No sex please, we're right-wing fundamentalist Christians

The internet has been abuzz with news that soon-to-be-former NFL quarterback and noted ostentatiously self-righteous prayerful Christian Tim Tebow and his now-former current squeeze Miss USA and Miss Universe pageant winner Olivia Culpo are calling it quits. 

Apparently, when Tebow first got a hankerin' for Miss Culpo and sent her cute love notes and won her adoration, he said to her, "Olivia, my darling, my love for you knows no bounds, but as a noted ostentatiously self-righteous prayerful Christian, I am required by my even greater devotion to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to remain celibate until marriage." And then Culpo answered, "Oh, Timmy, you say the most darling silly things! Now please fill me up with all your hot sticky professional-sportsball-player jizz!" And then Culpo learned to her astonishment that Tebow was totes serious about the whole no-sex thing, and after that there was nothing for it but to have their respective PR flacks send out press statements announcing that their eternal love had turned out not to be so eternal after all, and the pair was taking a road trip to Splitsville, USA.

However, I would be deficient in my duties as a guide to the behavior of my fellow white men if I failed to warn Miss Culpo that this may not be the end of it. There's a certain species of white man, particularly noted ostentatiously self-righteous prayerful Christian white men, who do not regard women as autonomous human beings. They feel that any woman who is "theirs" remains "theirs" despite anything the said woman herself might think. We call this certain species of white man "stalkers", and they have been known to hound, harrass, and even physically attack any woman who tries to remove herself from their sole possession.

Now I'm not saying that Mr. Tebow is going to continue haunting Miss Culpo's footsteps until she either succeeds in having him imprisoned, or he succeeds in murdering her. I'm just pointing out that he fits the profile like a really creepy, stalkery glove, and that if Miss Culpo has any sense she should make sure that her bodyguards are on high alert for the next, like, fifty years.

The Short Goodbye

Mark Bernstein is one of the Grand Old Men of the internet, and an editor at Wikipedia. However, despite being both old and white, he has been on the side of the angels on the subject of GamerGate, chronicling the 'gaters attempt to turn Wikipedia into a weapon in their endless, mindless war on women.

Since Clare Hooper has done an outstanding job of summarizing what's happening there, I might as well just steal her summary wholesale:

A very, very brief summary is that the entry on Wikipedia about Gamergate has been the subject of weeks (running into months) of edit wars. It culminated in a decision from ArbCom, the highest user-run body of the site, to ban the five editors who were trying to prevent the page from being rewritten with a pro-Gamergate slant. According to Bernstein’s analysis, sanctions were also applied against some of the pro-Gamergate accounts — but only against a few accounts, and throwaway accounts at that.

Basically, Wikipedia has decided to hand over the keys to the henhouse to the foxes.

I myself have been contributing to Wikipedia for ten years. However, this is just too fucking much. Either the ArbCom is suffering from a massive case of the stupids, or the ArbCom is carrying water for the 'gaters. It doesn't matter which, because either one is reason enough for me to stop contributing.

So that's what I've done. Unless Wikipedia shows a sudden rush of good sense and both completely reverses this decision and issues a sincere apology that actually acknowledges wrongdoing and offers genuine contrition to the many injured parties involved, I won't be back.

Hell yes, I'm a feminist

There's a time to be subtle, and there's a time to be blunt.

As John Scalzi notes, these are the times when you want to be blunt.

Hell yes, I'm a feminist.

The psychopath factories

The internet is abuzz about this story by Sabrina Rubin Erdely in Rolling Stone about Jackie, a freshman who was gang-raped at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at the University of Virginia in 2012. The university administration, and even Jackie's own friends, discouraged her from going to the police, and in the end, none of her assailants suffered any consequences.

The reason why is simple. Assaulting women is the whole point of college fraternities. These organizations exist to shape the characters of the future business leaders of America, and the way to succeed in business is to be a psychopath. Raping women teaches these future corporate executives and Wall Street traders that they are the untouchable elite, and that everyone who isn't part of their elite is a commodity to be used and discarded as they see fit.

