Email of the Day

Hello Susannah,

I have been reading your blog with fascination for the last several months. I wish I could remember who linked to it, so I could thank them for helping me find it. Your posts are always interesting, well-composed, and thoughtful. I voted that I read your blog because I am smart, and I feel smarter for reading it. When other writers were criticizing you for introducing Letters from Working Girls, a comment I made on Audacia Ray's site was then quoted on Bound not Gagged, which then made its way to your site as "Sex Writing is a Political Act." Whether or not my view accurately represents yours, I was proud to have somehow participated in the discussion.

I'm prompted to write you now because I'm really impressed with how much content you've been putting up recently. You warned that you would be posting like a crackhead, and you are totally delivering. I imagine it might be hard to keep it up, but please know that as long as you're posting, I will be reading.

Best,
Tom

Grand Theft Aftermath

A few of the responses to yesterday's post, "Grand Theft Are You Fucking Kidding Me?" via email and Boing Boing comments.

I am not amused. This blasé contrarian response just looks like yet another shallow "cooler than thou" post-feminist attitude. -- Madprime

First, he seems to assume that the feelings of johns represent the feelings of men in general. Maybe they do, but I'm gonna need a hell of a lot of evidence before I believe it. -- Raya

Are you referring to Susannah Breslin as a guy? She might not take too kindly to that. -- Antinous

Susannah Breslin sounds like an ass. -- Jccalhoun

Reverse Cowgirl has been staring into the abyss too long. -- Noen

Grand Theft Auto IV doesn't bother me, but Susannah Breslin moronic perspective is offensive. -- Silas

I've liked Susannah Breslin in the past, but the sneers at "polysyllabic" language are just fucking stupid. -- Patrick Nielsen Hayden

I think it is worth noting that I am 29, and have played all versions of this game, starting at age 18. I do not kill people. I do not rape, mug, shoot, stab, discriminate, abuse, use, or any other negative toward my fellow humans. Oh, and I've also looked at porn. So, it would seem that the argument that this game makes you develop an antisocial personality is mistaken. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of mental illness could have told you that. -- Rangzen

As a 25 year old educated male feminist working for the police I find the amount of hysteria that these games raise amongst people absolutely ridiculous... It isn't that the game is about killing prostitutes or visiting stripclubs that makes it appealing, it's that those things are possible along with a plethora of other things including: becoming a vigilante, putting out fires, driving ambulance, driving taxi, repossessing vehicles, watching tv, surfing Rockstars own parody of the internet, flying a helicopter, jumping 2 buses on a motorcylce while tossing molotov cocktails at a hummer, play darts, play pool, go bowling, get drunk, rough up criminals, eat a hamburger, buy a nice suit, take a girlfriend out on the boardwalk, watch a really really lame cabaret and comedy club... the list goes on and on. Killing is an integeral game mechanic and sleeping with prostitutes is just window dressing, don't construe the IGN video as some sort of overarching example of the game.-- Grimmway

Dear Susannah,

There's nothing more dull than an ill-thought out, anti-feminist rant from someone whose professional life is devoted to satisfying their need for affirmation and exhibitionism/portraying themselves as licentious, fucked up, beautiful, porn obsessed, fragile, depressive and yet, somehow, deeply intelligent.

Maybe, if you got over your aching need to be liked by men, you could start liking women more. Hell, maybe you could even start liking yourself.

Yours hopefully,
A.