Current mood:	bouncy
Current music:	Morrissey

email I sent to Bitch Magazine
I've read your magazine for a few years, and found it witty, insightful, relevant and a needed magazine amongst all the mainstream sexist media. My purchase and reading of Bitchfest helped solidify my view of your publication. Imagine my chagrin, when a couple of day ago, I discovered that you had co-sponsored "Tease-O-Rama." There are a few problematic things with this. You had just been requesting donations from your readers to continue publication of Bitch, while paying into a "business as usual," supposedly liberated event. For example, less than 10% of the performers are male, with many of them being drag queens, leaving about 5% to be cis men. This reflects, not rejects, wider patriarchal society: women ARE the sex class--are seen as symbolizing sex. Biological males, on the rare occasion they are shown in a naked-for-others'-pleasure situation, are usually depicted as drag queens, as being more associated with "sex" and "femininity itself" than (whether born or trans) women are. Why, at an event that is supposedly "feminist" and "ironic," are women and femininity still the objects of the viewers' gaze?

A list of sponsors is here: http://www.teaseorama.com/sponsors.html, including a group who sell ostrich meat and feathers (which I object to as a vegan/animal rights activist) and the Center for Sex Positive Culture, which is dedicated to BDSM, including slave play and "genitorture...the art of cunt torture." Another of the more troubling was that the event is also sponsored by Hustler. I hope I don't need to explicate the antifeminism inherent in both Larry Flynt and his empire (eg Barely Legal, racist cartoons, constant feminist bashing). I sincerely hope you rethink your sponsoring of this event. It is leading readers to question their commitment to subscribing and promoting Bitch; I for one, will either "girlcott" or continue supporting you, depending on how you handle this. The ball is in your court.

Sincerely,
Winnie Small