Anonymous Presentation

Healing as (We)Blog in a Show Tits or Leave World

AN INQUIRY INTO ANONYMOUS

THE QUESTION OF HUMOR At ED we archive the lulz...[and] lulz is laughter at someone else’s expense...This makes it inherently superior to lesser forms of humor...the anguish of a laughed-at-victim transforms lol into lulz, making it longer, girthier, and more pleasurable...and is the only good reason to do anything, from trolling to consensual sex. (Encyclopedia Dramatica)

ENCYCLOPEDIA DRAMATICA

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WHO IS ANONYMOUS?

WHAT

THINKS OF WOMEN

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SHOW TITS OR GTFO

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A RAPE CULTURE The Rape Culture of “Meatspace” Feminist theorists have consistently argued, in what seems to me clearly logical and transparent ways, that we live in a rape culture. Our lives are controlled by the constant threat of rape. To be clear, I am distinguishing between “fear” and “threat.” Although it may be accurate to say that all women fear rape, fear is something specific to the individual. I'm talking about systemic control. While the fear of rape may influence the way that an

condone acts of violence. An imbalance of power relations among the genders as well as among those of different racial, ethnic, religious, and class background (to say nothing of the blatant hostility to same-sex relationships) is the scaffolding that allows a rape culture to go unchecked. As Andrea Dworkin noted in her 1983 address to the Midwest Regional Conference of the National Organization for Changing Men, by not actively working to dismantle this rape culture that is inherently beneficial to men, makes them accomplices in the terrorization of women. The failure to act makes us all accomplices in a culture of violence, misogyny, racism and homophobia.

it is the threat of rape that controls the way that we all, men and Is there a rape culture in women, are culturally conditioned. individual woman engages the world around her,

In Against our Will: Men, Women and Rape Susan Brownmiller made the first comprehensive attempt to conceptualize rape on a macro level. The basic principle is that because we are immersed in a culture that frequently sexualizes and decriminalizes acts of rape and because as women we are taught to be ever-vigilant in protecting ourselves against rape, the threat of rape functions as a mechanism for control and domination. According to

cyberspace?

In the Spring 2008 issue of Bitch magazine, “Whack Attack--Giving the Digital Finger to Blog Bandits,” Jaclyn Friedman discusses this summer's attacks on feminist blogs. Friedman, while guest-blogging on the popular feminist site. Friedman and other bloggers believed at first that the posters were trying to silence them and so they “decried these attacks in blog after blog;” they fought back, refusing to be silenced. As Adrienne Rich has said:

“rape has played a critical function...a conscious process of intimidation by which “ s i l e n c e i s o p p r e s s i o n , i s Only these posters weren't trying to all men keep all women in a state violence.” silence the women and men posting on these of fear” (15). As I write this, over thirty feminists sites; on the contrary, they were trying to Brownmiller

years later, I have the benefit of decades of research and theorizing on rape and its social functions. As a result, I am more inclined to understand this issue as a systemic one, perpetuated by a patriarchal culture (in part contributed to and continued by individual men) that enlists rape as a method of social control. Still, deflecting all blame on the institution of patriarchy isn't sufficient , since institutions are created and upheld by people, men and women. Patriarchy is not the rapist and not all men are trying to control all women through the threat of sexual violence. Nevertheless, patriarchal systems of inequality provide fertile ground in which individuals are encouraged to implicitly (even at times explicitly)

piss them off; they wanted them to respond. So, unwittingly, the bloggers gave Anonymous just what they wanted--“hostile chaos” or, assuming you aren't the one whose site is being attacked, lulz.

WHAT ARE LULZ? Is blatant sexism humorous? Does dehumanizing others constitute humor?

Does lulz humor go to far? When does humorous language become violence?

ATTACKING WOMEN: FOR THE LULZ

This past summer a series of attacks were leveled at

feminist blogs after members of Anonymous attacked Biting Beaver for comments she made regarding her son. While many feminists (myself included) were horrified by her remarks, we were more horrified by Anonymous’ response. They made death threats, published Biting Beaver’s address, and called for people to find her home and rape her and kidnap her son (for his own good, of course.) Biting Beaver’s comments were violent and reprehensible. Do violent comments warrant a violent response? And do threats of rape and murder constitute humor?

A fellow blogger came to her defense and received comments like this one: A. Friend | [email protected] | IP: 66.90.103.37 Heart, this is horrible. I’m sorry that this is happening to you. These people want nothing to do but to hurt you and your cause. I feel for you. In fact, I want to feel you now. I’d like to tie you down, take a knife, and slit your throat. I’d penetrate you over and over in all orifices, and create some of my own to stick myself in. [5] Not

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