When it gets down to the individual level, of course I don’t have a monopoly on empathy, and of course every case must be considered on its own merits. When speaking about populations, however, it is currently a fact that men on average are less empathetic than women (cf Simon Baron-Cohen). I don’t personally think this is the whole story by any means, but I’ve yet to conduct the research that demonstrates a more detailed picture. When you look at the pattern of how men as a group have behaved towards women as a group throughout all of history, it either just isn’t very consistent with the notion that there is any notable degree of empathy in the culture towards women, or, if there is empathy, then there must be an upsetting amount of sadism.

My position does sound like ‘an eye for an eye’, but it is not, and I don’t endorse such a mentality. The logic behind my remarks was that a woman could be forgiven for thinking that men would not mind being betrayed or exploited, since that is how, throughout history, they have behaved towards women with impunity. Do as you would be done by, would be closer to my position on this. Of course, this could be interpreted quite differently – if women do not like being betrayed and exploited then you could argue that they are more culpable if they do it to other people. If Israelis feel hurt and upset and damaged by the holocaust, then perhaps they have more responsibility to treat other people kindly and with respect than those who had not been inflicted with such horrendous treatment. On the other hand, they may just as finely take the attitude “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”, in the aggression and violence stakes.

The role of feminism is definitely not to get back at males, but I do believe that if they can appreciate how it feels, then that is a perhaps a good step in the journey towards ensuring equality of life. If it makes one man think “hey, this isn’t very nice”, who wouldn’t otherwise have bothered to even consider it, then that’s a good thing.

In an ideal world, gender would be irrelevant, but until we get there, I’m afraid a premature gender-blindness in assessing the rights and wrongs of things is not always a fair or helpful thing. A male can never join ‘the sisterhood’, by virtue of his DNA. Any person can join ‘the humanhood’, however, as long as they treat human beings reasonably, regardless of gender.

‘Daughters of Egalia’ sounds very interesting – I shall get hold of a copy. Everything else – fine but …

“I also don’t feel terribly sympathetic if a handful of men are sexualised and betrayed. My culture and the whole of human history tells me it’s ok to sexualise and betray women, so I don’t feel a great deal of sympathy when men whine if it’s done to them.”

Ouch. This is just not right. This is an ‘eye for an eye’ mentality and I believe it is outdated and solves little. You are human and happen to be female and I happen to be male, I did not choose to be male. I am also quite capable of empathising with those women who have and continue to suffer, they are fellow human beings. You, as a female, do not have a monopoly of empathy for females just because you are female.

I really believe that the role of the feminist movement is not to ‘get back’ at males or ‘let them know how it feels’ but instead to ensure equality of rights and opportunity between females and males.

You do not know any of those men. How male are they? At what point would a male be allowed to join the ’sisterhood’, when he loses his genitals? Is that all? No, when you show little sympathy you show little sympathy to fellow human beings.

I’d like to make a few points if I may:
1. Saying “many men” do such and such is not the same as saying “all women” do such and such. Anyway, I’ve addressed this point ad nauseam above. Commenting on well-documented sex differences is not the same as making generalisations – it just takes a modicum of intelligence to grasp this, that’s all, and I have explained it above.
2. “Many men” say they respect women, and I think a majority genuinely believe this to be the case, but as long as they are presuming to judge what someone may or may not do on the grounds of their gender, stigmatising “women’s” work, and as long as they are rewarding titillating behaviour disproportionately, I would beg to differ. The size of the porn industry, the statistics on sexual violence and so forth are simply not compatible with a world in which most men “respect” most women. Perhaps you and I have a different idea of what respect is.
3. The formulation of your assertion that “”many men” respect women” is kind of weird. The respect in your view is applied in a generalised way to women in general (though you say it’s wrong to generalise), but the “respecters” get a qualification. Weird thoughtless double-standard kind of thing going on there, if you want to be picky about it.
4. As for men being titilated, I did not attack GWAOTM for titillating – she’s perfectly entitled to do so. I simply made some comments regarding the fact that her work does (by her readers’ admission) titillate, and the implications of this.

The rest of your points regarding things I’ve said have been addressed above, which you will see if you have read it. I am growing rather tired of being accused of saying things I never said though.

“If Abby had been male” is an interesting angle. If she had been male, her actions would have been seen in a quite different way, so in many ways, it is not a fair comparison. You are not comparing like with like, since the social and sexual conditions prevailing for women are so different from those prevailing for men. May I recommend you have a look at Daughters of Egalia by Gert Brandenburg, if you want to see what I mean.

