Site Meter Reflections on Playboy: What do Danish cartoons and apologias for cosmetic surgery have in common?

February 20, 2006

What do Danish cartoons and apologias for cosmetic surgery have in common?

Dangerous fanatics will do anything to censor them.

Until today, my friend Keshia T. Smith kept a fascinating blog called Fixing Humpty Lumpty, an eloquent defense of her choice to undergo cosmetic surgery to correct the effects of her pregnancies. The other day, she used a search engine to learn what people were saying about her blog and found lots of self-righteous vitriol, like, “What do you think you’re teaching your children with this kind of behavior? Why did you have to reproduce? Couldn’t you have just removed yourself from the gene pool instead?” and, “I think the tackiest thing is how she lists the cost of each procedure. There are starving children in this world that could have had a year’s worth of meals for that. Nice.” Smith copied and pasted many such comments in a post for her blog. Using an alleged and trivial breach of netiquette on Smith’s part as a pretext, one of the sources of the hateful comments has blackmailed her into issuing a forced apology and deleting her blog. Her husband has received instant messages threatening to ruin his election campaign by spreading lies about him. An anonymous commenter at one web site has threatened to publish sexually explicit photos with her children’s faces pasted on. In an email, Smith told me that some of her fellow bloggers have been intimidated into silence, privately apologizing for their failure to stand up for her in public.

Be it known to all that Reflections on Playboy has a firm policy of remembering its friends and refusing to be cowed.

Beyond any doubt, all this thuggery was inspired by hatred of cosmetic surgery. The URL that formerly contained Smith’s blog now contains anti–cosmetic-surgery images and slogans. If there’s a political lesson here, it’s that left-wing puritanism can go just as batty as the right-wing variety.

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 10:36 PM

  • Anonymous new illuminati left this comment at February 21, 2006 2:36 AM  
    A breach of netiquet indeed, but you can't allow people to blackmail you into self-censorship!
    Free the blogsphere from fear!

  • Blogger kateysmith left this comment at February 21, 2006 5:43 AM  
    This post has been removed by a blog administrator.

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at February 21, 2006 9:34 AM  
    K. T.,
    It’s the decent thing to do, my dear.

  • Blogger Will left this comment at February 21, 2006 9:31 PM  
    Aversion to plastic surgery is hardly just a left-wing issue. Many right-wingers have issues with enhancing surgery on the same grounds that they're against cloning, stem cell research, among other things - in their eyes, it is unnatural.

    I don't know what kind of people would spend time harassing someone like that. It strikes me, above all, as a horrible waste of time. If you're that much against cosmetic surgery, then you'd be better served to be politically active creating or operating in an interest group, lobbying for legislation, etc. This is reminiscent of those people who stand outside of Planned Parenthood berating those who walk in.

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at February 21, 2006 9:57 PM  
    Will:
    Aversion to plastic surgery is hardly just a left-wing issue.

    My broader point was that fanatical self-righteousness is a perennial human vice we’re all capable of.

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at February 22, 2006 7:19 AM  
    What do Jay Leno and I have in common? We both love stupid criminals. A comment that I refuse to publish as a matter of taste contains these self-incriminating words: “Yes, her husband recieved [sic] IMs (screen name garnered from one of her pages that *she* posted a link to), but when instant messaged, said he was a widower with a 13 year old daughter. He then had his campaign website password protected.” I don’t know how this is supposed to justify the actions of these despicable people, but it will serve as powerful evidence in court.

  • Blogger Jenn of the Jungle left this comment at February 22, 2006 1:02 PM  
    That's unbelievable, I can't believe she deleted her blog. But I can understand, since she has children.

    What a mess.

  • Blogger Wally Banners left this comment at February 25, 2006 11:40 AM  
    lol man I used to live in Homby hills moved over to troutsdale instead.

  • Anonymous Abhijeet left this comment at February 26, 2006 1:10 AM  
    This is something scary I read first time. Ooooof!

  • Blogger Jetting Through Life left this comment at March 3, 2006 6:04 PM  
    I think this post is very worthy... People forget we have feelings and our blogs are our lives regardless if they like it or not.

  • Anonymous face left this comment at June 28, 2006 3:42 AM  
    I don't see anything wrong with cosmetic surgery it make people look better and feel better

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