The Bluestocking 358: Boldly going
They have special diets and are afraid of seed oils
Happy Friday!
My latest piece for The Atlantic is a profile of Aella, the cam girl/sex researcher/rationalist/viral proponent of not showering very often. I’ve wanted to interview Aella for a while, as she is both an interesting person herself, and someone who is plugged into several sub-cultures I find fascinating, such as the rationalists.
“Aella bravely voyages to the frontiers of American sexuality, collecting data on people’s darkest desires, uncovering the hidden economics of the online sex trade, and refusing—despite all the mockery—to filter herself.” (gift link)
Helen
The Smallness of Gene Roddenberry (Substack)
The anecdote that broke me, though, was about how Gene Roddenberry was at a vacation resort with his wife, and hired a masseuse knowing she was a sex worker, and told her to give him the happy ending first, then go to his wife and give her the massage. We know about this because Roddenberry told his friends.
What broke me wasn’t some objection to the sexual morality of any of that, particularly, it was just that … oh my god, the guy just comes across as scuzzy, and a cheapskate. Even if it’s a tall tale, not something that really happened, it’s … I was writing a whole book about the guy in that story, and he was basically like that all the time. I realised that at some level, we need the subject of a biography to be larger than life. We want our artists to be larger than life. They’ve got to be … more … of a person, I think. Gene Roddenberry just kept coming across as so small.
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Lance Parkin had “something of a crisis of conscience about halfway through writing my biography of Gene Roddenberry, when I realised I just really did not like this guy.” This is how he dealt with it—by the realization that what he loved about Star Trek was not the creation of one flawed man, but a whole community—the fandom, who met at conventions, and highlighted what they loved about the show, i.e. its utopianism and inclusion.
I liked this piece because the theme echoes something I’ve written about in The Genius Myth—if we over-attribute phenomena (whether scientific discoveries or creative endeavours) to individual Great Men, that is asking for disappointment when they, like everyone else, inevitably turn out to have feet of clay. There is actually no contradiction between Gene Roddenberry being a plank and Star Trek being meaningful to many people’s lives.
The Soy Right Needs a Safe Space (Dialectics of Decline, Substack)
Long gone are the days where fascists aspired to be übermenschen; strong, disciplined, superhuman… the idealized masculine. Our new neofascist overlords have scrapped that identity almost entirely and fully embodied its opposite — the Soy Right. They have special diets are afraid of seed oils. They wear skinny jeans and have meticulously groomed beards. They talk non stop about masculinity, drive pickups, and wear plaid, but can’t change a tire to save their lives. While the right spent years mocking liberals for wanting “safe spaces” and echo chambers, for crying about identity politics, for being frail, fragile, overly-sensitive weaklings, they were slowly transforming into the perfect mirror of all of it — without the nagging concern for equality or any of that lib shit.
The same right wing snowflakes who went on and on about cancel culture now indulge in it with glee.
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Further adventures in smol bean conservatism.
As the subject very much in the news this week, here are three more pieces on the new global right. (I also covered this on Page 94, where I speculated about whether the Online Right is losing touch with the median voter.)
Chaser #1: CPAC was a fiesta of Trump tribute acts. “At a dinner on Wednesday night where Bannon hailed Bolsonaro and Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform Party in the UK, as the future of the populist right, nationalists from Hungary and neighboring Romania were seated at different tables, which was probably wise lest their conversation turn from their agreement on fighting transgender rights to their disagreement over Transylvania, the historically ethnic Hungarian region in central Romania.”
Those ecstatic conferences are papering over some pretty hefty cracks within the new right (Politico).
Chaser #2: The ARC conference in London was a bit stuffy. “The split forming on the right in 2025 might be similar to the one that took down parts of the left in the 2010s. Think Clinton against Sanders, or Corbyn against everyone else. The right-of-centre establishment is still an establishment, and a fairly smug one – most of the people on stage during the ARC conference were elected politicians, academics, clergymen, actors, journalists, think-tankers, and successful entrepreneurs.”
Ella Dorn reports from ARC (New Statesman).
Chaser #3: Graeme Wood on the appeal of the AfD. “Complicating matters is the fact that [Alice] Weidel, the actual Führer (or Führerin) of the AfD, is hardly Third Reich–compliant. She can speak in fiery tones about immigration: “On the first day in government, we will seal off the German borders,” she promised a crowd earlier this month, adding, “No one will be able to come in.” But she is also curious about the world outside Germany for reasons unrelated to conquering it; she speaks Chinese and lived in China for six years. And although she has Aryan skin and hair, she is married to a woman of Sri Lankan origin, with whom she is raising two sons.”
I read everything Graeme writes; he is both knowledgeable and funny, and you often only get one of those. (The Atlantic, gift link)
Quick Links
“The rapid decline in the use of cash meant that the Treasury did not order any new metallic pennies and pounds from the Royal Mint last year, after concluding the existing supply was enough to meet demand. The legitimacy and core purpose of the Trial of the Pyx, having survived in the capital for almost a millennium, is under threat from Apple Pay.” Jim Waterson nerds out about coins. This piece also features a picture of Britain’s rather snazzy £1,000 coin, which I did not previously know existed. (London Centric, £)
In related news, Donald Trump has ordered the US Treasury to stop making pennies, one of his few good ideas.
“On March 25, 1975, following the success of The Power Broker, Caro’s publisher, Knopf, announced that Caro would be writing a three-volume biography of Lyndon B. Johnson. Installments were expected every two years beginning in 1977. Its first volume eventually appeared in 1982. By 1990, when the second volume was published, Caro was explaining that the undertaking would actually require four volumes. Before the fourth book appeared in 2012, he let it be known that there would now be five.” A Robert Caro interview to cheer up anyone who struggles with deadlines (Smithsonian).
“Japan has taken a different path. Property prices in Tokyo were the most expensive in the world thirty years ago. No more. Affordability has not come because of population decline. Greater Tokyo’s population increased by 4 million people over the last thirty years. Instead, urban zoning is simple. There are twelve zone types, each defined by a nuisance level they allow that ranges from residential to industrial. If the building type doesn’t exceed the nuisance level, then anything can be built.” The British mind cannot comprehend Japanese planning law (Political Calculus, Substack).
“The pharmacist Charlie encountered there was a locum, or temporary replacement, on his first-ever shift at the Camberwell branch. The assistant working that weekend was also new. Neither of them knew how to access the computer systems at that branch. Instead of admitting he could not access the system, the pharmacist repeatedly told my mum and brother that nothing had come through from NHS 111.” Madison Marriage on her 32-year-old brother’s needless death from epilepsy, because he couldn’t get a repeat prescription of his medication via the NHS 111 service. Upsetting and enraging (Financial Times).
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I loved your Aella article. I’m on your side - I have moral objections to the promotion of sex work, and I think her blithe recommendation is risky. But despite that, there is something very compelling about her, and I like her regardless.
Thanks for the interesting piece on Aella. For some reason I'm more discomfited by her aversion to frequent showers than the orgy stuff (not sure how I would possibly make it through the world without a nice hot shower every morning).
In terms of Aella as an anthropologist for sexuality -- wouldn't that be like making that asshole who "wins" all the hot dog eating contests a restaurant reviewer? ("Golden Corral Buffet: 5 stars. They may glare at you, but legally they can't kick you out until they close!")