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anti-feminism, blogging, culture, Ghomeshi, news, politics, rape trials, repression, shaming
For those who don’t know the Ghomeshi disaster was/is a sexual assault trial in which Jian Ghomeshi has been acquitted creating a great deal of controversy and discussion. Men’s rights advocates are outraged, this poor, innocent man was allegedly framed, targeted, and very nearly had his life ruined. Many feminists are outraged too, there is no justice in the world, we must change the entire system, the law has failed, etc, etc.
I just keep thinking, sheesh, the rich and famous have such melodrama in their lives! How come sex scandals never happen to the little people? Well, for one nobody cares, but for another, we just aren’t this bloody stupid. Also, on the bottem there just isn’t this same investment in trying to protect our own perceived virtues.
Here’s the first article I wish to address, “Lucy, the actress and Air Force captain speaks out about the crushing aftermath of the Jian Ghomeshi trial.” The jist of the story is that Lucy waited a decade before reporting that Jian allegedly choked her, an incident that was followed up by her sending him flowers and a love note of a sexual nature. Needless to say, her post incident response to him after the alleged assault did not go over well at trial becasue it tends to scream sexual confusion and a woman that does not even understand the nature of herself. In this interview she says things like “I don’t know what my motivation was, I don’t know. I’m doing pop psychology on myself, I don’t remember, I’ll never know why I wrote that letter. This is all a wild guess, right? But it’s me guessing on my own psyche...“
I don’t wish to be unkind here, but women really need to not be in a position of trying to “guess” their own psyche. Know thy self! Seriously, one simply cannot be a victim of their own psyche, their own psychology, their own motivations, their own sexuality. Ghomeshi is a real lunkhead, but several of these women are clearly pursuing him, ….while expressing confusion over the fact that they are pursuing him.
The second article says “If you want the legal system to protect you, you better be a good victim” and proceeds to lament how “The message this ruling sends is unambiguous: if you want the legal system to protect you, be a good victim. Take detailed notes of your assault, ideally while it’s happening. Don’t laugh, don’t joke, don’t try to normalize the situation. Be consistent: don’t have complicated feelings, don’t contact your assaulter…”
Well, yes. Seems rather logical to me, but before we condemn a man, lunkhead or not, we must first make sure we have an actual victim. Laughing, joking, sending intimate emails, flowers, not quite being clear on how you feel or what actually happened, normalizing the situation, these are all problematic issues that should make anyone hesitant about revoking a man’s freedom.
It would be a bit like loaning your car to someone and a decade later deciding it had been stolen, so you send flowers to the thief….before turning him in for grand theft auto. So was you car stolen or not? I’m not really sure, I can’t be expected to know my own psyche, I don’t remember, etc etc, but this guy should go to jail becasue I have no idea what I’ve gone and done with my car.
People out in the culture like to speak of the rabid right, of alleged conservative Christian sexual repression and the opppression of women, and while there are pockets of this to be found in various places, we never speak of the harmful and repressive messages coming from feminists and progressives. For all their alleged language around sexual freedom and female sexual empowerment, the truth, the reality is quite a bit differant and it presents some genuine paradoxes that can truly mess with your head. Sometimes I think we have created this kind of cultural stockholm syndrome, where women have become so confused trying to rationalize two conflicting ideas at the same time that we no longer have any idea what is going on within us.
There is the paradox about how sexuality is something you are born with, written in stone, but also conversely, so flexible, such a social construct that your very gender can now be chosen at will. There is the paradox about the strong, empowered woman whose only path to womanly success is to imitate and copy the perceived sexual behavior of men, completly denying her own femininty in the process. There is the paradox about how all sex with men is rape, about how men are tools of the patriarchy, so pursuing one is literally like sleeping with the enemy. There is the paradox of how we now possess full moral agency enabling us to make “choices,” which then leads us to have sex with people we don’t even like, for reasons we can’t even fathom, causing us to question our very moral agency itself.
Entwinned in all these crazy making paradoxes is also relentless feminist shaming, causing one’s very psyche to bounce about like a pinball trying to discern what is expected, what is normal, what is even going on? For example, one living in the midst of progressive feminism does not cheerfully announce, look at me, I aggressively pursued a complete thug who treated me poorly and than went back for more! Isn’t that fascinating? I wonder what that might say about the things lurking in the dark recesses of my heart? Perhaps I should explore my own motivations here, become acquainted with my own psyche, evaluate my own sexuality? But see, women cannot do that under this progress system, becasue women must be far, far, more virtuous then the allegedly virtuousity imposed upon us by the far right, by the conservative Christian side of things. Women must never desire the enemy, women will never lie, not even to their own selves, women are always right, women always perceive things correctly, etc, etc, this huge burden of virtuousity that is enforced and policed with a venegeance on the feminist side, on the progressive side. Also, I h0pe you don’t actually eat animals or use styrofoam cups, becasue those things are bad, too.
And so, under the guise of feminism, of progressivism, genuine rape victims are once again tossed under the bus in this trial that has made a disasterous mockery of sexual assault, and the message has been sent once again that women are not to really possess any moral sexual agency of their own or to own it themselves, and that one must stay in their feminist place, contemplating their perpetual victimhood. Now that will make you crazy.
