy, took advantage of her incapacitated state, took the children, and ran. Since then he has refused to let the children see their mother because he fears that it might scar them.

Really? SCAR them?

Scare them, maybe. The kiddies probably aren't used to interacting with someone who is paralyzed (definitely, if Dad's behavior is any indication), and it will probably concern them, and they might not know how to act at first. But if they were actually allowed to spend time with their mother and interact with her, they'd get used to it. They could have a wonderful relationship and it wouldn't bother them in the slightest. Because KIDS ARE FLEXIBLE.

Which brings me to my next point.

Kids ARE flexible. They're also in a state of perpetual learning. Kids are open-minded, and often very compassionate (once they develop empathy). There is no better time for a person's life to begin learning about oppression and develop the desire to fight it than when they are a child.

And it doesn't take much. A child only has to witness one act of blatant discrimination to figure out that it's messed up (and yes, even privileged kids have the ability to figure out when someone is being put down) and speak out against it or even start a charity to fight it. (Not saying that the kid's going to be perfect at it, but the motive is there). You can read countless stories on the Internets and Highlights Magazine about a child who does something that seems incredibly plucky, like mowing lawns to earn money to buy shoes for poor kids, or refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance until true equality has been reached, or whathaveyou, all because they were given information about the issues in question.

But most children are not given this opportunity. Instead, we "shelter" them from these issues, protecting them from as much badness as we can. And what are they shown instead? Straightness, cis genders, whiteness, able bodies, single minds. At the point in their life when kids are most able to learn tremendous amounts of things about the world, we so rigidly filter their intake that they can only learn the most privileged side of the story. And the kids, being kids, suck it all in. Their understanding of the world, of society - of what behaviors and bodies "should" exist - becomes framed to prioritize these privileged bodies.

The result of this is that when these kids do begin to gain information about a new perspective, they have no idea what to do with it. When they begin to meet people who are fat, or need special equipment to move around, or have "weird hair," or "talk funny," they don't know how to react. They might know how to pity the crippled child, or to accuse the child who speaks out about racism of making things up or being too sensitive - the limited types of interaction that are conveyed in mainstream entertainment. But they don't have any real knowledge of how to handle these people on a tangible human basis.

Some kids are more flexible than others, of course. Some of them are very open-minded and will instinctively treat nearly everyone with some level of respect and kindness. But a lot more will not. Children who have learned that the world is a place of sunshine and roses and SCWAT bodies will freeze up when they meet someone who is different. They may refuse to deal with the "other" person. They may make fun of that person to assuage their own confusion. Or they may look to their peers to learn how to deal with the person - and their peers, having roughly the same upbringing, will teach them how to scorn the nonconformist.

As the privileged child ages, unless someone intervenes in xir life, nothing is likely to change. Instead, the problem crystalizes. By the time this "innocent" child has become a teenager or young adult, xe is now convinced that the world is exactly as xe learned it, or close enough, and xir reaction to a different perspective will likely range from disbelief to an outright refusal to consider the possibility. Sure, xe is now old enough that xir innocence is probably not considered an issue, and others might finally decide that it's time to teach xem about oppression - only to find that xe is lacking the core education needed to understand these concepts. The core education can be had, of course. And the education that builds upon it. And teenagers and young adults are, relatively, more impressionable than older people. But at this point there are two things stacked against them: firstly, they may not have access to the information they need, and secondly, they may simply decide that they don't want to learn because they have other things to worry about (like building their own life).

A young child doesn't have other things to worry about. A young child's job is to learn about the world. By preserving "innocence," by shielding them from anything that might be considered controversial or "too harsh" (apparently the real world is too much for children to handle), their parents are instilling a worldview that is one-sided and profoundly naïve. Not only does it hurt the marginalized - by implicitly training children to ignore their lives and struggles - but it hurts the child, by limiting xir ability to function with various "other" persons on a fully human level, as well as xir capacity to understand why extra work and sanctions are needed to protect marginalized persons.

As for gay children, transgender children, children of color, disabled children, and many others - all of them are getting a firsthand education in some form of discrimination. "Innocence" is a luxury that they cannot afford, at least for those realms to which they are privy. Through sheer happenstance of birth or life events, we were rendered clinically incapable of retaining this quality that is supposedly so valuable to a child's healthy development, and somehow we managed not to be ruined for it. Yet this inconvenient fact frequently gets swept under the rug by people who continue to insist that innocence is the most valuable thing a child could have - not understanding that maintaining the innocence of a privileged child often means destroying the innocence of marginalized children.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

We do not get this.

Spike is a self-professed vampire. He has an irrational fear of sunlight and doesn't really care for food. But he doesn't have an intense craving for blood, possibly because he's in a human body.

The soldier, on the other hand, was never a smoker until we read an extensive story about a soldier character who picked up the habit. Now whenever we communicate I am blasted by an inordinate craving for cigarettes. I do not smoke; I am not physiologically addicted, but the soldier demands some sweet burning tobacco.

I wonder if growing up with smokers, moderate exposure to secondhand smoke, etc. is somehow responsible for this. All I know is that it does not make sense, particularly since the last time the soldier was out (after reading that story) he wasn't having this problem. Also, I feel a little silly now, because I have my "token smoker." One of those weird li'l plural system clichés that I figured I would probably avoid.

