Solidarity

from Nudism as an Illegalism

Two notes before beginning:

Instead of the overly Latin and slightly nauseating word “penis”, I have chosen to instead to use something a bit more whimsical and fun in this piece, namely “johnson”. For etymologically obvious reasons, this term does not pertain very well to the transfeminine penis, more colloquially known as “girldick” – but alas, for those who can only see a dick as chromosomally shaped mounds of flesh, blood, and other fluids, it might as well be a johnson for all they're concerned, no matter the precise context.

Second, with respect to people who read this may just a touch “gender-critical” themselves, I already know how and why I disagree with you. I think your views are a combination of boring, outdated, and too amenable to authoritarianism that's either rightist or might as well be rightist (never mind all the left-wing and/or anarchist bona fides certain people may harp on about); I'm not interested in wasting my time discussing it. To the extent you want to some spaces to remain “cis women only”, I hardly even care, but I don't see it being very difficult to do that in your own spaces. You have them and you will, in all likelihood, continue to have them; they just may not be the only spaces anymore.

So, at the time of writing, the opening paragraph of the Wikipedia article on the “Wi Spa controversy” reads as follows:

On June 24, 2021, a woman posted a video to Instagram in which she angrily confronted staff at Wi Spa, a Korean spa in Los Angeles, about the apparent presence of a nude individual with a [johnson], most commonly believed to be a trans woman, in the women's section of the spa. The video went viral, attracting significant attention from [trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) and right-wing] media, which led to protests and counter-protests on July 3 and 17 over the alleged access. Some media initially questioned whether the alleged incident had been a hoax.

The article goes on, stating that on August 30, someone “commonly reported to be a transgender woman” was arrested in connection to the original reported incident. There is at least one real person involved at the centre of all this, in other words – and things are still very much shaking out for her. I have not followed this story closely, and I don't even know how many details are easily available, but I suspect that she is in pre-trial lock-up at this time.

As an anarchist, I think that sucks, and that, furthermore, all the prisons should be burned down. I am also open to the idea that this person genuinely sucks, because I do not know what happened. My gut reaction, as a partisan in the culture war, is that this is (as some have claimed, because there was initially no evidence at all to suggest otherwise) a hoax, and that now some uninvolved trans woman is dealing with a lot of shit as a consequence. But I don't know – and hey, maybe that person has done some things I don't think are cool, at Wi Spa or elsewhere.

An aside: evidently, she was not arrested because she is necessarily known to have been at Wi Spa – although perhaps some witness testimony will, I suppose, come out in whatever court-and-media circus that may emerge from this some months hence. It was, instead, her history of “indecent exposure” dating from about 2003 that is documented by the judicial system. She has apparently also been designated by the state as a “registered sex offender” since 2006, presumably for related reasons.

This woman, and the original incident in the Wi Spa women's changing room (be it a complete fabrication or not), is not really important, though. What is important is that there were, just outside of Wi Spa's location in Los Angeles, large rallies and counterrallies between rightists, on the one hand (including in some cases fascists, parafascists, as well as several people who are completely out of touch with reality), and on the other hand, a coalition of anti-fascist activists, e.g. various leftists, maybe some anarchists, the odd, essentially liberal concerned citizen, and so on. These events, on July 3, July 17, and possibly on other days since, were all overseen by the police.

What happened at Wi Spa was part of a larger story as soon as that went viral. It was, in fact, for at least a brief moment, The Story for both the “gender-critical” and anti-fascist commentariats, in the United States at least. This is what led to the rallies, which I am sure would have had various negative effects if left unopposed (difficulty for staff just working a job at Wi Spa, difficulty for many customers but certainly customers who are trans or might look trans, a sense of victory for the anti-trans side and/or their buddies the Nazis and the “Western chauvinists”), and so then there was also counteraction (widely framed as “antifa”), with all of its inherent risk for the side that, on other days of the week and/or with every breath, also happens to oppose the police, the colonial state, capitalism (of all kinds), the American flag, etc.

There were real stakes for both coalitions, in other words – both the rightist, TERF/“gender-critical”, religious conservative, and -adjacent coalition “opposing gender ideology” et al., as well as the trans, anti-fascist, liberal-progressive-secular, and -adjacent coalition that stands for “trans and queer liberation”, “LGBT rights”, etc., to one's tastes.