In a follow-up story, Rolling Stone reports on UVA President Teresa A. Sullivan's announcement that the university's fraternities have been suspended until the beginning of the spring semester in January 2015. And what will happen then? In a word, nothing. The frats perform a vital function in our society, and that function requires them to train their members to be monsters. The fraternities will continue to operate as they have always done, and women like Jackie will continue to be used to teach the brothers how to become America's psychopathic business elite.

In a way, Jackie's experience was an important learning experience. It has given her a foretaste of the life she will live in a country run by her assailants.

Douchebro sighting

My recent attempt to attract the attention of online misogynists by insulting them seems to have paid off. The embedded music video I posted yesterday attracted an anonymous (of course) comment consisting of a copypasted misogynist rant. The rant, being the work of a copypasta troll, was without value, and was therefore deleted. The curious can see the original source of the rant at this Jezebel post.

I must say, I am immensely pleased by the success of this effort. We all like to get attention, even troubled loners like myself. I also enjoy having my belief in the knee-jerk reflexes of the onlight Right confirmed. All I have to do is keep insulting them, and they have to respond. Their feeble minds can no more resist the call of mockery than a moth can resist an open flame.

So we here at the Johnny Pez blog will definitely be doing more posts on Gamergate. Bwahahahahaaa!

Gamergate: Attack of the Douchebros

Two of the core principles here at the Johnny Pez blog are supporting social justice and trying to bump up our meager pageviews, so any time we can combine the two, we will. Longtime readers (assuming there are any) will remember our (unsuccessful) attempt to attract the attention of the online misogyny crowd by invoking the dread name of Rebecca Watson.

Well, if at first you don't succeed, try try again. A phenomenon that's currently making the internet even more terrible than it already was is Gamergate. As Kyle Watson (no relation, AFAIK) notes in this piece at Deadspin, Gamergate is basically a vortex of misogynistic internet gamer trolls who spend their time harrassing women and intimidating various other targets in response to an imaginary grievance. Watson points out that the 'Gaters real grievance is that video game producers, might, possibly, spend slightly less time pandering to the traditional gamer demographic of young white straight guys.

In a way, the Johnny Pez blog is in an ideal position to make a stand against the 'Gaters. It's completely obscure, and thus unlikely to attract their attention in the first place. It doesn't rely on advertising, so it can't be shut down by having its sponsors intimidated. And blogmaster Johnny Pez isn't a woman, so he can't be silenced by online sexual harrassment and rape threats.

If by some remote chance some 'Gaters do manage to find their way here, I'd just like to take this opportunity to point out what utterly worthless sacks of shit they are. They are cowards who hide behind the anonymity afforded by the internet to attack targets they know won't be able to fight back. They are overprivileged crybabies who can't stand the thought of a gaming universe that doesn't revolve around them. Being a white straight guy myself, I can state with total assurance that these assholes not only have no legitimate grievances, it would do them a world of good to suffer through some real adversity and be taken down a peg or three.

Any 'Gaters who wish to respond in comments should be aware that I will delete any that I find to be of no value. And the ones I don't delete, I will relentlessly mock.

Rebecca Watson: An experiment in clickbait

PZ Myers of Phyrangula once observed that invoking the dread name of atheist feminist Rebecca Watson provokes idiots into raging fury. I intend to test that assertion.

Among many other noteworthy accomplishments, Watson has inspired Watson's Law: "Anytime you speak up about harassment, harassment gets worse." The latest example of Watson's Law in action is that the creator of the hashtag #yesallwomen has had to make her account private, and has asked that she not be connected with it by name, because she has gotten such a high level of threats and harassment since starting it.

Rebecca Watson said it, and once again the wretched hive of scum and misogyny that is the internet has proven her right.

Now, a typical post here at the Johnny Pez blog gets maybe 20 views and zero responses. Will invoking the Dread Name attract any idiots my way? We shall see.

UPDATE: June 4, 2014. Nine days later, the above post has received 22 views and zero responses. Sadly, not even the Dread Name is enough to attract notice to this blog.