It’s somewhat interesting to me, virtue, pride, and perpetual shame, are heavy burdens to bear and I don’t see that dumped on women so much from the non feminist, non progressive, more Christian side of things. There is something to to be said about being able to quip rather delightfully, what virtue? I’m a sinner! Ah yes, washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb for sure, but no longer forced to try to carry a burden of perpetual virtue signaling, endlessly trying to prove one’s own goodness, a never ending need to hide from one’s own shame…..
… and to attempt to off load all that shame on an innocent man, a lunkhead in this case, but one no more confused and disoriented than anyone else in this ugly little story.
Even “virtue” can be built on a house of cards, wrapped in layers of deception, choking off the very life within us.
superslaviswife said:
“If you feel victimized, you are a victim” is one of the most repulsive attitudes I have ever witnessed developing. It used to be the realm of teenagers picking on each other. Now it’s everywhere, like we’re not growing up at all.
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insanitybytes22 said:
I agree, but it gets even more repulsive, we’re now entering the arena of mandated victimization.
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superslaviswife said:
True, if you fail to adhere to your victim status you get attacked until you actually feel like a victim. You literally CANNOT, for instance, debate with feminists online without ending up either a victim of the Patriarchy or a victim of their abuse.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Yes, you’ve nailed it. It’s like a catch 22. If you don’t feel like a victim, we’ll make sure you do.
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superslaviswife said:
Never felt more victimized or more hated for being a woman than when talking to feminists. Funny thing, that.
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OKRickety said:
“Campbell and Manning describe (in http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/03/26/victimhood-culture-at-emory/) how this culture of dignity is now giving way to a new culture of victimhood in which people are encouraged to respond to even the slightest unintentional offense, as in an honor culture. But they must not obtain redress on their own; they must appeal for help to powerful others or administrative bodies, to whom they must make the case that they have been victimized. “
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Eric said:
This is part of the reason why I don’t seek relationships with women educated in American culture. Most American women are too emotionally unstable to interact with.
The government’s own numbers show that 3/4 of sexual assault/rape accusations turn out to be false; 1/4 American women use psychiatric drugs; nearly half have had abortions; 1/3 identify as bisexual. Only about 1/4 US kids under 12 live with both their natural parents. The divorce ratio between American-born and foreign-born wives is 3:1.
Numerically, a single American man’s chances of being in a sex scandal or divorce is higher than his chances of finding a complmentarian permanent relationship.
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Rebecca LuElla Miller said:
Not an easy subject. Because of the “normalization” of S&M, I do think a lot of women are confused. There’s a web page that gives this Google description: ” What’s the first step in exploring S&M? Change the way you think. What exactly constitutes as S&M?” I don’t doubt that women today, when confronted especially by someone who seems worldly-wise, could question their experience: “Sure it was rough, but he must like it that way. Shouldn’t I be willing to give it a try?”
I read a story about an abuse victim—pretty sure the author drew on her own experience—and the overall question I had was, Why does she stay with this guy?!
But women do. And they pursue the “bad boy.” There’s something going on regarding need and dependence and self-doubt.
I have a hard time, though, thinking of guys who “like it rough” as merely lunkheads. I think there’s something warped about anyone who wants to hurt others as a form of self-gratification.
Our society has painted both men and women into a corner. What’s “consensual” these days? Activity you don’t report right away? Activity you think you should be OK with, because he is and clearly wants it that way? Activity that isn’t caught on camera or witnessed by a third party or two?
I feel for these women because they are looking for validation in all the wrong places, including from the judicial system. I feel for the guy who thinks he can treat women (four of them and counting) however he wishes and for his own pleasure.
It’s the society we have created, however, because as you say, IB, we no longer listen to the values of that increasingly odd conservative side of the culture that says things so out of step with the majority like, marriage is between one man and one woman, and the marriage bed should be undefiled.
Becky
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insanitybytes22 said:
I so agree with what you’ve said, Becky. We’ve created an insane asylum run by scary clowns and then we wonder why everyone is walking around muttering to themselves. 😉
“I have a hard time, though, thinking of guys who “like it rough” as merely lunkheads. I think there’s something warped about anyone who wants to hurt others as a form of self-gratification.”
Again, I agree, but I think being women, it is probably much easier for us to judge this guy as “warped,” without really seeing how warped these women are for trying to get him locked up as a form a self gratification themselves. What they are doing is seen as virtuous, what he is doing is perverse, and yet they are really just flip sides of the same coin.
Regardless of being a lunk head or warped or whatever, he’s lost his job, lost his money, lost his reputation, spent time in jail, gone through a trial….but he’s completely innocent in the eyes of the law.
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Rebecca LuElla Miller said:
It’s that “innocent in the eyes of the law” thing I’m questioning, IB. This new (relatively speaking and in a broader, ever growing, it would seem, segment of society) hitting women who then cling to the man who hit them, is not right. Are women asking for it, tolerating it, consenting? Why are we asking such questions? That behavior is not acceptable. It’s not right. Men aren’t to take advantage of women because they are weaker. They are to live with their wives in an understanding way. They are to show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life. So these guys, unbelievers though they may be, are not to pound on women. It’s a perversion of the relationship God intended for men and women. It’s as sure a sign of the fall as anything I can imagine.
