I arrived at the cafe where the board games night was being held and had a look around the room.   I guess I wasn’t really surprised to see a room full of geeky men in oversized D&D tee shirts with stains on them.  I sat myself at a table and observed a game in progress, occasionally commenting on the action to remind everyone of my presence and try to get noticed.   As the only one in the room with any style, I assumed I would naturally be popular, until I realized that these boys were as blind to fashion as they were to their privilege.

Finally it was my turn to play and I sat around a table with three others: two nerd boys with beards, and a woman who seemed to be neither geeky nor non-geeky.  There was a brief discussion of rules and then it was time to decide who played first.  ”ladies first,” said Nerd Boy A, solemnly.  ”Yes, of course.  Ladies first,” agreed Nerd Boy B.

So the woman had her turn, and the game was started.  I had never played this particular game before, but I could see it was good.  Each decision had a strong impact on the direction of the game and there were always many options of play to choose from.  This game was clearly a thinking person’s game.  So of course when it was the woman’s turn to play, Nerd Boy A and Nerd Boy B would dote on her with recommendations, suggestions, explanations and strategies.    They really did their best to help her woman-brain comprehend the best course of action in their opinions.  Or perhaps they did their best to show how helpful and “nice” they were.  They didn’t talk to me or each other.  They only talked to her.

These guys probably really did think they were being nice guys.  Maybe they thought they were getting a bit closer to kissing a girl for the first time in their lives, or maybe they were fulfilling some sort of perceived chivalrous duty they picked up from their fantasy novels and computer games.  I guess it never occurred to them that she might not want to go first, or that she might not need help choosing her next move–in short, that she might want to be treated the same as everyone else.  But then again, she didn’t seem to have any objections, either.

Nerdy guys are *not* the good guys.  Here’s why:

Recently, I was at a poetry reading with a few friends, including a girl I had recently broke up with, but with whom I was still friends. At some point that night I introduced her to my friend Bill, and later she told me she was attracted to him. So, I got to play match-maker for a little while, even though I later discovered this girl has no problem matching herself up without help.

The thing about Bill is that he’s a nerdy guy. He’s a computer programmer and MTG player/ gamer boy. He seems pretty harmless. Out of all my guy friends, he was the only one of the only ones who didn’t annoy the shit out of me and seemed relatively well-balanced. He’s soft spoken, sociable, and respectful. So it was no problem for me to endorse him to my lady friend from whom I was recently divorced.

I also happen to be pretty good friends with Bill’s last girl friend. When I told her about all this, she gave me the low-down on Bill. Turns out he’s a bit different as a boyfriend than as a friend. I’ll skip the details, but the gist is this: he’s conservative, sexist, patriarchal, and doesn’t understand that no means no.

It’s interesting how you can be friends with someone for a long time and not realize these things. My excuse is that the context of our friendship–MTG and watching anime–did not provide a chance for these characteristics to come out in the open. But now that I think of it, I *do* remember a few instances here and there in which his sexism came out. But I was not paying attention, so I missed or ignored these signs.

So, I set my ex girlfriend up with a jerk. I’m not too worried since I know she’s perfectly capable of dealing with guys like this.

However, this has contributed to a realization that has been slowly dawning on me this past year; I used to think that nerd-boys were the good guys. I used to think they were genuinely misunderstood guys who were underprivileged by virtue of their rejection of hetero male gender norms. I used to cheer for them. But now I realize that for many of these guys, their unassuming, gentle demeanour hides serious personality flaws. Many of them are extremely sheltered, privileged in a way they are oblivious to, and not socialized to interact with women in any respectful way. Many of them are deeply narcissistic, selfish, and lack empathy.

Probably a few of them are good guys. I’m not going to hold my breath while I wait for one to show up, though.

The very first thing I will say is that I only read half the book.  After reading half of it, I realized I wasn’t getting from it what I wanted.  I picked up the book because I wanted to know more about how mythical and unfair characterizations of female sexuality are preventing women from having enjoyable sex lives and developing effective, healthy sexual identities.  I was interested in finding out more about the purity myth that I see my friends buying into.

What I found was basically a rant about how crazy the conservative Christian right (CCR from here on) is in America.  The thing is, I already knew those guys were crazy.  I will admit that Valenti’s inventory of just how crazy they are, and all the crazy things they do was enlightening in a very disturbing way.  But the main problem with the book is that she seldom even bothers to refute their spurious claims; so, in essence, she assumes that the readers already know how crazy the CCR is, but yet writes an entire book about it.  So what is the point of this book again? (See this other review for a more complete and articulate viewpoint.)