As an insurrectionary anarchist – which means, in the North American context today, a tradition within anarchism largely informed by people who had some close connection to struggles in Italy or in the Italian diaspora in the past, from Malatesta and Galleani about a hundred years ago, to the forebears of those forebears, and also to the lives of anarchists still living today like Bonanno, Weir, and others who got caught up in the biggest event for anarchists of the whole 1990s, which has been significantly degree identified with individualist currents as well in North America, also bringing names like Novatore especially to the fore – I inherit a tradition that, in its more modern, local, and generally English-language iterations, is extremely ambivalent about and wary of coalitional politics, insofar as it knows well that coalition partners, on the whole, aren't gonna fuck with what we think, aren't gonna put resistance to authority at the centre of their analysis and practice, are pretty likely to betray us and/or disappoint us eventually.

All that said, there is a social-insurrectionary current too, which doesn't forget that it's not just insurrectionary anarchists or any other conspiratorial “elite” that makes the revolution – it's everyone, together. At least where I live, the individualist and the social-insurrectionary currents still exist in an uneasy tension, together sustaining (with difficulty) a form of anarchism that isn't just contemporary Blanquism lazily described as such.

Thus, in the spirit of realizing the perennial social-insurrectionary fantasy, of diverse demographics coming together, vanquishing various threats, and creating space for joyous novelty (also identified, by some, as “anarchy”), I wish to bring to the fore that there is also some stake in this for anyone who wants to “normalize nudity” in society at large.

The original controversy stems from the fact that a johnson visible to others for a brief moment in the women's changing room at Wi Spa on June 24 of this year; and if that was not the case, we can still concede that such a thing could happen, certainly has happened somewhere at some point, that it is in fact a logical consequence of a limited trans liberation taking place within the parameters of an otherwise unchanged society (i.e. a society that has commercial spas, which have bigendered changing rooms, and so on). And, either you're cool with that, or not.

Personally, I am cool with it, and not even on behalf of some especial militancy in favour of trans lib. It's more like, as a nudist, it is hard for me to understand what the big deal is about a loose johnson or a loose anything. “Don't look if it makes you uncomfortable” is my position, in more or less any setting, including in changing rooms, locker rooms, etc., to your preference.

Furthermore, I don't really believe that the specific “sanctity” of any space should be the most important principle in any ethical conundrum or social question, nor do I think it is acceptable or a good idea to accommodate ungrounded panic about sexual predators and pedophiles, especially if trans women and other groups are also being identified as the avatars of this threat. I suspect the rare event of a loose johnson in a women's locker room will be uncomfortable for some (I would think the discomfort would be with among isolated pre-op trans women especially, not among the cis women and girls in a space that is overwhelmingly used by cis women and girls), but life is uncomfortable for everyone sometimes. Alas! Would that it were not, for everyone!

In men's changing rooms, there has also been a sort of drift towards less tolerance of loose johnsons in public view, which long predates more recent hysteria animated by the gains of pro-trans social movements. Where I live, local authorities have, in recent years, mandated that nudity is not to be tolerated in changing rooms for public pools, whether to change from a street outfit into swimclothes or to take a shower beforehand or after. Although the policy applies across the board, the focus has been on the men's changing rooms, and the arguments have been much the same as those with respect to the Wi Spa controversy. Some people are uncomfortable with nudity, first off; it was implied that the people were doing the complaining were mostly non-white immigrants, so when the policy was announced, both a potential “left” opposition to the policy was undermined for fear of association with racism, while a scapegoat was offered up by local authorities to magnetize the animus of any potential “right” opposition to the policy. Skillfully done, truly.

There are also children present in men's changing rooms, just like in women's changing rooms. Apparently this matters because there is an epidemic of child sex trafficking happening at the public pools where parents and older siblings take young kids to cool off in the summer (fact check: there is not). What's really happening is that 6-year-olds are seeing normal human bodies in the locker room, and then potentially asking questions of their fathers and older brothers that can cause these men, young and old, quite a bit of discomfort and confusion. Alas, if we assume the policy was adopted for exactly the same reasons as local authorities said, then it doesn't give much credit to these men (among whom I suspect there are plenty of white “locals”, incidentally). The same is true, incidentally, of any narrative that assumes crowds of cis women are uniquely threatened by the odd trans woman in a women's changing room, including the even rarer type of trans woman who is a bit large or a bit rude.