I also don’t feel terribly sympathetic if a handful of men are sexualised and betrayed. My culture and the whole of human history tells me it’s ok to sexualise and betray women, so I don’t feel a great deal of sympathy when men whine if it’s done to them. It’s a great shame if men have to suffer what women have suffered for generations in order for them to realise that it isn’t very nice.

I liked your other points, and of course, there’s more going on than “just” a feminist issue with all this, that just happens to be where I came in.

My experience is that ‘many men’ today respect women, believe in the rights of women and do not believe women to be ‘asking for it’. Conversely, Clarice, do you believe that all men are ‘asking for it’? Do you really believe that men think about sex all the time? I’m sure that we would never get anything done if that were the case (why do I hear the voice of my wife say ‘exactly’).

Clarice, I’m sure that you do agree that not all men are sex crazed but I would agree that there are likely to be more men than women that are sex crazed. Yes, and I do believe that men are more likely to be distracted by a pretty/sexy woman walking down a street. I am a married man with what I believe to be a healthy sex life (no blog intended on this subject I’m afraid), I have never cheated on my wife but I have to admit that I too find that a pretty/sexy woman will sometimes catch my eye but it ends there. Furthermore, I do not believe that I am in the minority.

But, Clarice, you do attack GWAOTM for titillating us men, these men that cannot control themselves! You suggest that men will read GWAOTM and believe that all women are like her – surely you do not really believe this? And what makes you think that many women will not read GWAOTM and be titillated? Do they then go on to act out the escapades described?

I didn’t read very much of GWAOTM, I quickly lost interest. I must say that I have actually found how she is handling the loss of her anonymity far more interesting. I’m not against what she has written as I do think that individuals should feel free to express themselves and it might well be helpful for men and women to discover how a particular woman of a particular sexuality lives her life. What I believe she is guilty of is betraying the trust of her lovers – if anything it is the men that have been sexualised in her writings.

So the issues here become broader than a feminist one – it is more about human sexuality and the right for humans to be fulfilled sexually without fear of any intimate details being relayed in verbal or written form. The various lovers that GWAOTM had encounters with are men with feelings, her writings have sexualised them, turned her encounters with them to mere sexual experiences. No matter what GWAOTM says about how her lovers have been happy with her book, she will never know what they really think – they are probably decent guys who realise what has been said has been said and nothing more can be done. In their shoes I would have said the same thing but would have felt betrayed. It would be one of those things that would hang over you, you get married (there’s a book), you have kids (there’s a book) … She can apologise but the damage is done, for her it was self inflicted, naive maybe but still self inflicted. If she really felt that she had betrayed her lovers she could offer them the profits but then they probably wouldn’t accept.

It irks me the way she complains about the press invasion. When you publicise your sexual escapades what did she really expect? Somebody would have figured out her identity. It’s a mystery – we all love a mystery. All the ‘we feel so sorry for you Abby’ really irritates me. If she had been male I’m not sure people would have been quite so sympathetic.

Finally, what really bothers me is that this is yet another site that children might find their way onto. Blogs that are that sexually explicit should be tagged as such. This website has received lots of publicity and the author should put some warning that the website is sexually explicit. I get so fed up trying to check parental controls work correctly for every sexually explicit site – in this way the blogosphere needs to grow up a bit.

In summary – hats off to you Abby for being open and honest about your sexuality, nothing to be ashamed of there; shame on you for betraying the trust of your lovers; stupid of you to believe that you would remain anonymous; and further shame on you for not warning or protecting your blog from minors.

I sound like a real grump!

(PS I did laugh at the story of the visit to the Gynaecologist though.)

Take the titillation out of GWAOTM, and the message actually becomes rather different. With titillation, the intended message is easy to ignore. As far as having appeal as “science”, while it is based on a sample size of one, I’m afraid it has none. Ditto for its basis on a self-confessed self-selected sample of commenters.

I think she has the right to be as narrow as she likes in her objectives, but I do think once she puts her work into the arena of mass media, she must bear responsibility for the perfectly predictable way in which it is likely to be used and interpreted, and for any harm resulting from that. For unpredictable subversions of its message, of course she cannot be held responsible.

To twist the words of Roberto, I do think we must demand some degree of intelligence and understanding from our media producers.

If instead of being an ‘anonymous’ diary of the thoughts, emotions, and day by day sex-life of ‘The Girl’, GWAOTM was instead a series of essays discussing sexuality, the overall message may be the same – it would be a completely different work however, and would hold different levels of appeal as a novel, art, and science. No doubt, less people would get the ‘wrong’ message, but it may hold less appeal as a work to those who were able to receive the ‘correct’ message from either piece.

I can see your point on the diary not doing enough to encourage ‘titillation seekers’ to develop their thoughts further, though I think this is a question of the work being too narrow in its objectives.

