yeah the reliance on responsibility in Mordy's account is worth digging into but idk what to think about that yet
xps!
― goole, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:40 (eleven years ago) link
then we're on totally different wave-lengths. i don't see why she doesn't have a responsibility for the literature she writes.
― Mordy, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:40 (eleven years ago) link
yeah, that's bullshit elmo
― Mordy, Friday, January 11, 2013 4:39 PM (49 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
http://hiphopwired.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/sad-elmo.jpg
― NINO CARTER, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:41 (eleven years ago) link
seems like a sad story. would prefer to see it as a postmodern stunt about utter futility of sex and romance.
― ryan, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:41 (eleven years ago) link
it would be one thing if i said she deserved to be abused or that she was asking for it or that she was in some other way to blame for the abuse, but that's obviously not what i'm suggesting and i would never say or think that
― Mordy, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:42 (eleven years ago) link
holding her to some kind of standard of integrity when she's clearly not really in control of a whole lot right now is weird to me. Like I understand that those principles might be important to you personally but to decry her whole situation because she doesn't adhere to some predetermined notion of How She Should Behave In This Situation is, well...I get it, but I don't get it and I don't get trying to be all DO U SEE when the 'evidence' is so murky that no one knows WHAT the fuck her real story is and that's the whole point of this thread!!
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:43 (eleven years ago) link
ugh
ppl aren't acting at all times w/in a vacuum where they have absolute agency, or like, "shit is complicated sometimes" idk
― 1staethyr, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:43 (eleven years ago) link
you just had your psyche and body violated for years by a man who felt like he owned you! here's what you should be doing about that experience! substitute my judgment for your own!
― horseshoe, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:44 (eleven years ago) link
like i am pretty sure i hate woman-penned anti-feminist tracts more than all the next guys but can we not proclaim loudly and authoritatively what people should do after such things on a rihanna-is-so-irresponsible-think-of-the-young-girls tip? let's keep an eye on who's really responsible, you know?
― horseshoe, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:45 (eleven years ago) link
TERMINATOR Why?
JOHN Whattaya mean, why? 'Cause you can't!
JOHN You just can't, okay? Trust me on this.
Terminator doesn't get it.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:45 (eleven years ago) link
<3
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:46 (eleven years ago) link
Abuse is not an excuse for perpetuating abuse, which is what pushing this book on her audience is doing.
― Mordy, Thursday, January 10, 2013 11:45 PM (Yesterday)
― fueled by satanism, violence, and sodomy (elmo argonaut), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:46 (eleven years ago) link
it's okay to just be generally grossed out by the entire situation though right?
― maura, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:46 (eleven years ago) link
ha i'd never really considered that exchange from T2. pretty profound, tbh
― goole, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:47 (eleven years ago) link
xpost yep, that's kinda why I'm here
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:47 (eleven years ago) link
I think everyone is generally grossed out by the entire situation
― Solange Knowles is my hero (DJP), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:47 (eleven years ago) link
How does her book compare to "getting back together with chris brown" on the responsibility scale? It seems that some posters think it's ok to criticize rihanna for her situation but not Valdez for hers?
― Sufjan Grafton, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:47 (eleven years ago) link
not if one of the ppl you're grossed out at is valdes apparently
― Mordy, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:47 (eleven years ago) link
yeah i mean, i stopped reading the thread early on, i think a bunch of stuff about how this lady is unappealing was eventually posted, which i have no trouble believing. fuck a bunch of things that people dub "post-feminist" i was just mad at all the long-ass this probably never happened also she's doing abuse survival wrong shit.
xxxxp to maura
― horseshoe, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:50 (eleven years ago) link
I'm with mordy, who knows how many books-a-million customers alisa valdes is raping right now, why doesn't anyone care
― son of telegram sam (Edward III), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:50 (eleven years ago) link
so if this author was abused, then publicly disclosed it, then recanted that disclosure, then she's responsible for perpetuating abuse, according to you're logic. qed?
i mean, if that's not "blaming the victim" then i'm not sure what you'd call it
― fueled by satanism, violence, and sodomy (elmo argonaut), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:51 (eleven years ago) link
your. ugh.
I used the word "gross" A LOT OF TIMES up-thread, above the fold. The grossness of a lot of the general situation doesn't preclude a less blamey and insistent take on...well, anything, though.
― grossly incorrect register (in orbit), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:51 (eleven years ago) link
you skipped a step "if she continues to market and promote a book that depicts an abusive relationship as healthy and natural"
― Mordy, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:51 (eleven years ago) link
well, then, that changes EVERYTHING
― fueled by satanism, violence, and sodomy (elmo argonaut), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:52 (eleven years ago) link
it's okay tho bc it's a part of her survival process
― Mordy, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:52 (eleven years ago) link
If this hadn't turned out to be an abusive relationship I would still be pretty unhappy with a book like this being written, being as it's more warmed over "MEN DOMINATE WOMEN BECAUSE OF BIOLOGY" garbage. I find a person who would write that kind of book to be of pretty poor intelligence, character and judgment, and at least upthread I thought things had kind of come to an understanding that it's not mutually exclusive that she's a person who got trapped in a horrible situation that is deserving of sympathy and also that she deserves criticism for her book in the first place. A book that she got paid $400,000 to write, btw, a lot of fucking money. That said, I recognize there may not be any easy course of action for her to take at this point.
