"You Owe Me Your Opinion", She-Hulk: Attorney At Law Edition

 Women being angry at things appear to be an unlimited vein of ore for certain genre cultural artifacts, as evidenced by my favorite hobby horse in this space, Paul Feig's 2016 Ghostbusters reboot, less objectionably Xena: Warrior Princess. Despite generally favorable ratings at Rotten Tomatoes (as of this writing, 87% fresh from the critics, 74% audience score), the preemptive kvetching from outlets that can be counted on to tell us What We Need To Think — e.g. ScreenRant — are busying themselves letting certain audience reviewers Have Wrong Opinions. In particular, they have a beef with IMDB's audience score, currently at 5.2/10 stars.

...[A]s exposed by the review bombs of She-Hulk and other recent projects, IMDb’s intent to offer a credible index of genuine audience reviews has been massively undermined by one of its own rules and by the site’s rise in popularity. The rise in bad-faith IMDb reviews, particularly for projects led by women and/or BIPOC, threatens to render the site’s scores meaningless if the problem is not addressed.

Well, maybe if so much of the film biz (including flacks at places like ScreenRant) weren't aimed at sliming large parts of the potential audience as racists and sexists, this might not happen so much? Regardless of the cheap attempt at mind-reading, De'Vion Hinton has a valid point: IMDB shouldn't allow reviews for products not yet in circulation. But that doesn't mean anybody has to actually like it, either.  He (?) doesn't attempt to break this down by date of review, but the statistics IMDB themselves publish show a certain, um, pattern here:

The plurality of low ratings come from teenage boys. Wow, hoocoodanode? I expect next a soulfully argued piece coming out against calling neighborhood bars and looking for Amanda Hugginkiss.

Public Health Reticence To Call Monkeypox A Sexually-Transmitted Disease Meets New Evidence

 One of the most baffling things about the recent monkeypox outbreak is the nearly unanimous refusal of public health agencies to declare it a sexually transmitted disease. On the one hand, monkeypox is above the break at the CDC's sexually transmitted disease page — along with COVID-19:

On the other, it doesn't make the big list at the bottom. Moreover, the CDC continues to insist that "anyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, who has been in close, personal contact with someone who has monkeypox is at risk." The WHO website is even worse on the subject of transmission, saying, "While close physical contact is a well-known risk factor for transmission, it is unclear at this time if monkeypox can be transmitted specifically through sexual transmission routes."

Careful researchers will always need to make sure they aren't fooling themselves, it's true, but a CNBC news story today highlights exactly how illusory is the politically-motivated desire of public health officials to omit gay male sexual behavior as the primary mode of transmission:

In recent weeks, a growing body of scientific evidence — including a trio of studies published in peer-reviewed journals, as well as reports from national, regional and global health authorities — has suggested that experts may have framed monkeypox’s typical transmission route precisely backward. 
…

“A growing body of evidence supports that sexual transmission, particularly through seminal fluids, is occurring with the current MPX outbreak,” said Dr. Aniruddha Hazra, medical director of the University of Chicago Sexual Wellness Clinic, referring to monkeypox and to recent studies that found the virus in semen.

Consequently, scientists told NBC News that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health authorities should update their monkeypox communication strategies to more strongly emphasize the centrality of intercourse among gay and bisexual men, who comprise nearly all U.S. cases, to the virus’ spread.

It will likely take a while for this to pervade the CDC et al., because their cosmology does not admit that gay male promiscuity never entirely went away, even after after the AIDS crisis, and is loathe to criticize LGBT+ individuals for any reason. While it may be true that a comparative minority of gay men are promiscuous in this way, young gay men especially are more likely to have multiple partners than either older gay men or straight people of either sex. The lessons of AIDS have been frequently forgotten by the current generation.

The Kansas Abortion Referendum: The Gap Between Activism And Governing

 The Bulwark positions themselves as a centrist organ, "focuse[d] on political analysis and reporting without partisan loyalties or tribal prejudices". Charlie Sykes today published a piece about the failure of yesterday's abortion ban referendum in Kansas and what it means going forward in the ongoing politics of abortion. The important points:

• Pro-choice advocates stuck to messaging about government medical mandates, linking them to unpopular mask and vaccine mandates.
• They also stayed away from the crazier "men can get abortions, too" nonsense, avoiding "scratch[ing] their ideological id."
• They mentioned that abortion is already highly regulated in Kansas.
• The measure lost even in some counties that voted for Trump in 2020.

Pro-choice people will have to model this messaging going forward, though the details will differ depending on locale. It probably helped immensely that the bill was a radical measure that would ban abortion under all circumstances, which is a consequence of conception personhood. It really highlights just how unpopular conception personhood really is once people consider its logical conclusions: under this rubric, abortion has the same valence as first-degree homicide (laying in wait). This underpinning ideology is fine if you need to get activists worked up, but it's a positive hindrance if you need to speak to people outside your tribe, i.e. if you need to actually govern. In that vein, it's pretty significant that the measure's advocates felt the need to use confusing language to hide what a "yes" or "no" vote actually meant.

 With Roe v. Wade now a matter for the history books, latitude for sweeping, polarizing gestures politicians don't have to worry about because, Supreme Court, has suddenly collapsed. San Clemente might try to make their city a "sanctuary for life", but did anyone actually ask people living there what their opinions on the matter might be?