Involuntary Surge of Pleasure

“Men are visually stimulated and unwanted stimulation should meet the basic definition of assault,” Shoesmith said, asserting that women who dress in a suggestive manner are “guilty of indecent visual assault on a man’s imagination, which does cause mental anguish and torment.”

“When a man sees a naked or partially dressed woman, a chemical reaction happens in his brain,” he continued. “Neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin are released, giving him an involuntary surge of pleasure. Notice the word ‘involuntary’ … Men are in a state of constant sexual assault.”

Wow!!!  Isn’t that just horrible for them.

My daughter and I got into a bit of a verbal tangle recently about these very issues.  I suppose I am a bit unenlightened on the subject of sexual harassment as I am out of the sexual arena.  I said that if women go around with their butts and boobs hanging out, they are asking for it.   Tess said—“so they are asking to be raped?”  Of course not, I said, but isn’t that a little bit of what I said?  Now I didn’t put it that way but gosh what I said had a lot in common with what this asswipe above has to say.  It is women’s fault that men get boners.  They can’t help it.  It’s chemical.

In the last few months since we had our discussion, I have been schooled.  I have been schooled by the Ailes’, Weinstein’s, Trump’s, and the Cosby’s of our great nation.  Oh and don’t forget the former head of the IMF,  Dominique Strauss Kahn, scumbag extraordinaire.

I was raised in the fifties and sixties.  I don’t suppose I had ever really examined my own thinking about sexual politics.  I assumed there were some women who used their “sexual wiles” to get ahead.  Seductive femme fatales.  I never actually looked at the whole web of sexual politics.  From the bad apple Eve to Lady Macbeth to All about Eve to Pamela Anderson; women were the seducers simply by being women.  Men couldn’t help it.  It’s chemical.  And I had read Germaine Greer and followed Gloria Steinem.

Isn’t it wild that I could read the feminists of the day and yet not absorb their truths?  My eyes were closed and my thinking was formed by half baked sitcom plots that were peopled by stock characters;  the romantic bullshit of the age.  I wanted to be ravished and swept away and therefore if I got ravished it was the culmination of my dream.  But, my dreams were formed by men’s dreams as presented in movies and TV. How this half baked thinking of mine has persisted in my head all these years amounts to complicity in my own victimization.  I simply had not thought it through.

I had to go way back to my own young womanhood when a stranger on the street offered to “suck my tits”, when catcalls were common, and a taxi driver offered to pull over in Central Park and offered to let me “suck his dick” and I couldn’t get out of the taxi because it was dark and deserted in the Park and I thought my odds were better in the taxi.

For me being a young woman meant I was available to be judged by all men as if I were meat on the hoof.  And woe betide the woman who lipped off like I did to a lively fellow and told him to fuck off.  He  called me frigid.  Ah yes, the perfect comeback to rejection—it’s not me, it’s you.

As I’ve watched and listened, to  a number of women step up to disclose their own experiences, I have felt shame at my own lack of understanding.  There has been quite a bit of judgy judgy going on in my head as in “Look at this procession of beautiful women (arm candy) who have allowed themselves to be used in order to further their careers.”

But let’s look at this honestly.   I never worked in industry.  I was a social worker and an administrator.  I didn’t work with men who controlled the shop, and who trolled the premises in search of fresh meat.  I always worked for and with women.  What would I have done if my career depended upon the kindness of my bosses?  What if I had to toady up to some warty shit in order to get a promotion? What would I have done?

God, this is a hard issue.  Men who seduce women with promises of success, women who use men to gain wealth and power.  Are we just being naive to think that these issues can be eradicated?  No.  We are only being naive to think that all people are good, and that the playing field is level.

The playing field is not level and sex can be a leveler.  So can money, family connections and blackmail.

Men or women who are in positions of power should never ever demand sexual favors.  Implied or demanded, it should just not happen and it should be cause for termination (not death).  When sex is the lengua franca,  then the deck is stacked unfairly.  Yes, women can walk away, yes they can say no and disclose all the gory details, but they may have lost their careers.

In the regular world, I suppose catcalls are the least of it. We will probably never be able to outlaw catcalls on the street. But we have a chance to change this behavior in the workplace.  And we must.

