Slimy men and their slimy words.

The BBQ Pit
61

Oh my we’re doing this again, are we?

You apparently missed (or ignored) the subsequent correction: she was, in fact, 16. And “I’d rather not think about” someone lying about their age is an entirely reasonable response. Of course, it turns out she wasn’t lying, and I was just badly confused. Good news! I didn’t fuck someone four years younger than myself who I had thought was two years younger than me, I just fucked someone two years younger than me. And you have no fucking right to throw her mental issues at me as an accusation. What the fuck is wrong with you?!

This is just a straightforward lie. The only people I’ve ever fucked with a more than 2-year age gap were older than me by a wide margin. I’m kind of hoping the mods do something about this. You’ve been lying about me being some sick pedophile for years. It’s gotta fucking stop.

62

Sorry to have disappeared. I had a scathing retort to why Moore had been omitted, ready to post, then the train pulled out of Saigon and the wifi died! Bastard train wifi! 24hrs of train travel later, let me just pick up where I left off.

Moore was included in, EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Trump, same deal. Apparently EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. isn’t clear enough for some? And the slimy weasel that gets revealed next, and the one after that too. Women defending Franklin are no better than Republicans standing with the pussy grabber, to my mind. I don’t give a shit about your mailable ethics. You’re free think it’s ok cause you like his politics. But don’t try and silence victims with your higly insulting trade offs.

I am up to the gills hearing how ‘he’ didn’t think it seemed wrong at the time! I don’t care a shit about what he fucking thought at the time. In every single one of these incidences 100 fucking % of the girls and women knew it was fucking horrifically wrong. So shut you mealy bullshitting mouths. If the 12 yr old, getting rubbed up against on the bus knows, but you didn’t quite see it the same way, then you’re either lying or an ignorant shithead. But either way that’s still 100% on you. Quit trying to make it otherwise, you slimy pricks.

Women live in a world that is at times a gauntlet run. Of harassers, gropers, would be rapists all very convincingly disguised as teachers, coaches, cousins, friends of your Dad. And after they’ve been silenced with threats and intimidation, you know what they still have to do? They have to continue to sit down at dinner, attend practise and go to class. Yep, and it doesn’t fucking end there either, they have to keep riding on buses and subways, getting into elevators and cabs with unknown men. YOU leave them with your best friend to go get drinks. And YOU don’t have to give it a fucking thought, do you? Because you don’t fucking have to, it’s not your ass on the line. Pretty easy position to diminish the woman’s experience from, and a lot of men never miss the opportunity to do so.

I hope every fucking card falls and we hear about every single one of them and their litany of victims through the years. It’s time for a fucking reckoning. A full reckoning. Because I don’t believe there is a man alive today who, honest to fucking God, comes even close to understanding the depth and breadth of this nature of this kind of assault. Or an iota of what it robs women of.

Women are expected to get past it, leave it behind, move on, get back out in the world. Date! Fuck every bastard who robs a women of a single drop of her personal security in the world.

We have to raise our daughters, generation after generation, prepared to navigate this treachery in a thousand forms. Our young daughters. And as hard as we try, we all know, it’s still gonna happen. FUCKING STILL! In 2017!

This doesn’t end until all the rocks are overturned, skeletons clattered out of closets, and victims tell their truths. All millions and millions of them. And until all the slimy equivocators, excuses, and watercarriers reveal their true colours too.

I’m NOT everwhelmed by too many such stories. And shame on anyone who claims fatigue. We are fucking ones who are fatigued with this horseshit actually happening to us. You just have to hear about it and it’s too much? Then fuck you too! This is just the tip of the iceberg, I promise you. Better buckle up, if you can’t handle it, it’s gonna be a rough ride.

63

I think I see where you are coming from, but I disagree with this. What Al Franken has admitted he did isn’t anything near as bad as some of the other allegations about other politicians. But it does fall far below the standard I would expect and accept from an elected representative.

I’m not seeing how his resignation can be balanced by the resignation or lack of resignation of guilty Republicans.

Al Franken should resign from the Senate and if he wants to serve the public to the best of his ability he could most usefully contribute to an initiative to help other men who have behaved badly mend their ways. Everyone wins!

I do not see how his resignation would somehow weaken Democratic representation in the Senate if guilty Republicans don’t have to resign. There must be literally millions of other talented liberal Americans without such histories who would be just effective. Based on your (Broomstick’s) posting history as I remember it, and assuming there are no prohibiting skeletons in your closet, I would say that you would make a better US senator than Al Franken. That’s not being sycophantic, I just don’t think he’s set such a terribly high bar.

I don’t think that being represented in congress by perverts and criminals actually helps the Republicans in any way either.

Further, I think the idea (which I am not attributing to Broomstick but inferring from the wider discussion) that Al Franken is such a special and important person that his resignation would be a great loss to the liberal public, is precisely the reason why men like him have the entitled attitude that maybe it is alright for him to force himself on women when he gets the chance.

