The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Blame Joan of Arc

Posted on | August 10, 2013 | 136 Comments

WASHINGTON, D.C.
My photos of “Slutwalk DC” got zapped — “It was a glitch! It was a technical malfunction!” to quote Gus Grissom — while I was trying to load them from the disc of my wife’s camera, which I was using because my faithful pink “Barbie cam” is broken.

So you won’t get to see the photos of Celine, the topless feminist with nice pink nipples, or Eliana, the long–legged George Washington University coed who made the march while wearing black lingerie and high heels. And like I said, I blame Joan of Arc for this.

The march began at the plaza around the African-American Civil War Memorial at the corner of Vermont and U Street. When I arrived, the strumpets and hussies and harlots were gathered around, brandishing their signs and, of course, their breasts. By my count — and trust me, I’m a professional journalist — four women made the march topless, but Celine’s were certainly the nicest pair.

Celine is a 25-year-old blonde from Baltimore, nerdy and pale, not particularly beautiful but not unattractive.

Did I mention she was topless? And she has nice pink nipples?

On her chest she had written, with red lipstick, “Still not asking for it.”

Celine was wearing geek glasses and struck me as trying to seem more at ease than she actually was. When I asked permission to take her picture, she said, “Thanks for asking my consent.” Honestly, I felt kind of bad for her, as I objectified her with my male gaze.

Well, a picture would be worth a thousand words, but as I say, the cursed camera failed me, and so words are all I have for you.

Guys who’ve dated around a lot (and, hey, I used to be a Democrat) know the pleasant surprise when you score the hook-up with a chick like this, the “nice girl” type who may not seem superficially sexy, but once she gets naked . . .

Well, I married one of those, and thus perhaps have a special appreciation for the type. If you met Celine, clothed, you probably wouldn’t be too impressed. But topless? Hey, nice pair.

Maybe not quite a full C-cup, but at least a generous B, and did I mention her nipples? Pretty sure I did.

Not that I said any such thing to her, and I didn’t even stare as I interviewed Celine for The American Spectator column I’ll write later.

Did you read Ace’s laceration of Amanda Marcotte the other day? Because I’m the patriarchal oppressor of Amanda’s dystopian nightmares: Yes, I see women — and their breasts — and am immediately filled with visions of them impregnated with my seed, bearing my offspring, bringing me sandwiches. But ultimately, there’s not enough of me to go around, and my wife insists on monopolizing my oppressive misogyny — for which other women should be grateful.

Anyway, there I was amid the assembled feminists on the plaza on Vermont Avenue. Trying not to be too conspicuous in my sexist objectification of them — besides Celine, there were about two dozen other reasonably attractive women among the hundreds who turned out for SlutWalk DC. Out of the whole crowd, there were only three or four you’d really call “hot,” and none of those were topless. (Fact: Public toplessness is legal in DC, but women don’t seem much interested in exercising that particular right.)

After about 15 or 20 minutes, the march began, three blocks east on U Street to 14th, where they turned north and uphill, and then went east into Meridian Hill Park. It was on that final leg of the march that I gathered the nerve to briefly interview Eliana, who was unquestionably the hottest woman in the march. She wore a sort of bustier and lace panties that left the lower portion of her buttocks exposed.

Eliana is a tanned brunette with slender legs — a “coltish” figure, you might say — and two dimples above her remarkably small but certainly quite round and shapely ass.

When I was a young fellow, I was very much an ass man who liked skinny girls like that, but for some reason, they don’t really impress me the way they did 30 or 35 years ago. This shift in aesthetic preference isn’t something I can explain, but which I note by way of saying that while I recognized mentally that Eliana was the best-looking participant in SlutWalk DC — a head-turning figure, dressed quite scantily — concupsicence was not a factor involved in my approaching her.

“Those heels must be killing you,” I said.

She laughed, and politely answered my questions: She’s a senior at George Washington University, majoring in psychology, minoring in women’s studies. “Oh, women’s studies,” I said.

