Startled by bukkake, columnist blames feminism

Award-winning author Joseph Dobrian reads at Prairie Lights.

Award-winning author Joseph Dobrian and his pocket square at Prairie Lights

At the risk of feeding the outrage machine, I urge you to read this column by Joseph Dobrian in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, “Feminism does not empower women. It infantilizes them.” Mad props to Justin, Den Man for the link. The first paragraph goes like this:

I saw a revolting image on Facebook the other day: a nude woman on whose face and torso several men had evidently just ejaculated. The caption said, “Feminism. Because being a housewife wasn’t degrading enough.” That accusation — that feminism encourages such conduct — might sound counterintuitive, but there’s something to it.

I’m going to stop you right there, bro. You saw an image of a nude woman covered in ejaculate on Facebook? Facebook content is vetted by automatic and human moderators. That’s why you don’t see hardcore pornography in your News Feed. Maybe Dobrian confused his browser tabs.

That slip is the first step in a dance of unintended confessions. Its beauty lies not so much in Dobrian’s performance as in the machinations we imagine backstage. Here’s paragraph two in its entirety:

Granted, no woman who self-identifies as “feminist” would say that this behavior is what feminism is about. But the vulgarity currently associated with feminism—the deliberate, aggressive flaunting of tastelessness—certainly conduces to such memes.

No woman who identifies as feminist would say that, but Dobrian sure will—in the newspaper, no less. Also, “self-identifies” is redundant. On the other hand, kudos to Dobrian for staunchly opposing nominalization by writing “conduces” rather than the more popular1 “is conducive to.” A face and torso of ejaculate to Dobrian for suggesting that the vulgarity “currently associated with feminism”—by whom we cannot know—conduces to gang bang pictures.

One suspects that people Googling “female degradation porn” has more to do with the internet supplying Dobrian this image. Regardless, he offers a series of examples of tasteless feminist behavior, including slut walks and the “F-Bombs for Feminism” video. Dobrian and I agree that video is awful, although I suspect for different reasons. We disagree on pretty much the entire content of paragraph nine:

It’s said that women never falsely accuse men of rape — but that thing that never happens just keeps on not happening, from the University of Virginia to Oberlin to Duke. It keeps not happening, so often that there’s a near-epidemic of this never-happens thing never happening.

  1. I don’t think it’s said that women never falsely accuse men of rape. Show me one quote in which a person says that. I couldn’t find it. What you have here, sir, is a straw man.
  2. The three false accusations of rape that you cite hardly constitute an epidemic—not even a “near-epidemic.” Whatever a near-epidemic is, I think we can agree it is more than three.
  3. Estimates of the prevalence of false rape reports range from 2% (Department of Justice) to 8% (FBI), depending on how you distinguish between false reports and unfounded reports.
  4. The number of times a thing can never happen is once. Your mechanical negation of “happening” has ruined your unfunny sarcasm.
  5. At forty, every man has the face he deserves.

Now we’re just being mean. The important thing about this column is not that Dobrian takes the vertiginous social risk of speaking out against feminism, nor that he erects such a clumsy straw man to do it. It’s that the Gannett-owned Iowa City Press-Citizen published this proofed bodybuilding-forum comment as a column. No reasonable person or practicing writer could read it without contempt, but the Press-Citizen’s editors published it anyway, thinking it might please readers. That itself suggests contempt.

No, wait—the important thing is that Dobrian accidentally outed his bukkake fetish. The “saw it on Facebook” claim is a delightfully transparent lie, made more pleasing by the likelihood that this column will make him internet-famous on feminist blogs. Bro, you denied having a thing for facials in the first paragraph of your clickbait screed. Enjoy the feminism as it rains upon your collarbones and pert mouth.

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7 Comments

  1. I think if you put me in a room with, say, two dozen other guys, any woman would describe me as regular-sized.

  2. Very well, Mr. Dobrian. Tell us where you came across this image on Facebook. The page of a friend of yours, perhaps? We can all report the offensive content to Facebook together.

  3. Thanks for writing Dan! The news media in Iowa City is also a puppet. I wish you would call out more people in Iowa City. Outrageously high arrest rates and abuse of power by the police need some help.

  4. That’s funny, you just based most of your argument on a false premise. Even in child friendly sites does this stuff happen, and I talk from experience. You really shouldn’t argue when you don’t know what you’re talking about.

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