It’s been far too long.

July 19, 2011 at 6:07 pm (Uncategorized)

They tried to make us go to rehab, but we said, “Oh, how kind of you to think of us, but we’re frightfully busy just now and can’t possibly make it.”

And we have been frightfully busy, we inebriates. Nevertheless, Miss Verity felt compelled to poke her head out just long enough to mention something that’s been puzzling her.

It’s come to her attention that a young feminist atheist has had a much-debated proposition made to her whilst in an elevator. Now, Miss Verity won’t pretend to be a young feminist atheist, or even to know very much about such persons, but she agrees that invitations from Strange Men in Elevators–no matter how well-intentioned–are rude, particularly at four in the morning.

Miss Verity will refrain from pointing out that the young woman’s desire not to be objectified might be better served by, oh, said young woman refraining from commodifying herself as a pin-up calendar, and instead will move briskly on to the bit that’s puzzling her: why on earth is anyone surprised that Richard Dawkins didn’t leap to agree with her that the young man had behaved ba

Mr. Dawkins, as far as Miss Verity understands it, is a man known largely for his argument that natural selection is “the process whereby replicators [genes, they were called in Miss Verity's day] out-propagate each other.” If that’s what he thinks is driving human behaviour, then surely the only possible basis by which he could be expected to condemn the young man in the elevator is the obvious one: the young man’s attempt to, ahem, establish an opportunity for replication failed.

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1 Comment

  1. Melosha Dubreen said,

    I cannot imagine how demeaning such an encounter is – chiefly because I have never been sexualized by anyone and can’t imagine hosting self in calendar unless aforementioned was an appreciation of Whales of the World.

    Re: the young woman in question, as the Scots are wont to say (at least in Glasgow) “poor cunt.”

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