The march arrived at Meridian Hill Park, where a temporary stage was set up at the south end, near the statue of a sword-wielding figure on horseback. Military monuments are a dime a dozen in D.C., where statues memorializing once-famous heroes are ignored by the residents. How many people, for example, ever think about “The Rock of Chickamauga” when driving through Thomas Circle?

So here we were, me and the self-proclaimed sluts, in the very shadow of this equestrian warrior, sword aloft, and out of curiosity I walked over to see whom this statue memorialized.

JEANNE D’ARC
LIBERATRICE
1412–1431
AUX FEMMES D’AMERIQUE
LES FEMMES DE FRANCE

Joan of Arc, patron saint of sluts? Surely the event organizers had intentionally chosen the location for the ironic purpose of having this fanatically Catholic 15th-century French peasant girl standing guard, as it were, over their convocation.

I hung around a bit longer,carefully studying the crowd to do a tally, counting exactly 14 pretty faces among about 400.

Perhaps I missed a few, or maybe I double-counted some, but certainly there weren’t more than two dozen lookers among them. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course, and maybe the AOSHQ “I’d hit it” standard is flexible enough that 10% would have made the grade without benefit of serious whiskey consumption.

My job was done, and I walked down 14th Street to this McDonald’s, intending to upload a few photos, including pink-nippled Celine, but something went wrong. My unfamiliarity with this camera is probably to blame. I’m sure I hit the wrong button while trying to download the photos. Perhaps it was a perfectly mundane technical accident, but when I checked the disk a second time — nothing.

Call it a glitch, call it a coincidence, but I don’t believe in coincidences. No, I blame it on that sword-wielding peasant girl. She didn’t want her feminist sisters objectified by the male gaze.

Ah, Joan! No wonder they burned you at the stake.

UPDATE: Thank goodness, some of the photos have been aggregated at Twitchy, including this one:

That’s Eliana, the George Washington University senior, click here to see a larger view of her dimpled ass — not that any of our readers would objectify her with the male gaze or anything like that.

UPDATE II: Joke time is over, this is serious:

At #SlutWalk, Statutory Rape Victim’s
Sign Explains, ‘I Didn’t Press Charges’

Rape is not a political grievance, it’s a crime. Stop parading around shouting slogans and start prosecuting criminals.

 

Category: Feminism

Comments

136 Responses to “Blame Joan of Arc”

  1. Aaron Kensington
    August 11th, 2013 @ 6:08 pm

    so to review:
    1. there is no correlation between how women dress and who become victims of rape.

    2. asserting that there is such a connection is ignorant and serves only to limit women in what is considered appropriate clothing.

  2. Aaron Kensington
    August 11th, 2013 @ 6:12 pm

    i mean. ya know. do you guys realize how hot you look in those suits of yours? i mean, thats a whole genre of gay porn right there. and there you go walking around with those white shirts and silk ties, and those shiny shoes. pants pulled up to the waist, everything tucked in and tailored, making it oh so easy to see just what he is working with. unf.

  3. KittyAmerica
    August 11th, 2013 @ 7:38 pm

    Mr. McCain, you talk like you’ve only seen black/brown breasts. Yes, of course we White women have pink you know whats. What else would we have?

  4. robertstacymccain
    August 12th, 2013 @ 1:14 am

    Let’s start with this: Deviant child molesters are not the intended targets of feminists shouting about “no means no.”

    What they are trying to do is consciousness-raising about “date rape,” i.e., guys who have a problem taking “no” for an answer.

    This happens all the time at colleges: Guy meets a girl at a bar or a party, they’re both drunk, they go back to his place and start making out, but the girl doesn’t want it to go past a certain point, while the guy refuses to accept her rejection, perhaps reasoning (insofar as a drunk horny college guy is capable of reason) that she really wants it and is just trying to play hard to get.

