There is no point imagining us above our pay grade; humans need to assign blame. Doing so is the innate structure of our learning system. Without deciding who is wrong, we can’t confirm who is right… what works. Yesterday, two titanic forces met in a struggle rooted, not in just a faded yet disturbing memory, but a referendum on whether guiding tenets that define our basic perceptions of the other gender are flawed, producing needless pain and discord, transforming Rockwellian rights of passage into Faustian ordeals, childhood hijinx into enduring trauma. The answers we accept threaten to indict otherwise decent people with seemingly unfair revisions of their life narratives that are yet and still no less true.
Another shared human inclination is the search for perfection despite the assurance it doesn’t exist. It permeates our quest to better ourselves, setting a guiding standard that makes our incessant failures bearable because we can view them as inevitable to reaching the mountaintop.
High standards are good, but sometimes, on some questions, the perfection concept sabotages our piece of mind with unrealistic expectations. The notion held by women that there should exist a significant portion of the male population distracted enough from their libidinous predispositions to appreciate and respect the non sensual aspects of women, while fully reasonable and just, runs into a wall of cognitive dissonance. Demanding it is of course reasonable, but will lead to disappointment if not disallusionment as a guiding light. The awfulness immersed in the Kavanaugh affair is the vitriolic resentment of the GOP – now merely a large toxic eddy of the Fox/AM shit river – that the idea itself is cultural and societal sedition, merely the weaponized means to destroy good men.
How different our world would be if boys were raised by fathers who make just one simple yet paramount truth known to their sons when advising them about the fairer sex. A point as simple as it is essential, as willfully ignored as it is obvious. A basic rule that, if absorbed and allowed to determine teenage and young adult conduct would spare all mountains of hardship, and society a laundry list of ills. One simple piece of counsel, so important it could change the world:
“Son, never forget this…they are not required to be into sex as much as you are. Assume they are not and never grant yourself the prerogative to change that inclination. Only a woman can seduce, for men it is a delusion too often used to coerce. You have nothing to prove. Always allow them to determine the pace of intimacy. They should never ever have to say no twice.”
Alas, this has not been the rule, and while it’s hopeful many men listening to Dr. Ford’s testimony re-examined fundamental premises about how they approach the issue, Kavanaugh’s statement and the repulsive indignation by his GOP patrons that followed, cast doubt on just how many attitudes will be recast. The judge’s presentation was compelling, his wounded entreaties very genuine. It is not a bridge too far to feel a reputation built by an adult lifetime as a lawyer, judge, coach, father and husband should not be indelibly tainted by actions fully walled off as youthful inanity. But while there is no cause to question how genuine Kavanaugh’s outrage is, he’s a big boy interviewing to be on the Supreme Court and his past is relevant. If he is the watershed where our society decides the birds and bees lessons his generation received were inadequate and contributed to unacceptable behavior, which now haunts him and denies him the job he seeks, then so be it.
The idiotic histrionics put forward by Graham, et al clarified their soulless indifference to anything less than their agenda. Their wounded tropes nullified the disingenuous lip service they allowed Dr. Ford, declaring loud and clear: “we don’t really care if you’re telling the truth; you all were kids. Besides, what really happened? Toughen up, you’re hysterical!”
The electoral consequences in November will say all anyone needs to hear about whether America means to demand its men up their game and offer women better than they have received in the past. Listening to GOP Neanderthals flirt with mysoginy and rationalize not giving any procedural credence to the growing number of accusations against Kavanaugh leaves zero to the imagination about who they believe butters their bread. Women in even blood red states have the power to teach them a lesson and place the blame exactly where it belongs. There is nothing wrong with motivating men to be better by punishing them for being worse. Pray they do. BC