Ok I'm gonna make a general post here. I specifically stated in my post that I wasn't saying that jokes were equivalent to genocide nor was I saying that making jokes will inevitably lead to genocide. What I was explaining was the pyramid of oppression and how oppressions are interlinked even when they aren't of the same intensity. No I really don't think that a sexist joke here or there will lead to genocide of women. That's a ludicrous belief to have and nobody that holds it should be taken seriously. What I was saying is that sexist jokes like the one duke made are problematic because they can feed a larger culture of sexism that can and does give tacit permission for greater abuses to happen. It is not equivalent but it is interconnected. And also I'd like to pre-emptively address another point. People always act like one specific thing is not that bad because it's just that, one instance. And one instance of a relatively minor aggression/abuse really isn't that bad. Except for this one micro-aggression doesn't exist in a vacuum. It exists in a space where it's just one more drop in a bucket that's already filled with other singular drops. Taken as one instance it doesn't really have any power but the combined weight of all these individual things is staggering. That is why I take things like the duke "joke" seriously.
Also don't panic I don't want to get into a giant fight either but trans dudes are dudes. Their vagina (if they have one) is a dude vagina and their ass is ass. I know that lots of people aren't interested in that when they look in the guys section of a site but it doesn't change the fact that their body is a dude's body. And, personally, I was less offended by Varka wanting the vids moved than how it was said (cuz I really do get that when people look in guys and toys they expect cis dudes and don't want to see vaginas) but it was the language that was used and the tone that it was done with. It wasn't a polite notification using respectful language that they want trans people porn in the trans porn space instead of the cis porn space it was a nasty demand followed up with childish behavior. That is what I was upset about, how the person was treated, not the request in general.
And also don't panic that was a really friggen awesome post about the history. I also don't think that the german people were sheep to hitler and that he was the originator of antisemitism in germany. I don't think my post made that clear and I'm sorry for that but I was tired and didn't want to write a novel. I think hitler was a brilliant manipulator and therefore capitalized upon something that already existed because one of the best ways to unite people is to give them a common enemy. Though I wasn't trying to give a direct history lesson, just show the way that the phenomena of increasing aggressions can happen. And I'll say it again I explicitly stated I wasn't paralleling the holocaust to sexist jokes, I was using a well known situation to illustrate a concept.
Last edited: Aug 14, 2014