    OK, so this happens — too frequently — and this is where the feminist rage about “victim-blaming”/”slut-shaming” comes in. Grant that the victim is a victim, that the date-rapist is a criminal, and that “no means no.” Grant all of that, and still you can’t help but notice the dreadfully poor judgment shown by the woman in such a situation. Did she think this drunk guy was going to be content with a little cuddling and kissing when she went to his dorm room? Should we excuse (and thereby encourage) bad decisions and unrealistic expectations by women? Or, if our purpose is actually to prevent rape, shouldn’t we view this as a teachable moment and say DON’T BE GETTING DRUNK! STOP HANGING OUT WITH CREEPS!

    Also, boys have cooties.

  5. eliana_the_huff
    August 12th, 2013 @ 1:17 am

    SECOND ELIANA I’VE MET IN MY LIFE I NOW HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE WE ARE ALL BAMFS (ALSO THE AUTHOR DUDE WAS A JACKASS) http://t.co/g3364o16HP

  6. fizzbang
    August 12th, 2013 @ 1:40 am

    If your argument is “guys can’t stop themselves from committing date rape and we shouldn’t expect them to,” that says something very sad about your expectations of men. Apparently, you think women should expect that we are all rapists.

    If a woman is only interested in a little cuddling and kissing, then why shouldn’t she be able to rely on a man respecting that?

    Why don’t we expect more from men and boys? More to the point, why don’t we demand it?

  7. SlutWalk DC: the Morons didn’t cover it, but at least someone familiar with AoSHQ terminology did
    August 12th, 2013 @ 8:31 am

    […] being Robert Stacy McCain, first in full-on Moron mode at his own blog and then in a slightly more sedate piece in the American […]

  8. robertstacymccain
    August 12th, 2013 @ 9:32 am

    Ma’am, I said “nice pink nipples.”

    I did not wish to get too specific about the definition of “nice,” because I would not want to make any invidious comparisons that would unnecessarily hurt any lady’s feelings or provoke arguments among the gentlemen as to preferences.

    De gustibus non est disputandum.

    As a professional journalist, however, when I say “nice,” I am describing an Objective Fact.

    And, hey, did I ever mention that Alyssa Milano reminds me of my wife?

  9. KittyAmerica
    August 12th, 2013 @ 9:52 am

    Well then I misunderstood; to me it sounded like you had never seen pink you know what. I was going to tell you to come meet some Southern Belles and stay away from Yankees and non-white women!

  10. Caesar
    August 12th, 2013 @ 12:23 pm

    probably because Robert is, himself, a rapist—plenty of surveys of rapists in prison reveal they believe all men rape, and that they just got caught. Oh, I wouldn’t say he’s a jump-out-of-the-bushes-and-rapes-a-virgin rapist, but everything he writes smacks of his need to take NO responsibility for his own desires, and certainly feels entitled to disrespecting a woman’s boundaries once he’s judged that “she’s asking for it”.

    I’m also disinclined to believe he’s very smart, since he thinks merely looking at a woman and appreciating her body counts as “objectification”, or that women can some how objectify themselves by taking their shirts off. I weep for the state of journalism if he counts himself as one. He’s just another repressed prude who loses his mind and writes a “Dear Penthouse” letter, typing with one hand with the other buried in his trousers, at the sight of a woman’s breasts in public. Judging by his age, he’s an early boomer who was raised to think his every thought is golden and is incapable of empathy when he is aroused, and needs to take on a condescending, paternalistic tone with women who make him uncomfortable. What with their breasts, and all. Robert can’t actually imagine viewpoints outside his own narrow lens, and probably believes everything he’s ever achieved was actually due to his own hard work in a merit-based system!