Even in the very limited number of spaces where public nudity has heretofore been considered acceptable because it is, in fact, quite practical – like, me being me, the nudist blog guy, I'd obviously prefer both the pool and poolside facilities to be comprehensively nudity-optional, but that's just not what's up – there is a push to keep “private parts” covered to an even greater point of impracticality than what was, mere decades, still quite common. And like, I think it should be as easy as possible, for everyone, for people to change their outfits when that is something they need to do just to enjoy their lives. There may be more than one solution to this, none of which is likely to work for everyone, but a trans-inclusive policy with respect to bigendered changing rooms seems significantly better than simply ignoring the specific needs, experiences, or desires of trans women writ large in order to satisfy a bigoted sentiment among, for the most part, cis people, both women and men.

But it's happening anyway. The reason is anti-sexual hysteria, in which there are confused efforts to solve real sexuality problems, but whose strategic sense is either entirely absent, or otherwise wholly animated by paranoia about identified enemy groups. This sort of thing never affects just one group of people. It has ripple effects. Certainly it has gotten into all of that QAnon and -adjacent stuff at this point, meaning the currents that presently animate the most incidents of fatality-inducing stochastic terror incidents in the United States.

It's pretty serious stuff, in other words.

Among naturist spaces on the internet, the only one I am aware of that has any space at all for present-day political discourse is the r/naturism subreddit. At the time of writing, there is a wiki page “dedicated to resources to help the Black Lives Matter movement” as well as links to a “Belarus Solidarity Fund” and a “Hayastan All Armenian Fund” on the sidebar, presumably related to the ongoing situation in Belarus and last year's war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. I don't want to be too mean or critical, but I find this sort of thing a bit confusing. It is clear to me that one or more of the subreddit's admins care about things beyond the concerns of nudism-naturism, that they want to help with apparently urgent matters like social uprisings, wars, and dictatorial crackdowns on dissent, and that they think the users of r/naturism – who mostly post blog articles about “nakations” or their own experiences as nudists or other very much subcultural and individual concerns – should also give at least some amount of a fuck. And, that's great, but there is not much of an explicit argument being made to explain why anyone should care (apart from already agreeing with some cliché principles of anti-racism, anti-imperialism, internationalism, etc.), what any users of r/naturism are supposed to do about that, and why any of the suggestions of places to donate or things to keep in mind might actually be helpful, fit into a larger strategy, etc.

With respect to the Wi Spa situation, it's different. First of all, it is presumably a place that many SoCal nudists already know of, or that they may even frequent occasionally. Second, the original controversy is about an exposed “private part”, a linguistic and philosophical construction is a perennial bugbear for would-be nudists. There is, in other words, some space for nudists to participate in the social eruption around the controversy – just one beat in the pulse of a larger, more diffuse cultural conflict across the whole anglosphere and beyond – as nudists (or perhaps more accurately, as partisans of nudism, i.e. it may not be useful to participate actually naked) and in solidarity.

In so doing, they could link struggles and also sharpen ideas about, in this case, issues of apparel and nudity more broadly. Out of that, there is a possibility for something beyond mere defense of reason and decency in a space where it is threatened (which is, frankly, a straightforwardly conservative goal, whether it is articulated by defenders or opponents of trans lib). Instead, the Crucible of Politics and the Arena of History could do as they have done before, forging new affinities which might lead, in turn, to new architectures (both physical and sociocultural) and new understandings of the world that do not subordinate exuberance and personal freedom to tradition, paranoia, and/or negative stereotypes about certain kinds of people. And I genuinely think that, apart from what nudists can do for the right side in this struggle as people like any other (e.g. we can throw down, provide first aid, donate money, etc.), there is also something uniquely useful we can contribute to this specific struggle that emerges from a nudist political sensibility (e.g. the argument that no one should rightly care too much about a hanging johnson being in potential sight range every now and then).

An effort to create a more actively solidarious culture among nudists (or among any other group of people, of course) shouldn't be directed first toward “issues” that are simply serious, be they geopolitical issues (“Belarus”, “Hong Kong”, “Venezuela”), etc.) or social justice issues (like trans lib or whatever). The primary focus instead should be to identify situations where nudists could understand that they have some skin in the game, as it were – situations such as those around the Wi Spa stuff this past summer, as well as the larger backdrop of both a widespread social precariousness and a multiplicity of rightist factions that want to seize power, exterminate the human avatars of perceived “corruption” (which presumably includes a lot of nudists), and generally make the world worse for everyone.

