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Ads and Rape Culture: Only One Message Comes Through
It seems like a year ago now that I was abroad, especially as I look at some of the photos I took whilst away. Some of the photos, I wanted to put on my blog, and others are just for me to remember specific things and are for my eyes only.
I’m going to file the one featured in this post under my White Girl series and include it in my growing collection of ‘Whores: How the Chinese See White Women‘ photos/advertisements.
On my way back to China, I had an overnight layover at the Taipei airport. I spent hours wandering the place – most airports are kinda weird at night, and you can notice things you might not see when things are crazy and populated during the daytime. I’ve being in some shitty airports, and I’ve been in some state-of-the-art airports, and I’ve noticed something. The more modern the airport, the more apparent it is that they are male-dominated, capitalist strongholds that sell rape, and (mostly white) female objectification and subordination to the men of the world, and that convince the women of the world that it is sexy, required, and therefore ridiculous to complain about or oppose. And this is done very, very easily through advertisements. Pictures of vulnerable, pornified women draped over or adorned with crap that no one needs.
And most of the time, the ads are of pornified white women and girls. It is not a mark of privilege to be the most rapable, the most objectified. To be seen as cunt on legs is nothing to aspire to or envy. Sorry, ladies of colour. This is not privilege. And it is not what we freely choose, no matter what a handful of really loud fun-feminist cockpuppets tell you. When they open their mouths, you can actually see the head of a penis directing the show and talking away about its needs. Real feminists want ALL women to be completely free from being used in this way and to figure out what their place in the world is while free of male demands for penis worship.
Anyhow, while walking the miles of corridor in the Taipei airport, I ran across tons of pornified, two-dimensional white women and the products on which [rich men of all colours decided] their tits and pussies put the stamp of approval. And you know what? I often couldn’t figure out what product was being sold. The only thing that I knew for sure was for sale was the white girls and women themselves. I used to wonder if men were that fucking stupid to fall for this. I was disbelieving in my youth. We women always want to believe in the best in people, especially men and especially after they abuse us. But with age and more experience than I wish I had, I have come to know for sure that, frighteningly, yes, men are that dumb. Super dumb. And coupling lack of intelligence with entitlement and willful ignorance, they sink to unfathomable depths of violence and depravity, reducing females to things. So the advertisements are of things (women) selling things (products). All to make men (rapists) feel like men (rapists) who want and own shit – shit being both the women themselves and the stuff they are advertising. And of course, all to make women feel inadequate and distract them from pursuing more important things (careers, skills, independence, self-confidence) than becoming temporarily desired (hated) objects.
The most disturbing advertisement I saw that night was selling white pedophelia. It was a larger than life poster of a vulnerable-looking, white girl-child with almost-exposed, barely-formed breasts. As you can see below, she looks like she has been violated – that haunted, ‘is rape all I can expect from life?’ look – and is just realizing that she is just a fuckhole. I think she might be selling a watch (?), but really, it is just White Girl Tits and Pussy™ that are being sold.
She *might* be 18, but she looks about 12. And that is the point.
It seems like a year ago now that I was abroad, especially as I look at some of the photos I took whilst away. Some of the photos, I wanted to put on my blog, and others are just for me to remember specific things and are for my eyes only.
I’m going to file the one featured in this post under my White Girl series and include it in my growing collection of ‘Whores: How the Chinese See White Women‘ photos/advertisements.
On my way back to China, I had an overnight layover at the Taipei airport. I spent hours wandering the place – most airports are kinda weird at night, and you can notice things you might not see when things are crazy and populated during the daytime. I’ve being in some shitty airports, and I’ve been in some state-of-the-art airports, and I’ve noticed something. The more modern the airport, the more apparent it is that they are male-dominated, capitalist strongholds that sell rape, and (mostly white) female objectification and subordination to the men of the world, and that convince the women of the world that it is sexy, required, and therefore ridiculous to complain about or oppose. And this is done very, very easily through advertisements. Pictures of vulnerable, pornified women draped over or adorned with crap that no one needs.