    All the proof you need is in how he describes the women at Slutwalk: angry. Angry women! Angry women make his prick shrink and his balls cramp! They must be crazy, or liars, or hysterical, or just naive! But I was there, and all I saw were women and men smiling, laughing, hugging, and sharing their experiences with each other. Women relieved to find others who had shared their struggles, and men who were invested in the idea that they were not mindless rape-monsters, that sex was more enjoyable when women feel like their boundaries will be respected. Men even felt safe enough to share their experiences of being raped. Robert was the only one who looked angry—he’s a conservative troll, he’s old, he knows none of the women there would touch him with a ten foot pole, and he can’t compete with a younger generation of feminist men. So he insists we’re all angry, shrieking harpies who will die bitter and alone—-which is precisely the sort of projection I’d expect from a sad little man like himself. I think he just needs to relax and lighten up a little—maybe his wife can stick something in his ass, lots of frustrated men feel better afterwards.

  11. Da Tech Guy On DaRadio Blog » Blog Archive » Hillary Clinton & The Nether Regions of the Sudetenland.
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  12. Jeff McCabe
    August 12th, 2013 @ 1:08 pm

    I assume you have no sense of humor. What he means is that he knows what they are thinking, as he asked them and reported here and elsewhere, but what they are thinking is just ridiculous. A colloquialism to discribe this disconnect with logic is to say “I dont know what they are thinking.” I hope this clears things up for you.

  13. Jeff McCabe
    August 12th, 2013 @ 1:13 pm

    other than that isnt his argument? Trotting out the old example, I have every right to walk thru central park at 3am counting my $100 bills without getting robbed. And the person to blame for the robbery is the robber. But maybe I should rethink walking thru the park in the middle of the night counting my money. See the correlation? Of course you dont.

  14. McCain you disgust me
    August 12th, 2013 @ 4:03 pm

    A wonderful quote:

    “THEY’RE. JUST. BREASTS. Seriously. Men can buy breasts on the shelf at gas stations, jerk off to them on their computers, put a statue of them in a fucking public part, but the second a woman decides her breasts are hers to control these grown men spill spaghetti out of their pockets.”

  15. SaraAlcid
    August 12th, 2013 @ 4:04 pm

    .@rsmccain’s coverage of SlutWalk DC illustrates precisely why SlutWalk exists. Simply disgusting. http://t.co/eMLBymKwtG #fem2 #slutwalk

  16. Kikki
    August 12th, 2013 @ 4:31 pm

    There is a huge difference between someone finding women attractive and someone objectifying them. I don’t mind someone finding me attractive. I do mind when someone decides to value me solely based on my looks, to disregard my feelings and thoughts because he finds me attractive or unattractive. So yes, by wearing lingerie in public, I can’t be surprised or annoyed when someone looks at my ass. I CAN be surprised and annoyed when someone gropes me or otherwise treats me as an object.

    Contrary to what you may have heard, slutwalks are not about a bunch of feminists running around in lingerie screaming “stop looking at my boobs!” Slutwalks started as a movement against the idea that women who dress provocatively invite or deserve rape. Morally, that idea is repugnant. No one deserves to be the victim of a violent crime for showing skin. Logically, it isn’t sound. As much as it sounds like “common sense,” no one has actually proven any relationship between dress and rape, so there’s no reason to say that women should stop dressing like sluts if they don’t want to get raped.

    Don’t confuse attraction with objectification. Feminists aren’t mad at people for finding women attractive; they’re mad at them for letting that attraction overshadow the fact that women are people.

  17. Kikki
    August 12th, 2013 @ 4:50 pm

    No, you’re supposed to look at them and think “she’s attractive, but that doesn’t mean she’s asking to be raped.” When it comes down to it, that’s all the slutwalks are trying to argue; that no matter how a woman is dressed, no matter how attractive you find her, she is still a human being who deserves to be treated with a basic standard of respect.
    You’re allowed to find women attractive. That’s fine, so stop with your strawman of “waaahhh, feminists don’t want men to find women attractive.” But there’s a difference between attraction and objectification. Whether or not you find someone attractive has nothing to do with whether or not you need to respect their physical boundaries. Find women attractive all you want, but don’t objectify them. Don’t forget that they’re human.

