December 13th, 2013 / 7:04 pm
Massive People

The Strickland Dildo

 

Toy_Soldiers_British_Coldstream_Guards

 

Guest post by Emma Needleman

I.

The other day, I clicked a link to an essay called The Zambreno Doll, a prose poem by Garett Strickland. The essay—apparently inspired by the experience of Kate Zambreno unfriending him on Facebook—disgusted me. In it, Strickland accuses Zambreno of deliberately “occluding” him on the basis that he’s a white male, speculates that she needs to hatefucked by a real misogynist, and gleefully fantasizes about turning her into a doll.

Reading the piece infuriated me. I’m tired of seeing women I respect get treated like this. It made me so angry that I broke my New Year’s resolution to stop fighting with people on the Internet, and I left a series of comments calling Strickland a “dweeb” and a “loser.” I would like to take the opportunity to say that I stand by these statements. Later, I wrote longer comments calling attention to the gender dynamics of Strickland’s piece, and I also stand by these statements, although not to the same degree as my original assertions that he is a dweeb.

Garett wrote comments, too. They said things like:
“Ah yes right. Forgot I’m a man. Just a man. Not a person or a human or a life, but a man. Just a man. Way to put me in my place!”

“I just looked up the definition of misogyny to make sure. No, I don’t hate women. So I wouldn’t consider [my piece] misogynistic.”

I find all this cultural obsession with gender objectionable to the point of boredom.

Rather than simply keep my mouth shut regarding my opinions—or ghettoizing those opinions to conversations where I can make certain I’m only being agreed with, a la Zambreno—I’ve decided to share them out of an obligation I feel toward radical openness.”

::: :::

Like Strickland, I’m writing this piece because of an obligation I feel towards radical openness. I don’t want to restrict my conversation to places where I know my opinions will be agreed with, like among Mr. Strickland’s ex-girlfriends. That’s why I wanted to write The Strickland Dildo. It’s an exploration of the cultural forces that enable things like The Zambreno Doll to exist.

 

II.

Garett Strickland looks exactly how I would expect him to. His author photo shows him slumped in a chair, holding a (fake?) gun and looking stoned. He looks like ninety percent of my male friends: scruffy hipsters who earnestly think that people want to hear about their taste in music, dudes who smoke weed all day, and insist that being 1/16 Native American means they’re not “really” white.

I Google him and instantly regret it. It’s exactly what he wants me to do.

::: :::

The evening after The Zambreno Doll is published, my doorbell rings. When I open it, I see that a small, brown package has appeared on the porch. Could it be? The Strickland dildo? The phallus itself?

I bring the package inside quickly. If it’s the dildo, I already know what I’m going to do with it: take mocking photos of it and post them online. I have a whole series planned out. First, I’ll get my prettiest girlfriends to hold it up and make a face like they’re going to be sick. Then I’ll put a little Santa hat on top of it. Finally, I’ll feed it to my neighbor’s dog.

I tear open the package but find no phallus.  Insteadi, it’s a set of twelve toy soldiers, the old-fashioned metal kind. I’m disappointed. I didn’t ask for these. I wanted a doll, or its equivalent. Why should Garett get one and not me?

But I know why. Because he’s had it all along. Because he didn’t have to ask. Tears fill my eyes. This is confirmation of a terrible reality.

::: :::

Lately, I’ve been sitting in on an undergraduate class on 19th century German philosophy. The class begins with Kant and concludes with Nietzsche’s On The Genealogy of Morality. I like Nietzsche, maybe more than I care to admit. I certainly like him more than anyone else in the class, even though the other people in the class are all twenty-year-old boys, and twenty-year-old boys have historically been Nietzsche’s primary audience.

I like Nietzsche because he understands cruelty. He knows that we need to be cruel and that we need to know that we are cruel. If we don’t see the pain on the Other’s face, we will destroy ourselves. I believe this is true.

But I don’t think that this paradigm applies to Garett, who just wanted to “put Kate in her place”—to make her feel bad so he could feel powerful. He felt so entitled to that power that he became angry when she exercised even the tiniest bit of agency. He implied that she needed to be hurt, that she needed him to hurt her. That’s why I’m comfortable writing things like, “cry harder, dweebus” or “your dick is gross and bad.”

::: :::

After a few days, I take out the toy soldiers again. Maybe I can do something with them—give them to a thrift store or homeless shelter.  I open the box and notice that the soldiers look different, somehow. I squint and lean closer. Suddenly, I realize what it is: each of them has a distinct and highly detailed face. How did I not see it before?

I pick one up and examine it. It’s Garett Strickland. I pick up another one. It’s Sigmund Freud. I pick up another one. It’s the kid from my writing workshop who only wrote stories about women getting murdered. I pick up another one. It’s the man who grabbed my ass the first time I rode the subway by myself.

By now, my heart is pounding. I check the rest of the soldiers and confirm: yes, I recognize all of them. Yes, yes, they’re all here. It’s time. It’s finally time. I know what I have to do.

I go into my bedroom and put on my hiking boots. Then I line up the metal soldiers in two neat rows and crush each one under my feet. Like I said before, I find this cultural obsession with masculinity objectionable to the point of boredom.

