A Bit About my First Twitter Altercation

So this is one of those instances where you, fair readers, are just going to have to bear with me on this little adventure through my mind.

So have you all heard about this incident involving an Irish girl at an Eminem concert at Slane Castle in Ireland?  No?  Well, let me give you the run down. So this past weekend Eminem gave an outdoor concert at Slane Castle.  At some point during the show, some guy (who it turns out is from Belfast) took a photograph of a girl giving head to some other guy and then posted the picture online.  As you can imagine, the picture went viral within hours and people all over Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and whatever other social media the kids are using these days came up with two (that I know of) different hash tags to allow them to discuss how much of an immoral slut she is.  This shit was everywhere.  (To their credit — and because the girl is 17 which, depending on the country, makes viewing images of her in a sexually explicit context equivalent to viewing child pornography — Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have done what they can to remove the photograph from users’ pages.  We will see whether going forward they will track down and report those who have distributed the images over the past few days.)  Following the incident and upon finding out that the image had gone viral, the girl had to be hospitalized and sedated to calm her down.  I hate to think what this girl is going to have to endure in the coming months.

According to the internet, she is a slut.  And according to one Jamie Glavin with whom I had my first-ever Twitter altercation,

“People defending the actions of that fucking #SlaneSlut need to be fucked into a bag, drowned and burned. Fucking stupid Useless cunts”

Okay, so first of all I don’t actually know what that means.  How does one get fucked into a bag?  And once one was drowned, why would it matter that one was then burned?  Or are some of us “fucking useless cunts” drowned and others burned?  Is it an every other?  Do we pick out of a hat?  And where does this Jamie (a) find the energy to fuck all the “useless cunts” and (b) track down all the bags into which he fucks us?  I wanted to ask him all these questions but unfortunately the character limit on Twitter would not allow me the pleasure.  I did, however, report his behavior to Twitter which will likely do nothing.  I still felt slightly vindicated.  He then posted the following status on his Facebook page:

“I have an awful feeling that if I make a slane girl related status I’m gonna end up on the news and eventually in court for hate crimes. I can’t handle that kinda publicity. However, I will let slip that I am more than willing to slowly kill, gut, skin and cook any of the stupid cunts that consider defending her as they are truly the proverbial fucking cherry on top of the fucking miserably disgusting cake that this country and its people have become. I’m a burn this motherfucker down.”

Obviously I have been having a lot of fun cyber-stalking this guy because I have way too much time on my hands.  Also, Jamie Glavin is just a perfect example of someone who is an idiot.  Also, a perfect example of someone who believes that women exist for public consumption. These people are, sadly, everywhere.  Just yesterday, while standing outside of a bar on 1st avenue with two guy friends while they smoked, an old dude walked up to me and said “you really shouldn’t dress so sexy.  It’s making it difficult for me.”  To which I obviously responded, “the way I dress is none of your concern.  Don’t talk to me.” Me being a female in shorts and a tank top in the middle of the summer in New York City makes me a consumable sex object.  Because I am in possession of breasts and a vagina, people have the right to come up to me and comment on how I am dressed and how the way that I am dressed impacts their day.  Me calling people out on that fact makes me a bitch, makes me unable to take a joke, means that perhaps I shouldn’t dress the way I dress because I am “unable to handle the attention” that my behavior generates.

So let’s put this into the context of this incident in Ireland.  So the photo of this young woman giving head goes viral.  As does the photo of her kissing the same young man and the one of that young man with his hands up her shorts.  There is never a time, however, where the young man is accused of being a slut, of being immoral.  His behavior is never questioned.  Him having his hands up her shorts is a demonstration of him accessing that which he deserves, while her “allowing” it to happen makes her a whore.  He is still pure and good and dominant.  She is a slut whose defenders are all “useless, stupid cunts.”

Let’s take this even one step further.  About a year ago a photo of an Irish guy named Eamon Keegan licking a woman’s breast at a soccer game in Poland spread like wild fire through the intersphere.  According to Keegan, this incident came about because, “We were all in Poznan, with all the Irish fans at the game and these two Croatian girls walked through and everyone started singing ‘Get your t*ts out for the lads’ and they actually did.”  The photo went viral.  The Ireland defender Sean St. Ledger starting a Twitter campaign to make Keegan a Twitter sensation.  Keegan even won the “Irishman of the Year” award run by the popular website balls.ie.

So you know what? The problem is not the women and men who defend the honor of yet another teenage girl who unwittingly became infamous online.  The problem is the people who take these photos and share them, immortalizing moments that maybe we wish we could forget because, honestly, we all have them.  The problem are the people who think that the victims of these online bullying campaigns deserve to be criticized by people all over the world.  The problem is the attitude that “lads” should be celebrated for public sexual acts while the women are lambasted.  Eamon Keegan is a hero while this young lady is a piece of of garbage who opened herself up to public criticism because she dared engage in sexual behavior at an outdoor concert.  It is people like Jamie Glavin who think it is their right, no, their responsibility, to denigrate a young woman that are the “the proverbial fucking cherry on top of the fucking miserably disgusting cake that this (world) and its people have become.”

Tags: Eamon Keegan, Eminem concert, patriarchy, Slane, slut shaming, women's rights