So riffing off that last Game of Thrones episode… you know, if that show went all in Game of Thrones could make rape sexy.

Like, not hegemonically so, but it’s the only potential cultural force - powerful enough, and actually pretty in character - that could break the cordon sanitaire against openly accepting those ideas in the prestige media of our culture: that no can mean yes, or can and should be pushed past and turn into a yes, that rape can be enjoyable, that there are people it’s proper to inflict it upon, and we should be satisfied when it is.

Like I have a feeling that if push came to shove, I would put good money that says among the smart set - intelligent, well educated, upper-middle class (each of these being mostly used as synonyms for the others) - the brand identity of any of those writers, the brand identity of their platforms, the brand identity of feminism itself, is actually weaker than the brand identity of the premium cable hourlong action-drama Game of Thrones.

Like at first, they’d make a thing of furiously condemning it, or pretending it was irredemable and thus they were going to dismiss it entirely and speak of it no more, but people would still watch the show and with bright young cultural entrepeneurs stepping into the vacuum to praise or at least accept it the opportunity cost - in terms of prestige, cultural capital, eyeballs, ad revenue - would become too great and they’d break, maybe make sniffy asides here and there at the most.

After the almost uniformly negative Monday reactions from the major outlets, by Tuesday The New Republic (which traditionally exists to make this exact kind of turn) was already doing contrarian walkback.

I think if the show wanted to - just to show off their power, to pull the most discordian kulturkampf ever attempted - they could get away with it.

I mean, a few years ago Sady Doyle went in on the books and to this day she’s still licking her wounds over the pushback she got. Like, Sady fucking Doyle. Like, the fucking books.

So tonight I went up to the Short Stop for the Wednesday thing. The girl who looked like Lisa Loeb until I met Lisa Loeb was tending, but it was busy. I racked up to the bar and stuck my ass out cause thats how i roll

I was in my leather jacket and ponytail and leather hat it makes me look sexy I think so apparently she thought and this girl was rubbing up against me I was like cute thats subtle and then she was really going at it in the crowd I had one leg behind the other and she was straddling them with her hands on my hips and ass

And then the crowd shifted and she got pushed up to the bar, and she was this cute 23yo mexi girl in leather, except she was shy or ashamed or something and kept her hand up vertical to the side of her face so she didn’t have to  look at me or see me see her

I mean fuck no girl, you’re doing it wrong, grab me by the hair and hurt me and treat me like shit and I’m yours