The clip shows a balding middle-aged white man in the center of a circus ring. He looks nervously around, and the camera pans to show the aggressor: a black panther-woman in a gold bikini. She commands him to "dance... to the rhythm... strip!" while repeatedly calling him "baby." The cat-woman growls at him and cracks her whip while he strips down to his socks and awkwardly sways back and forth.

It's pretty clear that this man is not enjoying the experience. Melissa McEwan from Shakesville notes that the selling point is apparently that "Orangina Red will turn you into a sexually aggressive monster." She argues that there is no ambiguity to this scene of assault:

And before anyone gets it in their head to argue that this isn't a sexual assault, but instead a scene of a dominatrix and a consenting customer, I'll just note that the setting of the ad is a circus ring. She's literally treating him like a performing animal, and he appears to be utterly terrified. I am acquainted with someone who worked as a professional dominatrix for many years; men went to her to be punished, not petrified-and if someone had become visibly frightened of her, she would have stopped. Images of dominatrices thrilling in hurting scared, vulnerable men are images of sexual assault, not of anything a consent-insistent sex worker does.

However, many people will probably see this ad and think it funny, not offensive or strange. Yet try imagining it with the genders reversed: A terrified woman strips uncomfortably while a large, muscular man-animal growls at her and commands her to dance. My guess is that far fewer people would find that humorous. Once again, sexual assault committed against men is viewed as hilarious - as are violent and aggressive women.

Even without the violence, this ad is full of problems. There is the woman-reduced-to-a-cat theme, which by this point is just getting kind of tired. Call me when we start seeing some sexy rhinos (although there is a hot M&M, so I suppose even this is possible). Copyranter, posting on Animal New York, also suggests that there is an element of racial tension underlying the exchange:

It's the latest spot in Orangina's animated anthropomorphized nympho animal campaign, where we previously witnessed a giraffe-girl sniffing a rollerblading guy's ass. Now, a buff busty melanistic big cat (I'm envisioning Naomi Campbell) dominates a stereotypical White Man in a big tent setting. Is that a penis peek I spy? The spot sizzles with sexual and racial tension, RAWWRR!

That panther-thing reminds him of Naomi Campbell? This may say more about the author's views than the agency's. Either way, we can probably all agree Orangina has unleashed something that is all-around disturbing, and not at all appetizing.

Today In Rape Culture [Shakesville]
Orangina's Black Panther Dominatrix [Animal New York]

You'll note that the word "manifesto" is separated into two parts, so that men, who apparently need to be reminded how to be men, will be able to identify that this is a very manly ad campaign. The word "man" is right there! And just in case men didn't get the memo that Dockers were some hardcore ass-kickin' gender-defining threads, the man-ifesto itself is filled with sexist, homophobic, patronizing bullshit that speaks, in Campbell's Chunky Soup badass font, to what is apparently a target demo of 17 year old douchebags in order to promote the notion that wearing Dockers is akin to be a true grown up. Because there's nothing as adult as being marketed to by the same type of people who used sassy fonts and bad-ass lingo in your youth to try convince both you and your parents that "when pizza is on a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime," right?

Let's break this pants-ifesto down, shall we?

Once upon a time, men wore the pants, and wore them well. Women rarely had to open doors and little old ladies never crossed the street alone. Men took charge because that's what they did.

Ladies, were you aware that men took charge in the olden days because "that's what they did?" Or were you too busy in the kitchen, where you belong?

But somewhere along the way, the world decided it no longer needed men. Disco by disco, latte by foamy non-fat latte, men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny.

Translation: if you don't wear khakis, you're totally gay.

But today, there are questions our genderless society has no answers for.

Oh man, ladies. If we had a quarter for every time someone in our genderless society asked a question that had no answer, we'd, well, we'd be making an equal wage with our male counterparts.

The world sits by idly as cities crumble, children misbehave, and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street. For the first time since bad guys, we need heroes.

The whole bloody world is falling apart because YOU didn't buy your father his Dockers for Christmas! Now is a time for heroes! The first time since...bad guys, whatever the hell that means.

We need grownups. We need men to put down the plastic fork, step away from the salad bar and untie the world from the tracks of complacency. It's time to get your hands dirty. It's time to answer the call of manhood. It's time to wear the pants.

