Literary Clusterfucks 2013

she doesn't use the r-word, but that is a rape accusation plain as day

Ned published the link yesterday afternoon. It was gone by the time I ambled along to see it early this morning. I don't find it hard at all to believe that the publishing house crossed their fingers and hoped that 10 or 15 hours of internet exposure might be salvageable. What I find truly odd is the timing of her post given that she could have torpedoed the book some time back before it went to the printers, if she had misgivings but now that it's out or almost out (unsure about the exact timing here) she's thrown a massive wrench into the book's very reason for being.

I don't think Valdes' post really changes my reading of the book—though it does make that reading significantly more depressing. The fact that the abused often identify with their abusers isn't news, of course. Judith Herman and Lisa Hirschman in Father-Daughter Incest (one of those second-wave feminist treatises Valdes says she's moved beyond) talk about how victims of incest often admire the "competence and power" of their fathers. The identification is part of the abuse—and, of course, enables it.

In comments on her post, Valdes insists that she still rejects the feminist ideology that prevented her from trusting men. She insists she still stands by her claim that "feminism stole my womanhood."

As I admitted in my review, there is something to the argument that feminism doesn't sufficiently respect femininity. But...good lord. Surely the answer to that is not abusive relationship as growth experience. Valdes's stereotype of feminism may not be right that all men can't be trusted, but clearly this asshole shouldn't have been. Can't there be some kind of reconciliation between feminism and femininity that doesn't involve women being terrorized by controlling, violent cowboys?

careful guys, some of you are coming pretty close to sounding like men's rights activists, i mean do you really have to bring up the spectre of the false or opportunistic rape allegations to make your point

the situation is fucked up for certain but nobody here has all of the facts so maybe stop being gross

just let the disappointing human frailty and misery wash over you, shit is fucked up and always will be

I have no opinion on whether she is making a false accusation or not but it's kind of fucked up that objecting to the idea of a false accusation of rape automatically makes you a men's rights activist

like, you should be able to voice the opinion that a specific person may not be trustworthy without being painted as a woman-hating dick

just let the disappointing human frailty and misery wash over you

solitary posts that effortlessly sum up etc

I think the accusation of rape is generally accepted here as well within believability, but that Valdes's actions make it difficult to see much integrity in her handling of... the whole situation. The most charitable explanantion is that she is extremely confused and that her confusion inevitably leads us all into a similar confusion about her motives. All we can do is point to the multitude of contradictions that are painfully apparent around her behavior. She is the only one who could possibly clear them up.

There's a lot of anger at the author as a person and a comment about her appearance and way too much animosity coming to the surface from some ppl itt. Gotta tell you, it makes me really uncomfortable about continuing to talk about it (more than I already was/am from the sheer distastefulness of the whole spectacle).

I don't want to make any judgments about Valdes. Her level of objective accuracy doesn't concern me w/r/t each individual event depicted, if she used the "r-word," if she writes over-dramatically by my estimation, if I would want to be besties irl, because to me the absolute most convincing parts are the most banal:

I was so beaten down by then, from the constant daily criticisms, from the constant erosion of my self esteem, that I just took it, and wept, and apologized, and promised to do better. I did not think I would become someone like that. And there was a part of me hidden away inside, kept safe, that watched it all and waited for my chance to escape…

when I tried to say I was sorry, when I tried to stop the inevitable stonewalling, he glared, called me a mouthy cunt, told me to get to my side of the bed and not touch him, told me that he couldn’t stand the sight of me, told me that if I really wanted to impress him then I’d be a good girl and just shut the fuck up, and his finger poking me in the chest, and then wagged in my face, telling me that my biggest problem, the reason he would never marry me after all, was that I was a woman who just didn’t know when to shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up, and me saying I would, that I would be quiet, and turning my back to him so he wouldn’t hear me cry, and him feeling the bed shake anyway and yelling at me that I was pathetic, that if I wanted him to stay then I better stop fucking crying, and me running into my closet with my phone to fall in a heap on the floor and text myself so that in the morning I’d remember that this was NOT okay, that this was NOT love, and him pretending the next morning that nothing had happened.

I don't get the impression that anyone in this thread is angry. I'm certainly not angry.

You may be projecting a little bit.

Very interesting -- so that Atlantic article I linked? She's RT'd the announcement of it and replied:

Alisa Valdes ‏@MizAlisa

@hoodedu I find this piece very even-handed, compassionate, and spot-on, and suppose that will get me sued or something.

and a comment about her appearance

Alright, despite my disliking her highlights that was merely a lame attempt at levity and if she wants to call me a mincing, fasetto-voiced sheep fucker, I'll take it in good stride.

All I can say, is that if my guy called me a mouthy cunt, they would pretty much be the last two words I ever heard from him.

Addendum: Because Valdes wants us to accept her book as full of insight, beauty and wisdom about how women should think and act toward men, this obviously tortured clustefuck pretty well discredits any pretensions she had about that, which at the very least means the book is full of crap.

Man, what if goole's worst scenario is true?! *Sigh*

Final addendum, I would hope.