The Wi Spa situation has been on my mind since it happened more recently, but in other years, in the context of nationalist campaigns to punish people for wearing certain kinds of apparel associated with non-Christian religions in places like France, Québec, Austria, and elsewhere, I have also thought that it would have been great if some organized association of nudists could have intervened strategically in the discourse (i.e. in podcasts, in writing, in which there are no distracting representations of naked people, so that the ideas can take centre stage).

“From burqini to naked,” their slogan could have read. “We believe that what others wear is none of your business.”

As an anarchist who has participated in black blocs before, I would have appreciated even symbolic and rhetorical efforts at solidarity from nudists in the face of previous years' (and obviously pre-2020) efforts in various places to demonize and specifically criminalize face masks and other types of sensible apparel for street fighting in the context of political demonstrations and/or just in general. (Probably a bit spicy for the vast majority of nudists on the liberal-to-conservative political spectrum, sadly.)

It is important to note that solidarity is the only means by which any sort of anti-systemic social movement has ever achieved its objectives – and it's generally pretty useful for social movements that are significantly less anti-systemic, too. Nudism-naturism (the dominant “philosophy of nudism”, e.g. a set of ideas about how to understand humans' relationships to nudity, apparel, and other aspects of their lives, as well as to how imagine better ones), nudism-comfortism (a different philosophy informed by anarchism, articulated here), and any kind of anarchist and/or radical egalitarian politics seem pretty much destined to remain positions of the small minority for the foreseeable future. The experiences of minorities of various kinds, too, will remain obscure to most people, especially while there is an ongoing, well-supported campaign in the anglosphere countries (and beyond) to remove purported “gender ideology” (a bogeyman evil that overlaps with other evils in a suspicious rightist's mind) from existence, perhaps alongside those who promote it and those who embody it.

We (nudists, anarchists, people who are both) can make our own spaces, and we can take our own spaces. Unless we have money, though, we will need to develop other skills, including social skills. We need to know, and have a good and trusting relationship, with as many of our neighbours as we can – and sometimes, with people who are further away, too. We need to show our friends, or the people we wouldn't mind having as friends, that we will have their backs if they're dealing with a crisis. And then, maybe they'll help us out, both when we need help due to a crisis of some kind, or because we have aspirations of our own that we want to realize, that we hope others can help us realize.

There are 37 Comments

I suppose when trans people (or any other identity group), be accepted, respected and included in Western culture countries, they also will be part of "western chauvinism", right?

How tf are trans people not already accepted in western society at this point?

There’s a trans pride flag at the Starbucks from where I’m typing this.

I would literally get fired from my job in the blink of an eye if I ever said anything critical of trans people out loud.

If you’re living in any major western metropolis, this the reality.

But OK.

so Starbucks and your job don't represent how it is with all institutions. The situation varies from place to place.

Obviously there are legal rights now, in a lot of jurisdictions, for trans people, which may or may not meaningfully improve the lot of certain trans people. This does not correspond to trans people being "accepted" necessarily.

People who don’t live near Starbucks don’t exist, awesome point! You’re like a Fox News caricature of a liberal. “Let them eat Starbucks trans flags”

was to the Proud Boys, and their worldview, which definitely excludes trans people from their idea of the Western ideal.

Leftists: “IT’S A HOAX!!”

Also Leftists: “Oh it’s not a hoax? Oh well, it’s fine then. Solidarity!”

And we have to define what "it" is before we say whether it's fine or not. I do not accept, a priori, that dicks out in the women's section is... anything. The context is important, and the context is, to a large degree, unknown (unless you credulously accept the police and right-wing narrative wholesale).

I accept the narrative posited by the MULTIPLE WOMEN from the original video who were pissed the fuck off about this shit in the first place; that some fuckin weirdo flashed them, and little girls, with his fully erect, um, “girldick”. A fuckin pervert who was most likely abusing the trans label to get his exhibitionist rocks off and get away with it.

That’s not a “rightwing/police” conspiracy, it’s a fuckin shitshow that flies in the face of your ridiculous politics. But the greatest irony of this situation to me, is that people like you, who’ve been talking shit about the women who came forward about this months ago; slandering them, invalidating them, silencing them, trying to discredit and even fuckin DOXX them — are the same people who were all about #BelieveWomen like only 6 months ago.

