Goodbye To Comics: Judith Regan And Why I Don't Apologize For "Sleeping With The Enemy"

Goodbye To Comics:
Judith Regan And Why I Don't Apologize For "Sleeping With The Enemy"

Judith Regan is the publisher of "How To Marry A Porn Star," "OJ: If I Did It," and a good friend of Howard Stern. It might be assumed that Ms. Regan is not exactly a sterling feminist, considering the types of people she publishes & promotes.

Which is why I found her long, candid personal statement released today regarding the OJ book so on-point with my own situation.

The statement answers charges that she is a heartless slime for publishing OJ's book--that she of all people, a woman, could profit off a wife-batterer and probable murder.

And so Regan recounts her own harrowing story of abuse by her ex-husband, and that she is the last person in the world to be insensitive to women's issues.

To have a "power person" like Regan get vulnerable and tell such a story of brutality & humiliation...

I was moved, honestly.

But then the question would be asked,
Why does Regan support projects & entertainers that are perceived as so anti-woman???

It is assumed by some that abuse and harrassment is the fire by which the future mega-feminists are created.

But really, wouldn't victims of abuse by the "patriarchy" know, more intimately than anyone, the sheer power of that patriarchy?

The power of that patriarchy to savage, to wreck careers, to intimidate?

And is our first reaction to fight that patriarchy?

Or to ingratiate ourselves to it as to not get hurt again??

Wouldn't the woman who was brutalized by her husband feel a degree of control, a degree of safety by having an "icon of misogyny" like Howard Stern on her side?

I'm not saying it's right.

It's just when I hear "you should know better than..."

Yeah, maybe I should know better. Maybe I should get a brain transplant or have my memories removed or dope myself up until I've got that "Laura Bush Smile" as well.

I listened to Howard Stern since I was 12 years old. The content of his show blended well with how I saw women treated around me, far more than any feminist treatise that I read.

Again, I'm not saying it's right.

I remember a woman I used to know who had been raped as a teenager and said she proceeded to fuck as many men as she could after that so the initial rape wouldn't bother her.

So when I find that my blog gets the most hits from keyword phrases like "superheroine rape" and "superheroine kill" and "superheroine torture" and "superheroine defeated," I have to laugh it off.

But deep down it makes me want to vomit and never stop. Because the idea of a "Superheroine" apparently motivates so many people to contemplate nasty things.

Then again, perhaps most of those hits are from feminist bloggers looking for material to discuss.

But actually, I know they're from angry sexually frustrated males. I know because I've run with that crowd in several different permutations.

And yes, it's well-known that the rape and torture scenes of women in comics have a big fan following. And that a few editors and writers know this and "play it up."

I get many, many hits based on those keywords, by the way. I was getting good Google AdSense revenue from it, too.