An Open Letter from Me, Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, to Pro-Porn, Pro-Prostitution, Misogynist, Male-Centered, Anti-Feminist Persons
Nov 17th, 2008 by admin
This open letter will be very short.
I won’t be silenced. I will continue to vocally and outspokenly oppose pornography, prostitution, sex trafficking, the enslavement of women, male dominance, white male heterosupremacy, and all brutality towards women throughout the world. There is nothing anyone can do, in the end, to silence me, to discredit me, or ultimately, to stop me.
Just sayin’.
Heart
The blogosphere is the weirdest place in the world. Someone just attempted to chide me because other people “can’t get a word in edgewise” here. Um. Since yesterday I have approved 35 comments (not counting my own 6). Sounds like word-in-edgewise to me.
Not to mention, people have the whole internet in which to get as many words in as they want. People are so strange.
Of course, what they mean is, they can’t troll the place and turn it into a trainwreck (they try, believe me, but no, I am not having it.) We get to have the discussions, as radical feminists, that we need and deserve to have. We make a lot of sense, and people will read and see that for themselves, and that can’t be allowed, huh. There are some very sick people out there, truly.
“Of course, what they mean is, they can’t troll the place and turn it into a trainwreck”
Reminds me of how I got accused of censorship when I removed myself from the dodgy William & Mary College debate. Because not allowing someone who has harassed me online the opportunity to harass me in person is the same as abusing governmental powers to suppress political dissent. There is no right to force people to hear angry invective.
These folks remind me of that place in Africa where the women decided to live apart from the men, but the men were so steeped in their entitlement to female slaves they saw the women’s withdrawal from men’s abuse as a declaration of war to be acted on with first-strikes against the successful womentown. The men who raid that women’s village believe in their “right to respond” to what they perceive as an act of aggression by women who dared to walk away from the abuse men wanted to keep perpetrating.
“what they mean is, they can’t troll the place and turn it into a trainwreck (they try, believe me, but no, I am not having it.)”
I’m sure they do. Thanks for your moderation! We really don’t need yet another feminist blog ruined by paid operatives.
I have a few guesses about who this message may be directed at. I know you didn’t ask for advice, but I’d suggest continue moderating these people if they have to keep coming back for the Last Word. Don’t bother arguing with them, let your readers handle it and moderate all the attempts at “rebuttals.” We all get lots more readers than commenters and frankly as a reader I get irritated by back and forth arguments between commenters if they go on for more than two comments in a thread. Rather than contributing and leaving off, they keep coming back to get the last word and win the fight. I say also, let them slam you and your blog all they want on their own blog, which is a tiresome read when every other post is about how they’re being censored at some other blog. Intelligent readers know the difference between censorship of ideas and being moderated for coming back again and again to repeat yourself and be just plain antagonizing. Seems like it’s getting to you. Seriously don’t let it. A post like this only draws more attention to it also.
Hmmm. Your blog is primarily for your words. If other people feel they can’t get a word in edgewise, tough!
Right on, Heart.
Sorry I haven’t been commenting much. I’m here, I’m reading, and I applaud the work that you do. I’m so grateful for you and your blog.
You go Heart! Your blog, your rules! And don’t ever let anyone silence you!
Pornographers, misogynists, and their ilk have the entire rest of the blogosphere to bloviate in, yet they obsess about shutting down the very, very few feminist sites that exist. They ARE the “matrix” and it’s weird to me that they present feminist blogs as such a threat to them. I’m just looking for a few spaces in which women and allies can communicate without being shut down. These people are disinformation experts and quislings!
Thanks, women!
xxxooo
Eeni, always love to see your name in the lineup!
On a crankier note, people are out of their goddamn minds. “Oh, Heart, no one wants to silence you! We just want to come onto your blog and write thousands of trolling, irrelevant, pro-porn, anti-woman words, as you allowed us to a few times in the past when you trusted us, remember? Before we stabbed you and your community in the back so many times the blade was coming through your collective sternums? Sterna? Oops, sorry, we were aiming for the soft tissue, next time we’ll be more careful, we promise! We just want to have our say right there, on your blog, that you pay for every month, that you maintain ad-free, that you moderate, that you built with your own hands, we just want to mess with you and your community, even though we have personally posted hateful attacks on all of you on our own blogs for forever! And will continue to! You’re so mean, why won’t you let us attack you and everybody else on your blog ON your blog AND on our blogs, too!”
