I think we need to be stronger about this, and refuse to go see films that just barely acknowledge queerness. We could make more of an effort to invest in the kinds of low production value queer indie films...talk with our dollars.

WORD, and I am not scared to actually name my own identity rather than allow others to guess at it [in order to fulfill Asian stereotypes and seem “mysterious” and overtly sexual]

Perhaps she has a different relationship to makeup, as a Black woman? So much of makeup is intended to make people’s faces look more like the “ideal” i.e. more like a Western European woman’s features. There’s also not much makeup out there that is right for Black women’s skin tones...so maybe for her, rejecting…

So what? Makeup really is poisoning women—most commercial brands that aren’t organic have lead in them, and their use of it is unregulated. Makeup’s probably giving women cancer. As far as I’m concerned, if she brings some exposure to that, good for her.

I think in terms of the hair wrap, there’s so much societal hatred towards Black women’s hair that whatever she likes and whatever works for her is important and worth supporting. It’s her hair, let her do whatever she wants.

WORD. It’s also a total “gotcha” moment. Cruel and vindictive.

I’m also really confused about how it was ever remotely anything to do with him? Seems like he’s just blowing his own horn at her expense.

Oh, word! That stuff’s not makeup, it’s just cleaning products.

I have mixed feelings about this. Perhaps what she wears on television is different from her walking-around look?

My great uncle was like that, too. Thought he was a damn genius, but he’d never done anything particularly interesting with his life.

This whole thing is also totally icky from another perspective. These men have basically decided to “school” this poor girl by ganging up on her, without her prior knowledge.

TRUE. I couldn’t deal with what was happening to me as a kid, with the men abusing me, because I was dependent on my parents for survival. For many women, I think we’re just so naive about the world-and taught to be thus, and forced into a position of dependency by parents-that even as successful professionals, it…

YES. I was speaking with a friend yesterday who admitted she wants a man just like her dad-an abusive and manipulative prick. It happens, even to the best of us.

I agree with Bobby Finger. I just ran into a young woman yesterday who explained to me that a male-a teenager!-threatened to commit suicide if she did not go out with him. When she resisted, he tried to kiss her several times against her will.

We are talking about part of rape culture, which this is. Everything that happens in this society happens in that context, which means in every situation women are more vulnerable than men to intrusion—not because we are “infants,” but because we are WOMEN in a patriarchal society.

So a woman has to be a victim in order to be victimized? A woman has to be an infant in order to be capable of being taken advantage of by a man?

Could we talk privately?

No, you’re right—I didn’t mean ingenue, but she IS younger, has been in the biz for less time and simply by virtue of being female, she’s more vulnerable. The fact he felt comfortable doing this at all is proof of that.

My thing was sexual abuse, too. Honestly, it’s really hard not to start freaking out right now in my life—I’m losing weight, which is a good thing [I was overweight, and I’m happy to be losing weight in a healthy way] but I feel SO much more physically vulnerable in the world already. I mean, the literal fact of…

Really? When do you expect that to happen, exactly? I mean, millenia have passed with zero interruption to their domination. Whyever would you expect anything to change?