A woman has gone to Facebook to accuse former Mayor Mike Bell of inappropriately touching her at a Toledo bar Friday night, allegations Mr. Bell denies.
Allison Dow, 29, of Toledo’s Old West End, said Mr. Bell made an unwelcome sexual comment and touched her buttocks late Friday at Wesley’s Bar & Grill on Adams Street in downtown Toledo.
Ms. Dow put her outraged reaction on Facebook, calling Mr. Bell, 60, “a perverted old man.”
Mr. Bell, who is running for mayor again, on Tuesday denied the allegations, suggesting a political motive.
Ms. Dow is a former office manager for the Lucas County Democratic Party, which has endorsed Paula Hicks-Hudson for the job Mr. Bell is seeking.
“I was standing at the bar ordering a drink and someone came up behind me and put his hand on my lower back and whispers, ‘If you stand up on your tiptoes in that dress, me and my friends will pass out,’ and he lowered his hand to my butt,” Ms. Dow told The Blade Tuesday.
“He pulled that same move with several other people at that bar,” she said.
You can read the whole thing. Apparently, nobody believes Ms. Dow is a victim of anything. Ms. Bell is a bachelor with something of a reputation as a ladies’ man, and Ms. Dow . . .
Well, as an undergraduate at the University of Toledo, Ms. Dow was active in “Spectrum,” a gay student organization.
So, a Democrat guy in a bar allegedly makes a pass at a Democrat girl who just isn’t into Democrat guys. Or any other guys.
Not much of a scandal, really. Mr. Bell denies everything, but even if it were true, so what? Is it against the law in Toledo for guys in bars to behave the way guys behave in bars? Is this an issue in the Toledo mayoral campaign?
Put it this way: If it’s a career-destroying scandal for a Democrat to make “an unwelcome sexual comment” to a woman, maybe we should discuss the career of Hillary Clinton’s husband.
This week’s appetizer is courtesy of some moron on the AoSHQ Facebook Group, and is further proof that fans can often come up with better music videos than the band that made the music to start with. Much like many of the links to follow, this video may be considered NSFW, and the management is not responsible for loss of face, strakh, or reputation points, nor are we responsible for any pollution of your precious bodily fluids.
Goodstuff leads off this week with Jennifer Tilly, followed by Animal Magnetism with Rule 5 Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon, and Ninety Miles from Tyranny with Hot Pick of the Late Night, Morning Mistress, and Girls with Guns. We also heard from First Street Journal with Fort Jackson.
Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline to submit links to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox for next Sunday’s Rule 5 roundup is midnight on Saturday, September 19.
I find your message offensive. I am on [LinkedIn] for business purposes not to be approached about my physical appearance or to be objectified by sexist men. The eroticisation of women’s physical appearance is a way of exercising power over women. It silences women’s professional attributes as their physical appearance becomes the subject.
Unacceptable and misogynistic behaviour. Think twice before sending another woman (half your age) such a sexist message.
Such was Ms. Proudman’s now-notorious reply to the unfortunate Alexander Carter-Silk, 57, who had made the mistake of telling the 27-year-old radical feminist lawyer that her LinkedIn profile photo was “stunning.” Before analyzing Ms. Proudman’s discourse about “exercising power over women,” let’s clear up the obvious question: Did the married middle-aged Mr. Carter-Silk intend his message as more than casual flattery? Was he hoping to get busy with her?
Ace of Spades concludes that he was, but that his compliment was “a pretty soft gesture of interest.” Alternative hypothesis: Mr. Carter-Silk is simply not used to encountering “stunning” young women in his queue of LinkedIn communications and, without really intending to “hit on” Ms. Proudman, found himself unable to resist the temptation to comment on her looks. This is admittedly a devil’s advocate defense, the most feasible explanation of Mr. Carter-Silk’s message as an innocent blunder — a careless lapse of decorum. It is bad manners and always in poor taste for a man to comment on the appearance of a woman with whom he is not properly acquainted. Such forward behavior is, of course, all too common in a society that has almost entirely abandoned traditional customs of courtesy, but who am I to complain of that? It’s not as if I’m a consistent model of polite behavior myself, and therefore it would be hypocritical for me to criticize Mr. Carter-Silk merely for being rude.
