De-dum dum…..

Now THAT was funny. Unlike Kurt Metzger. Kurt has suggested that women can avoid feeling sexualized by sticking to purdah. That’s when a woman covers herself from head to toe, inclusively, with cloth. It is a practice of patrarchical, misogynist societies in which women are totally controlled by men, often subject to brutal violence, and even killed for not knowing when to shut up or breaking barbaric and absurd rules. Kurt Metzger is a comedian, so what he said can be taken as a joke. Whether or not it can be taken as funny is an otter matter.

Rebecca has a new post up at Skepchick that reviews some of the latest conversation about her sexuality, hypersexuality, lack of sexuality, and so on, and which specifically addresses Kurt Metzger. From what we see there, we may hope that he has not given up his day job as a bus boy or whatever.

Aside from the critique of Kurt, one of the most important take home messages from Rebecca’s post is this one: When you hear someone telling someone to “not feed the trolls” or when you find yourself saying that to someone, please consider that this might be something other than sagacious advice. There are definitely times when it is a good idea to not feed the trolls, but when you tell someone else to do this, you may be telling them to shut up, and they may very much have a right to not do so. Or even an obligation to not do so. In any event, it is really their choice and your advice may be a bit paternalistic.

This observation … that “don’t feed the trolls” sometimes equals “shut your face, bitch”* comes with a dose of extra meaning and strength because Rebecca actually tends to starve the trolls, considering a) how many trolls are constantly sniffing after her; and b) how little she responds to them compared to other bloggers or commenters.

The funny thing about Kurt Metzger is that he isn’t, even a little. He is so unfunny that every time he tells a joke a baby bunny rabbit dies. The last time anyone laughted at a Kurt Metzger joke it was his cat and it turned out to be choking up a furball. He’s so not funny, the government took the close-parenthesis symbol off of his keyboard. But I digress.

My advice to Rebecca: Don’t feed the trolls. Instead, kick them in the ass vigorously down the street.

Read Rebecca’s post.
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*My wording, not hers. But it works.

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