File this under "things I did not want to imagine existed"

[flewellyn]

I'm all in favor of people inventing new and interesting ways to experience each other sexually. So long as everyone involved is a consenting adult human, nobody is injured, and everyone has a good time, I don't care what two or more people enjoy doing in the privacy of their own home/hotel room/RV/tent/empty field in the middle of nowhere with a wisk, a can of shaving foam, cellophane, tights, and a miner's helmet. I may not want to see the pictures, mind you, but I figure, as long as it's safe, sane, and consensual, whatever! I really don't care who's doing who, what they're doing with each other, and where they bought the equipment...usually.

There are, however, some things I happen upon which I think are truly screwed up and wrong. Things like the Gigimo Artificial Virginity Hymen.

The description, unedited:

No more worry about losing your virginity. With this product, you can have your first night back anytime. Insert this artificial hymen into your vagina carefully. It will expand a little and make you feel tight. When your lover penetrate, it will ooze out a liquid that look like blood not too much but just the right amount. Add in a few moans and groans, you will pass through undetectable. Its easy to use, clinically proven non-toxic to human and has no side effects, no pain to use and no allergic reaction.

I think it should be obvious why my reaction to this was (no pun intended), "What the FUCK?"

Are there really that many men out there who care that badly about their girlfriends or wives being virgins, that there is a market for such a thing? Apparently, there are. And apparently, there are enough women who feel, for whatever reason, that they must deceive their boyfriends or husbands into thinking they are virgins through the use of this device.

I would imagine that women who buy and use these devices do so to protect themselves from retribution, either from their boyfriends or husbands, or the larger community; it's not unheard of in some places for men who find that their new wives are not virgins, to kill them as a matter of "honor", or for the woman's family to do the same. And even if that's not the case, they may suffer great public shaming and social ostracism.

This is one of those things where, at first, I laugh, but then the implications hit me, and I sigh and get depressed. The sheer batshit insane patriarchal fuckedupitude is absurd on one level, but on another, it's deadly serious.

Comments

*sigh*

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

You know what? It's gonna sound like I'm going off on you, but I'm not. I'm going off on something you've said which I run into a lot, and which irritates me. It's just that you're the latest person to do it to me, and I want to explain why it bothers me.

I really really really hate it when I, or someone else, points out something truly fucked up and disturbing about the way the world works, and someone else comes along and says "Well, that's the way the world works."

We KNOW that this is how things are. We are saying quite explicitly that how things are is fucked up. We don't need to be told "Well, that's reality", because we are explicitly talking about an aspect of reality that needs to be changed.

I don't understand the failure of thinking that makes people do this. They're not always (or even usually) trolls or idiots, many of them are well-intentioned, but somehow they miss the fact that saying "this aspect of the real world is fucked up and wrong" is not a failure to recognize how the world really is. If anything, those of us who do this should be recognized as maybe, just possibly, trying to get other people's attention to a screwed up and wrong aspect of the world.

Re: *sigh*

[jennifoot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you are going off on me.

it *is* the way the world works and people should be reminded of that on a daily basis.

WTF?

I don't get why you are going off when I was totally agreeing with you.

Re: *sigh*

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

It's not you personally, if someone else had said it, I would have said the same thing.

It's just that I run into this all the time: I KNOW that this is the way the world works. That's the entire reason I wrote the post: to bring up that fact, and to point out the ways in which this aspect of the way the world works is broken.

Being told "well, that's reality" sounds dismissive and condescending. I'm pretty sure that wasn't your intent. That's just how it comes across.

Re: *sigh*

[jennifoot.livejournal.com]

Not once did I say "Well, that is reality". I said, "That is the reality of this product". There was nothing dismissive about that.

You say, gosh, the world is fucked up. I say, yeah, the world is fucked up, you say I am condescending and dismissive for saying the world is fucked up.

Talk about fucked up.

Re: *sigh*

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

I think we're talking at cross purposes here.

I think the problem is that I perceived you as trying to inform me what the reality was around the product, which I already knew and had mentioned in my post; it was mostly frustration that you didn't seem to have read what I wrote.

I'm sorry I got grouchy.

Re: *sigh*

[jennifoot.livejournal.com]

Yes, we were talking at cross purposes and I was unsuccessfully trying to say that.
Sorry I wasn't able to be more clear in my posts.

Re: *sigh*

[jennifoot.livejournal.com]

and just a reminder, post responses get emailed even when you delete them a second later.

Re: *sigh*

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I only deleted that because you'd deleted the comment to which I was replying, so I thought I would rephrase and get rid of the ugly "deleted post" bit besides.

Re: *sigh*

[jennifoot.livejournal.com]

Your rephrasing was a good choice ;)

Re: *sigh*

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

He didn't exactly "go off." I don't see a "fuck you" or anything reminiscent of that, in tone or explicit wording, anywhere.

Just to toss in my own two cents, part of what makes it frustrating, at least in my view, is that those type of responses seem to be suggesting that this reality cannot be changed, that somehow wanting to and trying to CHANGE the reality is in itself a naive denial of reality, somehow. There's a definite sense of "What'cha gonna do?" hand-raising. And it's this attitude, that people should just accept reality because it's absolutely immutable...that maintains the status quo in the first place.

Re: *sigh*

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

YES, thank you. That's actually a huge chunk of what's frustrating to me about it. It feels like a pat on the head and "There there, I know, it sucks, but what can you do?"

Re: *sigh*

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

Yep. I loathe that response, because all it EVER does is...nothing at all. Nothing gets changed, because people assure themselves that since nothing they ever do will mean anything, they don't have to bother.

(That's not directed at anyone in particular, just my opinion of the thought process).

Funnily enough, where I hear it the most is in regards to women taking steps to protect themselves from men. Too many of the people who focus on what women should wear, where they should go, whether they should travel in packs, etc., espouse this attitude. They're not blaming women at all; but since the world is NEVER EVER EVER EVER going to change (read: men are never ever ever ever ever going to change, and will always be uncontrollable animals) that women have to accept this and take responsibility.


At best, it's just a fatalistic, overly cynical view of humanity. At worst, it's a deliberate ploy to keep patriarchy going strong. Meh.

Re: *sigh*

[jennifoot.livejournal.com]

Good thing that wasn't my response, eh? ;)

Re: *sigh*

[jennifoot.livejournal.com]

And now you understand that was completely the opposite if what I was doing, right?

Re: *sigh*

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Yes, now I do. Or, I think that's the opposite of what you were trying to do. Not sure how well it worked.

Re: *sigh*

[jennifoot.livejournal.com]

Okie dokie then. I will not respond to anything totally agreeing with you anymore LOL.

Re: *sigh*

[jennifoot.livejournal.com]

"I don't understand the failure of thinking that makes people do this. They're not always (or even usually) trolls or idiots, many of them are well-intentioned"

Yeah, that is going off on me because he pointed out this was how he perceived my post.

The reality is that it could save a girl's life. That is sad and fucked up and people need to know. If people don't know, or refuse to accept that this really happens, it will never be changed. THAT is my attitude.