Jezebelism

Tracie Egan, and Moe Tkacik, two writers from Jezebel.com were invited to appear on my show, Thinking and Drinking.

Their work on Jezebel has made them role models for young women everywhere. After reading their posts to prepare for the interview, I wanted to have a conversation about Hillary and sexism, women's magazines and if they feel any obligation to write about responsibility and safety when they write graphically about their sex lives.

We conducted a pre-interview with Tracie who writes about sex and pop culture for Jezebel under the name "Slut Machine." When you click on "Slut Machine" you are linked to her personal blog that regales her readers with "no detail left behind" accounts of her sexual experiences.

Moe writes about politics and sex as well and combines pop culture with it all and was not available for a pre-interview. Tracie assured us she would be cool with anything we talked about in the feminist, political arena, that she was an expert on China, and that they had been talking a lot about rape lately.

They were emailed a show description with links to past interviews and we were all set.

I don't know if they came to the show drunk, or just ended up drunk by the time they hit the stage, but what I do know is that the discussion that ensued was deeply disturbing to me for a few reasons:

1. Because they had no regard for the people who came that night and paid money to hear them speak.

2. They do not understand the influence they have over the women who read them, nor do they accept any responsibility as role models for young women who are coming of age searching for lifestyles to emulate.

Even as one young woman who attended the show voiced her disappointment on her own blog, when Moe and Tracie commented on the entry, she was so excited that she backpedaled her criticism.

I put this video up to start a discussion, about sexuality, feminism, freedom, power and responsibility. I want those who read and admire their work to ask themselves how they feel about this, and those who are just hearing about them for the first time to do the same. I am no angel and tell a few stories on this tape about my own life that are cringe worthy and so I put myself up for scrutiny here as well.

Words and actions matter, and those of us who are given a forum to share opinion should always be mindful of that, and those of us who are trying to be watchdogs for the truth, should always call out harmful inaccuracies when we see them. I feel a responsibility to hold these young women accountable for the statements they make as they seem sure to keep repeating them.

These are some selected clips. The entire interview is posted on www.shootthemessengernyc.com.

CLIP ONE:

These Jezebels recommend birth control methods:

Moe: Pulling out always works for me"

Tracie: "And I know it's an irresponsible thing to day, but it's (Pulling Out) The Most Fun Way Not To Get Pregnant"

The Jezebels on sex with total strangers:

Tracie: "People are always saying it's not safe to go home with strange men, blah, blah blah, like Mr. Goodbar whatever"

Moe: "What's gonna happen?'

Lizz You could get raped"

Moe: That's happening too, but you live through that."

Lizz: "Sometimes you don't"

Moe: "That's true if they have weapons."

The Jezebels define the "rapists of our generation"

Tracie: "I live in Williamsburg, there aren't very assertive men there"

Moe: "The thing about the rapists of our generation, is that they all use drugs, they all have some sort of drug they use on you, so it's good to feel, and I don't know if this has happed to me or if I just drink too much...

Moe: "It's really hard to prosecute them (rapists), so you should try to avoid them at all costs."

Tracie: "I once paid someone to rape me once."

Tracie: "Well, I didn't pay for it, I had a magazine pay for it

Tracie: "I moved here when I was 18 and you think you would encounter more rapists in a big city like this, but, I don't know, I just haven't."

CLIP TWO:

Moe on sexual regret:

Moe: "I guess, I like, regret being date raped"

Moe: "It seems like in terms of bad sexual experiences, that you have, the worst ones are in, always seem to be in countries where sex is not accepted. That is the good thing about New York, I've never has any problems with anyone here."

Moe: "I guess third guy, I ever had sex with, date raped me, and I got very mad at him, but I wasn't gonna fucking like turn him in to the police and fucking go through shit..

Lizz interrupts: "Why not, you see that's the problem, why not, I am just curious?"

Moe: Because it was a load of trouble and I had better things to do, like drinking more."

Tracie on why she has not been raped

" I think it has to do with the fact that I am like, smart"

"I don't hang around with frat guys"

Moe on how she felt about her rapist:

"I always felt very like, safe around this guy even after he date raped me"

Moe on what women can take home from reading their blogs

If any of you guys use the pullout method, but you read you know, anything I wrote about Ben Bernanke, or you know, what ever, at least y'll go to the grave with your syphilis, slightly informed, that's all I care about.

Comments

[ouroborous]

...and THIS is what "empowered women" look like? Please, someone, tell me otherwise...

Truth in advertising: I'm at least a nominally liberal male, so rail at me if you like. But I really don't understand how ANYONE could find this attractive, on any level. It's a bunch of narcissistic, self-obsessed gals, tipsy or drunk, who are sure that they're smarter than everyone else when they're, like, you know, not anywhere near as smart as they think they are.

