I recently wrote an article on hilariously sexist costumes. The article and the resulting comments were like Bruce Banner experimenting with gamma radiation. I was only trying to prove some minor points, but the results made my arguments stronger than I could ever have imagined. These are actual comments from that column's comment section, but you could see them anywhere. Behold, the worst sexism defenses that get used every day on the Internet ...
The Comment*:
I didn't knew Luke was gay ...
*I won't include their usernames because they'd love that, and because making them write "THAT WAS ME, I WAS THAT IDIOT" in this article's comments will be hilarious.
This is equal parts terrifying and disappointing. It's terrifying because some people genuinely think the only reason you wouldn't want women to walk around naked is because you don't want to jam your dick in them. They cannot conceive of any other reason for female clothing, because they've spent less time with women than the Eagle moon lander. It's amazing that such ridiculous sexism exists in someone who isn't stomping around killing wizards and slaying dragons.
Universal Pictures
... and to hear the lamentation of their women! In fact, I only ever hear lamentation from women. But never for long.
The saddest part is how some people still use "gay" as an insult. I don't normally assume that obsessive comics fans are lonely virgins, but when someone's calling me homosexual through an Internet comment about Power Girl's tit-window, they leave me no choice. The person who left that comment clearly has to plastic bag his own genitals in order to avoid dog-earing from relentless pawing.
The Comments:
... But then I see its[sic] written by a guy and it just loses me. In my experience, most men who go out of their way to express their "dislike" in media's portrayal of women are just doing it to get tail ...
Luke, you sound like you're trying to get laid in a Woman's Studies class.
These are both the most and least sexist comments ever made: They assume everything anyone does is for sex, but it's something they will never have. I tried to imagine how sexless your life would have to be to think an Internet comedy article about comics could get you laid, but stopped because my testicles were retracting into my body. Because when you think that, your testicles migrate to your stomach for digestion. I think the guys who wrote these comments say things like that because they're trying to get kicked in the balls, which they'll then claim as third base.
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It's the closest he's gotten.
Virginity is the one subject where 40 years of experience doesn't make you an expert for other people. Of course, most of us don't need special tactics to get laid. It turns out "not being an asshole" and "meeting other people" both work pretty well.
The Comment:
Cracked isn't doing a good job of keeping up with the times by failing to treat men's issues with any degree of legitimacy.
Also any comment using "feminazi" or "misandry."
"Misandry" may be the most efficient word in the English language. In just one word it condenses the self-denying assholery of "I'm not a racist, but ..." with the misogyny of "All women are bitches," throwing in a free persecution-complex bonus, because it's not like the user was going anywhere. Our previous codeword for "biggest asshole on the planet" took two words because
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For once Trump isn't the most hated guy in the article, and goddamn these assholes for making that possible.
If you think hot women have it easy because everyone wants to have sex at them, you're both wrong and also the reason you're wrong. Most people don't base their quality of life around how hard it is to get laid, because they actually do get laid, and it isn't that hard to do. Being a straight male is tremendous fun and sexuality's lowest difficulty setting: You know what you want and everyone else in your demographic will praise you for being able to do it. No one else on the spectrum of sexual orientation can say that. If women hate you for cursing about how stupid "bitches" are, it's not because you're the victim of an anti-male conspiracy: It's because you're
If you're having a difficult time imagining how dictionaries could be made relevant to sexuality, well done on knowing more about sexuality than some real people.
The Comments:
Definition of SEXISM
1: prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially: discrimination against women
2: behavior, conditions or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex
With the exception of sue being useless, I don't see how any of these costumes fit this criteria (looking slutty isn't a social role). In my experience the scantily clad girls kick just as much ass and are just as useful as everyone else. These costumes may be ridiculous, impractical, insulting and objectifying, but they aren't sexist.
So uh ... yeah ... calling a piece of clothing sexist is like calling my baseball cap a liberal.
There's a certain species of idiot who tries to semantically argue their way out of idiocy, and to this day they're confused about why their dictionaries haven't gotten them laid. But not as confused as their DNA, which can't understand why evolution created a species that prevents itself from reproducing.
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"We don't care what your figures say, we are not taking our shirts off."
It saves time when someone opens their argument by copy-pasting a dictionary. You immediately know they 1) think length counts over quality (which is why they bought that penis pump), 2) are incapable of stating their own thoughts and 3) are stupid. He also admits his only experience with girls is from comics, which might be why he thinks "looking slutty isn't a social role." This guy would stand up at his first Wrestlemania to elucidate how elevating your person onto the uppermost turnbuckle is tactically unsound. He has no experience of two people writhing together, or why anyone would dress and act a certain way in public, but believes his knowledge of words makes him the expert.
Another breed of comics fans have an obsessive knowledge of every issue ever printed, and just like any group of lunatics who believe that anyone deviating from their chosen text can burn in hell, their text is full of madness and contradiction. Also, "breed" is the wrong word to use with people who genuinely hate you for not agreeing with them. When writing about the Star Sapphires and Wonder Woman, I used images of the Star Sapphires and Wonder Woman, and people screamed at me because not all Star Sapphires are Wonder Woman. DC has so many identical body-painted lingerie models that it's hard to tell them apart. Apparently, this was supposed to weaken the point I was making about sexism.