On the other hand, maybe Mr. Carter-Silk is a lecherous old goat who was guilty as charged, using LinkedIn as a means of pursuing adulterous liaisons, so that his praise for Ms. Proudman’s profile photo was an attempt to “score.” In that case, for reasons I’ve explained elsewhere (“Don’t Do This, Ever”), Mr. Carter-Silk is a damned fool. Using digital communication (texts, emails, social media) to pursue sexual relationships is always a mistake. Whatever the specific medium — including online dating apps (“Hit It or Quit It on Tinder”) — the participant in online romantic pursuit is creating a record of digital evidence that can have devastating consequences. The recipient of your email or other digital communication could forward it to others or, as Mr. Carter-Silk learned to his eternal regret, your private message can be published for the whole world to see. Therefore, as I have lectured my teenagers, don’t do this, ever. Never say anything in a private digital communication that you would not want to see on the front page of the New York Times. The downside risk is enormous, and people have actually committed suicide after their online misbehavior was revealed.
Well, then, what about Ms. Proudman’s feminist lecture about the “eroticisation of women’s physical appearance”? Is it really true, as she insists, that complimenting a woman on her appearance “is a way of exercising power over women,” so that all such compliments are inherently “offensive,” “sexist” and “misogynistic”? Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine mocked that idea as absurd:
If that is what counts as ‘objectification’ and ‘misogyny’ these days, then the human race is in deep trouble. Not only does it beggar belief that Ms Proudman could have inferred any slight from such an innocuous missive, it also makes me fear for the next generation of women.
After all, heaven help the poor man who actually tries to ask her out on a date, let alone try to get her into his bed. He’d have better luck propositioning a porcupine.
This hits the nail on the head, and Sarah Vine further assert that “most normal women . . . would be delighted” to have a man praise their online profile photos, as “compliments are few and far between these days,” which is to say:
Radical feminists are not “normal women”;
and
Many women don’t know how to deal with compliments because men “these days” are afraid to compliment women, as men may be accused of sexual harassment for doing so.
Feminists have deliberately created a climate of fear in schools, universities and workplaces, where any male who dares so much as speak to a woman is at risk of devastating accusations that he has “harassed” her. Even if he has done nothing that could plausibly be viewed as “hitting on” her, the male who says or does anything that a woman finds “unwelcome” or “offensive” could be charged with fostering discriminatory conditions. This involves what is known as the “hostile environment” theory of sexual harassment, which views any expression of male heterosexuality as a potential source of discrimination against women. Daphne Patai astutely examined this phenomenon in her 1998 book Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism, which I highly recommend. A former Women’s Studies professor (co-author of Professing Feminism, which I also recommend), Dr. Patai called attention to how feminist discourse about “harassment” expressed a hostility toward normal male behavior, based in radical theories that interpret heterosexuality per se as oppressive to women.
This anti-male attitude — “Fear and Loathing of the Penis” — is pervasive within the academic institutions of the Feminist-Industrial Complex. In American universities, Women’s Studies programs and other forms of feminist advocacy are protected from critical scrutiny by Title X legislation, which has been interpreted in such a way that criticizing feminism can itself be considered evidence of discriminatory intent. Women’s Studies professors and other feminist activists on university campuses are effectively exempt from opposition or criticism, and thus are free to promote outright hatred of males without anyone being able to condemn them for it. The 21st-century campus is overtly hostile to males, a hostility evident in the fact that males are now a minority (43%) of college students. Universities now punish males on the basis of mere suspicion of “sexual misconduct,” defined so broadly as to include every possible expression of male heterosexuality. Ordinary flirtation is rapidly becoming a lost art because it is strongly discouraged, if not altogether prohibited, by these policies.
