Hot Chicks of OWS dude: “rape jokes are legitimate!”

I paraphrase only slightly.

Via Feministe, it seems Stephen Greenstreet, the one-man brain-trust behind the Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street tumblr (no link this time — not even a nofollow), thinks he’s contributing to the movement by attracting dudes with erections. Erections that legitimize rape.

To protect the privacy of people who are Steven’s Facebook friends and because I just don’t feel like digging my heels in on this one, I’ve taken down the screenshot of Steven’s Facebook page. On that page, Steven linked to his “Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street” video, and added, “The way me and [a colleague] contribute to the movement.” A friend of his comments, “Way to legitimize the movement, Steve.” Steven replies, “An erection legitimizes anything.” His friend replies, “Even rape?” Steven Greenstreet says, “It probably wouldn’t be rape without one.”


Definitely no misogyny there! Definitely no apologetics for a rape culture, either.

And it’s even patently wrong on its face, when you understand the reality that men can be raped, either sex can be raped without penile penetration, and either sex can be raped with penetration by foreign objects. Rape doesn’t necessarily mean penis-inserted-into-vagina, a definition that precludes a lot of actual sexual assault from being classified rightly as rape.

This is the guy whose “respectful” video of women who were participating in the OWS movement is being defended by dudebros from all corners of the blogosphere. Yes, these women dressed the way they did, and joined a public movement where people might take pictures. No, it’s not okay to collect all those pictures and sort them into “hot” and “not hot”, then paste together the pictures and videos of the ones that gave you wood into a collage of PILFs for consumption by the general intertubes population. (“Protesters I’d like to fuck”, to those of you who aren’t sexist assholes.)

The usual defense is marshalled by Greenstreet’s supporters — namely, these women dressed this way in public, and they are therefore objectifying themselves. Coz slut-shaming women always works, right? Anyone dressing in something significantly less than a burka is just asking to be objectified.

And if they don’t dress up? They get ignored. So women are evidently only worth listening to if they walk some sort of fine line between slut and madonna. And if you work to subvert the system that created that dichotomy while walking that line, you’re apparently a hypocrite. A hypocrite deserving of having your picture taken and put on the internet for people to have a good wank over, because erections legitimize movements.

I know some of these women have themselves said that the videos are good, that they “show the feminine side of the movement”. However, I can’t help but contend that these women are blissfully unaware that the feminine side of the movement is being focused on to the exclusion of the point of the movement. I envy their delusions. Once your eyes are opened to why people are spreading your message, it’s hard to see things the same way again. And that’s probably because of all the flying spunk.

Hat tip to Michael Fisher for the link in the Occupy Wall Street photo memes post. Keep your goggles on, friend.

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Hot Chicks of OWS dude: “rape jokes are legitimate!”
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11 thoughts on “Hot Chicks of OWS dude: “rape jokes are legitimate!”

  1. 1

    There was a discussion of this in the comments of an open thread over at No Serious, What About the Menz? Which boiled down to one commenter being upset that male gaze is always defined as bad. I’m not sure I understood exactly what he was getting at, but the point I think he was making was that people were more upset over the females OWS protesters being objectified with that tumbler than the male version of the same thing.

    Personally I find it in poor taste because everyone’s opinion of what’s attractive is different.

    Why is it even important that attractive women are there for the protests? Are we seriously going to turn this into a great way to meet people you can eventually have sex with? There is nothing wrong with meeting people there, obviously, but for that to be the primary reason just boggles me. Is hooking up really more important than the fact that our economy is fucked? I’m sure the response would be I’m simply being too serious.

  2. 2

    The “male gaze” thing is how you know when something’s made for men for the purposes of objectification. You know that kickass comic with the strong, empowered woman that takes no guff? How come you usually see her with the panel framed around her ass?

    The male gaze is not necessarily a bad thing, if you’re the male and you’re gazing. As long as you understand that the owner of the body part you’re gazing at might not necessarily appreciate you spending so damn much time watching them like a creep. Gaze away.

    But taking pictures is a way of immortalizing that moment of male gaze. It takes that one snapshot of you looking at the person, and lets every other person who’s into women slip into your shoes for that one moment in time. And that takes the creep factor of YOU staring at booty, and ratchets it up to 11. Forever.

  3. 3

    And yeah, it’s different for guys. Though objectifying guys is not a good thing, they’ve been enculturated to believe that objectification is fine when they do it to women so it’s also fine when women (or gay men) do it to them. And they have less to worry about, with regard to potentially getting raped by the person taking pictures. While it happens, it happens far less frequently.

  4. 4

    I was shocked by the casual lack of empathy. I did wonder is he (choosing to be) blind to the Zeitgeist due to stupidity (denial, defiance)? Then I decided I didn’t care where the root of his deficiency lay because he’s just one of many.

    Please explain the goggles ref. It has me foxed:

    “Hat tip to Michael Fisher […] Keep your goggles on, friend”

    I was thinking paintballing & I looked in Urban Dictionary, but nothing

  5. 6

    they’ve been enculturated to believe that objectification is fine when they do it to women so it’s also fine when women (or gay men) do it to them

    Actually no. It’s fine if women are doing it, because *that’s* flattering. But if gay men do it to them? Then they are being treated as if they were women, and that’s *not* okay.

  6. 8

    I only watched a tiny bit of the video (I went there for the interviews) but I find it interesting…. I want to propose a thought experiment…

    …. say an unknown filmmaker wrote this:

    “There is a palpable contrast between the early days of counterculture protest, the 1960s, when social awareness was moving forward but feminism and the modern women’s movement was clearly NOT part of the youth-driven mostly anti-war activism. But today, women not only show up at protests but are more often than not the leader and organizers.”

    Then had a video of a bunch of women at Occupy Wall Street rallies with quasi classical music in the background.

    (OK, I should probably go and watch the whole video because for all I know it turns into “Girls Gone Crazy” (or wild or whatever) but at least in the beginning it isn’t that)

    Anyway, imagine those words with a video of women at occupy wall street and NONE of the documented highly questionable rhetoric about stiffies and such.

    There is wisdom in the words: “STFU”

    Michael, could the goggles be beer goggles?

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