This is the kind of headline that grabs one’s attention:
Catholic group to sue naked feminist protesters
I saw that Neil Gaimon had tweeted it from Joe. My. God. and had to check it out. So, what’s going on here?
Catholic group Civitas is suing the group Femen for “sexual exhibitionism” in front of children, as well as protesting illegally and insulting a religious group by mocking their appearance.
So what is this “sexual exhibitionism” that so scarred these poor children? Well, the protesting women’s boobs were, like, visible and stuff. (Image NSFW) They weren’t even properly naked, just topless. I generally demand more from my sexual exhibitionism. They could at least have made out or something. Maybe a little fisting. Just a little.
This is in France, by the way. This Catholic group is suing for showing boobage in France. Seriously, who doesn’t show their boobs in France? I’ve seen a French film or two. I seriously thought boobs were so common in France that people barely noticed them. “Hey, Jacques. You ever notice how hard it is to see the futbol game with all these boobs in the way?” “What boobs?”
And “insulting a religious group by mocking their appearance”? Is that really illegal in France? Insulting people should never be illegal. Religious people need to learn that the law is not your bah-bah that you can suck on whenever you get your feelings hurt and feel all poopy inside. And let’s keep in mind–these naked feminist nuns were counter-protesting a Catholic run anti-gay march. So it’s okay for the Catholics to march to deny gays equal rights, but it’s not okay to make fun of the Catholics’ silly costumes. Christian privilege, much? Oh, and fuck boobies. Children might see them. And we all know how scarring that would be if a boob were visible and a child saw it. It might do horrible things to him, like make him giggle for a few seconds. Oh, the humanity.
So who is this lesbian feminist group? From what I can gather at Le Monde (my French is rusty), they’re a rather outlandish women’s rights group that has drawn quite a bit of controversy for their over the top protests which they always do topless. This has led to the legitimate question of whether they are actually conveying a message or if people just see the breasts and forget everything else. European feminists worry that if Femen becomes the face (or chest) of feminism it could distract people from the message, and maybe that’s true. Honestly, in my opinion, while I’m all for feminism and gay rights and lots of other left wing issues, I’ve never participated in a protest of any kind and probably never will. It’s just too herd-mentality for me. But I support other people’s right to do it, even in the nude. So long as they don’t get violent…but we’ll get to that in a moment.
The feminist protesters turned up to the march against the proposed marriage for all law wearing only knickers and stockings, and with graffiti criticising the march written on their bodies.
I’m not sure if I’m comfortable calling gay marriage “marriage for all”. That seems to play right into the dumb ass slippery slope arguments that the right loves to use, where gay marriage will lead to people marrying box turtles and lawn sprinklers. Although maybe this is a translation problem.
Well, anyways, they’re criticizing an anti-gay march. Good for them!
They also fired canisters of tear gas at the marchers.
NOT good for them. What the hell, girls? Spraying tear gas? That is way out of line.
That is, it’s way out of line if it’s true. I see some reason for doubt. Here’s a YouTube video of the event (NSFW, obviously, because of boobs. People, for some odd reason that I’ll never understand, hate seeing boobs.)
You can definitely see them spraying….something. But is it tear gas, or any kind of dangerous gas? Everyone exposed to it seems to be fine. I don’t see anyone rubbing their eyes or reacting to it in any way. I was at a hockey game a while back when a drunk guy six or seven rows back from me got maced by security. Even though I was several yards away, it irritated my eyes quite a bit. And that was just one guy getting sprayed with a small amount of mace. In the video, the…whatever it is they spray seems to go everywhere, but people seem to be doing just fine.
One thing that is clear from the video is that they are attacked by the anti-gay protestors.
Some members of the feminist group were attacked and injured by the marchers.
Yeah, I just said that. Try to keep up, article I’m commenting on!
Five people have since been arrested in connection to the violence.
Who were these five people? Were they from Femen or Civitas? What did the police have to say about the allegations of tear gas or that the anti-gay protestors attacked the feminists?
Jesus titty balls, the French media is even worse than American media when it comes to leaving out relevant information. It’s hard to form a well-reasoned opinion on this with such sparse reporting. Who attacked whom first? That’s really important info.
Alain Escada, the president of Civitas, said the catholic group would also be suing Femen for spreading a message in a violent manner, organised violence with arms and threatening the freedom to protest of others.
If they actually did any of those things, you should sue. Why was this story all about the suing for boobs and dressing up in “insulting” costumes if there was the possibility of violence in this protest? Why did this shit come up at the end of the article? It’s definitely the more important stuff. But it’s also the stuff where the information becomes so sparse that the article is mostly useless. Also, I can’t help but notice that the journalist who authored this article has apparently spoken only to members of Civitas, but not Femen. Why weren’t the women asked for a statement on this? Are we following some arcane Catholic rule that only lets the men speak? What the hell?
Of course, I tend towards the naked feminist nuns’ side, since 1.) I agree with gay rights and feminism and 2.) I like boobs. However, if they did really spray tear gas into a crowd, then that’s simply inexcusable behavior and they should be in jail. On the other hand, maybe that was just some kind of harmless smoke bomb they set off, and the Civitas bigots attacked them unprovoked, in which case it’s the bigots who should be in jail. Or maybe it really was tear gas or mace, but they only sprayed it in self defense after someone attacked them. It would be nice if the article provided enough information to resolve this issue, but the stuff I quoted is all we get.
It would also be nice if the article focused on the violence rather than the boobs. As I said, I like me some boobs, but anti-free-speech violence is a much more pressing issue. (I also like pressing boobs.) It makes me think that perhaps the critics of Femen’s method might have a point. Except for the fact that if this story hadn’t involved boobs, the odiousness of Civitas’ protest against gay marriage would not have spread across the world. It’s doubtful that this story would have gotten any attention outside of France if not for the boob angle. So, yay for boobs! I guess.
Riffing Religion 