64

I think looking at the big picture is more productive that finger-pointing or focusing on individual incidents. At its core, it’s a societal problem.

Around the time I was a teenager, there was a dramatic societal shift. Women’s Liberation. Sexual Freedom. The Pill. Women were no longer shackled to traditional roles. We were allowed to enjoy sex as much as men did. We were supposed to enjoy sex just like men did. We were “allowed” to have as much sex as we wanted. And if we didn’t want it, we were prudes. We had hang-ups. There was something wrong with us.

Suburbanites were fascinated by these new ideas. Wife-swapping. Key Parties. Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. Ok, I don’t think this stuff actually happened all that much, but it was sure talked about. A lot. And I knew plenty of females back in the late 70’s that would go to clubs like Plato’s Retreat to have sex with random strangers.

In retrospect, at this moment in time, women let men take the lead in defining their sexuality. And we were freed from victimization, because you can’t be a victim if you want it. And we were always supposed to want it. And this attitude set the stage for the behavior that is being exposed today.

According to this book about modern day Russia, “Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, the Surreal Heart of the New Russia”, by Peter Pomerantsev -employment ads there use coded language, men advertise for female assistants with “ no complexes”. Which means you are expected to have a sexual relationship with your boss. And if you don’t like that, you have “complexes”. Something is wrong with you.

I’m not saying this to excuse the men from their behavior, but I don’t think the attitude of men are all rapists, women are all victims - lends itself to productive conversation.

This behavior would not happen without complicit women. I’m sure there were dozens and dozens of women who willingly and eagerly sought out the opportunity to fuck Harvey Weinstein and other producers to advance their careers. This was detrimental to the women who didn’t want to do this and I’m sure some of them felt something was wrong with them for not taking advantage of every opportunity while pursuing such a competitive career.

I’ve certainly known plenty of women who took jobs with the intent of sleeping with their bosses to advance their careers. And there is no shortage of women who are looking to seduce successful married men with the intent of breaking up their marriages. And there are also the women who helped set up these encounters and maneuvered other women into dangerous situations.

Again, I’m not excusing men and I’m not blaming women. In fact, I think there are cycles of abuse in play here. Most of the women I have know who engaged in overly seductive or predatory behavior were sexually abused at a very young age. I am only recently coming to terms with the extent of childhood sex abuse that was happening in my family and neighborhood as a child. I was utterly clueless about it until recently and I am disturbed that I didn’t see it sooner but that’s a topic for another conversation.

But I think the only way to effect change is to look honestly at the factors that got us here, and try to correct them without overcompensating. Men are not the enemy and this shouldn’t be a them vs us situation. WE all need to work together.
.
TL:dr I blame society.

65

Based on what I’ve seen in my lifetime I don’t expect politicians to be good people. I expect them to obey the law, but I’ve yet to meet one in person who wasn’t slime.

The key thing is that Franken is in the senate right now. There is no guarantee that he would be replaced either short or long term with someone equally liberal which, as a liberal with a liberal agenda, is somewhat important to me.

That said, if he does resign I don’t think it would be the end of the world. And if felonious behavior comes to light then I might well join the chorus because my tolerance of slime in politicians is not absolute.

Why can’t he contribute to such an initiative while still serving in the senate?

The problem is that I’m a NeoPagan and would be even more unacceptable to the Right than probably a lot of Muslims - they would not want an actual witch in Congress because, despite the constitutional prohibition on hit, for many people there is a de facto religious test for office.

A serious problem (for the rest of us) is that it’s not hurting them, either.

That would hold more water IF he had committed these wrongs while in the Senate. He hasn’t. He committed them before he held public office. If anything, he’s been better behaved since he gained office, perhaps because his old job rewarded him for being obnoxious and his current one rewards him for being effective at representing his constituents.

I find it VERY disturbing the “offense creep” that’s occuring:

  • repeated statements that he groped a woman and here’s the photograph when in actual fact both the photographer has stated and the photo shows he did not actually make contact with her. Simulated groping is still objectionable, but let’s stick to what he actually did rather than something else.

  • a new statement cropping up that he groped a soldier - 1) he didn’t actually grope her and 2) she was a performer, not a soldier (not that groping a performer is better or worse, but it’s an illustration of the untruth creeping in here)

  • and this notion that he’s committed these acts while in the senate when those offense that occurred were prior to holding elected office.

If we’re going to discuss this things can we please discuss the facts?

66

I’ve been saying since the 1970’s that if you aren’t equally free to say “no” to sex as to say “yes” you are not actually free.

Yes, the Pill and the sexual revolution did allow women to have sex as much as they wanted… but then (some) men used that as a way to pressure women into having as much sex as they wanted. I’ve experienced that myself: “Why not? You’re on birth control, you won’t get pregnant”. “Why not? Your husband will never know.” As if I couldn’t simply not want sex either at that time or with that man. And if you say “no” you’re a prude, a tease, frigid, repressed, something is wrong with you - for not servicing the man’s “needs”.

We need to allow people the equal freedom to say “no” as to say “yes”.

