The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

What ‘Precocious’ Means

Posted on | July 13, 2014 | 55 Comments

The blogospheric badminton continues with Sophia the Teenage Feminist who, having made a point of bringing up her theoretical “bisexuality,” now objects to this topic being discussed critically.

Or sarcastically, for that matter.

In case you’re arriving late, a recap: While conducting a Google search Saturday as part of my ongoing series about feminism, I encountered a blog called “Please Excuse My Vagina: My life as a teenage feminist.”

OK, congratulations, you got my attention. Under the topic of “heteronormativity” (!!) I found she referenced an occasion when she and her friends were “messing around” with a Ouija board, which became the theme of my post, An Omen of the ‘Mystifying Oracle’?

To this she responded here and also here, and then I responded this morning with “The Precocious Feminist Replies.” This afternoon, while I was watching the World Cup final (damn those Germans), Sophia the Teenage Feminist responded yet again and, among other things, wonders if calling her “precocious” was intended as an insult.

No, it was a mere description of someone who is intellectually advanced at an early age — a prodigy, the Mozart of feminism, as it were.

How many kids are slinging around the word “heteronormativity” in high school? Precocious. Her prose style was impressive enough that some of the commenters here suspected her blog to be elaborate hoax, i.e., an adult pretending to be a teenager. Precocious.

She is “upper-middle class,” she takes dance lessons, and her creepy ex-boyfriend “goes to a gifted goddamn school“ — from which I deduced that Sophia the Teenage Feminist also attends this school for the gifted, which explains her own intellectual precocity.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Having established the plausible veracity of her biography, so that we can presume she actually is a high-school student, we now proceed to Sophia’s latest volley in the badminton match:

At the age of eighteen or nineteen I hope to be studying Sociology at Columbia [University], far away from my asshole dad and my ambitionless ex. I hope to be dating a nice guy. I hope to be having the time of my life.

(Green Day allusion? Never mind. The reference to Columbia generally fits her “upper-middle class”/”gifted” profile.)

I am in fact bi on a theoretical basis. . . . But if you can say my sexuality is only theoretical, then aren’t all the good little Christian boys and girls only theoretically straight? This is heteronormativity in action, folks.

(Very clever. When you view the world through an ideological prism, no fact can disprove or discredit your ideology. A word like “heteronormativity” sets up a tautology, so that argument becomes impossible. It’s like trying to argue with a Marxist who insists that your criticism is a product of “false consciousness.”)

And you know what, maybe I’m being unnecessarily rude here . . .  and you know what? I don’t care at this point. I tried to be civil, but you can’t even call me by name or validate me as a person because of my age.

(Have I been less than civil? I didn’t call you by name because — hello? — “Sophia Hudson” is a pseudonym, as you say yourself. Is it my job to “validate [you] as a person”? What does that even mean? Never mind. Here is her response to one of my points . . .)

Oh good lord. I don’t even know how to respond to this because it is stupid on a deeper level than anything I’ve experienced. . . .
I could go on and on for years about why this is so end-all ridiculous but in the interest of not beating a dead horse, I’m just going to keep my mouth shut for now.

Well, what was this incredibly stupid point of mine? It was this:

Given the direction our culture is heading, one can imagine a scenario in which anyone who rejects a homosexual advance — “No, thanks, I’m straight” — is accused of being a homophobe, so that society is effectively divided into two groups: Gays and Haters.

Sophia the Teenage Feminist seems to think this is right-wing paranoia, but what was the argument of the “Free Kate” crusade? That enforcement of Florida’s age-of-consent law was “homophobic” when it was applied to a lesbian having sex with a 14-year-old girl. How far a leap is it from such an argument to the claim that rejecting a homosexual advance is evidence of homophobia?

And wasn’t this the whole point of Sophia’s Ouija-board story?

When the “Mystifying Oracle” indicated Sophia’s same-sex interest — gosh, I wonder how that happened? — her girlfriends were shocked and this, Sophia tells us, proved “they’re homophobes who are terrified of girls being in love with them.” What would have been the appropriately non-homophobic reaction, Sophia?

Excuse my cynicism. I used to be precocious, too.

“I’m just going to keep my mouth shut for now.”

 

Category: Feminism

Comments

55 Responses to “What ‘Precocious’ Means”

  1. Quartermaster
    July 14th, 2014 @ 8:17 pm

    That’s just sick. Some dumb chick married the guy convicted of offing MLK too. One has to wonder what causes such dementia.

  2. Quartermaster
    July 14th, 2014 @ 8:19 pm

    A wife? You oppressive patriarch you!

  3. Dana
    July 14th, 2014 @ 9:38 pm

    35 years, one month and 25 days so far!

  4. K-Bob
    July 15th, 2014 @ 1:09 am

    Some brains are wired with a few shorts too many.

    It’s not the neuron count that matters, it’s the interconnections (axons) and their myelin sheaths.

    Me, I keep electical tape on hand for brane emergencies. Clearly them peoples just run their axons under a rug or something.

  5. K-Bob
    July 15th, 2014 @ 1:12 am

    Not enough room to swing a cat?