:-p
If you defend prostitution and pornography, if you have engaged in hateful public (or private) attacks on me or on women here in this community or on radical/lesbian feminist leaders or radical/lesbian feminism in general, then why on the green earth of the goddess do you think I should ever even one time approve your comments here (even though occasionally I do because that’s the way I’m strung together)? Or link to your blogs? When you’ve proven yourself to be a hater, you will have to stew in your own hateful juices on your own blogs with your sister and fellow haters. And hell no, I am not sending the unaware to your pro-pornography, pro-prostitution, anti-woman, anti-feminist, blogs which frequently feature messed up, triggering materials, including pornography, that are not safe for work and not safe for the human psyche. No, I will not link to you. Yes, I will name you if I am talking about you specifically because otherwise you’ll write 20 or 30 blog posts moving on into the year 2020 saying, coward! I know she’s talking about ME (because it’s all about me, always) even though she didn’t say so.
So no. I’ll name you if I’m talking about you. But as a matter of my own feminist practice, I’m not sending any woman or girl your way unaware, because that’s on me, so no thanks. People have a pointy finger and they have a computer keyboard and if they want to look ya up, they can google you.
So anyway.
Really, the lunacy stuns.
Why would anyone suggest or think it made sense for me, given my values and politics, to link to a blog that features pornography? Or endorses or approves it? Or links to it? That’s what Ampgate was all about ya know. I hate pornography and look forward to the day when no person wants it or looks for it or ever has to see it. I don’t ever want to see it again, it disgusts and revolts me and makes me physically ill at times. But somehow I’m supposed to send people to look at it? Like I say, you’re out of your minds.
Heart and OPs: I’ll go one further and say I even resent the time and posts and bandwidth used to respond to their spam.
I wish we could just ignore them; really, truly, ignore them. Not respond to them, not have threads dedicated to their attempts for intrusion, ignore their existence. It doesn’t matter where we respond to them, they have succeeded if we do.
Adult to child having tantrum:
( )
I really don’t understand the mindset. Why would you go to a blog whose views you despised just to kick up a fuss, and then whine when they refuse to take your abuse with good humour? It really is just an S-M game isn’t it? We’re meant to welcome them with open arms and absorb all the shit they throw at us because otherwise we’re big meanies who are oppressing them. Cry me a fucking river. They abuse us, we don’t take it, they publish goddess-knows how many posts saying how evil we are because a) we say things they don’t like, and b) because we won’t publish their nonsense. Why do they think they have a right to have their comments published wherever they go? If I spoke to them on their blogs the way they speak to us I would expect to be banned and deleted. I would not expect their time.
‘Can’t get a word in edgeways’ = ‘waaaaaahhhh! look at me look at me look at me look at me!!!! Why aren’t you looking???’ It really is tiring. Why do they need us so much? I truly don’t get it.
They just don’t have anything else to talk about. Or rather, posts slagging off women who disagree with them get more posts than other topics. Women are always easy targets. You can see the pornsick men line up to gloat over the nasty posts. They’re the reason this goes on. They’re the johns. Their words speak volumes about them; their hatred is clear as day.
Sorry for serial posting, but random thought came up:
Pisaquarise once wrote an amazing post about how her ‘no’ should be important, have power etc. Same thing here- we say no, we won’t take this; they are outraged. We’re not meant to say ‘no’. We’re meant to take it, like good little girls. We’re not meant to fight! We’re meant to take the sum of all their anger and frustrations that they misdirect towards us. And the men, oh yes, again, they sit around on their arses gloating. No-one calls them on their responsibilities as males, as the ruling class. Rape’s not their problem, nor misogyny, nor any type of abuse that is not directed at them. They must tear the dissenting women to shreds. But striking us is akin to striking a stone - you’re only going to break your own hand.