― drunk 'n' white's elements of style (Hurting 2), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:52 (eleven years ago) link
And then Valdes publishes this today.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, January 10, 2013 1:15 AM (Yesterday)
since (Yesterday) she has yet to clarify things to my liking so i will judge her a rape enabler
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:53 (eleven years ago) link
let's say that someone else wrote the same book but as a biography of valdes based on interviews, and then it turned out that valdes was being abused and the interviews were lies. should that person continue to promote a book that is now clearly about abuse written in the idiom + context of an abuser knowing what they now know?
― Mordy, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:54 (eleven years ago) link
should they, no. should valdes, in a world where she's not a potentially emotionally messed up abuse survivor, i guess not. however
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:55 (eleven years ago) link
that's all then. if you believe she doesn't have a choice bc she is still recovering from the abuse, fine. i'm not denying that might be true. but she should stop promoting it. that would be the right thing to do.
― Mordy, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:56 (eleven years ago) link
however
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:56 (eleven years ago) link
it's been like a day and she's not mordy.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, 11 January 2013 21:57 (eleven years ago) link
i don't know what she is or isn't and neither do you
― Mordy, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:57 (eleven years ago) link
lol obv i know she's not a mordy
strictly speaking i can't be that certain, but i take you at your word
― goole, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:58 (eleven years ago) link
fwiw i don't have a history of claiming i'm not other people who i then turn out to be
― Mordy, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:58 (eleven years ago) link
I freely admit that idgi.
To me it is one thing to understand that abuse can render a victim into a place of extreme confusion about themselves, their relationship to their abuser, and what love really is, or what is true any more, leadnig them to appear wildly erratic in their actions, and self-contradictory from one day to the next, until they have finally undergone a long and difficult process of healing. My wife was abused as a child and it still affects her at age 60+. I get that part.
It seems to me to be another thing entirely to expect everyone to refrain from pointing out that the person is contradicting themselves from one day to the next, acting erratically, completely confused about their feelings, themselves, and their relationship with their abuser, because as we know the poor victim cannot help acting that way. What way? Oh, we cannot say that there is anything wrong with how they are acting or that it would be better to act any other way. Or that their frequent self-contradiction is any different from being clear-minded and level-headed, because this shows a lack of empathy. It is expected behavior, therefore it is beyond reproach?
That is what some of the angry ilxors seem to me to be saying here. That's what I Don't Get.
― Aimless, Friday, 11 January 2013 21:59 (eleven years ago) link
it's a HUGE leap between saying that promoting the book is unethical and the conclusion you've reached, accusing her of PERPETUATING ABUSE
― fueled by satanism, violence, and sodomy (elmo argonaut), Friday, 11 January 2013 22:00 (eleven years ago) link
ok, get over it. i think it's a shitty book that puts some toxic ideas out into the culture but if you think i was being hyperbolic then i will agree
― Mordy, Friday, 11 January 2013 22:01 (eleven years ago) link
yet again a conversation about abuse accusations has turned into a conversation about the moral character of the accuser. i see u rape culture ;)
― 1staethyr, Friday, 11 January 2013 22:01 (eleven years ago) link
i think that is sanctimonious ^
― Mordy, Friday, 11 January 2013 22:02 (eleven years ago) link
you would
― sleeve, Friday, 11 January 2013 22:02 (eleven years ago) link
haha I WAS JUST BEING RHETORICAL hey fuck you
― fueled by satanism, violence, and sodomy (elmo argonaut), Friday, 11 January 2013 22:03 (eleven years ago) link
it's difficult to square the seemingly paradoxical notions that a person can be a victim of abuse/oppression/etc and their behavior can only be understood in that context and then, as we so often do in the very next breath, assert that they are personally responsible for their own actions regardless of the larger determinative context. but I think that's exactly the kind of complex thinking these kinds of situations ask of us. You can try to be attentive to both.
― ryan, Friday, 11 January 2013 22:03 (eleven years ago) link
*punches alien* welcome to the kyriarchy
― max, Friday, 11 January 2013 22:04 (eleven years ago) link
― ryan, Friday, January 11, 2013 5:03 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
solid post
― drunk 'n' white's elements of style (Hurting 2), Friday, 11 January 2013 22:05 (eleven years ago) link
what a strange license plate
― how's life, Friday, 11 January 2013 22:06 (eleven years ago) link
Contradicting oneself and acting erratically are not qualities to be cherished and encouraged. They are part of the damage inflicted by the abuse. Pointing these out as undesirable behavior is not the same as taking sides against a victim. It is something they need to see, acknowledge and heal from. They are part of the pathology of abuse, not symptoms of a lack of moral fiber. But that doesn't make them good, or right, or even neutral qualities.
― Aimless, Friday, 11 January 2013 22:09 (eleven years ago) link