I think of the football players who are now being held accountable for domestic abuse. The NFL has realized that there’s something off if a man turns his anger to those in his home. I realize this radio personality was accused of abusing women he was involved with, not women he was in a long term relationship with. But was that somehow better? I think it’s worse because it says what he thinks about women, not just a woman. Ugh. It’s ugly. They’re straying like sheep and they need to return to the shepherd and guardian of their souls.
I pray this man’s upside down life might lead him to the One who can forgive and heal.
Becky
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Eric said:
Becky:
This phenomenon is coming from a combination of factors. Women have a biological drive to submit to conquest by a dominant male—but at the same time they’re taught that ‘all sex is rape’ and that ‘nice guys aren’t really nice’. The moral component of what it means to be a strong, dominant man has been stripped out of women’s thinking.
Conversely, the avenues for good and truly masculine men to express themselves are so circumscribed and limited that a ‘good man’ today is merely someone who works and sacrifices twice as hard as other men—with no benefit to himself—whose only reward is to get kicked by society. And if he does any more than humbly bow and politely beg forgiveness for getting in the way of someone’s foot, then he’s considered a dangerous subversive.
But women’s biological drives and social programming—both mutually contradictory—don’t go away. So they seek out Fifty-Shades-of-Gray and Gangsta-Rap types for sexual gratification. It’s rape, but the women still have control. What the whole S&M thing looks like is sexual liberation on the surface, but it’s really the consequence of sexual repression—sort of like a sexual Black Market.
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cracTpot said:
love things that make me think- and this sure did. I struggle with anything that stands in defense of Ghomeshi because I think he’s a bad guy, making bad decisions and society has been allowing him to make them for far too long (be it due to fame or gender) but you make a lot of good points. I’ve been known to get myself in trouble by poking at very basic truths because I don’t understand them. For example, statutory rape laws; the basis being consensual sex with a minor under the age of 16 cannot in fact be consensual because they could not possible understand their own mind. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that they do, my argument is more along the lines of why we assume 20 year old women do? There are so so many people in the world suffering with issues that are leading them to make the wrong choices (not excluding feminists reacting to a messed up system in an admittedly flawed way) I can see your point that Ghomeshi can be considered a victim as well, but at the end of the day he acted like a bully on the playground and pointing to the kids that put up with it because they wanted to be part of the cool group doesn’t make the bullying right. I know it’s naïve but I don’t understand why we can’t all play nice
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Eric said:
“How come sex scandals never happen to little people?”
They do—frequently. The media doesn’t give them the same coverage because (1) the people involved aren’t high profile and little people don’t make for high advertising ratings. (2) The propaganda value is higher, because the message sent is ‘if so-and-so didn’t get away with it…’
Another interesting question is why the media only reports heterosexual scandals; but that’s another story.
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dpmonahan said:
If you are rich it is called a sex scandal, if you are middle class it is a ticket to the poor house, if you are poor it is Monday.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Ha! I like the way you think. Sounds about right.
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Wally Fry said:
Nothing to add here IB, as this discussion is not in my wheel house. But very thought provoking for sure.
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Matthew Winters Ministries said:
Thank you for your comment on my latest post! Somehow it got deleted. I apologize for the mistake. I wanted to comment and say thank you for praying for pastors. I know that God honors and blesses that, and pastors around the world appreciate it.
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Paul said:
Ah the foibles of the rich and famous. You know in algebra there is sometimes a condition wherein a variable cannot be zero. If one does not so stipulate, then solving the equation can produce all sorts of meaningless gibberish like 1=2 or 0=1 or some such obviously untrue solution. The problem is that there are disallowed operations in algebra with zero – for example you cannot divide by zero, it has no meaning. Well there are social interactions that fit the same bill. For instance building a relationship on desire for fame or to satisfy ego, are non-allowed operations. Once they have been actualized, the outcome is meaningless. Which is to say that the resulting actions become contradictory – accuse him of rape when you send flowers and e-mails begging for another date. Or on his side, engage in strangling a sexual partner without clear rules and mutual understanding of process – in other words dominating violently for ego purposes. These actions all result in contradictory outcomes. Once these actions have happened any sense of staying within social norms is gone – you cannot expect to be able to accuse him 10 years later, he cannot expect you to remain accepting of his actions when the emotions are so conflicting – many stories with very different and contradictory meanings can be constructed from the same set of facts.
There is no right or wrong in the Ghomeshi trial – all parties were equally stupid. As individuals they all acted in childish manners with no thought to each other or the outcome. If anything they should all be convicted of being selfish and wasting the time of the courts.
All to say that I agree with you IB.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Ah, algebra, now that’s a great point, Paul. Often it seems as if the world has tossed out the order of operations and we are now trying to solve equations and wondering why our answers are always wrong. It’s a zero sum game for sure.
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