Happiness is a Warm Gun

Never having visited the Ambler before, I was sent there twice in a day, first by an indignant Colby Cosh (who isn't really all that lazy) and then by Michael of 2Blowhards. Kevin Michael Grace is that ur-citizen of the blogosphere, a splenetic conservative. But he's nothing like the Greatest Jeneration (who has been so aptly described as a cross between Ann Coulter and Jean Teasdale). No, he's funny and smart. His evisceration of J-Lo and (subsequently) the Vagina Monologues is hilarious. It's not every day you see someone entirely justly accused of spouting "sub-Joycean drivel" and of exercising "what Nabokov called 'the cunning of the insane'".

Everone who reads chick magazines, especially the more political Marie Claire, knows all about Eve Ensler and her vagina. Black and white photo spreads of the actresses doing the nth revival of the "play" regularly appear, usually accompanied by embarassing Q and A's like "if your vagina were a tree, what kind of tree would it be?" And Natalie Portman is like "a slender birch, its creamy bark wrapped in a veil of tender green" and we're all like "deep." No, I made that up about the trees, but they really do ask "if your vagina could wear clothes, what would it wear." Empirical investigation shows that there is no way to answer this without looking like a complete idiot, even if you hopefully mumble "panties?"

So, in my new-found Ambler fan-dom, it saddens me to note a wee problem with his analysis. To wit, his scathing critique of Natalie Angier's militaristic metaphor:

The Vagina Monologues incorporates bits from other "Vagina Queens," including an ode by Natalie Angier to the superiority of the clitoris over the penis, which concludes, "Who needs a handgun when you've got a semi-automatic." This is a stunningly inept metaphor. Let us count the ways. A semi-automatic is not, as Angier seems to think, a machine gun. And most handguns are semi-automatics. Semi-automatic means merely that one pull of the trigger results in one firing. In terms of physiology, Mizzes Ensler and Angier have got it exactly backwards.

Now, I don't mean to cast aspersions here, or to suggest that Mr. Grace has never induced in any of his female partners the um..series of physical states which the semi-automatic is meant to suggest, but his analysis raises some doubts in my mind. (Maybe he's gay, in which case he's off the hook). But.

It is not very likely that Ms. Angier really meant a machine-gun. She's not Annie Sprinkle, after all, nor are most women. The comparison seems pretty apt, actually. It may not be topographically correct to regard one thing which can fully enclose another as being smaller than the latter thing, but if I were offered a shotgun and a semi-automatic handgun and told to assign the properties of the male and female genitalia to each... I think you're all with me here. The shotgun is so...well. And you see, the thing about a shotgun is, once you fire it, you have to go to some trouble to fire it again. It takes time to break the gun and reload. Maybe the barrel is hot and you don't want to touch it right away? It could happen. Whereas, with my putative 9-millimeter, or what have you, I can just squeeze away and the bullets keep coming right out. No reloading, no cocking back the hammer, no nothing (yes, yes, I know you can fire a revolver without cocking it. No one denies that this is easier with a semi-automatic, though). Sixteen in the clip and one in the chamber may be a bit optimistic, but on the whole, I'm with Ms. Angier.

Comments

[embarrassed]

Stupid refractory period. When our descendants mess with their genes, I really hope they give men and women an equal refractory period and peak sexual age.

[belle waring]

Word to that, embarassed.

[belle waring]

Mr. Grace has responded graciously here:
http://www.theambler.com/aug1-15_03.htm#volume
He regards my suggestion that he might be gay as an aspersion, but I only mentioned it because I'd feel pretty silly if he were...

[Sniffy]

"He regards my suggestion that he might be gay as an aspersion, but I only mentioned it because I'd feel pretty silly if he were..."

I'd be pretty surprised if he wasn't.

[johny]

lol