Tiger Beatdown

So, here we have an apology, for the piece Jezebel published last Wednesday advocating groping, purposefully intoxicating a woman in order to fuck her, and various other things along the lines of “sexual assault,” from editor Jessica Coen. That’s great. I have to say, just in response to comments on our last piece on the subject, that this was never some “Tiger Beatdown versus Jezebel” thing; you don’t have to choose, and I don’t want to go around killing other lady blogs so you’ll read mine. Ladies need as many lady-supportive spaces as they can get, I’ve learned through some hard experience, which is why the Pasteck article was such a big deal. A few questions remain:

• Where’s the apology from Edward Pasteck, the author of the piece?
• Who is Edward Pasteck? As per Coen’s comment, he is a real person, and a “he,” which clears up some lingering concerns as to whether he even exists. But he has no history of published writing elsewhere. “Edward Pasteck” is a pseudonym. Which means that either the first article this man ever wrote was published on the most prominent feminist-leaning website currently in existence — which would be pretty sexist in and of itself — and that he was somehow able to get through the door without any resume or experience to speak of, and that he was able to do all of this despite advocating against some of the core beliefs of its readers and apparently its writers, or that he has written, under other names, and that this information was protected in order to give him anonymity while advocating sexual assault.
• Either way, I fully understand why some people need anonymity on the Internet. I only disclose my birth name to my actual friends (although it doesn’t matter, because everyone calls me “Sady” anyway. And “Doyle” is real). But this is very different: This man was given both a platform, and anonymity, to promote his pro-sexual assault stance, and to be shielded from accountability. In my opinion, this won’t be right until we know who Edward Pasteck is and how he got the job, because, honestly, if a guy says something like this? Firstly, he needs to be held accountable. And secondly, women need to know who he is, so that they can protect themselves by avoiding him.
• I’m really glad this apology went up, though. It’s great. I appreciate it. But, as a final point, I could not disagree more that “we’re not always doing our job if we don’t ourselves publish and discuss that with which we may disagree.” None of us are obligated to publish anything. We have nothing against publishing dudes here at the Tiger Beatdown — it’s mostly me and Garland posting here, these days, which means we are a 50% dude-created space — but it is entirely reasonable that a space for women not be obligated to publish views which actively harm women. Furthermore, the idea that we’re somehow avoiding these beliefs by not giving their advocates a platform is inaccurate. Feminists spend more time with these beliefs than anyone, especially feminist writers — Cara Kulwicki, at The Curvature, spends more time researching and reporting on actual rape cases than any publication I’m aware of. The rest of us spend hours dredging though this stuff, so as to understand it, so as to write about it, so as to stop it. There’s a difference between informing your readers and assigning pieces to sexual assault advocates. I think it’s a pretty clear difference.
• Besides, if we really wanted to get ideas like Edward Pasteck’s straight from the source, we have, say, the entire rest of the Internet on which to find them. Or real life. Where we’re getting harassed on the street. Much like the ladies in Paris, in fact!

Well, hey there! Guess what exciting new oh-Lord-not-my-vagina type issues emerged RIGHT THE HELL AFTER I took a plane out to the Ohio?

Splendid. So the news, for those of our readers who have been trapped inside of a well for the past week or so, and have only just emerged thanks to the help of their loyal border collies, is this: There are body scanners. They can see you naked. Sometimes you have to go through them, “randomly,” at the airport. We’ve been promised that the images will never be saved or leaked or used abusively, just like all those other body scanner images that have been saved, leaked, and/or used abusively. Your alternative to being Hudged by the forces of Jet Blue? Why, you can get a “patdown,” of course! Wherein TSA agents will stick their hands down the front of your pants, check both overboob and underboob, and wedge their hands right up in your crotch, for good measure, so that you will be in an extra-good mood for visiting Gramma. Basically, everyone is having some fun and/or consent issues for the holidays!

One person who has been faithfully covering these issues, of course, is Amanda Hess of TBD. And one person who faithfully reads and/or professionally GChats with Amanda Hess of TBD is me! Join us, therefore, as we pat down the many suspicious crevices of this particular issue.

(Continued)