From the letters section of Probe #6
I was often told that if I were going to have
a letters section I should only print the hate mail because it would be
much more interesting than nice mail. The problem with that was that
I had never received hate mail, ever. In five years no one had ever
sent me a mean or nasty letter. No one had ever written The Probe
in protest. Then finally! I received an item of mail from someone
who didn't like my zine. Unfortunately, she had never seen my zine,
but she sent me some hate mail all the same. Here is the letter:
Dear Aaron,
I was planning on sending you my zine until I
read about yr zine on the Basement Children's Shit List. I will not
support yr sexist zine and I will not send you my zine.
There is no excuse for sexism or oppression.
Caroline
Bantha Fodder zine
(no address given)
The note was written in pencil in large round handwriting. My guess is that Caroline is an easily impressionable girl of about 13 to 16 years old. (I have never seen or heard of Bantha Fodder except for this letter.) She wrote me because the zine catalog she refers to "Basement Children" told it's readers to send me hate mail voicing their opposition to sexism and oppression. About a week later I received my own copy of Bantha Fodder. The Probe review in it was slanted from beginning to end, misquoting the zine out of context, and the person who wrote the review obviously read very little of the zine. I wrote her a letter which I will reprint here:
Shayna, Basement Children-
Hey, thanks
for sending me your catalog even though I'm on your shit list. My
biggest gripe in the past is that people who had a problem with The Probe
just told other people so I'd hear about it second or third hand.
A girl sent me a short note the other day. I guess she read your
shit list and said, "I oppose sexism and oppression in all forms."
She didn't give her address and I don't know what she was talking about.
Anyway, You're
mistaken and the blurb you wrote about Probe #5 was intentionally misleading.
To start with, there are naked guys as well as naked girls in The Probe.
The photos themselves are pretty tame. I don't pay models to exploit
themselves, but feature friends who want to be naked in a magazine for
the fun of it. This may seem strange to you, but a lot of girls are
excited and happy when I print their photo. They're not man-pleasing
bimbos either. Jeanette is a newspaper reporter. A girl I took
photos of last week for #6 is soon to be a student at Yale. The whole
idea of having nude photos in The Probe was originally the idea of three
girls who took photos of each other for Probe #1. There were actually
more naked men than women in Probe #2. I was the only male who even
worked on Probe #3. Suzanne Bartchy appeared naked and did the lay-out,
another girl took the naked photos, and the cover was also done by a girl.
In #5 the girl reviews I wrote with the permission of the girls I reviewed--except
for the three I last contact with. They were hardly stories of my
"college exploits." I did request girls write "boy reviews" to compliment
the girl reviews.
My point is
that you are condemning sex, not sexism. The first 14 years of my
life I was brought up by a single mother who completed three master's degrees
as well as started her own business while raising kids. She also
happened to teach women's studies. I'm hardly a sexist. I admit
that in the past few years I've worried quite a bit less about offending
people than I used to. Basically I've discovered people believe what
they want to believe. I've also discovered that the people who find
me offensive are generally very stupid. Thanks to the PC backlash
in punk, people are thinking a little more thoroughly and not jumping to
conclusions about who their real enemies are. I saw some people in
your catalog who have willingly traded zines with me in the past.
I think you'd be surprised by the number of people, feminists as well,
who have no problem with The Probe. I've been trading zines with
Adrienne of Spitboy (editor of Too Far) since issue #1. Propagandhi
sold The Probe on tour for me. Profane Existance still sends me promos.
I trade zines regularly with at least a dozen (more like 20) different
female editors.
You did
exaggerate with your blurb about The Probe. Jim Goad of Answer Me!
is the guy that wrote the vaginal odor piece (but you credited me with
the quote from his article as if it were taken from my girl reviews) and
if you'd read it all the way through you may not have been as offended.
True, the introduction was offensive, but it was done in good humor.
I'd print the same type of article about men if Jim's wife, Debbie, decided
to write one.
Okay, I realize
you probably just want to sweep me and my zine under the rug and be done
with it. The thing is you did name me as a target for hatred in your
zine. I already got hate mail from someone who has never met me or
read my zine. The least you could do is give it a published shot
at re-evaluation. I doubt very much you actually read more than 10%
of it. Printing the letter is probably a lot to ask for, but like
I said, you didn't just give me a bad review. you've made me a target for
hatred and as far as I know I haven't hurt anyone. I've never spread
hatred in my zine. It's something I'd be very careful about doing.
If you'd like I can give you the phone #'s of girls who appear in The Probe
to get a first hand opinion of what type of person I am. You can
also tell them you don't support what they do, but they get upset when
people tell them what they should or shouldn't do with their own bodies.
Okay, I'll end
this. I'm taking more time writing you than I do "fan mail."
I honestly don't mind bad reviews and I can live with rejection, but what
you did is spread you own misconception. If you think I'm wrong .
. . whatever. I've dedicate my life and gone over $20,000 in debt
to my fanzine and my record label so I don't just turn my back against
people who attack it.
Let me know
what you think...
Aaron, The Probe
Of course, he never got a reply. So it goes...