  18. fizzbang
    August 12th, 2013 @ 5:20 pm

    In his own words:
    “Did she think this drunk guy was going to be content with a little cuddling and kissing when she went to his dorm room? Should we excuse (and thereby encourage) bad decisions and unrealistic expectations by women? ”

    So yes, that is exactly his argument. That it is unrealistic for a woman to expect a guy to be content with cuddling and kissing, and we should not encourage that expectation.

    And it seems like you share that expectation, as you seem to believe that guys are akin to muggers in the park, unable to resist an easy target.

    As the above comment said, most rapists believe that all men rape. It’s a troubling sign to see how many people here seem to share that view, because it’s a particular form of self-justification and disassociation that you don’t see very often in the rest of the population.

  19. Reality Check
    August 12th, 2013 @ 8:01 pm

    You don’t have to assume. He doesn’t.

  20. Reality Check
    August 12th, 2013 @ 8:02 pm

    Lots of projection there, skippy.

  21. Reality Check
    August 12th, 2013 @ 8:03 pm

    That’s a whole lotta tl;dr that only comes donw to projecting your own issues on someone else. Good job.

  22. Reality Check
    August 12th, 2013 @ 8:10 pm

    LOL at all the faux outrage by the pseudofeminists and meterosexual gamma males who showed up here just to express their RIGHTEOUS OUTRAEG!!one111! And me without my popcorn. Such a pity.

  23. Paige N
    August 13th, 2013 @ 3:41 pm

    I am thankful we live in a country where we can practice free speech allowing you to write articles like this. However, I am disappointed in your interpretation of slut walk. What I gathered from this article is that you went to DC, saw a bunch of radical feminist, a nice ass, and a nice pair of tits. You did not try to understand the message of the protest nor did you talk about the brave people that shared their stories of sexual harassment, rape, or sexual abuse. You failed to mention the amount of rape survivors that attended the walk, or the amount of diverse people walking in solidarity for their mothers, brothers, sisters, friends, cousins, aunts, or uncles whom may have been victims of sexual abuse or rape. I understand the concept of a rape culture may be a bit difficult to grasp, or people may think it is made up by “radical” feminist. However, when we live in a country where 1 and 6 women will be raped in their lifetime that leads us to conclude it is likely that someone you know and may love has been a victim of rape. I do not believe all men are rapist nor am I a man hater, but I do think as a society we can do better. That is what slut walk is about. It is not just a protest, but a safe place for victims. It is a chance for women and men to come together and find new ways to reach out to their communities or college campus’s about rape prevention and solutions. Although the attire for slut walk may not be orthodox, it is supposed to be shocking in order to illustrate the message that women should be able to go out with their friends, wear whatever they want, and not worry about people taking advantage of them. I am sorry you missed this message, or thought it was ridiculous. And I wish you the best of luck in your future writings, although, I will never waste my time reading another one. Godbless, Paige

  24. Jerry Beckett
    August 13th, 2013 @ 4:59 pm

    Who claimed that a woman’s breasts were not hers to control?

  25. Me
    August 13th, 2013 @ 5:34 pm

    LOL. Yeah, you’re right up there with the most respected in the field. What a joke.

  26. delahaya
    August 13th, 2013 @ 6:21 pm

    These are the kind of women who would get drunk, walk naked down the street in a bad neighborhood in the middle of the night and then complain about being harassed or molested. Yes, no woman should be assaulted, but you should also use common sense. Sometimes modern liberalism seems like one huge assault on nature and common sense.

  27. delahaya
    August 13th, 2013 @ 6:23 pm

    That is TOTAL BS. That is not what most of these women want. They want control. They want to be the arbiter of everything. If you ask them out wrong – harassment. If you are getting intimate but don’t ask “permission” for each moment and act – that’s harassment. They are using the exact same path to power as our racialists – throwing tantrums.

