who gets access to a woman's body?

on sydney sweeney and mikey madison

I increasingly wish we still had the kind of Internet I could opt out of. Like, I want to be thirteen years old, inform my parents ok I'm going on the computer, and sit at the imitation-mahogany desk, its shocking number of shelves and compartments weighed down by books, printer, radio, corresponding speakers, and inexplicably large stack of binders, and go for my allotted hour/hour and a half on/of/in The Internet. Maybe go on Meg Cabot author's website (it was hot pink and very fun). Play the game where I have to place countries on a map. See which of my friends are also online on MSN Messenger.

And then get out.

Instead, I am online seemingly every second of every day. I do it to myself, of course. Whenever someone visits and I have to be Present and More Social than Usual, my screen time is significantly lower and I think, this is refreshing, I should do this more often. But then I don't. Because imagine not knowing what people are yapping about. Periodically losing my mind seems like a worthy price to pay to be In the Know.

Historically, at least, this has been the case. But more and more, I find myself envious of the offline people, the ones who are always delighted to be sent a meme because they haven't already seen it and its many derivatives 957 times.

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As a reminder: I’m running a 20% off sale on annual subscriptions until the end of the year.

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This past week, for instance, I saw three things that briefly made me consider tradwifery, except without the farm or the husband or the cows or the brood of children or the Republicanism. So really, just kind of moving somewhere with slower wifi and a reliable newspaper delivery route.

One was a series of tweets, reddit posts, and General Incel Thoughts™ about Sydney Sweeney's physical palatability; another, a conversation between Pamela Anderson and Mikey Madison about intimacy coordinators; and last, an essay—although calling it one is to demean the form—on this very same hallowed platform about how adults should not feel bad about wanting to have sex with teenagers (but especially teenage girls).

The three are not unrelated: they are representative of a marked shift in the way people talk about women and girls. I’m not arguing that the disrespect is new, just that shame, once an imperfect but somewhat functional deterrent, seems to be losing its efficacy. It's hard not to understand how the same men who feel free to publicly dissect and lambast a woman's body will not then turn around and write about their right to girls' bodies.

And maybe it's because this year has been rife with terrible things, but I am nearing the end of my tether.