After reading the book, I am angrier.  Is that all she was going for?

Perhaps I just have to get used to the idea that these extremist conservative views really are more influential than I would like to believe.  I was shocked when I found out that Purity Balls, abstinence only education and anti-choice maternal health clinics are all federally funded in the United States.  Clearly, this is a problem.

One more thing I will say is that the book at least provides a very thorough description of the damage that the Virginity Movement is doing to women in America.  The author has honorable intentions.  I hope we progressive feminists can stand up to this onslaught.

A few months ago I went to see the blockbuster super-hit film Twilight Saga: New Moon, based on the outrageously popular book series by Stephenie Meyer.  When I first heard of this series over a year ago, I was intrigued by its seemingly universal popularity among the young women within my society.  I decided to read the books, but then they made a movie about it, and well, you know… Here are my thoughts, after one viewing of the new film and zero readings of the book.

Of course, the main characters, Edward Cullen and Jacob Black, are a vampire and a werewolf, respectively.  The thing is, Edward the vampire has to try really hard to not hurt Bella.  He doesn’t want to hurt her, but he’s afraid he’ll lose control and won’t be able to help himself.  Of course, this is because he’s a vampire and biting peoples’ necks is kind of what he does.  Similarly, Jacob the werewolf is afraid to date Bella because he might lose control, turn into a werewolf, and claw the crap out of her.

This is Meyer’s way of metaphorically representing the concept of danger and abuse in relationships.  In each of these cases, its all the man can do to stop himself from hurting poor Bella; this obviously represents the threat of physical abuse that many women experience in relationships.  At one point, Jacob says to Bella something like “what if one day you make me really mad and I can’t control it?” (note: I can’t find this line in the script that has been posted online, but I’m sure I remember it from the film.) Here we see that Jacob’s ability to control himself is somehow connected to Bella’s ability to keep him happy (“Why ya’ gotta make me hit you, baby?”).

This is probably a scenario that a lot of women can identify with.  Is this a glamorization and sexualization of physical abuse, or is it merely a reflection of its unfortunate presence in our society?

One point that is difficult to argue, however, is that these men are put forward as ideal models of masculinity and masculine sexuality.  There is an interesting scene in the film in which Bella goes on a date with two boys: one is our sexy werewolf friend Jacob Black, and the other is the geeky Mike, who is crushing hard on Bella.  The trio goes out to see the generic guy/action movie Face Punch, but pansy-ass Mike can’t stomach the violence, and has to leave part way through.  The message here is pretty simple: men who aren’t into violence are not legitimate sexual partners, or even legitimate men.  The first film Mike suggests for the date is called Love Spelled Backwards is Love, presumably a generic romantic “chick-flick”.  This contrast between the chick-flick and action film effectively positions violence in the category of “masculine and sexual” and romance in the category of “stupid and for-girls”.  In this way, Mike is feminized and thus removed from Bella’s potential dating pool (not that he had much of a chance in the first place).  The interesting thing is that Mike actually doesn’t seem to have many other “defects”; he isn’t bad looking, he dresses okay, he has cool friends, and he isn’t completely socially awkward.  He is, however, not a vampire or a werewolf.

Later in the scene, as Jacob and Bella are walking through the lobby while Mike is in the men’s room barfing his guts out,  and Jacob discretely takes Bella’s hand.  Bella reacts with her body language, appearing to consider the hand-holding for a second, then dropping his hand and turning away.  Jacob asks, rather brusquely, “what, I can’t hold your hand?” Apparently, he is surprised and offended that she would assert control over her own body.

One thing about Meyer we cannot ignore is that she is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and no doubt has felt the pressure of traditional marriage and dating beliefs.  In her book The Purity Myth, Jessica Valenti criticized the “virginity movement” in Christian America for casting female sexuality as amoral and laying the responsibility for sexual purity entirely on women.  With this in mind, Twilight may actually be read as a feminist text, but we must redefine some of our associations; in this context, the difficulty the male leads have in controlling themselves may be seen as an analogue to the difficulty of Christian teenagers controlling their sexual urges.  By this interpretation, we see that in the film it is the responsibility of the men, not the women, to maintain sexual purity.  However, the extent to which one can label this text feminist is still very limited; Bella’s fate is completely controlled by Edward and Jacob.

