First off, let’s remember this isn’t “locker room talk”. Trump was on camera in a television studio talking to a reporter. This is how Trump talks in public. In private, he presumably says things which are much worse.
Moving on, when men do get together in private and start bragging, it’s generally claims that women throw themselves at them. A man will brag that a woman grabbed his crotch because she couldn’t resist his charms. A man that’s bragging he needed to resort to grabbing women is basically admitting he’s a loser.
No, they’re not equally as bad. Chris Kluwe wrote an open letter to Trump about this, in which he partly stated:
[QUOTE=Chris Kluwe]
Now, Donald, I’m sure you’re wondering just what it is we talk about in a professional locker room, if we don’t spend all our time regarding 50 percent of the population as mobile fuck receptacles eagerly awaiting our tiny-handed grasp on their love lapels. I shall educate you!
…
We talk about women (and sex!). We talk about wives, sisters, mothers, daughters, fans, and groupies. Most guys respect women, some guys don’t, but never have I heard anyone use your particularly disgusting brand of sadism that refers to women as objects and not people. Even the most debauched club-hopping party animal talks about women more civilly than you. We don’t let each other talk like that about women, because it lessens our humanity, and even though we’re modern-day gladiators, we still hold ourselves accountable to the idea of basic human decency.
[/QUOTE]
Boldings mine.
Apropos of little, also from the letter:
[QUOTE=Chris Kluwe]
We talk about what country might make a good safe haven if a Russian-backed presidential candidate whose foreign policy agenda can best be described as “gross negligence mixed with a spicy dash of treason” were to have control of our nation’s nuclear arsenal, and whether his stubby little baby fingers are strong enough to push in the launch codes on sturdy military-grade hardware.
‘Locker Room talk’ shouldn’t be believed. It’s bragging and exaggeration. There is a problem that some may believe it true and act upon, or believe that it actually happened. And just as bad as the words may be to some is repeating them out of the locker room.
But a bus with an open mike isn’t a locker room, whatever the words it’s an indication of the stupidity of the person saying those things, and the person urging him on.
Fucking, whoa! That was heavy. I couldn’t even read all of it. I mean, I read to the end, but i had to skim parts of the middle.
That Wang-Ka is an asset to this board. I love his writing. But that. That. That is a good example of his talent with the written word and his understanding of the world around him.
Does this apply to rap, and other, lyrics? Or is that different because the words are coming from an assumed persona/character rather than the actual human being saying them? I can’t decide whether this is relevant to the topic at hand or not.
Rap should be assumed to be fiction, but it brings up the problem with this kind of talk outside of the ‘locker room’, some people aren’t smart enough to understand what it is, in something as public displayed as music they’ll give it credence and may emulate it. But then again we don’t want censorship either do we? We’ve failed to adjust society to the level of freedom we have. It’s pretty standard for parents to teach their kids not to believe what they see on television but I don’t think we’re good at teaching kids not to believe music lyrics or the ‘locker room talk’ that’s the subject of this discussion. There used to be a blatant hypocrisy about behind closed doors talk, you learned growing up that you never said those things in public, never in mixed company so to speak. We’ve lost a lot of cultural tradition about things like that.
I spent a lot of years in the military, where talk of the first sort is routine, continual and banal. There were some iffy sorts who went further than the usual comments, and it was always a conversation stopper, as everyone else would stare at the guy in a stunned silence. It’s out of place and recognized as over the top even by men who talk crudely as a matter of course.
The problem here is not whether the event actually happened, but the fact that the person is bragging about sexual assault. That is, they’ve indicated that they think that raping someone is an accomplishment to be proud of, and something that will earn them accolades from listeners. Dismissing it as ‘oh come on, we know locker room talk isn’t for real’ completely misses the fact that, regardless of whether the situation happened, the person thinks sexual assault is so good they brag about it.
If someone does not consent to sex, it is damn well sexual assault, even if they ‘let you do it’ because they fear retaliation, you threaten them with a machete, or you drugged them. It’s pretty amazing what the Trump campaign as uncovered, I didn’t really believe that ‘oh, rape is OK if…’ sentiments were so common until this all came to light.