And most of the time, the ads are of pornified white women and girls. It is not a mark of privilege to be the most rapable, the most objectified. To be seen as cunt on legs is nothing to aspire to or envy. Sorry, ladies of colour. This is not privilege. And it is not what we freely choose, no matter what a handful of really loud fun-feminist cockpuppets tell you. When they open their mouths, you can actually see the head of a penis directing the show and talking away about its needs. Real feminists want ALL women to be completely free from being used in this way and to figure out what their place in the world is while free of male demands for penis worship.
Anyhow, while walking the miles of corridor in the Taipei airport, I ran across tons of pornified, two-dimensional white women and the products on which [rich men of all colours decided] their tits and pussies put the stamp of approval. And you know what? I often couldn’t figure out what product was being sold. The only thing that I knew for sure was for sale was the white girls and women themselves. I used to wonder if men were that fucking stupid to fall for this. I was disbelieving in my youth. We women always want to believe in the best in people, especially men and especially after they abuse us. But with age and more experience than I wish I had, I have come to know for sure that, frighteningly, yes, men are that dumb. Super dumb. And coupling lack of intelligence with entitlement and willful ignorance, they sink to unfathomable depths of violence and depravity, reducing females to things. So the advertisements are of things (women) selling things (products). All to make men (rapists) feel like men (rapists) who want and own shit – shit being both the women themselves and the stuff they are advertising. And of course, all to make women feel inadequate and distract them from pursuing more important things (careers, skills, independence, self-confidence) than becoming temporarily desired (hated) objects.
The most disturbing advertisement I saw that night was selling white pedophelia. It was a larger than life poster of a vulnerable-looking, white girl-child with almost-exposed, barely-formed breasts. As you can see below, she looks like she has been violated – that haunted, ‘is rape all I can expect from life?’ look – and is just realizing that she is just a fuckhole. I think she might be selling a watch (?), but really, it is just White Girl Tits and Pussy™ that are being sold.
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Conversations with Men: You’re White, So Put Down Your Lunch and Give Me a Blow Job
I’m baaack. Not that it matters to online readers, since we all transcend time and place here, but I’m back in China after 3 incredibly long weeks in the US.
Get set. I’m about to drag another one screaming from the vault. While I have much to talk about that is more current or more recently on my mind or related to events during my travels, I think it was my trip back to Asia the other day via a Taiwanese airline, sitting beside a few Taiwanese folk on the long first leg of the trip, and then spending an exhausting 9-hour layover in the Taipei airport in the middle of the night, that stirred up some memories.
I lived in Taiwan for a couple of years in the early part of this century, and it was rough. As rough as living in mainland China? Jeez, that’s hard to say. China is probably worse in many ways. But Taiwan is no picnic either. I was younger, fresher, less apocalyptic than I am now. I still had so much to learn then. And learn I did. Taiwan was full of hard lessons that have helped shape me, helped turn me into the tough, middle-aged, jaded, hard-to-disappoint-further, been-there-done-that woman that I am today.
Before I get into the story, I want to talk a little about this thing called ‘white privilege’. First, I’ll just say that ‘white privilege’ is a thing, but I want to talk specifically about what it means and where it applies. You see, even though it is a real thing – for men – it is also a buzzword used by Western people to shut other people (mostly women, mostly white women) up. Westerners forget that they usually cannot apply Western socio-political models to non-Western countries. We are taught that in all cases and in all places, whites rule. But on the ground, in individual countries, it is easy to see that that isn’t actually true. Racism isn’t a black and white issue like misogyny is. The ‘white privilege’ trope is Western liberal-speak / non-think, and typically it is people who have never lived – and I mean, really lived – in a non-white-ruled country who scream the loudest about this non-existent, international white privilege, and also who point the finger at white women to shoulder all of the blame for what white men have done throughout history.