Back when I was still playing MTG, my parents decided to buy my sister a Playstation for Christmas.  This was interesting, because I had always been the gamer in the family, and my parents had never dared to support my habit in any way.  However, my sister, who is a few years younger than me, was also starting to get into games; in fact, she and I had very similar tastes. We would go head to head in Golden Eye and then walk each other through Final Fantasy VII.  So, somehow my parents had the brainwave to help my sister into the world of gaming that had previously been purely my domain.

Of course, my parents are clueless when it comes to popular culture, so my mom asked me what game she should buy to go along with the Playstation.  I didn’t even have to think about it; Metal Gear Solid was the hottest game at the time, and I knew my sister would love it.  However, when I suggested this, my mom rolled her eyes, fixed me with an incredulous look and said “Richard, come on! How about a girl’s game?”

So I guess my mom thinks a game with the words “metal”, “gear”, and “solid” in the title could not possibly be appropriate for a girl.  Never mind that this was a revolutionary game that had changed lives the world over.  Never mind that I know what games my sister is interested in better than anyone.  Metal Gear Solid is not a “girl’s game”, whatever that means.  My sister ended up with Spyro the Dragon, which, by the way, totally blows.  I think my mom was sold by the fact that Spyro is a purple dragon.

This brings me back to the question: why don’t girls like games?  Here’s my hypothesis: maybe girls don’t like games because their parents keep buying them Spyro the Boring and Repetitive Dragon instead of Metal Gear “Best Game in the Universe” Solid. The author of the above article observes that “Casual games like Bejeweled and TextTwist are doing a great job of capturing women’s attention.”  Here’s an idea: instead of spoon feeding girls shitty puzzle games that require no attention or effort to play, why not introduce them to interesting, challenging, dynamic games and say “These games are for you.  These games are not just for your brother.  Go on.  Have fun.”

I’m Richard P.

Obviously, I’m not the only one whose interest in Batman has been piqued this year due to Christopher Nolan’s fantastic film The Dark Knight, and I’m sure I’m not the only Joker fanboy.  So interested was I in Ledger’s Joker character that I began reading the Batman books to slake my thirst for information about this sadistic, socially demented villain.  Particularly, I was interested in The Killing Joke by Allan Moore and Brian Bolland, which develops a slightly deeper origin story for the Joker than what existed in previous literature.  This seems to be the most definitive origin story for the Joker that has yet been written, but I don’t like it at all.  There are a few things I need, in order to be satisfied, from an origin story; I need to know what parts of the character’s personality were in place before the transformation, and what parts came after; I need to know what motivated the character to become the hero/villain; I need to know what kind of relationships with others the character had before the transformation; I need to know the overall world-view of the character and how it came to be.  Certainly, The Killing Joke has a few of these elements, but is still a bit simplistic and trite.  Some of this simplicity may be due to the fact that Moore was trying to write a story that was congruent with earlier Joker origin stories.

My dissatisfaction with this origin story got me thinking about how I would write the Joker origin story.  This in turn got me thinking about hero/villain origin stories in general and common characteristics that they all share.  A common element in many is the death of loved ones: Batman’s parents, Joker’s wife, Two-Face’s fiancé (in TDK).  Somehow, this traumatic event pushes these previously normal guys over the edge and causes them to devote their lives to fighting or perpetrating crimes.  Why is this?

Before I offer my hypothesis, I want to talk about Lt. Rick Randall.  Back when I was in high school with him, he was just Rick Randall (not his real name).  Lt. Randall died recently in a roadside bomb attack in Afghanistan.  He is the second person from my old high school class to die since we graduated.  The first was Adam Kelly (also not his real name), who died of suicide.  I haven’t been out of high school for very long, but already two of my old classmates have died.  Both were male.  Why is this significant?

Before I take a stab at this one, I want to talk about Dr. Susan Pinker, who gave a talk a few weeks ago on the subject of “extreme men, gifted women and the real gender gap”; the first point of her talk was that being male is much more dangerous than being female.  A man is statistically more likely to die at any time than a female.  Some aspects of this are easily explainable and some or not.  For example, males are more likely to take combat roles in the military, like Rick Randall did, and thus are more likely to be in harm’s way.  Also, for some reason that is mysterious to me, males are four times more likely to commit suicide, like Adam Kelly did.

