An open letter to ForeverGeek

(Warning: NSFW pictures below the jump. Possibly triggering, because it's naked ladies with their identites removed.)

Dear ForeverGeek,

I'm concerned that you don't know what the word "political" means. First, I pointed out to you on Twitter that it was weird that this post didn't include any of the (many) explicitly American-, Christian-, or capitalist-centric images of violence from this artist. You told me that "we aren't too political at ForeverGeek." And "Not always do you have to look for a reason behind everything." Whatever. I let it go.

Later, I use your blog as an example of the objectification of female fans (and women in general) in geek communities, and you insist! Again! Nothing political at ForeverGeek! Hilariously, you use this opportunity to invite me to blog there:

Courtney, why don’t you join the geek subculture at ForeverGeek and be part of the team. Then you will notice how little agenda there is and that everyone just posts about their favourite geek discoveries, AKA what they find cool at that time.

Any geek topic one is passionate about or finds just utterly cool is welcome, also writing about being a woman who tries to participate and does not want to be considered as an object. And yes, you can even write with an attitude trying to play with the audience.

(Aw! Folks, did you know that feminism is just "an attitude" designed to "play with the audience?" Because I'm never serious about sexism. I'm just riling you up.)

Look, dudes, just because you don't have a coherent "agenda" at ForeverGeek doesn't mean that your blogging choices don't have political consequences. When you publish (over and over again) posts in which you gush over objectified hot ladies in the contexts of your geek obsessions, you don't get to call those decisions "not political." Especially in the geek context, where female fans already get the near-constant message of Tits or GTFO, you cannot pretend that this is an innocent choice, devoid of any sexist consequences. I don't really care that you don't mean it that way, or that you just like hot chicks and Star Wars. Seriously, don't care. The message you send when you wax poetic about naked models with Storm Trooper helmets on skateboards is that you like to objectify women. (These women don't even get to have individual faces, so the viewer doesn't have to do something icky, like remember that these models are real, invidivual people, with, you know, desires and needs or their own. Nope! They exist solely for your geeky sexual pleasure as airbrushed, interchangeable bodies.)

Telling me that praise of this art project is not political is in fact a political statement. By arguing that there's no agenda in posting about how this is so! awesome!, you normalize the objectification of women. You side with the geek men who think that women just need to stfu and get naked already, because they're really only good for sex. And if geek women don't want to just be interchangeable bodies that exist solely for your sexual pleasure? Then they're just being political. With their opinions and not-airbrushed bodies. Gross.

If I sound pissed, it's not because I think your intent was malicious (though it's possible it is). It's because you perpetuate misogyny in the geek community when you keep insisting that treating ladies like anonymous sex objects is a normal, apolitical activity. And that affects me personally, both as a geek and a lady.

So, I won't be joining you at ForeverGeek, particularly since your invitation was not framed as "we care about what you have to say," but as an attempt to prove to me what is patently untrue: that ForeverGeek is devoid of political decisions. I made this blog in part to get away from having to engage too much in the toxic environment that is (parts of) the geek community, and I know how ugly geek men can get if you challenge their privilege. I don't intend to do that in a space I don't control.

Cheers,

Courtney