So, I’ll tell you how this works based on my experience living and working for about 8 years among the ‘real people’ (not staying in 5-star hotels working for international corporations and making 6, 7, or 8 figures a year) in countries with non-white rule. There is no such thing as ‘white privilege’ in a country where there are no white nationals and no whites in political office or policy shops. There are countries where white men came in and wreaked havoc on local populations (especially the women), ruled for a while, and then left. While there, they would have had white privilege, and now that they don’t rule, they don’t. The race that rules has to have political, legal, and economic power in that country. They don’t have to have to be the demographic majority, they just have to have the political, legal, and economic power. And extremely important, racial privilege is predominantly a male thing. Nowhere do women have political, legal or economic power to rival men. The only time a woman can have any claim to racial privilege is among women, and even then, the power isn’t that great. Women just don’t have much power. Period. And race does not win over sex. A woman of the ruling race does not have power or advantage over a man of the non-ruling race. That is true everywhere in the world. We see that with the recent horrors in Germany. Muslim men have relentlessly attacked white women in a country where there is ‘white privilege’, but the crimes are being hushed up. It’s as if they didn’t happen. The women have been blamed and controlled and continue to suffer and are terrified. The non-white men have been coddled and are allowed to stay and continue what they’re doing. People feel sorry for them. Penis trumps vagina, regardless of race. Always. Always. Always.
In Taiwan, there is Asian privilege, and it applies to the Taiwanese males of the country (except in groups of women, where Taiwanese women will have Asian privilege over non-Asian, non-Taiwanese women). White men may be given some respect or consideration because they are men and because their success and riches are envied by the world. White women are not respected, however. They will get attention, but it is not the enviable kind. The attention a white woman is given is based solely on what women everywhere in the world get attention for: their physical attributes – specifically, their fuckability– which is decidedly not power. ‘Sexual power’ – a term invented by men and lib-fems to mean attention from and ability to distract men due to being highly fuckable – is not power.
And so with that out of the way, I bring you another tale from the Conversations with Men series and White Girl series. Enjoy, enjoy!
~~~
Rewind to 2004: I had spent my first 14 months in Taiwan as a workaholic living in the small, over-crowded, and very polluted city of Taipei. I had worked 6-7 days a week. I had a primary job that secured me my work visa, and a whole bunch of little jobs on the side in publishing, editing, writing and teaching. Part-way through 2004, I decided to cut back on the work and started studying Mandarin formally and regularly. There were aspects of this life that I liked, but there was a lot that was unacceptable and that I wouldn’t put up with nowadays. Even with the work-focus change, and with the increase in free time that went with it, life didn’t improve that much, and that was 100% due to the racism-misogyny, white whore special that I was experiencing, but not quite seeing for what it was.
I had been living near Liberty Square (not the name when I lived there), which is a fabulous little park with winding paths surrounding three major monuments/buildings, including the National Theatre and the National Concert Hall. It’s a great place at any time of day for exercise, meeting up with friends, or quiet contemplation.
Or at least I thought it was until one day at noon.
With my greater free time in my second year there, I sometimes went to this park to find a quiet bench on which to eat my lunch and read. I was in the middle of doing just that when a man came up to me. He approached slowly with his wallet out. Without any attempt at verbal communication, he began indicating through body language that he wanted me to suck his dick, and that he would pay me for it. I noticed a male friend of his waiting in the distance to see what would happen. Was he offering me money for the both of them? Just him? I had no idea. I told him to get lost and used a hand motion to indicate I was sweeping him away from me. He persisted. Insisted. Took the (pitifully low amount of) money out of his wallet and started shaking it in my face. Pointed at his groin. Pointed aggressively at my mouth. Friend in the distance, laughing and looking eager, nervous, antsy. I couldn’t get rid of him. For some reason, he had decided that I, with short hair and no make-up, in my trousers and short-sleeved, men’s buttoned shirt and sensible shoes, sitting on a bench eating my lunch, with a book in one hand, was obviously on prostitution duty. I will tell you this. There could have been no mistaking me for a prostitute. It was simply this:
I was a white woman.
He was male and the dominant race.
I existed as a whore to service his cock, just like all white women in the world.
I knew I was in danger. Even though I was not yet clued into the idea that I was experiencing misogyny and racism on a daily basis, instead of just ‘bad luck’, I did know that I was in serious danger. I quickly left the bench, lunch and book in hand and ran. I ran like hell. Despite it being broad daylight with lots of people around, I wasn’t safe. And strangely, almost all of the ‘Asian man assaults’ I have experienced have been in broad daylight with people around and not giving a shit. Sometimes watching me be assaulted. Apathetically. White whore. Look at what they do in our country. They make trouble.