I’m going to start talking about Batman again.  The Batman mythology has a peculiar way of criminalizing mental illness. Arkham Asylum, a maximum security prison/hospital, is where all of Batman’s captured foes are held; none of them get to go to regular jail.  In fact, mental illness is perhaps one of the most consistent themes in the Batman literature that I have been able to discern, although the discussion never seems to be very progressive or in-depth.  The Joker, Two-Face, Mad Hatter, Scarecrow and other Batman villains all have mental illness as the underpinning of their criminal deviance.  Even Batman is a sort of madman, so unable to find inner peace and bent on revenge that he dresses like a bat and terrorizes criminals as a form of self-therapy.

As I’ve stated, the origin of many of the most important characters was predicated by the death of loved one.  So, it’s as if these deaths somehow caused the mental illness that pushed these characters to transform into heroes or villains.  In each case, they destroy their former life and create a new life: Harvey Dent no longer fulfills his duty as DA once he becomes Two-Face, and Joker drops the comedian job after losing his sanity.  Batman sort of plays at maintaining his life as millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, but it’s all an act.  The important thing here is that all of these characters are committing a form of suicide when they destroy their old lives; unable to cope with the grief and stress of their losses, they destroy their old world and become obsessed with creating a new world and creating a new self, in which nothing from their old life is of any consequence.

In real life, we obviously can’t become super heroes or super villains.  Batman comics are, in some sense, vehicles for the fantasies of men who have no outlet for their frustrations and grievances against injustice in the world.  In Batman comics, if things get bad enough for a character, like really bad, the character can transform into someone with enough power to take action and do something about the situation—even if the action itself is horrific.  In real life, there is no such escape from the injustices of chance and an impersonal, uncaring world.  I’m sure that after a personal tragedy it often seems to many men, in real life, that there is no way they can rebuild their world or rebuild themselves, and so death is what they choose.

Military men, on the other hand, have chosen a profession that ostensibly allows them to fight for the benefit good people, against evil people.  A soldier has the chance to transform from an ordinary citizen into someone with enough power, courage and training to fight injustice head on.  But the reality of military service is random and cruel, not grand like in Batman comics.  Soldiers die while patrolling roads, from bombs planted by people who have no super-villain identity, or any known identity, for that matter.  Their work is necessary and heroic in a sense, but not glamorous.

This is the masculine world of mental illness, crime, heroics, and danger that Batman comics are a reflection of.  Batman and the Joker live extremely, as males tend to do according to Dr. Pinker, but hardly more dangerously than do real males—after all, Batman and the Joker never die.  The trauma that has lead to their origins is the same trauma that, for many real men, leads to their ends.  It’s the danger of being a man.

Interestingly, I have been able to find a few academic articles about Batman and suicide, although neither of them have anything to do with the Caped Crusader.  Still worth a look though?

A minute later, the light turned green, and the bus started to move.  But, instead of stopping to let these two people on, it just kept going.  As we sped by, I saw them waving and shouting, trying to get the attention of the driver.  I saw that they were of aboriginal descent.

It was clear to me that the driver must have seen these two at the bus stop; after all, it is the job of the driver to spot people waiting at the side of the road for buses.  The fact that these people, moments earlier, were obviously trying to get to the bus stop makes it even less likely that the driver could have missed them.  Even I saw them, and it isn’t even my job.

I got up from my seat and walked to the front of the bus where the driver was.  “Excuse me,” I asked, “but why didn’t you stop for those people back there?”  The bus driver calmly answered: “Well, they weren’t waiting at the right place.”  Let me assure you, dear readers, that they most definitely were waiting at the right place.  That wasn’t the problem.  The problem was that they were aboriginal.

So what did I say to this?

Nothing.  I went back and sat down.  I thought about reporting the driver at the main transit office.  I didn’t do it, though.

Last summer, I was buying some Cheese ‘n Onion Crisps at the local drug store.  Ahead of me in line at the checkout was an elderly aboriginal woman.  She bought something, and then presented a ten dollar bill and asked for change.  “Sorry,” said the cashier smugly, “I’ve already closed the till.  I can’t give you change.”

“But I need change for the bus” replied the elderly lady.

“Sorry!” was all the cashier had to say.  She was grinning ear to ear.

I was pissed off.  “Racism!” I thought.  I had an idea.  I would pipe in and say “actually, I’m about to pay cash for these crisps, so you can give her change then!”  Then I would smile smugly right back at that racist cashier.  But did I follow through with this?  No.  I did nothing.  The elderly lady hobbled out without her change and I paid for my Cheese ‘n Onion Crisps.

In each of these two circumstances, I allowed blatant racism to go unchallenged.  I passively supported the status quo.  I am ashamed of this.  I believe that it is the duty of every citizen to stand up for equality and justice.  In the future, I will do better.  I promise.