It is perfectly understandable that a young law school graduate like Charlotte Proudman finds it “offensive” to be complimented on her looks. All such compliments are streng verboten in modern academia. No college-educated young man would dare tell a woman she is “stunning” for fear of the kind of vindictive retaliation Ms. Proudman displayed. When feminists talk about “empowering” women, this is exactly the kind of power they have in mind — the power of women to inflict savage humiliation on men.
Because feminism is inspired by sadistic revenge fantasies, Ms. Proudman’s public scolding of Mr. Carter-Silk was greeted with enthusiastic applause by young feminists, who dream of the opportunity to crush and embarrass men in such a manner. Any young man who attempts to flirt with a woman now risks the destruction of his reputation and career, and depriving men of professional employment opportunities is what feminist “empowerment” is ultimately about.
On a related note, I suspect that if the male lawyer looked like George Clooney, Ms. Proudman wouldn’t be complaining. But you’re not supposed to say that, are you.
Unfortunately, this suggestion presumes Charlotte Proudman is heterosexual, a presumption for which we have no evidence at all. In fact — if you will re-read what Ms. Proudman wrote — her denunciation of “sexist men . . . exercising power over women” does not even permit us to imagine the possibility that any expression of male admiration would be acceptable to her. We may interpret Ms. Proudman’s discourse as saying that all men who are attracted to women are misogynists, because male heterosexuality requires the “eroticisation of women’s physical appearance,” which is “offensive” to her. Ms. Proudman expanded on this hostile theme in a subsequent Twitter harangue:
To call a woman “stunning” is, according to Ms. Proudman, “demeaning behavior,” “gender control” and “social violence.” Does this strike you as something a heterosexual woman would say?
It is one thing to say a man’s unsolicited compliment to a woman is inappropriate, but accusing him of “social violence”? This kind of rhetorical overkill is an expression of radical feminism, which condemns heterosexual intercourse as “the pure, sterile, formal expression of men’s contempt for women” (Andrea Dworkin), claiming “women have to be coerced into heterosexuality” (Marilyn Frye), because men “control women through heterosexuality” (Joyce Trebilcot) in order to “encourage women’s subservience” (Susan Shaw and Janet Lee).
In case anyone was under the mistaken impression that feminism simply means equality, Charlotte Proudman wrote a entire column in February explaining why you’re wrong:
I am a feminist and I do not strive for equality. I support liberation. . . . Equality takes the male status quo as the standard to which women aspire. . . .
It is impossible to alter male spheres, which are resistant to outside interference, because women are a minority that could be cut out at anytime, and men have vested interests in preserving the status quo.
The Equality Act 2010 . . . was designed to give the false impression that women’s subjugation had been legally acknowledged. . . .
The equalist debate is one way of preserving patriarchy, whereas feminism seeks to give power to women on their own terms — not mens. This is why I am a feminist, not an equalist. . . .
Men hold the balance of power. Power is granted in the wrong ways, and used for the wrong ends. Change can come about by redefining and redistributing power, breaking down hierarchal structures, and reevaluating the criteria designed by men.
You see? Equality is bad, because it “takes the male status quo as the standard” and equality does not “give power to women on their own terms.” Feminism is about “redefining and redistributing power” and ending “women’s subjugation.” If you think feminists give a damn what men think about anything, you have made a stunning mistake.
Dear Every Woman on Twitter:
Your avatar photo is STUNNING!
Congratulations, you're now a victim of sexism.
http://t.co/reu8fjtKq1
Somehow I overlooked that quote earlier — Ms. Proudman using the male pronoun to refer to her “partner” — which is evidence that she might actually be heterosexual. If true, this would raise the questions, “Why?” and “How?”