Needless to say, the park was ruined for me. Lunch never happened there again.
I’ve been talking to folks recently about the Burning Times and the whole thing about dicks in a box. And as I was writing this post, I thought wryly, when a woman orders a boxed lunch*, she definitely doesn’t want dick on the menu… Not related, but the mind does what it does.
*aka ‘packed lunch’ or ‘brown bag lunch’
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How I Lost My Smile
I hope I won’t meander too much here. This isn’t a straightforward little Aesop’s Fable with a sweet little bottom line. It’s involved, layered, and there is no clear conclusion. Just something I’ve been thinking about for years and that I continue to think about as I experience more and more and find myself further down that downward spiral that is life as a woman.
Let’s just start with this: Canadians are miserable fuckers. I’m saying this as a Canadian and one who tries to spend as little time there as is humanly possible. As evidence, despite my great boredom on ‘holiday’ here in the US from China, and despite the fact that I have a piece of business I need to take care of up North, I’ve decided not to cross the border. I just hate the place. A small part of it is that Canadians are miserable fuckers. Various data/polls even show it. I remember a comparison poll I once read about done by the airline industry on the differences between Canadians and Americans, and they found that the number one thing American airline passengers hated was fellow passengers who brought too much carry-on luggage. Canadians? The number one hated thing was strangers sitting next to them trying to talk to them. Yeah, miserable fuckers.
But it’s all relative. Canadians are, for example, much, much friendlier and more helpful than the Chinese who are some of the rudest, most selfish, emotionless and humourless assholes on earth. But we’ll get to that.
And I will say this, having disparaged my fellow countryfolk, friendliness varies depending on where you are in the country. I’ve travelled a fair amount in Canada, and I’ve lived in four of the 13 provinces/territories. Having grown up in one of the nastier parts of the country, it was a breath of fresh air to move to the West Coast. I’d say that about American geography, too. I’ve lived on both American coasts and also travelled through 25-30 of the 50 states. While Americans are much friendlier than Canadians, in general, the West is waaaay friendlier than the East. And I’m talking basic friendliness, not politics or ability to think, etc.
Living on the West Coast, and in particular, on the various islands is a different world. People look each other in the eye. Strangers say hello to one another on the streets. You strike up conversations with people at bus stops. You help your neighbours. And people smile. Could be the weather. I really do think better weather makes for more easygoinginess, in general. It’s not that simple, of course, but I think it plays in. So when I moved out there in my later 20’s, I felt myself relax, connect more easily. And I smiled a hell of a lot more.
If you don’t think about smiling in particular contexts and the meanings it can have, you can make the blanket statement that smiling is good for your health. I have felt that, and still do to this day. Exchanging an ‘unloaded’ smile (I’ll get to that in a moment) with a stranger can change your frame of mind and put a different spin on whatever is going on in your mind.
But then there are the ‘loaded’ situations. This is where men come in and ruin things for women like they ruin every fucking, innocent, positive thing on the planet with their filthy minds and need to humiliate and dominate.
It is dangerous to smile at or around men. It is also dangerous not to smile at or around men. Nothing is safe, but a blank look – the kind you see on rape victims or women destroyed by working in porn – is best. Smiling at or around a man can, TO HIM, mean, that you want him, want sex, want to be approached, are submissive and friendly and compliant, and are the perfect victim/prey. Not smiling, and even scowling, may invite sexual harassment, belittling requests for a smile (“Smile for me, honey. It’s not that bad.” Um, yes it is. Now that you’re talking to me.), or the seeing of you as a threatening bitch in need of punishment. Women are required to smile in order to make men feel like men and to help them get what they want from you. Fucking fuckers.
But having said all that, it is not Western men who made me lose my smile, although I will say that now that I have been permanently affected and my eyes are fully open, I don’t waste smile energy on them anymore.
No, I lost my smile due to long-term immersion in Chinese culture. And it took only a month for the first changes in my behaviour to occur.