I mean wtf happened? So, “Believe Women”... except when it contradicts your leftist super grand narrative? This is not going to age well for you and will be held against you in eternal cringe and shame.

It's a stupid slogan and I have never subscribed to it.

I think the concept of "flashing" is an interesting one to apply to a context in which it is expected people will be nude, like a Korean spa or a changing room. I think it would be, I guess, a bit inappropriate if the dick was erect and there was no attempt to cover up - but again, I am not completely credulous of the narrative presented by the rightist side and the police. There is a different narrative of what happened, which sounds plausible: some people were upset by the presence of a person with a dick, period, in the women's area, presumably for deep-seated reasons; and those people exaggerated the story.

I don't know. It is hardly important at this point, honestly. What's interesting to me doesn't really have much to do with what happened on Wi Spa on June 24, but with the larger context of street confrontations and online conversations (like this one) that happened around the incident. And what has to do with, y'know, nudism and anarchism, which is the point of this writing project

there it is again ... you said that in the OP too? that it's "hardly important at this point", as in, what actually happened. are you sure? you're interested in online narratives and conflicts in the culture war but not if they're reality based?

I mean, I think I see what you're getting at it and how it might never been possible to verify which set of facts at this point ... but still.

the short answer is yes. We live in hyperreality, alright?

More seriously: this is hardly just about what happened on June 24. I am interested, personally, in social movements and engaging with them - kind of in general, as an insurrectionary anarchist (which is not something we have discussed in this comments section because people are caught up in the facts of this case study) and as a partisan of a tangentially related issue, e.g. nudism, maybe it's ok not evil.

In this context, the most important social movement in the mix is the anti-trans social movement, which doesn't want to see any trans women in any women's spaces anywhere, because they see trans women as men, and that's bad I suppose, but more concerning is that they are taking action to impose their policy preferences on other institutions that have, up to now, had different policies, like Wi Spa. They have used this whole affair opportunistically, in pursuit of their goals, and that's worrisome, and a little bit further along in the trajectory, I think it means bad things for trans people

I now know a bit more about the arrested person, now, thanks to further reading, and my own suspicions that this person was indeed waving an erect penis around (or whatever is alleged) are now heightened. I would disapprove of such behaviour, had it happened; I think a person behaving in such a manner should get punched. But, I do not know, and it is hard for me to care about it either way. I would want to know exactly what happened, and form an opinion on that - not a story of what happened told by people that, in many cases, do not believe "transgender" is "real"

I wish people would’ve been as cautious, skeptical and defensive with me as you are being with regards to Merager when I got falsely accused of some shit back in the day. The difference tho is that A) I didn’t do shit and have since been exonerated, but also B) I didn’t have the politically correct identity credentials (i.e: not trans) to be worth defending in the first place.

Basically your side has spent the last 6 months militantly defending a guilty af sex offender, accused by several women and with a rap sheet of prior offenses of this kind, because “muh identity politics”.

And before August 30, no one knew that name at all. That was when the police announced that there was a warrant.

People were defending Wi Spa.

Sorry you had a bad experience. Seems like it ruined you, which is a shame.

I guess I see your point but we'll have to agree to disagree about this choice of yours to focus on "hyper reality".
you're leaning in to the spectacle of the culture wars, which of course, has real world impacts, I get it but ...

this is me, trying to do what you're doing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUP6KYc5qyM

I have trouble understanding what your problem is with the “police narrative”.

Obviously, ACAB all day. 100%, fuck those guys, sure. But still.

All they’ve said was that several women and girls who were there have officially come forward to lodge a police report and file for charges against Merager. Why is that so hard to believe? What, do you think the cops are lying about that or something? Why the fuck would they do that?

What do you think is going to happen when Merager is eventually tracked down and hauled off to court and the cops are asked to disclose their evidence and witnesses against him? That they’re gonna be like “lol just kidding guys, no one actually came forward, we just bald-faced lied about that, for no reason haha!” ?? Like seriously, what do you imagine their game to be here?

fuck the cops except when they say something that works for yoy?
cops have an agenda. sometimes it works for some anarchists (get them to fight fascists, etc), but cops don't give a fuck about women being harassed, any more than they care about trnas people being harassed. they'll side on whatever is easiest/plays best with their bosses and/or business owners.

have you not dealt with this at all? where you been?