(And because most people who read this will probably have no idea what I'm talking about, an introductory post is probably in order.)

Monday, May 2, 2011

Riffing on an old quote.

First the threat was Britain, and I fought because I knew the British were wrong.
Then the threat was Germany, and I fought because I knew the Germans were wrong.
Then the threat was Russia, and I fought because I knew the Russians were wrong.
And then the threat was me, and I fought because I knew that my battles were just.

Sparrows, the United States in a nutshell.

So, bin Laden is dead.

How do I feel about this? Well, I'm going to tell you a story:

Some weeks ago, a friend ("Q") and I were getting into an argument with a mutual acquaintance ("F"). We'd been hanging out for a few hours, during which time F let loose a slew of ableist slurs. Q and I had both been keeping quiet to keep the peace, since F was only going to be around for a few hours - xe was just down for the weekend, lives pretty far away, and rarely visits.

Finally I couldn't take it any more and asked F to stop using the slurs. Xe became defensive, and we got into a long, drawn-out argument. Q and I spent ridiculous amounts of energy trying to explain to F why it was not okay to use these slurs, because even if xe didn't personally know anyone who was disabled, it encouraged others to use them and generally made the world a less safe place. F continued to disregard us, while at the same time goading us, asking if we were going to get violent (because anger = violence, you know) and insinuating that if we ever did xe would make us very, very sorry.

F refused to listen, and eventually got tired of listening to our criticism. Xe pulled out xir privilege and made a very rude comment to Q and me.

At this point, Q lost hir temper and slapped F (an action which I am completely against, by the way).

The next thing I knew, F had completely lost control. Xe screamed "DON'T FUCK WITH ME!" and fell on Q in a violent rage.

F is several inches taller than either Q or me. Xe is also muscular - I believe xe works out - and has martial arts training. It took both Q's and my efforts to barely restrain xem. The altercation ended after several minutes of struggle, at which point F ran to xir mother and told her that we had attacked her.

And that is the war on terror.

Violence is NEVER a joke.

Trigger warning: description of physical violence in the first paragraph, discussion of threats throughout.

Never ever. It's not a fucking joke.

Have you ever been the victim of, or been in close proximity to, an act of physical violence? Let me tell you what it was like for me: it's fucking TERRIFYING. You don't know whether the person being beaten (be that you or someone else) is going to survive the encounter or not. You don't know whether the attacker is going to keep going or for how long, and you're afraid to try to stop it in case xe turns on you next. The blows don't come rapidfire like they do in Hollywood. They're fast, yeah, but you see EVERY SINGLE ONE as it lands, and if you're not the one being attacked, suddenly you realize that could be you.

It's like a nightmare come to life. But at least in a nightmare you know you'll be safe when you wake up. You don't get that comfort in the waking world.

The reason I bring this up is because I found this post on Microaggressions today:

If I should mention (snip) that I’ve taken multiple self defense classes, the response that I almost always get from men (snip) is some variation of “oh, well, I could still snap you like a twig, you silly, 120 pound, 5’5 girl.” It’s like they want to make sure I know that no matter what I do, they can always overpower me, I will never be able to handle myself, I will never have any power, no matter how I try, over my own safety.
You know what that is? THAT'S FUCKING CREEPY. That's the kind of behavior that will probably make ANYONE who is less physically able than most average-height, young-to-middle-aged, able-bodied, testosterone-fueled men want to run for the door. (It can also be triggering to victims of actual violence.) If you're not sure why, try putting yourself on the receiving end of this exchange.

The fact is, if a man said this to another man, there would be no question in his mind that this was a threat. Men just don't say shit like this to one another unless they expect that they might follow through with it at some point. Why should it be different for women?

But he's just pointing out a fact - firstly, no, he isn't. 120-pound, 5'5 women tend to take self-defense courses that are aimed at 120-pound, 5'5 women. They learn how to use their enemies' size to their advantage. Add to that her potential opponent's cockiness, evidenced by his comments, and she may well get the upper hand.

And secondly, no. It's not "a threat" when you say it to a man but "just pointing out a fact" when you say it to a woman. This assumes that, because of their relationship or the man's personality or whatever, the man means well and wouldn't actually do anything, and woman has an obligation to believe that.

At the risk of repeating myself, NO.

For one thing, she does not know what's in that man's head (and neither do you). He could be acting like a nice guy when, in reality, he wouldn't hesitate to attack her. Or he could genuinely be a mainly nice guy, but due to emotional repression or simple failure to understand acceptable boundaries, he may be inclined either now or down the road to attack her anyway. She has no guarantees that she is safe. Therefore, it is not "overreacting," but JUST FUCKING PRUDENT to assume that this statement is more than "just pointing out a fact."

And thirdly, why the fuck would he feel he needs to bring this up, anyway? Is he afraid that if he doesn't, the woman will get delusional about her abilities? As if a 5'5, 120-pound woman needs to be REMINDED that she's small and vulnerable. As if she took MULTIPLE SELF-DEFENSE CLASSES because she thought she was perfectly safe. She doesn't need to be reminded.

Yeah, but that wasn't really a JOKE, so I don't see what it has to do with your first point - It was a cavalier statement about inflicting violence on another human being, which said human being was then expected not to take seriously. Close enough.