Serial post no.3 (final dosage, promise):
I write in exhaustion. I write weary. I am so tired of this, I’m so so tired. I write in sadness rather than anger. I simply do not understand why these pornsick men have female friends. I do not see how they are not exposed for who they are. I don’t get it at all.
But then, I am arrogant and stoooooooooopid, heheheh!!!
Hey, Laurelin, I was thinking of linking to your (definitive) post on why it is the height of dumkopf to whinge about censorship because someone doesn’t approve your comment on their blog. People are fracking nuts, I swear to god. But then I wasn’t sure whether you were up to that kind of attention!
It is true though, we are not supposed to say no and have it mean anything. And we’re not supposed to resist or fight. Well, so much for that.
xxoo
Feel free to link it, Heart. I’m just glad people have found it useful!
As for getting the attention… I’m willing to take the risk. Let’s face it, I’m probably about to get it anyway for what I’ve just written… but I’d love to be proved wrong!
Well, this is the definitive one:
http://laurelin.wordpress.com/2007/09/20/allowing-all-comments-is-not-a-virtue-to-my-detractors/
But this one is also great:
http://laurelin.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/silencing-is/
Thanks so much
The fact that I seem to have written a post deemed ‘definitive’ means a hell of a lot to me. It makes all the work worth it. It reminds me why I blog, why I speak.
I’ve come over all soppy! I don’t suppose I ever imagined anything I have written would be considered ‘definitive’ by anyone.
Here’s something from Dr. Seuss for moral support:
Be who you are and say what you feel
because those who mind don’t matter
and those who matter don’t mind
Laurelin, your writings are amazing! I just wish you had time to write more!
Heh, Firefly.
I think there is a group of bloggers trying to hurt you as much as possible, drive you from the blogosphere, maybe even drive you to hurt yourself. They are not nice people and a few seem utterly obsessed with you. Please take good care, and seek help if it hurts too much. They seem to have mental health issues, please don’t let their negative compulsions affect you.
Risa, thanks for being worried on my behalf, I appreciate it.
The people you are talking about — and you’re absolutely right in what you say about them — long ago stopped troubling me. Once you’ve been dunked in the dunking pool a certain number of times by the Religious Right (and thrown in to see if you would float for good measure), like I was some years back, and lived to be vindicated and to see them pay for what they did, and once you’ve survived batterers and abusers who said they loved you, then tried their best to destroy or kill you, as I have, you gain a certain perspective so far as messed up, deranged, obsessive people are concerned. Generally, you ignore them (other than if/when they take it too far, getting the appropriate assistance from lawyers, police and so on.) Women who live radical, revolutionary lives, women who do what they want to do without apology, women who break the rules, color outside the lines, refuse to go along with other people’s programs, women who break ranks, women who are courageous and smart, will always face our share of attacks by haters and messed up persons. It’s at times surprising who the worst haters turn out to be. Likewise, I’m often surprised at the way people I’d never have expected would support me or come alongside me are there for me so often.
Thanks again for your encouragement and for calling things exactly as they are. Bottom line, I know these people you are talking about are seen for precisely who and what they are by decent persons of good will.
Heart
It’s what we’ve known all along. When women create spaces for women and refuse to allow the pornmeisters to get in the door, we do then have freedom of speech. Women are rarely in spaces by themselves to develop ideas. Think how long patriarchy has created male only spaces for men to talk to other men about male freedom (they call it Western civilization).
So this space is powerful Heart because it is about women talking about the freedom of women, and for me, I say, finally, someone gets it. There is no place for men in women’s freedom world. Women have to spend centuries getting their act together, and we don’t have to care at all about men, except to warn women about their evil, and share information for defeating the oppressors if need be.
It is a waste of time to be in dialogue with men about women’s freedom ever. They don’t really want to learn anything, they always want to be in control of the political agenda, and the only way out is for women to form a separatist political / social world.
I think you are fabuous. ♥