Posted on 11/22/2005 10:46:10 AM PST by Pyro7480
MSU professors link hunting with sexual violence
By Page W. H. Brousseau IV
Three female Michigan State University professors studied the magazine "Traditional Bowhunter," and concluded that hunting is a form of sexual violence with animals substituted for women. They describe hunting as, "erotic heterosexual predation, sadomasochism, restraint for aggressive sexual energy, and allied with the abuse of women." I think I need to take up bowhunting.
The article entitled, "Animals, Women and Weapons: Blurred Sexual Boundaries in the Discourse of Sport Hunting" was published by the Society & Animals Forum. The genesis of the article was the 2003 video "Hunting for Bambi," which reached national attention that year when many news-outlets reported a group in Nevada was selling "hunts" which men paid thousands of dollars to shoot naked women with paintball guns. The producers of the DVD later admitted the hunters and women involved were actors. Like in high-budget porn, the star is only an "actor" and really cannot fix the cable.
Concluding that men turn bows and firearms into phallic symbols, the researchers point to terms and jargon found in the magazine in order to reaffirm their belief of displaced sexual drive. "Climax," "big'uns," and "homely cow" are but a few of the many terms with which they took issue. Two things, first, using terms out of context allows anyone to make them sexual. Second, we are talking about hunting, not sex.
The study fails to see the subject matter as merely hunting. The outrageous links between sexual violence and hunting would cause sensible readers to scoff, but remember, the authors are members of MSU faculty, which makes this paper all the more scary.
Apparently, the woman-is-an-animal argument is only valid until the kill. "When alive and being chased in a sport of hunting, animals are given human characteristics...but when dead and displayed as a trophy, anthropomorphism is no longer necessary...and the animal is simply dead." Why anthropomorphism would be necessary in the first place is not explored. Furthermore, why is it not necessary in the second place?
Indeed, their argument is that men are violent creeps who beat up on poor, cuddly animals because there are no women running around the woods. "Violence against animals and women is linked by a theory of 'overlapping but absent referents' that institutionalizes patriarchal values...animals often are the absent referents in actions and phrases that actually are about women-and women often are the absent referents for animals." Therefore, when men are hunting they do so because there are no women present, conversely, when men are with women they are doing so because there are no animals present.
Absent from this study is where the millions of female hunters fit For that is the only logical conclusion of the animal-is-a-woman and woman-is-an-animal thesis. Not far removed from their illation would be to say women obtain sexual gratification from hunting but actually wish they were sexually abusing women, or maybe themselves.
What would an academic study be these days without a conclusion that points to racism? The study encapsulated that hunting is "cultural messages that validate and exacerbate white male dominance and power." The argument of racial oppression and hunting goes out the window because one can only shoot one Black Duck a day as apposed to five of another species.
When read in its entirety, the syllogistic argument takes on the seriousness of a Mad TV skit.
Maybe it is "Traditional Bowhunter" that is laying the groundwork for world takeover. Once again, the paper's authors come through and leave the reader not disappointed. They warn that, "[T]he underlying messages of the sexualizing of women, animals, and weapons in Traditional Bowhunter cannot be dismissed simply as a hoax. They are resilient popular culture images that celebrate and glorify weapons, killing, and violence, laying the groundwork for the perpetuation of attitudes of domination, power, and control.
And I thought it was just because I like venison.
The men I know who hunt are gentlemen. Are these some of MODO's friends or just lesbians? And NO, you can't make this stuff up.
Oops. I didn't even read all of your title.
I must get Rush on a one hour delay.
Are you hunting beaver or are you hunting beaver?
LOL!!!!
Well said. Your entire anecdote was the best post of the day.
Clifton Merrit, publisher of Animal People newspaper, believes this also. I once had a long discussion with him where he told me his research proved all the people who hunted as children become killers as adults.
When I questioned his research he told me I wasn't really a journalist, then he slammed the phone in my ear. He, of course, calls himself a journalist.
bttt
The hunting camp is also a male bonding thing. They eat well, drink well, and hunt well, all together. They don't strip naked and beat tom-toms to find their inner male. They don't need to find it, they never lost it to begin with.
Thanks for the Kind words.
Just heard it. Just the usual we are men we are evil crappola.
Well, that and the fact that hunting is good for finding stuff to eat.
The furor and public outrage surrounding numerous non-fictional outdoors entertainment shows in which female animals are privileged over males for survival in the context of hunting and parallel discourses among hunters about preferences for shooting males inspired this paper. Arguing that distressing representations of hunting as a sexually charged activity are resilient popular culture images, this paper examines the theoretical framework that links hunting with dominant culture gynocratic privileges and the overwhelming empirical evidence of such linkages in the hunting discourse of all hutning related newsstand periodicals. Contemporary feminist theory often connects hunting with sex and women with animals. In the quaint parlance of the observed subjects this is "B.S." This paper details clear evidence of the juxtaposition of hunting and images of dead male animals, correlations to the privileging of female animals, and the psychological connection between hunters and their mothers, showing hunting to be a manifestation of oedipal complexes, a displaced trans-spieces violence transferred from abusive fathers to innocent animals, in the quaint parlance of the observed subjects "critters." This is evindenced in the photographs, narratives, and advertisements of almost all hunting magazines ever known. Particularly prominent in the magazines’ hunting discourses are disproportionate numbers of photos of dead male animals, male human inter-conversations about "points" (belying male functional insecurities), and gynocratic narratives about "good stewardship" with "Mother Earth". This paper concludes that moral outrage at the degradation of men and preference of women, especially when represented with children/fawns/cubs, might be targeted best in the courts on equal rights grounds.
After seeing what the researchers look like I tend to agree that animal lovers might well be attracted to them when hunting season ends.
By the way, doing my duty as my tagline indicates I just looked thru the DUmmie postings and so no mention at all of this story. Usually they are all over anything Rush reports on. Love how they try to avoid anything that automatically makes them look like fools. But then again, they always seem to comment on things and end up looking foolish anyway. There is time, it may turn up yet
Mixing Sigmond Freud and crack cocaine.
I wonder what would happen to a male professor's tenure if his study claiming compusive shopping was linked to a woman being more bitchy.
You can't make up for the time Rush wastes discussing sex, mistresses, etc. UGH
With *very* few exceptions, all of the hunters that I know are conservative, well-adjusted people that are far more environmentally in-tune than any enviro-wacko that I've met.
Furthermore, the decision to carry and fire a weapon is a tremendous responsibility. I think that these authors would not be up to the task, and are projecting their own inadequacies onto those that they dislike.
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