The Comment:
I was enjoying this article until I saw that first image of that Star Sapphire member with epic cleavage. Too bad it wasn't Wonder Woman as stated, but Carol Ferris. So, seriously, can you at least do your f*****g research before writing an article next time? I don't care how poignant/relevant the entire message/moral/yada-yada is, it's those kinds of little details (or more precisely, the lack thereof) that makes (sic) me question your credibility as a journalist.
I also question my credibility as a journalist, and the question is "Really?" followed by mocking laughter. Simply using the phrase "epic cleavage" means that that comment is the closest he's gotten to any in a situation involving another person. When he clicks on porn clips, the girls say they have to go be naked in shampoo commercials that night.
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"It's not you, it's me. Me and the way I wish you didn't exist."
I'm not saying this kind of lunatic "You referred to a character from Showcase No. 22 as well as one from All Star Comics No. 8, RETARD!" continuity obsession is what's killing the market by scaring off new readers, but DC just ended all their continuities and blew up their entire universe to attract new readers. Because when a six-issue series has to spend five pages per issue on characters reminding each other about bullshit that happened in other comics, that's not fun. That's what fictional characters get instead of arthritis when they're forced to do the same thing for 60 years.
A few idiots confuse social trends for scientific rules, claiming that a single counterexample disproves the entire statement. Which is insane, because the laws of physics have nothing to do with comics breasts.
DC
According to gravity, each should have its own orbital satellites.
And I am delighted that, on a site that copy-pasted the entire article (thanks, assholes!), their example was Amanda Waller. I cut her from the original article because she's too obscure for most people. But since we're already talking about an angry article-stealing comics fan's penis' preferences, this column is already about obscure sex things no one has ever seen. So, for the first time ever, a bonus entry for a
MOST SEXIST SUPERHERO COSTUMES #6: AMANDA WALLER
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Amanda Waller kicked
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AND WHY DON'T YOU JUST FUND BODY ARMOR AND BAT-EQUIPMENT FOR THE ENTIRE GOTHAM P.D., YOU UNBELIEVABLE DUMBASS?
And here's how she looked after the 2011 DC reboot.
DC
She was one of the only nonattractive women in their entire universe, and they rewrote their entire reality to "fix" that. They considered including even one person a reader wouldn't want to fuck an error worth rebooting space-time itself to undo. That's not a cherry-picked shot, that's the very first shot of the new Waller, how they presented her to a brand new audience: leaning over for bra-display purposes while ordering the mass murder of 60,000 people by convicted felons. That is literally psychotic sexism, and it's worth pointing out that while her team is armed with impact harnesses, thermal imaging helmets, wrist-mounted cannons and tattoos made of infernal flame, her special equipment is a frilly edged peephole bra.
The Comments:
Yes, surprise, surprise a medium almost exclusively made for, marketed, and sold to adolescent boys and men heavily plays off idealized male fantasies including o_0gasp0_o sexual ones perish the thought.
Why is the idea of sex so abhorrent to you?
Multiple commenters gave me shit for not just admitting that comics were porn, and that's the only multiple anything these idiots will give anything. They admit that they only view comics as a sexual fantasy (two directly equate them to sex itself) and then challenge me to respond. I don't want to say it's hard in case they get the wrong idea.
I can't believe I have to explain this to people who clearly read dictionaries (
Hey, dumbass, can you think of a reason why about half of anything would be female? (In fairness, he's probably never met one.)
The Comment:
Luke McKinney, YOU, and all the people who run around spouting off about inequality in comics without ever actually looking at what the stories being printed are about, are the root of the very problem you are decrying.
This happens when someone believes himself the final authority on anything. If you don't agree with him, you just don't get it! The idea is that you can't enjoy comics if you don't enjoy primary-colored lingerie catalogs, and depressingly that's what most modern superhero-comic writers think, too. Which is why I wrote the article in the first place: I love comics. I've spent more on comics than I have on cars and consider them more useful. I not only have controversial opinions on Tony Stark versus Bruce Wayne, I'm geeky enough to know they're controversial (and which back issues to claim "don't count" because that writer clearly didn't understand the character he was writing, in my nonhumble opinion). I'm still annoyed that Stormwatch Achilles got cut off by an unrelated reboot.
I'm flattered that people think I'd research an entire industry for a few quick gags, but I don't work quite that hard. I didn't include Emma Frost in the first article because her character really is about overt sexuality. I didn't include Witchblade or Tarot because they don't have characters at all, just structurally improbable lines of clothing to (sometimes) to hold their blatant pork-spheres in place.
Broadsword Comics
The two Death Stars were more structurally probable and had better-developed personalities.
Loving comics is
Atomic Robo, Red 5 Comics
Warning: This may be the first time in all of comics you've seen non-breast-molded body armor.
Empowered, Dark Horse Comics
The goddamned Maidman, who throws doilyrangs, with a little something for idiots who say "It's a distraction tactic!" and "Men are equally objectified."
Comics are fun. Sexiness is even funner. But if you can't get through 30 pages without naked ladies, you might as well claim you're reading it for the articles.
Luke doesn't just understand comics sexuality, he's also an expert in video game romance. And yes, of course such a seductive genius has a Tumblr and website.
For more responses to idiots, check out the 10 Species of Angry Commenter You Encounter on the Web and The 8 Most Obnoxious Internet Commenters.
Luke McKinney
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