Comments on: Naomi Wolf in Al Jazeera: Blame the Internet!

By: ultrahedonist

ultrahedonist — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 11:23:25 +0000

I think my favourite bit is where she suggests like maybe women’s brains are even affected by something in the same way mens’ are, like we’re the same species or some crazy shiz.
Anyhow. It cracks me up that reading “Promiscuities” at 15 is a big part of what made me the kind of woman who just shakes her head at the stuff Wolf is writing a decade later.

By: Bacchus

Bacchus — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:22:51 +0000

I admire your ability to critique articles like this. I’ve gotten jaded; I see another nonsense celebrity sex essay and my eyes just glaze over by the third paragraph. I can’t make myself finish reading them any more, much less blog about them!

By: Thomas Roche

Thomas Roche — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 18:34:56 +0000

Justin — I totally agree, it’s completely nuts to blame the internet for sexual misbehavior. I imagine Wolf would claim that’s not what she’s doing, but in fact it IS what she’s doing, but then trying to backpedal. And if it’s not what she’s doing, then why does she need to create a pseudoscientific argument for how INTERNET PORN ITSELF actually CREATES this “addiction” through its action on dopamine, and then backpedal by saying “but they’re still responsible for their actions!”

Her argument is essentialist in that it claims a physical change to the human body based on a behavior. So…yeah, she is blaming “the preponderence” of it on the internet….fine. But she, of all people, shouldn’t forget the first tool in any activist’s rulebook…commentary is an art, and art is a hammer. Just because the media’s covering some high-profile cases right now doesn’t mean it’s a “trend.” If more men in power are behaving badly or the men in power are behaving worse, she hasn’t reached anywhere near the burden of proof — all she’s done is assume “everybody knows that” because the media has covered a few high-profile cases lately. But that’s a damned small sample of powerful men to start throwing around claims of widescale changes to the male brain based on garbage non-science! Especially given the bazillions of years that men in power have been acting GODDAMN SHITS, and the media doesn’t cover it at all.

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:29:57 +0000

So, no man in the history of the world has even fallen from grace or been embarrased becaues of his sexual habits? Has she not Read any history books? The internet hasn’t changed humanity, we invented it. Just like the telegraph did, just like TV, just like radio, just like cars and the telephone, the internet just allows us to do Whatever we like, from organising PTA meetings to organising palace coups to organising orgies, faster and easier.

And yes, making fools of ourselves, which information (and proof) gets spread faster and easier.