And Now, a Word on AmandaPalmersArmpitHairGate

?I had actually really hoped to not comment on the armpitageddon that was unleashed yesterday afternoon, but as Ms. Palmer herself took notice, perhaps it’s become necessary.

I don’t apologize for finding Amanda Palmer’s armpit hair gross. It’s my opinion. If she has the right to not shave — and she most certainly does — I don’t know why I wouldn’t have the right to not care for it, be distracted by it, or comment on it. Likewise, everyone has the right to think I’m a Penis-Nazi determined to make the entire female gender submit to my evil sexual predilections, and I have the right to feel that’s slightly hyperbolic.

The more reasonable people seem to be focused on the last sentence of the article, “At least she could have kept her arms down.” I get that, and I do apologize for it. It was poorly worded to say the least. In hindsight, I should have said something like “By raising her arms constantly throughout the song, I felt like that Ms. Palmer was rubbing our faces in her unshaven armpits, so to speak, and, as the larger majority of polite society finds this specific grooming practice uncouth — which, as previously mentioned, is a gender-specific double-standard and one I acknowledge as wrong — I felt this was a little rude.”

And, as before, you’re still welcome to loathe me for that sentiment. If Ms. Palmer simply prefers not to shave, that’s obviously fine. But if she was deliberately waving her pits in front of the camera to call attention to them — and, if she once actually wrote an entire song about the glories of not shaving, I suspect this may possibly have been in the back of her mind — then she and I are on the same team, because she wanted to make them an issue and I took issue with them.

Last but not least, I expect nothing from  Amanda Palmer’s legion of fans. They see that one article, think I’m a brutal misogynist and hate me, that’s totally legit (at least that they took that opinion of me, not that I’m an actual misogynist). But if anyone who’s been reading TR for any significant amount of time thinks that I’m genuinely sexist… well, I’ve worked really fucking hard to make Topless Robot a site for both nerd guys and gals. If, despite all my efforts to this end over the last three years, you can read that one article and believe I genuinely want to sexually marginalize women, then I’m offended.