Perhaps, as several here have said, we ought not judge her, but it is fairly clear to me that she had no problem judging feminists and feminism and stating those judgements in clear, harsh, outspoken terms. So, if we choose not to repay her in kind, it is a courtesy she was disinclined to extend to others.

All I can say, is that if my guy called me a mouthy cunt, they would pretty much be the last two words I ever heard from him.

It's pretty easy to say what you would do in an abusive situation until you're in one. I'm not comfortable making judgements on what I would or wouldn't do.

I don't know this lady or know that she was someone I would have found convincing BEFORE the cowboy incident, but being abused changes you even if you thought you were done becoming yourself or defining yourself or w/e. Even if you like to think that who you are is done now, that you have a firm basic nature that can't be swayed...it can. And it takes a while to dig out afterwards. You're not, like, cured from the time you decide to walk away.

Oh boy the part of the ilx clusterfuck where make judgment call on other ilxors, awesome.

I blame Ned for invoking it in the thread title

(Aimless painstakingly divides a lump of blame into a myriad of tiny bits, so they can be correctly apportioned to the proper recipients)

I don't get the impression that anyone in this thread is angry. I'm certainly not angry.

― Mordy, Thursday, January 10, 2013 9:40 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm fucking furious, to be perfectly honest. The vast majority of you are making me feel pretty disgusted.

Sorry that post of mine wasn't particularly helpful and definitely not needed, just, get sick of when these threads turn into ilxors sniping at each other (no matter how obliquely). I think we can all just agree that this is incredibly fucked up and that I guess be grateful that, no matter where things go now, she's out of that relationship.

I'm trying to stay emotionally disengaged and I don't have the energy to get into this today, maybe try another crack about how I'm projecting tomorrow and see if I'm up for it then.

Why wait until tomorrow?

I just assume that her claims of abuse are true. What she went through with that guy was horrible.

Before she went through this, she told an LGBT publication, via email, that she was bisexual, made the claim in her blog and on Wikipedia that they got it wrong, impugning their credibility, implied they were bigoted against her because she was straight, claimed that the LGBT community was out to get her, and then in another blog post claimed that she *was* bisexual, but that she was in physical danger from right-wing Cubans who wanted to kill her because this LGBT publication published that she was bisexual. She subsequently deleted that post.

Then she wrote this anti-feminist book.

http://i.imgur.com/nPPgO.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im8Z34fUuuY

Mordy, do you even have a point here or are you just trying to be an ass?

For the record I don't need to try to be an ass. I need to try not to be an ass.

Seriously, though, maybe ppl who find this kind of thing triggering should walk away from the conversation rather than demand all the angry posters just stop talking about it.

welp

How dare we discuss the post that this author posted on her public blog and the book that this author published with a publishing house! Who the fuck do we think we are?

god forbid any restraint or tact be exercised

I think we can all agree that this has gone from literary to literal.

Hmm, lovely, now we've got John Podhoretz and James Taranto spreading the word among others.

As far as I'm aware, nobody has asked people to stop talking about it. I personally have said stop talking about it like a bunch of fucking poisonous cuntstains who I would happily see dangling from a tree by their frenulums, but I haven't told anyone to stop talking about it.

Maybe you should work harder on that trying not to be an ass thing.

Welp, level "cuntstains" attained. Well done ilx.

Give me a break, emil.y. What was the most fucking poisonous cuntstain thing I said on this thread? That if it turned out he was an abusive rapist maybe she shouldn't be promoting this book in interviews as a love story?

As usual the self-righteous outrage eclipses anything that was actually said. Was it when Michael criticized the highlights in her hair? Was that when everyone became poisonous cuntstains?

Mordy, dude, you obviously haven't read all the articles Ned has helpfully provided if that's your cursory take.

I read the article about her lying about her bisexuality and her bipolar disorders, threatening wiki w/ lawsuits, I read her blog post in full, I read the slate book review of her book, and a few other book reviews. Which link in particular do you feel I missed?

That if it turned out he was an abusive rapist maybe she shouldn't be promoting this book in interviews as a love story?

This part indicates that you're glossing over quite a bit about how she is choosing to promote this.

Like saying on the radio that the cowboy "tamed the shrew" for her new boyfriend?

So far they've agreed that cowboys are hot and alpha-male behavior is understandably attractive to women because evolution. So this is definitely a good use of my time.

― grossly incorrect register (in orbit), Thursday, January 10, 2013 12:36 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh okay now she's saying her new boyfriend wrote the cowboy a thank-you letter for having tamed the shrew. Verbatim, btw. We're done here.

― grossly incorrect register (in orbit), Thursday, January 10, 2013 12:40 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

brb, gonna go back my head against a wall now. more productive and fulfilling than trying to continue discussing this with you. also, to try to just extricate myself from this cluster.

hahaha you mean you missed that part of the thread. no worries dude, go start a race war somewhere.

is it possible for you to disagree with someone without making a needlessly provocative personal jab?

yes, obviously. 99% of my posts disagree w/ someone without making a needlessly provocative personal jab.

like that one ^