The Best Of Our "Fuck List" Inbox

By Irin Carmon  |  October 8, 2010 | 8:05pm
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The national media isn’t alone in weighing in on the fuss over the “Fuck List” PowerPoint. Some highlights, here.

Alongside debates on the PowerPoint’s content, its very publication, its or our possible destruction of feminism, its place in the discourse on objectification, and many variations on the word “slut” was this crucial point about methodology:

I am sure you are swamped with mails, but a) I found it a little boring reading after two or three subjects, so I only read the ones that had an 8 or better score and b) did you notice that her bar graph did not rank Subject 12 correctly (he ranked 12/10 on the first occasion, but a) is not listed as “top dog” on her list [which is a 10.25—highest] and b.1) 12 is not listed at all in her bar graph and 2. neither is it listed at all in her list before the graph. Musing…..

Speaking of pedantry, a (female) journalism professor at Iowa State was one of a couple of emailers most offended by my grammar on The Today Show this morning:

I’m afraid your spokesperson looked something of a fool today on the “Today” show when she said the author of the Duke Fuck List “felt badly” that her subjects’ privacy had been invaded.
Alas, the author felt BAD, not badly. The author did not feel BAD about sleeping with all those young men.
Badly is an adverb. Bad, in this sentence structure, is a predicate adjective. The author is the one who is experiencing the condition of badness.
She is a BAD driver. She drives badly.
I teach women the concept this way:
The day before your period starts, you’ve gained five pounds of water weight. Your jeans don’t fit. Your strappy sandals look like strings tied around pork sausages. You can’t wear your rings without having
your fingers swell.
You do not look into the mirror and say: “OMG! I feel so FATLY!”
You say “OMG! I feel so FAT!” because you are the one experiencing fatness.

OMG! I am so glad she said that stuff about feeling fat and being a bad driver, because otherwise I would feel so LOSTLY!

There were people who do not know how to read.

And there was some wonder at what the big deal was.

I dont understand why your article on the “fuck List” has caused such controversy. 13 conquests isnt a huge number, nor is detailing it in any type of memoir unusual.
Ive slept with over 400 guys (no, im not a prostitute), including a lecturer, a police officer in a police car, and numerous (NUMEROUS) guys in the loungeroom of my employers (I was a live-in nanny at the time), a couple of low level actors (who i didnt realise were actors at the time)….. etc etc…. numerous Ivy League college guys, even a random cab driver on the way home. On the rare occasion, two – three strangers in one day.
I lost my virginity to a person i had never previously met, that i called up and asked to do the job. He tied me to a hotel bed.
No, Im not a sex addict, but I do love sex and I dont feel any emotional attachment to it and i dont feel consenting sex between two adults is unethical or immoral.
I detailed the first 74, then gave up when i knew it was going to be well beyond that number.
The only difference is, Im Australian (most conquests were while i was living in NYC).
Is America really that sex starved?

More than one emailer wanted to objectify the author of the PowerPoint, perhaps a taste of her own medicine:

I read the article.. WOW! I noticed that she referenced the size of her boobs more than once. Are there pics of her body anywhere?

And then the ones that wanted to spread the objectification around:

Can I rate you for my own “research”?

And a perpetual offender who calls himself DrunkenStepfather:

i wanna play with your asshole like a faggot

Not everyone, though. Here’s our personal favorite, from Christian Parrinello (who gave us permission to publish his name):

As a guy things like this are eye-opening to me because I tend to have a pretty cavalier attitude about being objectified by women. The only times I’ve been objectified felt incredible because I wound up being the object of desire and importance, but while reading through the student’s powerpoint I found myself getting somewhat angry and hurt on behalf of some of the athletes being objectified. Being called “subject” and being given an aggregate on the quality of sex *is* humiliating. My view of sexual objectification has been changed, because it’s rare that the downside of male sexual objectification is explored — you can be put on a pedestal, but you can also be discarded.

Earlier: College Girl’s Power Point Fuck List Goes Viral
Excited HarperCollins Editor Says “Fuck List” Author Is “Female Tucker Max”
World Captivated By Duke Fuck List

 
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