Thank you Tessa for beginning this journey of mine.  There is a difference between catcalls on the street and sexual assault in the boardroom.  It’s on the same continuum but on the street women are free to walk away.  When it occurs in a situation where there is a power differential that’s a whole other ball of wax.

All I have to do is think about the housekeeper who was assaulted by Strauss Kahn in his hotel room.  Oh and while you’re tidying up do you mind giving me a little blow job.  What happened to her?  Did she lose her job?  Was she shamed as well as assaulted?  What about her? I did a little research and it turns out she settled the case.  But not before her motives, her former life was picked apart in the press and the courtroom.

So Pastor Shoesmith, quit claiming that women are assaulting you visually by exercising your imagination.  Your imagination is under your control.  The devil woman didn’t make you do it.  You made you do it.  Distract yourself.  Take a cold shower.  Pull yourself together man.

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Luminous Beings

I come from a long line of “put on a happy face” kind of folk.  My Mom and her brothers and sisters were raised in the Depression and their “can do” attitudes pervaded their beings.

This is a good thing.  It’s good to have a positive attitude.  If you’re swimming through shit it helps to keep your head above it.

My Uncle Dint kept his head above the dreck (Yiddish meaning filth, trash).  He also, long after he needed to, attempted to keep everyone floating.  “Woo-hoo” with thumbs up was his go to.

My Mom was the same.  When Jane and my sister Betsy were teenagers, they had nowhere to go to on New Year’s.  She, in an attempt to create some excitement  and lighten the moment, lit a firecracker and almost blew off her thumb.  That did change the whole tenor of the evening.  That was a “woo hoo” moment.

People don’t change, do they best beloved?  Dint’s “can do”,  my mother’s “smile though your heart is breaking” postures don’t change even in extremity.

These attitudes are the outward visible signs of an inner courage, a fortitude, in the face of great demands.

But dying needn’t be just another demand, another time to take care of others.  Dying is something you do alone.  Letting go might also be a form of courage.

My Mom drove me nuts with her positivity.  I was the down to her up.  As I have gotten older, I feel free to be both up and down.  I find unremitting sunniness an unnecessary burden.  Just be, I think, just be.  I was being my most real self when I crawled into bed with my mother and cuddled her.  I don’t know if she found that comforting or if she was just humoring me. I hope she found it comforting because there are some things you can’t put into words.  Silence can be a form of comfort.

I’m not saying “woo hoo” is wrong.  I’m not saying silence is right.  It’s all love isn’t it?  It’s all love.  But giving in to exigency is a gift we can give ourselves and others.  Speaking wholeheartedly if silently, to their grief in leaving and our grief in letting them go is important.

Now, I know, I know, who am I to speak so knowingly about death, when I haven’t died yet?  But if not now, when?  I won’t get to speak about it after my death, so indulge me.  All I’m trying to say is let the dying speak of their dying.  Let’s not make them only  chat with us.  Let’s not only  have a great visit.  Let them also talk to us about their dying.  Let them lay in our arms and just be together.  Let’s shut up and be together.

It is hard to give up.  It is agony knowing we must part.  “Woo hoo” doesn’t begin to cover it.  Let us grieve.  Let us grieve so that we might live fully.  Life is not just about overcoming.  It is about relinquishing too.  It is about all of it, the whole fucked up mess.  The birth, the growing up, the damage, the growth, the laughter, the tears and finally the end.  It is the whole ball of wax.

Oh, I miss my mother so.  After she died, I kept seeing her face in the sun in the morning.  She was a luminous being.  So is Uncle Dint.

Uncle Dint and Uncle Bill.

 

 

Gratitude

The word gratitude comes from the mid-15 century, and means good will, from Medieval Latin, gratitudinem (nominative gratitudo) “thankfulness,” from Latin gratus “thankful, pleasing.

To take freely from someone, to receive gratefully from someone can be fraught. To accept help when you need it, to accept it gracefully, without reservation, is a gift to the giver a well as to you.

I wanted to write about gratitude today because of something that recently happened in my family.  Accepting help from others has always been difficult.  It makes one feel vulnerable,  opening up all the little and big judgmental floodgates.  You’re a loser, why can’t you take care of your own needs, why aren’t you better, stronger, richer, blah blah blah.