  28. delahaya
    August 13th, 2013 @ 6:33 pm

    FIzzbang,

    Should a woman get high and walk naked down the middle of the street in a bad neighborhood at midnight? Am I a misogynist for saying if she did so that would be stupid? If I pointed that out would that mean I wanted her to be assaulted or that I don’t think the criminals that assaulted her should be in jail? Of course not, that’s nonsense. Logic escapes the modern liberal.

  29. delahaya
    August 13th, 2013 @ 6:35 pm

    Seriously, is there anything more pathetic than the metrosexual man who feels the need to grovel before a woman, or join these feminist campaigns in the remote hope he might…just might…get some.

  30. delahaya
    August 13th, 2013 @ 6:38 pm

    Here’s another question to these “feminists”. Assuming you are heterosexual (and that’s a big assumption with feminists), do you really want your body to NOT have any power over a man? Do you really want a man to look at you in a bra and panties and go “meh”. Or do you just want it to have the exact power YOU want, exactly and only when YOU want it, and to the degree YOU want it, and with no misunderstandings whatsoever? Yeah, well Utopia doesn’t exist on this planet and you’re being a control freak. Grow up!

  31. delahaya
    August 13th, 2013 @ 6:45 pm

    Except the 1 in 6 statistic is crap. It is a statistic that morphed from 1 in 6 women will experience an unwanted sexual advance of some kind to this. Once again, us conservatives think rape should still be a capital crime. It was liberals that gave us the therapeutic culture to explain away crime and excuse criminals and who got rape reclassified as a lesser crime. It was liberals who gave us the “hookup culture” in which its normal for young women to be put in compromising positions alone with men. I hope you can understand the disgust of us older men who’ve never mistreated a woman physically or sexually and are now accused of being potential rapists by women that make bad choices and don’t use common sense.

  32. fizzbang
    August 13th, 2013 @ 8:07 pm

    I really enjoy how you’re going through the album of Rape Culture Defenders’ Greatest Hits. So far we’ve seen:

    “If they don’t wanna get raped, they shouldn’t be so dumb”
    “Your statistics are meaningless (and here’s nothing to back up that claim)”
    “We’re the ones who really respect women, not you”
    “Feminist men are just in it for the sex”
    “Feminists are homosexuals”
    “Feminists just want to control men”
    and, of course, the perennial favorite
    “Grow up and stop trying to make things better!”

    Sure, we’ve heard them all before, but that’s okay. No one expects you to learn a new tune.

  33. Top 7 Craziest Comments Made About SlutWalk | OccuWorld
    August 14th, 2013 @ 11:20 pm

    […] 7. The idea that having a “slut parade” will somehow reduce incidents of rape is ridiculous. seems the real point is to insist they can dress how they like & no one’s allowed to make judgments on them. also ridiculous. oh and spreading the idea that all men are potential rapists. now we’re past ridiculous and straight into scurrilous. (via The Other McCain) […]

  34. Troll LaLa Troll LaLaLa
    August 15th, 2013 @ 8:51 pm

    Here’s an idea. I’ll leave my wallet with, ummm, say 20 or 30 twenty-dollar bills in it out on the street where everyone can look at it.

    Then I’ll verbally abuse anyone who’d seem interested in it, and screech “THIEF” at them if they get close to it.

    And I’ll carry a sign, to make this protest legitimate.

  35. FMJRA 2.0: Totem : The Other McCain
    August 17th, 2013 @ 5:49 pm

    […] Blame Joan of Arc […]

  36. Notes For the Spectator: 'Slutwalk Insanity' | Wonder and Risk
    August 20th, 2013 @ 8:16 pm

    […] with my digital camera accidentally erased my photos, [Was his name Jesus?] I felt obliged to offer a word-picture to my blog readers. That’s how I discovered another anomaly: Celine is a […]