I don’t think rap is for the most part coming from an assumed character. I also don’t think that rappers who rap about demeaning or assaulting women should be voted in as a leader of our country (and I am a big fan of rap).
You can say whatever nasty shit you want to say about women all day long for all I care. Free speech and all that. But don’t try to tell me you don’t mean it, don’t try to act like you are still deserving of respect after that, don’t try to tell me that all other men do it because they don’t, and especially don’t try to become America’s Citizen #1.
That isn’t necessarily the case, and it isn’t supposed to be the case. That doesn’t make it right either. What’s to be said here is that Donald Trump is a dumbass, it’s not the kind of thing that someone who considers himself a leader should be saying at all. It’s immature talk that we can forgive a youth for saying in certain circumstances later in life if they’ve matured, he was in his 60s saying this kind of crap, not just talking about sexual assault whether credible or not, but speaking in the context of class privilege, which I think makes it much worse than just the sexual aspect of it. But of course that part is lost in the midst of the outrage over dirty words. I might even accept his apology for the language if he had addressed the sense of privilege, though even then I couldn’t believe that he’s truly regretful based on his continued words.
Right, but bragging would be, “These women throw themselves at me. They come up to me, grab my dick, they’re all like, ‘Oooh, Donald, I want you inside of me.’ Sometimes I bang 'em right then and there, they’re so horny for the Donald. That’s what being rich and powerful is all about.”
If that’s what was caught on tape, and if he was therefore accused of being an adulterer, he could come back and say, “Look, I was bragging, it was an exaggeration, nothing like that has ever actually happened.” And, Trump being the gross old man that he is, I might actually believe him.
Bragging about sexual assault, though… doesn’t really matter if it was true or not.
I’ve heard guys talk about things which they have done and would like to do, but those things are typically legal consensual types of things. What I would call normal.
If anyone was to suggest doing things which would be considered sexual assault, most guys I know would think the person was weird.
No one is outraged over him saying ‘pussy’. I have literally seen no complaints about the ‘dirty words’ outside of Trump defenders claiming that other people are offended by the word. Seriously, what source is there for the idea of ‘outrage over dirty words’?
Absolutely. “Locker room talk” consists of self promotion - how much action/numbers/base one got? how many times it happened that weekend? How hot a girl is, how she couldn’t get enough of you. However, I can’t imagine anyone ever bragging about how inebriated or impaired their partner was as this would certainly show a decreased manliness or rather Letharioness.
Certainly part of the game is inflation of ego, but any hint of impropriety as Little Nemo pointed out is counterproductive toward this end.
You missed my point, probably because I made it poorly. Whatever way you interpret his sexual comments he has also magnified them by asserting class privilege, saying he can get away with it because he’s rich. I haven’t heard the media address that part. Maybe I missed because I don’t pay much attention to this nonsense, but even giving him the benefit of the doubt on the locker room talk he’s also delved into the exclusive rich men’s club talk. It can’t be taken at it’s best as simply immature statements, it denotes an air of superiority that we can see in virtually everything he says.
OK, I thought you were repeating the “why are you liberals so offended, your moves/songs/comics say ‘fuck’ all the time?” meme which gets on my nerves. I think what you’re talking about hasn’t gotten much attention because everyone has known from the smart he’s a smug, rich, sleazy guy, it’s not a revelation. It just plays into his image, and no one is surprised by it.
In my experience, when there is a group of men with no women around, yes, they are a bit cruder in their speech. Younger men are worse than older men about it. Half of it is small talk. The other half is deriding the other’s masculinity, and boasting about sexual exploits. Sometimes there’s one guy who takes it too far in a bid for attention, maybe to the point of hinting about nonconsensual sex. The rest of us mostly ignore it because it’s weird, awkward, and sad.
My experience is the same. I spent 27 years active and national guard. Every unit I was in was male only except for short periods when I was attached to higher headquarters. We routinely had conversations that would make Andrew Dice Clay blush. I don’t remember a single time when anyone bragged about sexual assault. I can’t think of anyone who would be ok with that.