Amen, am I right? Thank the lord that men in khakis will finally swoop in to "untie the world from the tracks of complacency." And what kind of bro eats salad!? Whatever! You need to get in line with the anti-khaki disco crowd, bro! Salad! Lattes! East Coast elitism! Men in khakis will finally save us from the world of...other men in khakis!

Can I tell you something about Dockers? My father loves them. Wears them when he's golfing or on a casual business day. They are stain resistant and wrinkle free. They look nice with a sweater or a golf shirt. They are sturdy and reliable and reasonably-priced and my mother has been buying them at the mall for approximately 20 years.

Now let me tell you something about my father: he's helped to raise three daughters, he takes his job very seriously, helps neighbors and friends whenever he can, and has been happily married to my mother for over 35 years. My father is a grownup. This ad campaign is not aimed at my dad. It is aimed at men who have absolutely NO intention of growing up, but every intention of claiming every stereotypical "man" role as a means to act as if they've crossed some great developmental threshold. If anyone has to grow up, it's the advertisers who keep pushing this sexist, backwards bro culture down everyone's throats.

[Dockers]

A reader named "Victim? In Virginia" recently wrote into Dickinson's "Ask Amy" column looking for clarification on an event that happened during a frat party she attended, noting that she was intoxicated and agreed to go to a room with a man who promised he would not do anything inappropriate with her.

"Many times, I clearly said I didn't want to have sex, and he promised to my face that he wouldn't," the reader writes, "Then he quickly proceeded to go against what he "promised." I was shocked, and maybe being intoxicated made my reaction time a bit slow in realizing what was happening." Looking for clarification that she had indeed been raped, the reader later asks, "if I wasn't kicking and fighting him off, is it still rape? I feel like calling it that is a bit extreme, but I haven't felt the same since it happened. Am I a victim?"

Here is Dickinson's charming response:

Dear Victim?: First of all, thank you. I hope your letter will be posted on college bulletin boards everywhere.

Were you a victim? Yes.

First, you were a victim of your own awful judgment. Getting drunk at a frat house is a hazardous choice for anyone to make because of the risk (some might say a likelihood) that you will engage in unwise or unwanted sexual contact.

You don't say whether the guy was also drunk. If so, his judgment was also impaired.

No matter what — no means no. If you say no beforehand, then the sex shouldn't happen. If you say no while its happening, then the sex should stop.

She then goes on to quote a passage from RAINN's website regarding drinking and rape and encourages the girl to get tested for STDs and pregnancy, and to "see a counselor to determine how you want to approach this. You must involve the guy in question in order to determine what happened and because he absolutely must take responsibility and face the consequences for his actions, just as you are prepared to do. He may have done this before."

It's incredibly alarming that Dickinson feels the first thing an obvious rape victim needs to hear is "well, you were drunk, so you were asking for it." Closing her advice with a bit about facing the consequences of her actions, as if getting drunk at a frat party is equivalent to RAPE, is also quite disturbing; the language Dickinson uses seems to evenly place the blame on both parties and make light of an incredibly dark situation, as if the girl should just go up to her rapist and ask him to fess up at the counselor's office so that both of them can move on and he can finally stop, you know, raping people, just as she can stop drinking too much at frat parties.

Dickinson may want this letter posted at colleges across the country as a means to scare young women out of drinking at parties; after all, it's their fault if they get raped, right? It's not about a larger rape culture, or a modern masculinity that promotes the notion of "no means yes," or the incredibly tired parade of victim blamers who still insist that rape is the fault of any woman who dares to drink at a party or wear a skirt or walk down a street at night or go into a room with a man she trusts or dance a certain way at the club or, you know, be born with a vagina.

Perhaps Dickinson is right after all. Her advice should be plastered around college campuses. They could even build an entire course around it: Rape Culture And You: Victim Blaming 101.

Rape Question A Matter Of Consent [Chicago Tribune]

[Image via SomeECards]

It feels like he's laughing on the inside the entire time, like, "Dude, I'm on a fucking soap opera. Heh."


Even when he's being creepy, it's hard not to love him.


I wonder if it was in his contract that he gets slapped by a woman at least once. It's the most soap opera-y thing to experience for a man.

