Me Too

What is it that motivates one person to sexually assault another? Is it part of the tendency to assault others in general? Is it part of being a bully?

With the Electoral victory of a President who admitted proudly that he grabbed pussy, a tsunami of trauma has swept across the country. We are all suddenly recalling acts of assault throughout our lives. 

When I was in High school
Age 17

Is assault part of our DNA? Some biologists insist that we are more like the chimpanzees than other primates because we are aggressive. Not all primates are. Take the Bonobo. They happily engage, peacefully, in every form of sexuality our religion and our laws condemn, including sex with minors. Masturbation of every conceivable pairing is practiced. 

The Bonobo are among the most peaceful and contented species on Earth. The Dolphins are similar.

When I was a child in elementary school, I recall the aggression of fellow students. I haven't thought of it in years. Other boys used to grab my testicles and yell "squirrel." (going after the nuts). At times it was terrifying, as the grab could be quite painful. Boys also pulled girl's hair if it was long. It was all considered "play."

In our teens a new pressure emerged. Boys were pressured to have sex as much as they pressured girls to have sex. If you did not have sex, you were considered a loser, by both sexes. Our society, and especially our high schools set the stage for harassment. To be men, boys had to have conquests. Girls had their own quandary, to maintain their "virtue," or face the humiliation of being considered easy. Girls wanted sex as much as boys did, for the most part. In my teens I was groped by girls instead of boys. I was as curious and eager to experience sex as anyone, but like everyone else, I did not want to be forced. Nor did I want to force anyone. Since those days long ago, seeing another's displeasure, or lack of interest, was a downer. But mutual masturbation and oral sex with both sexes who wanted it were a joy. (I was 19 before I experienced coitus with a woman, 21 with a man. Both were with people I loved at the time. Both were nothing less than astonished ecstasy.)

One of the qualities lost in today's exposure of trauma is subtlety of process. There is a profound difference between seduction and harassment. Almost no one is writing now about the beauty of good courtship. Take the poem by W.B. Yeats:

Wine comes in at the mouth

And love comes in at the eye;

That’s all we shall know for truth

Before we grow old and die.

I lift the glass to my mouth,

I look at you, and I sigh.

Is saying that to someone harassment?

One of the results of the tsunami of pain is a false extension of blame from a subset to the entire set.

Men harassed me-- so all men are the same-- they are all sexually aggressive. The same follows, it seems, because there are many more cases of blatant assault on women than there are assaults by women on men. Never mind that there are huge numbers of cases in study after study of men being harassed and assaulted by women.

Ever hear of Circe? Ever see Sunset Boulevard? 

So yes, if you want to include groping, I must say "Me Too." Groped by women and men for decades. And I was many times pressured to have sex with others, again both women and men. But I was never raped and never assaulted after elementary school "play." I was fortunate in that I was able to let it go.

Never would I want to diminish the horror of rape and sexual assault. I simply claim that both sexes have committed them. What is needed, I think, is a look at what our society has become. The majority of white women voted for Trump in spite of his shameless bragging of sexually assaulting women. Have we made this behavior of men the norm? Do we reward boys early on for pressuring girls to have sex? have we made girls who simply want to enjoy sex feel ashamed and guilty over their desires? What role has religion played in our fucked up attitudes toward sex? What role do parenting and schools play?

Rape of the Sabine Women (Wiki) ?

OR

Demonizing the other, saying them, not us, is always the easy way out. "I didn't vote for Trump, not my problem." Not My President.

Oh, if it were only that easy. But that isn't the whole truth, is it? Let him, or her, who is without sin cast the first stone. Take a good, long look into your own psyche before condemning entire populations, whole classes of people, before becoming a bigot, a sexist, a racist, a self-righteous asshole.  

Another victim of Sexual assault, whoever commits it, is Dionysus, sexuality itself in all of its beauty and plenitude. 

Jameson