I was more concerned with the ‘damage’ done by those who use the blog as some form of titillation (which is not quite as extreme as pornography, and apparently, more socially acceptable too). But never mind.

It’s a shame you view my point on ‘the main reason for rewarding it’ as less relevant – I don’t see your reasoning for this. I have no-where reasonsed that people using the blog or buying the book as titillation necessarily tells us anything about why it was written – you misread me if you think that I have. The logic of my point goes like this:

If I intended to kiss you, but accidentally killed you instead, how would my fine motive affect your deadness? I believe it would not. It might reduce my culpability, but I believe you would still be dead, and your deadness would be a direct result of my actions. Going on about the intended function of my actions would not change their actual function one jot. Anyone who thinks intended function is all clearly needs to think that one through a little bit. Please note that by saying this, I am not saying that intended function is entirely irrelevant in judging the merits of an action (it clearly is not), but simply that it does not trump the actual function by any means.

Imagine that a person produces a work which has, say three intended purposes, and let us say these purposes are a) self-expression b) to counter a cultural belief that sexual women are “bad” and c) to stimulate frank and open discussion. Now, let us imagine that in the course of meeting these purposes, the content happens also to titillate. If the main reason the work gets attention, and the main reason that it makes money is because of the titillation factor, then the person is clearly not being rewarded for any of the fine purposes that motivated the blog, but rather for the fact that it titillates. This I think is wrong, regardless of whether there is titillating material available elsewhere.

Where it happens, it implies that a work which seeks to fulfil those same three intended purposes but does not have titillating content will receive less attention and make less money. The intended purpose of the work which happens to titillate is subverted by those who use it for titillation. In this case, its overall merit, and its fine motives are at best diluted and at worst redundant. It is wrong if the blog is being rewarded primarily for being titillating, rather than for its other motives, since it implies that that titillation is its primary value. It implies that titillation is more valuable than whatever its other motives might have been. But that seems to be exactly what has happened, and that seems to be exactly the state of affairs that prevails.

What I do think is that people who seek to be titillated should not only be doing this thoughtlessly, or without taking responsibility for so doing. Attracting titillation-seekers and then facilitating them to explore and consider the motives and implications behind their titillation-seeking is a good thing. But Abby does not in my view do this.

I first found GWAOTM after reading an article somewhere about the site’s intended premise – in that context, the lurid title and explicit content has more intellectual value than pornographic. What you get out of the site is very much reliant on what you are looking for – which brings us to the problem.

There have been numerous controversial pieces of ‘modern art’ placed in various art galleries over the years – they invariably raise some media attention, but remain unvisited by those who they would be least likely to ‘inspire’ in the way the artists imagined. The internet has given many people an easy way to express themselves, artistically or otherwise – but rather than be segregated off into a gallery only visited by those interested in ‘modern art’ or whatever – the content instead is in little tents on the street. Anyone can visit any tent, and you don’t really know what is inside until you take a peek. Once inside, you are wholly submerged in the world of the author/artist, and it is up to you to figure it out.

I would argue that the possible ‘damage’ done to those who have come to view the site as pornography is minimal – if people want to see examples of women objectifying themselves, they can (and will) get strong examples elsewhere – in full sweaty technicolour detail – and without the possibility of ever picking up the intended message of GWAOTM. For those who have read GWAOTM as something thought-provoking, they would be poorer for having not been able to read it, or having had to read a neutered version of it, cut down so as not to subvert those who lack the intellectual tools necessary to interpret the content correctly.

I’ve sidestepped around your point on the ‘main reason for rewarding it’ somewhat, as I think it is less relevant. The work stands on its own merits – but if people want to buy it as porn, fine. People looking only to get their kicks will get them somewhere. I do not doubt that the book would be less financially successful without this element – but to reason that this necessarily means that the book was written to capitalise on this income, or is devalued as a work, is (in my opinion) to go a step too far.

Argh, and this post took far too long to write. Time to sleep!

Well, this is something I am really not sure about, unless I modify your assertion to something like the following: There’s nothing wrong with it, as long as the reason for rewarding it is not premissed upon its titillation factor. In Abby’s case though, I’m fairly sure that’s a large part of why it has been rewarded.

I don’t think the main intended purpose of the work is necessarily that relevant in my objection, compared to the main reason for rewarding it. In philosophy and psychology, it is well-known that actual function is weighted far more heavily than intended function in the semantic interpretion and categorisation of artifacts.

But even if you disagree with me on that point, it beggars belief that someone could seriously argue that a blog entitled “Girl With A One-Track Mind” does not appear to have the main purpose of titillating. Once you read it of course, one might see it differently, but it is clearly seeking to attract people to it on the promise of titillation, and judging by the comments, it does not disappoint in that regard.