RESPECTING JOVER LAURIO’S LOOKS AND SASS ROGANDO SASOT’S GENDER

IT is easy to get lost in the vitriol and let yourself to be sucked into the throwing of ad hominem attacks.

But if there is one thing I learned as I’ve aged, it is to unleash my energy not on the pettiness of personal attacks, but on the value of demolishing an argument, or an act, be it in exposing manufactured social media followings, or in showing the

However, it looks like this is a the brutal instinct of going for the attack trained at the physicality of urge to maim and destroy the body of the enemy is but what our animal instincts have taught us.

Hence, when we are confronted with an argument that challenges us, the easier path is to call its bearer ugly, or fat, or a pervert. The urge is to demolish the body of the enemy, instead of pounding on the argument. After all, winning has always been about demolishing the other side, by decimating its army and leaving the bodies of its warriors by vultures, and not about converting them to become believers.

This logic of contentious encounters was perfectly captured by the older practices of capital punishment, when the power of the sov the criminal, by severing body parts as in beheading, or quartering while power on the ones who challenged its rule by using their bodies as the template for the punishment.

In modern times, we punish one who transgresses our values, views and comforts not by attacking the idea that this person proffers, but by focusing on his or her body and sexuality.

Thus, instead of focusing only on what Jover Laurio aka Pinoy Ako Blog is saying, many of her critics zero in on her physicality. And instead of engaging only what Sass Rogando Sasot is doing, many of her adversaries make an issue of her gender identity.

Both Laurio and Sasot have deeply offended me. It would be easy to join the fray and attack their physicality.

But I believe that you can only attack people for the choices they make, and not the attributes that they have been born with.

Jover Laurio did not choose the way she looks. It is not just and fair for anyone to fault her for looking that way. Besides, one has to appreciate the fact that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And the use of physical looks as a basis to engage an adversary is such a superficial strategy that only betrays lack of substance in the counter-argument, or the inability to respond logically.

Stereotyping has become a weapon that has been deployed to marginalize and oppress. Women have been stereotyped and categorized in terms of physical attributes. People of color are demeaned because of