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22 Comments

  1. deadgod

      How is a “toy soldier” not a “doll, or its equivalent”? (I admire your doll-care, but I don’t think “boredom” is the ish.)

      I think ‘understanding cruelty’, to the extent that “cruelty” is important to his philosophical affirmation of affirmation, is the least of Nietzsche’s merits. What do you think Nietzsche meant by self-overcoming?

  2. Earl Stamper

      you’re either hurt or you’re not. you’re either oppressed or you’re not. the rest is self-centered gossip.

  3. cats420

      “How is a “toy soldier” not a “doll, or its equivalent”?” <–maybe that's what the author (me) wanted you to think about, deadgod!

      i don't necessarily think that nietzsche's affirmation of cruelty is good, in the sense that i want to integrate it into society, but i think it's a compelling account (narrative?) of how we deal with our own pain and desires.

  4. Mandee

      This is well-written, intelligent, and funny – the exact opposite of Garrett Strickland’s piece. Thank you, Emma Needleman!

  5. cats420

      thank you!

  6. cats420

      v. cryptic, earl, but i suppose i don’t disagree.

  7. deadgod

      Yes, maybe.

      I don’t think Nietzsche says ‘yes’ to cruelty in the sense of advocacy; he rejects denying violence (so that it reappears in the form of ‘pity’). Pity is “nihilism”. (This doesn’t commit Nietzsche to denying empathy; it commits him to taking empathy seriously, not sentimentally.) He wants one not to get away with naming things in a self-justifying way without recognizing self-justification – without evading one’s power trip. Anyway, that’s what I think.

      What do you think Nietzsche means by “self-overcoming”?

  8. cats420

      to some extent i think nietzsche *does* value expressions of cruelty even beyond the denial of pity. he sees them as a sign of the health and well-adjustment of the ancients, for example.

      self-overcoming: to my understanding, a way of pushing or testing oneself that isn’t simply self-deprivation or flagellation; the “hero’s test” that will cultivate the overman through the very act of resistance; man as self-refining product, not stable self.

  9. columbusmatt

      Oh, nooooooo!

      Boys and girls on the internet being upset about being boys and girls on the internet!!!!!!!!!!!

      Whatever shall we doooooooo?!!?

      ;-)

  10. deadgod

      That’s an excellent point: something like ‘striking angrily’ could be a sign of “health” (a key Nietzschean good that he privileges early and late, as I remember), not in the sense that the infliction of pain would be successfully calculated to cause survival, and certainly not in the false sense that sadistic pleasure is a high value, but rather, in the sense of an excessive bursting of vitality.

      That is, not tactical or hedonistic cruelty, but a violent flowing of the sap and juice of life – an apotheosis of Dionysus. What this “healthy” cruelty would amount to in everyday life, I’m not sure; people are usually nasty either to win or because it makes them feel good, and Nietzsche finds these values inferior, as I read him.

      “Overcoming” as ‘refinement’ is also excellent. Not sure about a “hero’s test”.

      To me, self-overcoming is a characteristic Nietzschean paradox: if you overcome yourself, then the victor and vanquished are identical. “Overcoming” inherently posits two forces; “self”-“overcoming”, one and two.

      I think he means that the overperson wills not power over, but rather, wills power simply in the sense of playing among forces-at-work. Again, what this image would mean in everyday experience, I’m not sure. The joy that occasionally suffuses and pours out of you which seems to have no focus or goal… something like that.

  11. mimi

      um, say something intelligent?

      ok ok i know that was harsh

      i say stoopid things on the internet all the time – – – –

      not!

  12. mimi

      omg! i heart “excessive bursting(s) of vitality”

      hugs d

      m

  13. columbusmatt

      Whatever shall we doooooooo?!!?

      ;-)

  14. cats420

      as it’s been explained to me, the will-to-power is subordinated to a desire *with an object* such as the desire for victory, understanding, sex, etc. so it appears as a desire for x but is actually will-to-power. this isn’t actually the aspect of nietzsche’s thought that interests me most.

  15. columbusmatt

      “um, say something intelligent?”

      If you can’t engage with humanity above and beyond your gender you’re eternally trapped between your legs.

  16. mimi

      very good

  17. columbusmatt

      As an “empenised person” I thank you.

      (though you DID hurt my boy-feelings HARD with

      “”um, say something intelligent?””

      ;-)

  18. mimi

      i’m sorry if i hurt your feelings

      but i’d say the same thing to a girl that asked me that, if that makes you feel any better

      : )

  19. columbusmatt

      “i’m sorry if i hurt your feelings”

      Buhlieve me, you did not…

      ;;-)

      But let’s get back to the SERIOUS BUSINESS
      of boys and girls on the internet
      being UPSET about being
      boys and girls on the internet!!!

      They’re boys!!!
      And girls!!!
      On the internet!!!

      BEING UPSET!!!!!

      ;-)

      (it is ALL so fourth-grade playground…)

  20. mimi

      “Buhlieve me, you did not…”

      well that’s a relief
      phew

  21. Citric

      guys playing with dolls, girls playing w/ soldiers, gAAHHHH this site’s just UPSIDE DOWN w/ respect to traditional gender roles

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