That is to say, if Ms. Proudman is filled with such generalized rage toward “women’s subjugation” within the “male status quo,” why would she be fraternizing with the enemy? And how would such a bundle of fiery anti-male anger attract a boyfriend, or reconcile her politics with the enactment of her, uh, “subjugation”? Stipulate that, during my depraved youth — I was a Democrat then, remember — some of my girlfriends must have been feminists, e.g., the Cranston delegate. Thankfully, however, we didn’t have the Internet in 1984, so women didn’t have a global platform to spew their beliefs to the world, and therefore if there were any contradictions between a woman’s personal preferences and her political theory, nobody knew it.
Hypothetically, a guy might be dating the kind of liberal woman who was on the Democrat primary ballot as a delegate for the Alan Cranston 1984 presidential campaign, and if she also liked to do it doggy style — well, who knew?
Yet we are not here to indulge in hypothetical speculation, and as a respectable conservative Republican, I condemn the very idea of young Democrats engaging in carnal knowledge. My point is that the Internet has narrowed the gap between the personal and the political, which makes me wonder how any young man could keep from laughing out loud while he’s hooking up with a feminist like Charlotte Proudman.
“…beside all that, I will give you centuries of life, free you from the need to sleep, and give you the might of a dozen flaring limbs,” said her lush lips, while her emerald eyes hinted at much, much more. The pearl necklace, diamond tiara and wand-like cigarette holder, combined with the familiar on her shoulder, marked her a princess, a sorceress, and a seductress.
The lodge where she kept her workshop had all of the usual pentagrams, tomes and spell ingredients expected. Would he emerge empowered for his revenge?
Then he saw the face in the wall decoration.
I’m not sure when I first became aware of Tim Powers. It’s entirely possible that it wasn’t until he was Guest of Honor at Arcana, a small dark fantasy/horror convention in St. Paul that I can’t recommend highly enough. Anyhow, Mr. Powers was Guest of Honor for Arcana 34 back in 2004, and was a very nice, congenial fellow; he’s also a hell of a writer, skilfully manuevering between science fiction and the supernatural. He’s probably best known for his horror novel On Stranger Tides, which became one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (if you look carefully, you can see Mr. Powers as one of the extras), or if you’re a fan of Charles Stross’ Laundry series, you probably saw the reference to Powers’ Declare which like Stross’ novels blends Le Carre with supernatural horror. I am currently reading Earthquake Weather, which combines the legend of the Fisher King with the wild ghost story of Expiration Date and the mystical poker game of Last Call. I think part of what gets me excited about Powers is his gift for taking the ordinary everyday world of buses and taxicabs and day laborers and suddenly shifting your point of view to include all the things lurking in the spaces between, or perhaps right out in plain sight. From the Siege of Vienna (The Drawing of the Dark) to the wild adventures of Lord Byron among the vampires (The Stress of Her Regard) and to the modern day, where a father and daughter struggle to comprehend Einstein’s deadliest invention, more terrible than nuclear weapons (Three Days to Never), there’s not a clunker in the lot. For a while, his books were terribly difficult to find, but fortunately Del Rey has brought them out in Kindle editions. A wonderful man who writes wonderful books.
Maggie Hogarth, on the other hand, likes to write about aliens, and apparently does so quite well, though she came to my attention as a result of political tussles on LiveJournal some years ago. Which is how I wound up signing on to the Kickstarter for her novel/script Spots the Space Marine: Defense of the Fiddler, which concerns a middle-aged Marine reservist sent to reinforce a guard company protecting an extremely valuable target. It’s also how I became aware of her taking a quirky webcomic about art, business and life (that hadn’t really earned its keep online) and bringing out a print edition. I have to say, The Three Jaguars: A Comic About Business, Art, and Life works a LOT better as a graphic novel (for reasons that Hogarth explains) and has additional material not previously published online. It’s instructive, funny, and occasionally heart-wrenching (if you’re familiar with the lawsuit by Games Workshop after Spots was published, you’ll understand, and if not you should look it up) by turns, and well worth your money. Not quite as entertaining, but possibly more helpful in a specific way, is From Spark to Finish: Running Your Kickstarter Campaign, which takes you through the steps you need to follow to run a Kickstarter campaign to get people to support you while you’re writing something they want to read, or creating some other kind of art that people want to pay actual $ (and hopefully $$ or even $$$$$) for. There aren’t a lot of people who can write well, and in this degenerate age, it seems there are even fewer who can draw and paint well, but Ms. Hogarth is blessed with both those talents. Buy her stuff.
