Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 13:54:54 -0800 (PST)
From: Wagner James Au
To: mars@well.com
Subject: RE:
Nice to meet you, Rebecca. You strike me as a fascinating woman.
X-POP3-Rcpt: rebeca@cybernetic
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 16:46:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: Wagner James Au
To: mars@well.com
Subject: The FULL skinny
Hopefully, Edward will be well on the road to recovery, and he can come,
too. But if he's still convalescing, I definitely want to see *you*
there. Here's the details:
We're having a tri-level housewarming/summer party in my building's
lovely garden backyard in the Mission, and I'd love to see you and
a guest there. There'll be me, and Megan, and Liz and Steph, and
we'll warmly welcome you with drinks, food, barbecue, music, the
works, all under that warm Mission district sunlight.
(snip)
To: Wagner James Au
From: "rebecca l. eisenberg"
Subject: Re: The FULL skinny
Cc:
Bcc:
X-Attachments:
heya wJamesie,
thanks so much for the invite. unfortunately, i must
decline. i will be in milwaukee, wisconsin that weekend for my
eleven-year high school reunion.
thanks for the kind words about edward. he'll be getting
surgery in about 10 hours. i think he'll be okay.
it's really hard.
i hope that you are doing well, and i hope to see
you soon.
love,
rebecca
X-POP3-Rcpt: rebeca@cybernetic
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 01:51:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Wagner James Au
To: mars@bossanova.com
Subject: Re: The FULL skinny
Damn, sorry to hear you'll be at your reunion. However, I am glad
to hear Edward's on the upward arc toward renewed head-butt-dom.
Guess we'll have to figure out another time to get together, once
the fur settles, as it were.
X-POP3-Rcpt: rebeca@cybernetic
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 03:41:40 -0700 (PDT)
From: Wagner James Au
To: mars@well.com, wjamesau@well.com
Subject: ...
Rebecca, you seem to be confusing me with other men. I've never
once implied that you should "lighten up", or discouraged you from
thinking the way you do. Why would I? I admire and am attracted
to your idealism and your intellect-- indeed, I had thought that
I had found in you someone to match wits against mine.
However, there is a point where idealism becomes fanatacism,
and intellect becomes mere rote ideology. I have taken
Women's Studies classes, as a matter of fact, and nothing
that you have said is new to me. I'm rather surprised that
you think you're on some cutting edge, when in fact you're
actually reciting the academic orthodoxy of the last decade.
In any event, I've considered the arguments, and I find many
of them lacking. I have given my reasons for this, and your
defense of them are simply not compellingly.
I'm rather at my wit's end with you: I support gay rights,
I'm pro-choice, you've heard from me personally that I strongly
support women's equality in every social sphere-- yet somehow,
I'm still a close-minded bigot? Well, whatever.
You accuse me of this, but I suspect that you would never
alter/modify/improve upon your own views on anything, no matter
what I said. If you want to say that I am full of shit, that
would be fine; I'd relish it. But instead, you call me a bigot
for not agreeing with you, and exit the conversation.
You don't want an equal relationship of intelligent individuals
who respect each other, but agree to disagree. You want a pulpit
from which to alternately preach and condemn your lessors.
Sorry, but that is one more church, like every other church, that
I will not attend.
To: Wagner James Au
From: "rebecca l. eisenberg"
Subject: Re: ...
Cc:
Bcc:
X-Attachments:
I just read your latest comments to the sex conference, and I am
disgusted. I wrote an essay about people like you:
http://www.bossanova.com/rebeca/readme/readme.4.05.97.html
You started a topic claiming that you had never understood the
meaning of the phrase "gender as a social construct." Did you
PASS your alleged women's studies classes? You have
absolutely no understanding of hermaphroditism; you DENY that
hermaphrodites exist; you *refuse* to see a movie that could educate
you, much less stop in a nearby library and look at an anatomy and/or
ob/gyn text; have you never HEARD of them before? You willfully
turn a blind eye to the existence of violence against gay men and
lesbians -- violence that *exists* and *kills people*, and instead
instruct us all to "live and let live" (or die, as the case may be).
Have you never HEARD of homophobic violence? Or do you simply view
it as a non-issue, since it doesn't affect -you-?
You call yourself one thing, yet act in direct opposition to it.
It is vile.
Truly, I have had more than enough.
rebecca
X-POP3-Rcpt: rebeca@cybernetic
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 10:35:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: Wagner James Au
To: mars@bossanova.com, wjamesau@well.com
Subject: Re: ...
> You started a topic claiming that you had never understood the meaning
> of the phrase "gender as a social construct." Did you PASS your alleged
> women's studies classes?
Sure did! Got a "B", even. Liked the teacher a lot, too. But yeah,
that concept didn't go down easy then, and it's been nagging on me,
because so many people apparently buy it without question, and I can't,
as a student in philosophy, get my head around it.
> You have absolutely no understanding of hermaphroditism; you DENY
> that hermaphrodites exist; you *refuse* to see a movie that could
> educate you,
Of course hermaphrodites exist; they simply don't exist in a way that
makes it compelling to consider them a third sex, as opposed to a
genetic anamoly. If you read more carefully, you'll note that I said
I *would* see the movie-- if it provided this evidence that I wasn't
aware of. But by your admission, it doesn't, and frankly, I've got
other things to do. I already have compassion for those who fit
outside the gender mold, and defend their right to claim an identity
that fits them-- as I said in topic-- so I really don't see how the
movie's going to enlighten me more than I already am.
> You willfully turn a blind eye to the existence of violence against
> gay men and lesbians -- violence that *exists* and *kills people*,
No, that's precisely what I did *not* say. Please read again. Hint:
When Andrew Rice, who loathes me, yet defends me, then perhaps you're
missing something. (I can already hear you saying, "Ah, that's just
because he's a straight white male." Well, he is, but he's also
married to Lisa Palac, whom you claim to admire.)
And again, the troubling thing is not so much that you're not reading
me carefully, and attacking me based on your misreading. It's that
you *know* me, you know me as someone who likes and admires you--
yet you're not even willing to give *me* the benefit of the doubt.
If you were that distressed by what you thought I was saying, you
could have e-mailed me all this before trashing me in public as a
bigot, but you didn't.
Why is that?
Does friendship mean nothing to you, in the face of ideology?
X-POP3-Rcpt: rebeca@cybernetic
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 03:42:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Wagner James Au
To: mars@well.com
Subject: this was a failing send
Again I ask, What are you asking me to apologize for?
You are right, though. My main goal was indeed "winning"-- winning
back our friendship.
But to make that happen, you have to meet me half way.
i hate to say it but i don't want you.
sexist assholes don't do it for me, sorry.
no, fucking two chicks at once does not make you "enlightened"
wha???????????????
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