Yeesh.

[hiNY]

Is it only me, or is this the funniest thing I have seen for sometime! this is some sort of late night drunken chitchat caught on tape! They even invoke the war on terror for god sake! the fact they remember that they live in the USofA, is a miracle!

[hiNY]

"I have better things to do, like, drinking more" instead of reporting my raper. Hilarious!!!

[MissAngela]

I have never been to this website or read what they've had to write before. However, judging from these clips, I have to say that I am saddened by anyone who would take any of their views to heart or try to emulate them. Drunk or not, they seem to have a complete lack of knowledge about important sex and safety issues.

[SanFranDiane]

The elephant in this room is the fact that victims of rape often resort to denial, minimizing and alcohol/drug abuse to deal with the rage and pain. Too much effort or hassle to report a rape? If you really want inconvenience, consider the years it can take to get over unacknowledged issues around sexual assault. If you're the victim of a rape, get a firm grip on your courage and call your local rape hotline to start the process of healing from the violence that was done to you.

[Bystander]

Jezebel.com...the place for people that think "sexual immorality" is an oxymoron.

[GraceFoster]

Jezebel puts the ME in feminism. I read the site and for my own mental health I am going to stop. It seems that most of the editors have been raped and it is sad that Tracey thinks it's because her friends aren't as smart as her. All of them, but especially Tracey, seem like they spend most of their day stoned and drunk and crawl out of bed to cut and paste articles from other websites, post self indulgent stories about their lives and watch Judge Judy. This site has nothing to do with feminism or women. It is a group of women with mental and substance abuse problems who have somehow managed to make a living posting about their useless lives. This must be what the owners of Gawker and Fleshbot think women should find "empowering".

[Lysistrata30]

I'm a loyal Jezebel reader and this bothered me a little. Part of the schtick ( and I mean that affectionately) is to say absurd and outlandish things to spark debate and discussion. They say something they don't necessarily want taken seriously so people will talk honestly about things and not pussfoot around political correctness. But they may have gone too far. This has been an issue with them lately. They are really rape fixated and it hardly seems like a subject for humor.

[AtomiClash]

Having never read Jezebel until reading this article and watching the videos, I think you may have missed the mark here, too, Lizz.
I'm not saying that Tracie and Moe were 100%, but I can't say you'd done your research well. They make light of proper birth-control on their website left and right. Tongue-in-cheek humor is for those who understand it... Otherwise, they do come off as senseless twits.
as far as the rape comments, one of their complaints about society is undermining the seriousness of rape and violence against women. Again, could you and the audience just have missed their rather sick but still on-mark sense of humor?
Just a possibility.

[bentenrai]

This seems to be the century of lightheadedness.

[vmonter]

I guess Church and The Lord are made for some people...

[LRM216]

Pathetic souls, both of them - and so dangerous to the younger females thinking that this is what constitutes "cool."

[capeman]

Say hello to Generation Dumb.

[Furby]

They are not dumb, they just learned what we taught them. They are condemned to live in the sad world they have inherited from our generation. It would be in our best interest to learn to understand them rather than put them down.

[bazokbros]

Victims of society? Don't think so.

[midnighthour]

Reading the comments, a lot of people get the impression from these clips that both Moe & Tracie are dismissive about rape. That appears to be true for Tracie, but the second clip is truncated and omits Moe talking about being raped, which she does immediately after making the dismissive remark above.

Telling the story, you can tell that there's a lot of pain around what happened. She also agrees with Lizz more than once that she should have reported the rape.

In the complete video at Lizz's website, starting at the forty-nine minute mark, Moe talks about being raped; recalls counting each time she said “No”; remembers confronting the guy and being told it was okay because she was, to paraphrase, a slut; got very upset talking about all this; and even apologized for not reporting the rape. But the clip cuts out everything that followed her first, awkward attempt to deflect talking about it. Everyone who watches the clip will instead think Moe is completely dismissive about rape, and that's extraordinarily unfair.

[queenviolet]

I've watched the entire piece, and I thought Moe's attitude was extremely dismissive of rape. You can't just pull out one or two things she said, and discount the entire performance. Her attitude, and saying you 'live through" rape (uh, some women don't) was entirely cavalier.

She's said similar things in other posts on Jezebel, like when she said she feels absolutely nothing for other rape victims and mocked a group of women who undertook a letter writing campaign about an article that downplayed rape as a gray area.

[UnrealitycheckDotCom]

All I know is
So many women and
So many guys

Run these lines of reasoning
All the way to their conclusions
Putting all of us on the spot
Every time

To think these things
Has to make us think
Every person
Should reconsider
Everything we put out there

But I think
I want to encourage us
To experiment
Cause it is
Hard to know
Everyone's line of reasoning is
Sane in their own context