Someone at NBC Apparently Approved This Creepy, Porny Video of Female Olympians [Video]

Have you barfed yet today? Get thee to a drain of some kind before watching this video the pervs over at NBC have put together in order to show their appreciation for Olympic bodies of the 2012 London Games. Unfortunately, to NBC, showcasing the "Bodies in Motion" of the XXX Olympiad means taking footage of conventionally attractive female athletes competing in sports that require them to be scantily clad, slowing it way down as the camera lovingly caresses their butts, breasts, and bouncing ponytails, and playing some soft core porn music over it. Apparently NBC is too busy focusing on jiggling ladies' asses to notice ladies kicking ass.

You'd think that something called "Bodies in Motion" wouldn't be code for "Rejected bumper reel from The Man Show," but I guess I'm not plugged in to the hip, with it language of the youths nowadays or on board with the notion that Olympic bodies are at their most noteworthy when they're female, (mostly) white, stereotypically feminine, and thin. At least NBC's contribution to Boner Jams 2012 doesn't include any underage gymnasts.

Not every moment in the 2 and a half minute-long fap fest (which NBC innocently describes as "Spiking a volleyball, jumping off the starting block, and everything in-between. Check out these bodies in motion during the Olympic Games.") is totally gross; footage of the runners clearing hurdles is a beautiful showcase of Olympians competing in the moment for which they've spent their lives preparing. But what's the point of slowed down shots of beponytailed runners jumping up and down and blowing kisses to the crowd? Of tennis players' asses as they just stand there waiting for a serve or beach volleyball players as they encouragingly smack each other on the rear? What's with the bizarre fixation on the female ass as it clears the high bar? And what in the name of Olympian fuck is going on between 1:36 and 1:41, when one semi-anonymous field hockey ass is shown diving and flexing very slowly?

NBC's quest to win the gold medal in the sexist pig decathlon is especially disappointing when you consider the dozens of more worthwhile stories they could be showcasing with video. For example, American women have basically been carrying the medal count for Team USA; ladies are responsible for 23 of the country's 33 gold medals, and without ladies or swimming, America would only have three golds. America's women's soccer team is set to face Japan today in a rematch of the 2011 World Cup Final, which promises to be an incredible game. Where are the women's boxing highlight reels? What about women's weight lifting? What about any sport that doesn't bare midriffs, décolletage, ass cheek bottoms? Was the network having a contest to see which video producer could patch together the most embarrassingly juvenile highlight reel?

The abject inability of some Olympic photographers to refrain from objectifying female beach volleyball players is well-documented, and of course it would be naive if I didn't expect at least a few lone horndogs to make their own slow-mo Olympian appreciation videos (Lochte fans have made plenty of appreciative gifs of the swimmer, for example). But NBC is the official US broadcaster of the Olympic games; for most Americans, the only way to watch what's going on in London. And seeing a TV network treating world-class athletes as little more than tributes to boners is incredibly dismaying.

[NBC]

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John Scalzi Helpfully Explains Just How Not Okay It Is to Sexually Harass Someone at a Sci-Fi or Fantasy Convention [Sexual Harassment]

Author and and President of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America John Scalzi affixed his blogging sheriff's badge on Tuesday to remind everyone that it is a) decidedly shittastic to harass anyone at a science fiction or fantasy convention, and b) pretty frustrating that women are still being harassed at these conventions.

Scalzi was addressing an incident that occured at this year's Readercon, which, he notes, has a very explicit "zero tolerance" policy about sexual harassment.  Genevieve Valentine first blogged about being harassed at Readercon by a guy named Rene Walling, who, Scalzi points out, had been "banned from the convention for two years, an amount of time which is less than ‘permanently' would be."  A cavalcade of outraged responses followed Valentine's post, many of them speculating that Walling had been "let off easy" because he's a well-traveled fan who's run conventions himself.  Dismayed commenters ultimately concluded that Readercon, tripping clumsily over its own sexual harassment policy, seemed to side with the harasser over than the woman he harassed.

As President of SFWA (and hugely popular writer of the hot new sci-fi book Redshirts), Scalzi was pressed for a response to the incident, which he provided in the concise, bulleted litany that follows:

1. No one should have to fear sexual harassment at any science fiction or fantasy convention. The fact people still do - the fact women still do, let's not dance around that little fact of life - is deeply embarrassing to all of us in this community.

2. It doesn't matter whether the person sexually harassing someone else is a big name in the field or is well-liked or is otherwise a decent human being or feels really bad about it in retrospect.

3. Conventions should have policies and procedures in place to deal with sexual harassment. Those policies should be unambiguous and clear. They should apply equally to everyone.

4. If a convention has a policy on sexual harassment which it then does not follow, then it has failed - failed the person who was harassed by not living up to its obligations to them, failed its guests by not following the rules by which it purports to run, failed the community at large by continuing to allow exceptions and exclusions and excuses to those who harass, and failed itself by not being the convention it claims to be.

Everybody clear on that?  Scalzi goes on to address the fact that harassers often profess ignorance, as in, "I had no idea that the woman gritting her teeth and backing slowly away from me wanted me to stop talking to her about the mating habits of adult hyenas.  Really, I swear."  Scalzi explains pretty bluntly that being clueless about harassment "doesn't matter.  At the end of the day, everyone at a convention should be free to enjoy themselves without being sexually harassed."  People who willingly enter huge social stews of strange fellow humans shouldn't be prepared to deal with harassment — they should be prepared to interact with other people decently.  That means not getting up in a stranger's personal space and making that person cringe.  If such social nuances elude any prospective attendees, then it'd probably be best for them to stay indoors and wait for some social awareness to bludgeon them across the forehead.

Readercon, Harrassment, Etc. [Whatever]

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Someone Foolishly Scheduled Volleyball on the Same Court as Sandcastle Building [Snap Judgment]

Jul 31, 2012 9:45 PM  

Sanne Keizer of the Netherlands reacts near the end of a mystery volleyball match with the United States at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2012, in London. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

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Someone Think of the Children: Could There Really Be a Fifty Shades of Grey Baby Boom? [Fifty Shades Of Grey]

Jul 31, 2012 6:15 PM   You ladies! Ever since you picked up E.L. James' adult Little Golden Book Fifty Shades of Grey, you can't stop getting it wet. But, seriously, did you ever think that all of your freewheeling fucking might have real life-altering consequences? You know what they tell you in middle school — all it takes is one trip to the Red Room of Pain and you can come back pregnant, which is why, much to the embarrassment of everyone involved, Good Morning America is predicting a Fifty Shades of Grey baby boom in just a matter of months. Dubious? You're right to be. Their only proof is that several babies — or greybies, if you really want to sound like an asshole — could be born in Febuary, which is approximately 9 months after the book series peaked in sales. There are, however, a few pregnant couples willing to admit that it was actually the fan fiction-turned-best seller that motivated them to get crawl back into the sack and get to child-making again, with some even considering naming their unborn children after the novels' main characters Christian and Anastasia. Do this at your own risk, parents — giving your kids the names of characters famed for tampon sex play is like giving carte blanche to CPS to have them taken away. E.L. James' '50 Shades of Grey' Causing New Baby Boom [GMA]

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