In this first commercial, which Margaret posted last week, the woman promoting the shoes is checked out twice by the cameraman, who just can't help but zoom in on her backside. "Excuse me," she says to the cameraman as he blatantly checks her out, "I take it you agree?" She then smiles as if being objectified by some cameraman is the best thing in the world. Charming.
Here, the shoes show a female body, without a face, to promise that using the shoes will ensure that "88% of men will be speechless, 76% of jealous, and 0% will know the reason is on your feet." Because those are the only reasons women care about fitness, right? Not because heart disease is the number one killer of women, and not because they want to live healthy lifestyles and feel good about themselves, silly! Women only work out for the benefit of men and to ensure that other ladies are "just jealous."

This super classy ad, the worst of them all, shows a woman's breasts—and only her breasts—complaining about being jealous of her butt, which has improved since she started using EasyTone sneakers. "Make your boobs jealous!" a male announcer says at the end of the commercial. So now it's not even enough to make other women jealous, you have to make your own body parts turn against each other. My boobs actually felt sorry for my brain when it had to process the amount of bullshit in these three ads, and my eyes were jealous of my toes for being tucked deep in my socks, away from this sexist mess. Thanks, but no thanks, Reebok. You can kiss my butt, and my money, goodbye.

To push their "Love's Embrace" collection, Kay has decided that true love is best represented by a man who appears to be a psychopath and his ridiculously co-dependent girlfriend. I'd blame Twilight for this mess, but honestly, Twilight looks like a romantic comedy filled with healthy relationships compared to the scene that unfolds in the Kay Cabin of Doom. I'm pretty sure we're supposed to find this commercial incredibly romantic and dreamy, but jiminy crickets, is that guy's voice the creepiest voice of all time or what? When he says, "I'm right here...and I always will be," my instinct is to yell "Run, you idiot, run!!! Every kill begins with Kay!!!" The woman, however, swept away by her stupid pendant, instead chooses to embrace the man and say, "Don't let go...ever." Ah, creepy, creepy co-dependent psychopathic cabin love. Isn't that what the season is all about?

Angela Chase once claimed that she loved Halloween because it was her "one chance all year to be someone else." This, I suspect, is true for most people, who jump at the chance to be a vampire or Sexy Alexander Hamilton or a giant Cup of Noodles come October 31. But ladies, if this article proves anything, it is that a dumbass bro in costume is still a dumbass bro, and no costume is great enough to cover the stench of douche that emanates from the type of man who would read this article (and find it hilarious.

The author, David Breitman, attacks feminists (naturally—women as human beings, what?!), women who wear masks (clearly covering up a "butterface," the author notes) and "fat chicks," who, the author has many choice words for. This section is so unbelievably bad that it actually out-douches the paragraphs about not sleeping with underage girls because the "she dressed like a whore" defense is no longer holding up in court:

Large women are a lot like killer whales. Desperate for attention, consume massive amounts of raw fish, and need to be taught right from wrong on a pretty regular basis. By sleeping with a chubby gal who thinks that her double D breasts are, in any way, attractive is just fooling herself. If breasts, regardless of size, are propped up by a sumo-sized stomach, it doesn't count as sexy and by looking at them you're just re-enforcing bad behavior. Do you want to be part of the problem? Or part of the solution to try to get fat girls off of the streets and on a one way sewage barge to Australia.

This is the kind of thing we have to put up with in a Tucker Max world; this shit is considered to be "hilarious!" by the folks at Spike, who push their idiotic brand of testoste-bro misogyny on the rest of the world in some weird attempt to equate being a "real man" with hating any woman who doesn't fit their dumbass 19-year-old frat boy model of femininity or attractiveness. This isn't just a "funny" Halloween article for the bros (another point off—it's not even funny. Jokes about Colin Farrell movies? In 2009?), it's also another excuse for bro culture as a whole to push their "shut up, bitch" agenda as far as they can.

Breitman advises his readers to "try a playful line like 'Hi, I'm Dave - Can you please take your mask off so I can make sure you're not ugly?'" What he doesn't realize is that he's just taken off his own mask to the women of the world, and ugly doesn't even begin to describe it.

The Top 10 Girls To Avoid At A Halloween Party [Spike]

[Image via CostumeKingdom.]