So the cops just randomly conjured 5 - 7 victims willing to file charges and testify in court, what, out of thin air? They’re just making it all up? Because they just don’t like you?

Sounds like a nonsense conspiracy theory to me.

All they care about is their pensions and getting their paycheck. The End. The rest is just a bunch of random politics and noise that they probably don’t give a fuck about.

But if they wanted to “side with the business owner” then they would most likely BTFO the people who were protesting Wi Spa, making them move along, etc.

Honestly, it's not much about the police. It's mostly the rightist people, whom the police are taking seriously.

I think I am concerned with a world view that - like the police themselves, a lot of the time, but also people who call police - wants to punish bad people for doing bad things. I too feel those emotions, when the issue affects me personally (and I respect that some people who were at Wi Spa on June 24 clearly feel these sorts of emotions, because they hated their experience of seeing a dick), but I don't really bring that energy of righteous outrage to discussion of things that are, y'know, news topics, and not issues in my own life (in which case, maybe I will taken on a more pissed-off, I've-had-it-up-to-here-with-this-shit affect)

Hope that makes sense to ya

don't let the resident alt-right troll corner you into a rhetorical loop of diminishing returns
look at this article and notice their absence https://anarchistnews.org/content/sexual-murder-and-police-sadism
they will push their narrative and avoid evidence that doesn't back it and accuse you of doing the same

this troll, in Sleeping Shaq meme format:

police systematically rape and murder: i sleep

there is girldick: REAL SHIT

Gotta stop calling those folks "TERFs" since no actual 21st century radical feminist would dare to invisibilize trans people. The updated acronym is FARTs: feminism-appropriating reactionary transphobes.

Gotta love how instead of just admitting y’all made a mistake in militantly defending a known sex offender at the expense of women and girls, your go-to is to just double-down on your bullshit. You see, this is why so many hate antifa-types, basically: you are not humble people, and you are not capable, it seems, of just fucking admitting it when you’re in the wrong about something.

Gotta love how you didn't read the article and hang around the comment section to troll anyways.
The article begins by saying that what's in discussion is not the details of the event, but the how it unfolded into a public freakout with the typical predictable responses, one of them typified by yours.

I see my comment about POC got “moderated” lmao. Have any of you poser leftists ever set foot on a native reserve, nevermind lived on one? I have. It’s really not a very nice place for LGBTQ, to put it mildly. I’ve come close to getting stabbed or beaten down and been called a faggot numerous times bc back in those days I was leftist and tried standing up for a local queer youth. But hey, wtf would I know? The one tough native dude I was friends with that I knew was gay got the fuck out of there as soon as he had enough money to do so.

Seriously, go to any reserve on the east coast. See what happens.

Yeah i've lived within that traditionalist value system and ironically it was the neo-liberal identity politics which slowly and reluctantly applied an inclusive status to the indigenous persona.
A new set of morals when introduced start small and may snowball into a broad base often when older traditional warrior values passes away with their owners, and depending on the region, anything different is seen as negative disrepectful invasion with little thought to deeper empathic feelings.
Warriors do not cry on eachother's shoulders, let alone caress eachother. It's an awkward moment and know what its like when a group of warriors mockingly laugh at you because you are crying over a breakup with your girlfriend.

why even make it about the reserve tho? what you're saying applies to almost anywhere outside of "progressive" larger cities

Go to https://chi.st/nudism-as-an-illegalism/solidarity for hyperlinks

Update, October 2, 2021: a comment on AnarchistNews.org led me to type a name into my search engine, which brought me to this article, by Andy Ngo, in the New York Post. I do not like Ngo or the Post, but the article provided new information that I expect is accurate. For instance, what happened on August 30 is that the Los Angeles police issued a warrant for a suspect in the Wi Spa “indecent exposure” case; no one was arrested on that day. The individual named in the warrant then spoke to Ngo for his September 2 article, and announced that she would turn herself into police afterwards. I got these facts wrong. In the Post article, the sought-after individual also admits to having been present at Wi Spa on June 24, meaning that, at the very least, the initial incident was not a hoax. I do not think these facts do not invalidate the overall thrust of my argument – I stated that the person at this centre of this story could very well be a person who I would think sucks, and that it's not about her – but I do regret using an evidently inadequate Wikipedia article for most of my research.