“Feminist humor” is one of those terms describing a hypothetical category, like “honest Democrat.” Anyway . . .
Cameron Esposito (born 1981) is an American comedian best known for her stand-up comedy, which often focuses on LGBTQ+ topics and references aspects of her lesbian identity. Originally from Chicago, Esposito now resides in Los Angeles with her fiancee and fellow comedian Rhea Butcher. . . .
Her comedic repertoire consists mainly of repeatedly mentioning that, in case you didn’t get it the first time, she’s a lesbian. It’s as if Jerry Seinfeld had made a career of standing onstage pointing out that he is Jew from New York, rather than actually, y’know, telling jokes. I mean, sure, there are fat comedians who make a lot of fat jokes, and black comedians who make a lot of black jokes, but in general comedy works best when it relates to universal human experience. And speaking of universal human experience, what’s the deal with all these dead babies, huh?
In the midst of the recent Planned Parenthood controversy, Cameron Esposito has some feelings on the matter — some very strong feelings.
The comedian recently took the stage to explain why Planned Parenthood is absolutely vital to everyone, not only women. . . .
“Women deserve access to abortion services. We f**king do because we’re not incubators.” . . .
“If you don’t want to pay for health care for people that live in poverty, then you should help women who live in poverty to not have children that they are not able to provide for,” Esposito says. “That is how you personally will not have to pay that bill.” . . .
“If you are a guy and you are against Planned Parenthood and you sleep with women — I hope to god it is infrequently.”
That’s what you call a “feminist punch line.”
You’re supposed to laughing.
No, really. Dead babies are hilarious. Ask any feminist.
to sleep, and give you the might of a dozen flaring limbs,” said her lush lips, while her emerald eyes hinted at much, much more. The pearl necklace, diamond tiara and wand-like cigarette holder, combined with the familiar on her shoulder, marked her a princess, a sorceress, and a seductress.
, which became one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (if you look carefully, you can see Mr. Powers as one of the extras), or if you’re a fan of Charles Stross’ Laundry series, you probably saw the reference to Powers’ 
which like Stross’ novels blends Le Carre with supernatural horror. I am currently reading 
, which combines the legend of the Fisher King with the wild ghost story of 
and the mystical poker game of 
. I think part of what gets me excited about Powers is his gift for taking the ordinary everyday world of buses and taxicabs and day laborers and suddenly shifting your point of view to include all the things lurking in the spaces between, or perhaps right out in plain sight. From the Siege of Vienna (
) to the wild adventures of Lord Byron among the vampires (
) and to the modern day, where a father and daughter struggle to comprehend Einstein’s deadliest invention, more terrible than nuclear weapons (
), there’s not a clunker in the lot. For a while, his books were terribly difficult to find, but fortunately Del Rey has brought them out in Kindle editions. A wonderful man who writes wonderful books. 
, which concerns a middle-aged Marine reservist sent to reinforce a guard company protecting an extremely valuable target. It’s also how I became aware of her taking a quirky webcomic about art, business and life (that hadn’t really earned its keep online) and bringing out a print edition. I have to say, 
works a LOT better as a graphic novel (for reasons that Hogarth explains) and has additional material not previously published online. It’s instructive, funny, and occasionally heart-wrenching (if you’re familiar with the lawsuit by Games Workshop after Spots was published, you’ll understand, and if not 
, which takes you through the steps you need to follow to run a Kickstarter campaign to get people to support you while you’re writing something they want to read, or creating some other kind of art that people want to pay actual $ (and hopefully $$ or even $$$$$) for. There aren’t a lot of people who can write well, and in this degenerate age, it seems there are even fewer who can draw and paint well, but Ms. Hogarth is blessed with both those talents. Buy her stuff.