I still remember my very first month in Taiwan. I’d gone directly from the West Coast of Canada – happy, smiley territory. I was bright-eyed and pleased to be working in a foreign land once again. Until I got there. Despite having a machine gun held up to my face by an aggressive young man on the second day I was there, I still remained my smiling self. But I realized something. Not only did the Taiwanese not return my smiles, ever, the only thing I ever saw were blank, robot-like faces, or just plain old disgust. It was bizarre, and very disheartening. Chinese culture discourages emotion. Emotion = bad, weak, out of control. Even fucking smiling.
Even the children don’t smile. Even most babies!!! Back in those days, in between my regular teaching, publishing, editing and writing jobs, I took on some private language-teaching sessions with the children of rich families. I had one weirdo kid – an 11-year-old boy from a very rich family – who had a freakish interest in out-moded English vocabulary and whose mother would enrol him in adult-level film classes (um…). And oh yeah, the kid refused to smile or even laugh because he thought it made him ‘look ugly’. I got him to engage in some tailored, fantasy/comedy-based murder-mystery story-writing centered on the strange-looking photos of the authors of one of his English books. His stories were hilarious and I laughed my ass off. The kid would start to laugh and then deliberately choked on it to prevent himself from getting all ugly. But I pushed and pushed and finally one day he started laughing and couldn’t stop. Every time I came by his home after that, to his mother’s confusion, the kid would spend the first five minutes laughing hysterically before exictedly whipping out the next instalment of his who-dunnit.
Jezus fucking christ. My biggest accomplishment in Taiwan. Forget the textbook I published, I got a fucking little kid to learn to smile and laugh. Pathetic.
I spent a couple of years in Taiwan, found myself changed fundamentally in a negative way, but not entirely smile-less. I returned to Canada for about 6 years. And then I went back to a culture I said I’d never return to, and I’ve been in Mainland China almost solidly for the past 6 years. The Mainland is even worse than Taiwan, which might be expected given the history and the sheer terror that communism wreaked on the country for so long. And having been there so long, I’ve had a lot of time to study and reflect on the culture and how I have adjusted to it and been mostly destoyed by it.
China killed my smile. It’s not that I am incapable of smiling. I do it a fair amount when warranted. It is much less automatic or natural though in these situations. But in public, outdoors, it never happens. Never in China. And while it has a significant effect on how I feel inside and my outlook, in general, it helps me dissociate, which is necessary when you are a white woman in China. It also saves me a lot of energy. I was quite surprised actually, when I began to analyze the effects of the implemented changes to my public demeanour in China. I used to try to be ‘present’ when I went out, and it was exhausting and demoralizing, especially because there was never any reciprocation from the Chinese. Once I started behaving like them, things became, I don’t know… streamlined? Energy-efficient? Self-centred? I’m not sure what the right word is. I mean, I absolutely hate the way it has changed me, but at the same time, I don’t feel exhausted every time I finish an outdoor ordeal. Going outdoors is always an ordeal. The funny thing is this: I know from feedback from some of my students, that they think I look angry or they are a bit afraid to approach me. But the thing is that I look exactly like them, expression-wise. Blank face. ‘Chinese face’ is what some of them call it. But as a Westerner, and especially as a woman, I am expected to be the kind and entertaining dancing monkey. Double standards. But it saves me energy and I don’t have to be concerned with how I appear when I don’t waste time on distorting my face into something I’m just not feeling. I want to feel nothing, so I put nothing on my face. It becomes easier and easier.
The double standards happen in the West, too – only for women though. We must be the happy slaves at all times. Men can wear whatever the fuck they want on their faces including murderous rampage or disgusting, rapey perv. They’re fine no matter what. Not so for women. Now that I’m visiting the US, I have relaxed a little, but I am much more economic and mindful of my smiling. Tons of women have smiled at me, and I smile back. No problem, and it feels good. I like women. I like the solidarity and energy I feel when exchanging a smile with one. But I don’t smile at men anymore. I try not to even look at them. I’m mindful of where they are in relation to my person, but I don’t look at them. And I don’t scowl. I adopt blank, trauma-face. It is the safest. And so far, so good. I am hyper-aware without perhaps appearing to be so. I come across perhaps as on a mission, hopefully ‘not prey’.
I hate that men and male culture have destroyed something so simple as smiling and relating positively to people. I don’t feel natural, comfortable, easygoing, or healthy. Thanks, China. Thanks, men. Thanks, international Patriarchy.
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