Our Lat posts got the Althouse treatment: http://althouse.blogspot.com/200...in-drag-
is.html
This is one fray I'm going to stay out of!
I used to be so easily hurt by rude comments (ahhh, to be a young novice blogger)--but after 8 months, I've grown thicker skin, and a greater awareness of when to engage and when to let the proverbial water roll off this proverbial duck's back.
I just like how you talked about writing "less serious" posts right after a post of Greek poetry.
Sometimes an asshat is just an asshat. Or Lat as the case may be.
Glad the stupidity hasn't put you off posting.
And I think I ordered proverbial duck once. Wasn't a proverb in sight just cliches. Okay, I'll shut up now.
Hi T2ed,
Re the Greek poetry: I put the "lettre" in "belle lettre."
But next I think I will invent for myself a cat, and blog about it. My building doesn't allow pets, so it has to be fake. Or maybe I can get those tamigochi electronic pets that were popular back in the '90s (the hi-tech pet rock). Or a goldfish named George.
Proverbial Duck sounds like a name of a band, or a Chinese restaurant.
Hi Belle,
I stumbled across your site by it being "Althouse'd." I might turn into a mean commenter (I hope not) but anyone who posts greek poetry is a blog I'll be coming back to.
I'll state up front that I never saw the appeal of A3G or Lat's new works. But quite frankly, I don't understand the concerns by either you or Ann Bartow about gender-bending.
Gender-bending online personas have been quite common among men on the internet for years. In fact, Libertarian Man of Mystery is making a comment I've heard dozens of times (and I'm going to outgeek you for a moment) in online games. By taking on a female persona on the internet, men are treated considerably better by their male peers online. Though that leads most men to the opposite conclusion that LMM had -- that we men are pigs.
One may think Lat is just using some virtual black face to poke fun at women. On the other side of the coin though he may be expressing a transexuality or male effeminancy that threatens both men and women who need their men to be manly.
I often wondered if hostility to Lat after his "outing" came from the male law world which was so taken in by him being a stereotypical female. The thought that this US Weekly, yet well-credentialed law femme was actually a man must have shattered some minds and libidos pretty quickly.
I don't know enough about Lat to know whether he's pulling this as a prank or if gender comes in many shades. But I query if some of these responses are as "open minded" as they are asking Lat to be.
Commenter:
Not mean, very fair and well-considered. You make interesting and persuasive points. I will say that I personally am not threatened by Lat's male effeminacy--I quarrel with his trivializing the female voice, persona, etc., and I doubt his bona fides about bending gender stereotypes, supporting transgender rights, or making a case for the fluidity of gender and sexuality. Rather, I think what he's doing is exploitative.
I suppose we could debate in circles about this, and about gender stereotypes in general. But for now, I will thank you for your comments, which give me much to think about.
If you abhor Lat's trivialization of femininity, why do you proudly display a ditzy, trivial picture of yourself holding letters in the quintessential brain-dead 50s airhead pose? You undermine your own credibility from the outset.
It seems to me you're every bit the boring narcissistic attention whore Lat is. And a pretentious, hypocritical, insufferably tiresome one at that.
So humorless and boring. You do a great disservice to your worthy cause.
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