First off, I had to mea culpa myself in the original diary -- I mistakenly thought Etsy was the creator of the cards, and did not realize that they are third-party vendors who market the cards on behalf of the individual artist. I explained, in a no-doubt irascible and angry fashion, that this has nothing to do with freedom of speech or artistic expression, that it's Etsy's choice whether to market materials or not. In other words, Etsy is engaging in a commercial transaction. No one, not me or anyone on Velez-Mitchell's piece, asked that the vendor, "youstupidbitch", be restrained from drawing and selling the cards on his own. I'm saying, and the four ladies on CNN are saying, that Etsy should choose not to sell them. By choosing to do so, Etsy is profiting off of materials that attack the victims of rape, Down syndrome, breast cancer, and God knows who else the guy has decided to target.

I shouldn't have to write this, I made the assumption that it was obvious, but based on the cries of outrage and the accusations that I'm somehow a friend of Phyllis Schlafly from the previous diary, I'll make the explanation. There are certain levels of expression that our civilization finds "beyond the pale" and unacceptable. The Photoshopped pics of Obama as a witch doctor are obviously racist, and the doctor who was sending them out (for free, no profit involved) was fired from his position in a medical organization. I didn't hear anyone stepping up to defend him. Same for the situation where a Congressman had a Nazi swastika painted on the sign outside his office (again, there was no commercial transaction involved, this was strictly an act of physical and rhetorical vandalism). Or child porn. Or snuff films. There are certain levels of vicious portrayals of people that we find unacceptable beyond the realm of "artistic expression." I've coined a phrase, "victim porn" (and I'm sure I'm not the first to use the phrase), that refers to any depictions of victims in a mocking and brutalizing way. Showing a naked woman huddling in her shower while you "congratulate" her for being "bad touched" is, by my lights, victim porn. It goes beyond the pale of what a mainstream commercial vendor should, in my view, agree to market.

On to the CNN piece. For those who don't care, or cannot, watch the video (it's about 5 mins), here's the summation. Velez-Mitchell leads off with a quick synopsis of the situation, showing the rape-victim card and identifying Etsy as a third-party vendor choosing to feature it on its site. She notes that Etsy failed to respond to her queries for a response (gutless bastards). The card maker, "youstupidbitch," says the cards are a joke; later during the broadcast, Velez-Mitchell says that the guy claims the cards can be used in a positive manner if you write a supportive message inside the flap. (Not surprisingly, she calls bullshit on that one.)

Seccuro, who has written a book, "Crash Into Me" about her search for justice after her gang-rape, then appears. She says she has bought thousands of dollars' worth of merchandise from Etsy and makes it clear she loves the site. She then goes on to say that the depiction of a woman huddling on the floor of her shower is an "iconic" representation of a rape victim -- "I did it after my rape," she says -- and calls Etsy's choice to sell the items "so wrong." She notes that you can report the item to Etsy as being offensive and ask that it be removed (requests Etsy has, so far, ignored; a commenter in my previous diary wrote that she and other Down syndrome parents posted critical comments on Etsy's Facebook page about the cards, and had their comments scrubbed). "I like a good joke as much as the next guy," Seccoro says, "but clearly, I don't know who's buying these things. That shop should be taken down." During Seccoro's segment, Velez-Mitchell says "youstupidbitch" sends the second response about the cards being a venue for a positive message, singling out the breast-cancer card; Velez-Mitchell says she is a breast-cancer survivor, and says if anyone sent her the card, she would never speak to that person again, that she would find it "severely offensive" and "sick."

Baker then comes on. She is the winner of a Soropotimist award named after Velez-Mitchell (warning, PDF file) that, according to the Northwest Conference Against Trafficking, recognizes a journalist "who uses the power of media and his or her position to highlight the ongoing violence against women and girls, whether domestic violence, human trafficking, kidnapping and abductions, hate crimes, or other despicable crimes and violence against women and girls." Baker compares the cards to a pedophile book recently sold on Amazon (!), and says, "We need to speak out about this, and demand that these Web sites remove these kinds of items." Velez-Mitchell calls it a "consumer issue" rather than a free-speech issue.

Her final guest is prosecutor Honowitz, who calls the cards "disgusting" and "disturbing" says "we [should] demand these things not be sold." She laments that the artist is getting any recognition and "press," but notes that we have to publicize his wares in order to pressure Etsy not to sell them.

Let's recap. A gang-rape victim with the guts to speak out about her brutalization, a sociologist who has won recognition for working to combat violence against women, and a prosecutor who puts sex offenders in jail all say that Etsy should remove the cards from its site. No one said the artist can't draw them and sell them on his own. No one is talking about censoring the guy, sick evil fucker that he is. We're talking about a seller making them commercially available, and choosing not to sell them because they cross a bright, fundamental line -- we don't further victimize victims through our wares.

If I ran an artist's commercial collective, whether an online vendor or a bricks-and-mortar shop, I wouldn't put Nazi paraphernelia on my shelves. I wouldn't have greeting cards depicting Farmer John having sex with his animals, or his five-year old son. I wouldn't sell material glorifying racism and mocking its victims. Neither would you. Neither should Etsy. If the guy wants to sell them on his own Web site (which I believe he does, but you can hunt it up, I won't give him the satisfaction of providing his site a link), more power to him. That is his right. He also has the right to sell them in a bricks-and-mortar store, but I suggest he get a security guard to protect him from his customers....

We celebrated ColorOfChange when it led a boycott of Glenn Beck's broadcasts over his overt racism (among other things). We celebrate when concerned citizens stop the Westboro Baptist Church crowd from verbally and rhetorically brutalizing the families of slain soldiers and AIDS victims. We are celebrating the Egyptian Muslims who are coming together to stand with the recently victimized Coptic Christians. I stand with the women's advocates who are coming together to protect rape victims, breast cancer survivors and victims, families whose members have Down syndrome, and others that this asshole is attempting to further brutalize. If you can't see that argument, then I don't know how to make my case any clearer. Maybe you should drop Velez-Mitchell or Seccuro a line. Or send them a card.