Trumps’ response to Puerto Rico exemplifies this.  The help he offers belittles those to whom he is giving.  Why ever would we begrudge a people in so much need?  These are our people.  Don’t offer to help with one hand and bludgeon them with the other.  Why do that?

But folks, really.  Don’t we all need help sometimes?  If not monetarily, than emotionally, or physically.  We can care for others and we can also be cared for.  It can be reciprocal.  It can be quid pro quo.  The quid pro quo needn’t be in kind.  Some folks have money to give, others, time, or patience or intelligence or presence.  We give what we can and we accept what’s offered gratefully.

Can we try that?  Can we just try that on and let the quibbles go?

Here are the last two nasturtiums of the season.  I offer them freely.

 

Behavior Plans and other forms of self abuse

I was going through some old work papers and came across what I think is a perfect example of why behavior programs aren’t particularly effective.

Here it is:

____________ Junior High

Decision Making Form

Describe what happened and your behavior:  My face has a rash and it burns and I have to keep moving so it does not and the bell rang and I was not in my seat so she gave me a lunch detention and I said she was crazy so she sent me here.

What happened to you because of your behavior(choice)?  I got sent over here.

What school rules were broken(See student handbook)  I was not in my seat when the bell rang.

What could you have done differently?  Sat in my seat.  But I have to move around so my face does not burn.

My commitment(Things I will do to correct this behavior)  Be specific.  Be positive.

1.  I will listen to the teacher.
2.  I will sit in my seat.
3.  I will not get a rash.

Follow through

What will happen if I follow my plan?  I will not have a rash so I don’t get in trouble.

What will happen if I don’t follow my plan?  I will still have a rash and get a lunch detention.

In this case, I was sitting in the detention room and read this sad little form.  The kid did have a rash.  It was driving him nuts.  The kid was running around in the classroom and driving the teacher nuts as she was trying to get her day started.

Too bad the two of them couldn’t communicate to each other.

“I have a rash and it’s driving me nuts.  Help me.”

“Wow.  That looks bad.  Let’s get you to the nurse.”

Just listening and just responding.  A little compassion.

Instead of that an unintentionally funny but also sad plan.

 

Me and my Shadow

Yesterday, late in the day, the wind picked up and blew away the clouds and Izzy and I took off for Ft. Ward, a beautiful park right on the Sound.  The force of the wind was startling at first but I realized as I walked that it was the wind in the trees that was startling and a little scary.  The path is bordered by pine and fir and cedar trees with some deciduous trees as well.

Izzy looked a bit like a picture of the wind in books, in old illustrations, his fur swept back from his face and his tail swept back from his body.  It was all quite exciting.

This doesn’t look a bit like Izzy, but I like it anyway.  We finally got to where we were going and turned back toward the car.  The sun was fierce and the wind was fiercer. I felt like a kid again. And then, I saw my shadow.

My shadow and me go way back.  She’s been with me as long as I can remember.    Where there’s sun, there’s my shadow.

It’s a shapeshifter for sure.  Sometimes it’s twice as long as I am tall.  Sometimes, it’s a funny little gremlin attached to my shoes.

It’s never ever been an enemy.  It’s never been an other.  But that day, for some reason, I looked at my shadow and I didn’t like what I saw.  I was judgy.  Who gets judgy with their shadow?  I guess I do.  I said to myself,  “Oh I hate your hair, oh look at your body, you’re ungainly, oh oh, oh.”

This occurred, of course, in a millisecond, the thoughts that run through our minds fly faster then the wind.  They fly faster and they do more damage.  These thoughts are the undercurrents of our lives, the loud incessant chatter that no one else can hear.  But, it’s what we hear, what we respond to and it curdles our lives.

I tried to do the “let it go” deal, let these thoughts pass through you like the wind in the trees but damn it, I was angry.  I was pissed.  I had danced through the park in the wind and felt glorious and then walked back through the park feelingdeflated.

This way of looking at ourselves is called objectification and it is the secret worm that burrows into women’s brains daily.  This is a curse and in my 69th year, I don’t want it anymore.

This undermines us, our daughter’s and our granddaughters.  It is not okay.  We are so much more than our bodies and so much less than our dreams.

I don’t curse my shadow, who used to be my friend and will again.  I will reattach my shadow like Tinkerbell did for Peter Pan.  My shadow says “I stand on this earth, in this wind, in the sun and I am solid and real and good.