“Feminist Media Studies,” or What’s

“Feminist Media Studies,” or What’s All the Buzz About?

Recently, however, a correspondent from our Dallas (TX) office sent us an article from the March 2003 number of “Feminist Media Studies.” This self-proclaimed “major new peer-reviewed journal” is published under the auspices of Routledge Press, which seems to be in a contest with Duke University Press to offer the public the most ridiculous pseudo-academic dross.

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” aren’t entirely sure who’s winning this dogfight, but, if one throws the rag “Feminist Media Studies” into the mix, we are tilting toward shouting “Advantage Routledge.”

And what, you may ask, makes “Feminist Media Studies” so preposterous? Well, for starters, the March 2003 issue begins with an editors’ introduction entitled “Locating Gender.” Now that a year has passed since the publication of this installment of “FMS” (if you will), we earnestly hope that they have found it. After all, if these academic experts on feminism can’t track down “gender,” what luck will the average schmoe have?

In addition to this page-turning introduction, “Feminist Media Studies” presents its reader(s) such “peer-reviewed” wonders as Linda K. Fuller’s “Teledildonic ‘Safe Sex’ with the Penultimate Pet: Virtual Valerie, Cybersexual Sensation.” This leads us to wonder: What articles were so insipid that they failed to make it through the obviously rigorous “peer-review” process of the good-ole “FMS”?

Alas, however, our correspondent from the Dallas (TX) office didn’t include this scholarly lucubration along with the snippets of “Feminist Media Studies” she posted, and thus we suppose we shall be forever condemned to having unsafe “teledildonic sex.” Them’s the breaks.

Our Dallas (TX) office did send, however, an article by one Lynn Comella, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts (at Amherst, we’d wager). This short piece, entitled “(Safe) Sex and the City: On Vibrators, Masturbation, and the Myth of ‘Real’ Sex,” is only one of two articles in the self-same issue of “FMS” devoted to Sarah Jessica Parker’s HBO sit-com. Apparently, the editorial board of “Feminist Media Studies” has something of a “Sex in the City” fetish.

Right about now, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” should admit that we have never actually seen an episode of the aforementioned program: We prefer to get our titillations the old-fashioned way—through Dr. Ruth.

Even so, we thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Comella’s piece. The second paragraph of it begins with two sentences that can only be termed humdingers:

I first learned of Sex and the City’s “vibrator episode” during the course of conducting field research for a dissertation I am completing on the history and cultural significance of women-owned and –operated sex toy stores in the US. As part of my research I was working on the sales floor at a women-owned sex toy store in New York City called Toys in Babeland.

Boy, Ms. Comella has really been hard at work on her dissertation! Just think: While some PhD candidates are wasting their time in libraries, Ms. Comella is diddling in the serious world of “field research.” This led us to wonder what else this aspiring academician did by way of investigation. We hope that the Massachusetts tax-payer flipped the bill for this work: After all, we’re sure that the citizens of, say, Fall River, MA would delight in Ms. Comella’s final project. You might even say they’d get off on it. And, given the cost of batteries these days, we guess you could say that Ms. Comella got off on us.

In the course of the article, the diligent Ms. Comella informs us that “Masturbation has a long and venerable history in the world of feminist pleasure activism.” “Feminist pleasure activism”? All this time we’ve associated the Women’s Movement with forebodingly misandrist rallies featuring signs with catchy slogans such as “Men Suck.” We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” can’t believe we’ve missed out on this “feminist pleasure activism.” In fact, right after we finish posting this column, we’re going to call up our local NOW representative and find out how we can ride the “feminist pleasure activism” gravy train, if you will.

We know what you are asking yourself, dear reader: What conclusion does Ms. Comella draw in her scholarly addition to “Feminist Media Studies”? Well, it appears as if the soon-to-be Dr. Comella discovered that “Sex and the City’s discussion of vibrator use and female masturbation hardly reflects a progressive sexual politic, feminist or otherwise.” Ain’t that a bitch?

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” humbly suggest that you, dear reader, compose a letter to the powers-that-be at HBO and inform them that Ms. Comella’s thoughtful article made you realize the politically reactionary nature of “Sex and the City.” If we don’t get the word out, dear reader, some may falsely charge Ms. Comella with intellectual masturbation.