So I’ll level with you. I’m not gonna re-read the article, and I guess I understand you’re saying you basically want to have some sort of “meta” conversation about the situation, but to me it just looks like you’re trying to downplay a really sick and fucked up incident by omitting details and context and by using specific language, for broad PR purposes. For example, it’s a lot less emotionally charging to say “Merager exposed his johnson to women” than it is to say “Merager exposed his fully erect penis to women AND little girls”.

This is something a lot of leftists have been doing.

Yes, yes, I know you think you’re not a leftist, but from where I’m standing you are on that side of the issue, you’re in that camp and so I see you as a leftist with like maybe just some extra accessory shit tacked on the side such as anti-civ, nihilism, etc. Basically, you’re “not a leftist” in the same way the alt-right is “not the republican party”. In other words, to me you are “alt-left”, is all.

I am taking a stance that is congruous with the coalition active around all this on the streets of L.A., which is or was, broadly speaking, "leftist" and/or composed mostly of leftists. That's just... what's happening here. I think my philosophical perspective is pretty different from a lot of other people you'd find on that side, though. A lot of them probably did take a position in this that was more easily "falsiable", because they were invested in the truth that what happened on Wi Spa was definitely a hoax or whatever.

Anyway, regarding this really sick and fucked up incident, obviously I'd have said "exposed her johnson", not what you said, lol

In your example, of the rhetoric I'm doing versus your "exposed [her] fully erect penis to women AND little girls”, like, again, I sort of don't buy into this whole "exposure" thing philosophically when it comes to an area where it is expected and/or normal that people have their clothes off, I am not committed to the truth that anything was "fully erect", and while it's good rhetorical strategy to bring up The Children, kids don't care about merely seeing girldick. They're not going to be upset, or psychologically scarred, or whatever, until their parents tell them that they need to be.

As I've said, I'm open to the possibility that the person who sparked all this had uncool intentions. Perhaps she was doing something genuinely alarming, like talking up prepubescent girls while meatspinning. Anything is possible. I am concerned about the previous convictions; I cannot help but be. A lot of people on the rightist side, though, would take issue with any pre-op (or honestly, post-op too) trans woman in the women's section of any spa, including one, like Wi Spa, that has an explicitly trans-exclusive policy. They would define any such person as a flasher, a molester, etc. as a matter of course - pretty much anything they can get to stick. And... that's bad, and I'm against it

“and while it's good rhetorical strategy to bring up The Children, kids don't care about merely seeing girldick.”

Wtf dude. Do you even hear yourself right now? See, it’s this blatant disregard of little kids along with trying to casually push all this shit on them like it’s no big deal that is going to eventually lead to you getting strung up from a lamp post. Like, dude, I’m cis, but even I don’t just swing my dick around like I own the place in a change-room with little boys present. I cover the fuck up like everybody else.

You do you, but if you know little kids are running around, for fucks sake, use your common sense. Use a towel, use a stall. Goddamn it, why are leftists like this?

despite what the military and some feminists would have you believe.

assuming that everyone will be traumatized by you is sad.

there's a good book on rape called rape: from lucretia to #metoo. might be interesting for you.

It's pretty common for leftists to appeal to a traditional morality that is rooted in their own backwards culture, which they assume to be natural.

I am North American and a millennial (or something), so I generally feel weird being naked in front of kids; I would hesitate, even if the parents were right there with me, also skinny dipping (as has happened among some hippy-rural types I know).

Scandinavians don't, generally, feel this way. They have a less psychotic culture about nudity. People there (or in Japan or Korea, or many other places, too) get naked at spas, in locker rooms, etc., their whole lives, in an intergenerational sort of way. It's fine.

what the fuck good does that label do? are you trying to have a conversation or dismiss someone based on putting them in some category?
speak to the issue (which you have, so great), but inissting that people fit into stupid boxes that anarchists should be rejecting on the face of them is shallow, bad argumentation, demogogery or hwoever you spell that.

Was essentially a form of nudist activism. Super-liberal tho... and always some very photogenic chicks from different places around the world. I recall some yuppie hot woman in NYC going out in the nude in all kinds of public places, putting the pics on social media. Regardless of their liberalism they achieved this thing already, so what went wrong or how did it not become a broader culture?

see y'all later, lol

Fascists find all sorts of excuses to get together and terrorize people. If no one imposes consequences on them, there will be consequences for others. The fascist rally/lynch mob is the point of the counter-action, not whatever incident might be called on to justify it. This seems key to me and I’m unsure what’s confusing people here…

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