67

We could off three billion men in this world and still maintain reproductive capacity at replacement levels … three billion useless mouths to feed …

68

No, I’ll break out the champagne when sexual harassment no longer exists. I explicitly said there was still a long way to go on this problem. But the first step - a widespread acknowledgement that the problem exists - is now occurring.

69

I know another guy with a funny mustache who had a plan to make the world a better place by killing millions of people. Is advocating genocide really the road you want to go down?

The fact that you felt the need to shit out that stupid opinion out after Ann Hedonia made such an excellent post makes me even sadder.

70

Ann Hedonia, well written…and spot on.

71

Please, check out this article from The Week. It’s kinda brilliant, and needs to be spread around.

:http://theweek.com/articles/737056/myth-male-bumbler

72

So, like Republicans who’d rather have ‘Pussy Grabber’ Trump in the office as long as he helps their agenda, you’re willing to excuse fondling by Democrats as long as they vote on issues like you want. The key thing is that Democrats won’t be able to use this as a wedge issue if they take the position that forcibly kissing and fondling women against their will is cool as long as it’s a Democrat doing the kissing and fondling, and people will stop taking it all that seriously as a problem since it’s clear that both political parties think the behavior is perfectly fine as long as it’s not the other party doing it.

The butt-grabbing happened in 2010, he was elected in 2008. That’s during his time in office. http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/20/politics/al-franken-inappropriate-touch-2010/index.html .

73

Are you operating on the “She said so, therefore, guilty!” standard? Sure you want to?

74

In general I tend to agree with you, however I have a bit of a pessimistic feeling that at the end of the day Democrats may not be all all that much cleaner than Republicans on this front. This only works as a wedge issue if everyone thinks one party is dirty and the other is not.

You’d think that more liberal Democrats would be cleaner on this issue. But Louis C.K. is pretty liberal, Harvey Weinstein is pretty liberal. Hypocrites aren’t exactly rare and I fear the common denominator here is power and the arrogant entitlement that comes with it, which is common to any politician.

Hope I’m wrong, but we’ll see what emerges.

75

This standard comes in “double” version, which I would assume is the version that poster is employing.

76

Are you operating on the ‘don’t read the post you’re replying to’ standard? Sure that’s going to lead to non-mocking responses?

77

I was with you up until here. The cashiers at Dollar General aren’t being harassed because Missy gave Dave a blowjob in the storeroom. (99% of the time those rumors are lies, anyway.) I’m not saying there’s no such thing as a gold-digger, but many of them started by deciding that, if I’m getting this shit every day, I might as well get what I can for it.

78

There’s a lot of slimeball people that have vaguely liberal politics, that doesn’t mean that they practice their principles in real life interactions, just like ‘family values’ conservatives don’t practice family values day to day. Also ‘vaguely liberal’ is a HUGE category that doesn’t really say much about someone’s position on specific issues. I always had the impression that Louis CK was one of those guys who does the SJW-style “look at me I’m a white male and we’re awful” schtick to get accolades and laid, and events seem to bear that out.

79

I think it’s a mistake to try to make this too much about politics. When a politician is involved, it’s always going to be political
, of course. And when the person involved has has set themselves up as a defender of sexual morality and family values, it’s going to be more newsworthy, of course … Josh Duggar being exposed as a pervert is bigger news than Ron Jeremy being exposed as a pervert.

But at its core it’s all about how we treat each other as people. Workplace harassment isn’t always sexual. Weinstein was apparently an asshole and bully to pretty much everyone and was physically and verbally abusive to men as well as women. And the increasing tendency for money and power to concentrate at the top has lead to a greater power differentials in the workplace where employees are frequently treated as commodities rather than as people. And this leads to all kinds of abuses, not just sexual. I know men that had to choose between keeping their jobs and spending time with their seriously ill child in the hospital.

As a society, we seem to be moving away from compassion and empathy and gratitude and forgiveness and towards an outlook of cruelty and meanness and petty revenge. It’s coming from the top down but it’s affecting all of us. The only way to stop it is to refuse to buy into it, even when it’s happening all around you. And that’s hard sometimes.

80

When did we in US society have “compassion and empathy and gratitude and forgiveness instead” of “an outlook of cruelty and meanness and petty revenge?” Was it back when we were committing genocide and forced relocation against Indian nations? During the era where we kept slaves and raped, tortured, and killed them? During the post-war era where former slaves had to ‘yessuh’ or get lynched? Later on when we had the civil rights movement and erected pro-slavery monuments? How about when we ruled that a husband could always force his wife to have sex and it would never count as rape? Or when we forbade divorce so that women in abusive relationships couldn’t get away? Or when gay people would get quietly killed off in the country, and raided by the cops in the city?

I don’t think that pretending the past was all sweetness and light does anybody any good, I think that things are certainly better now than they were in the 1950s (especially for anyone who isn’t a middle-class straight christian white male) and that bad things coming to light means they’re getting fought against instead of just accepted.