Coming right on the heels of watching this TEDx talk by Jackson Katz, arranged by women in San Francisco's Financial District, the subject of the following news snippet is... pretty disappointing

West Virginia senator: Women senators ‘are on top of’ military sexual assault reports

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) suggested in an interview on Tuesday that it was his female colleagues’ responsibility to monitor reports of sexual assault in the U.S. military. “I talk to all the different senators, especially to our female senators, who are really on top of this and watching it very close and following it,” Manchin said in a CBS News interview. “It is very concerning and I can tell you, we’re all in concert with this, as far as changing the dynamics of what’s going on in the military.”

Source: RAW STORY

What.  Ever. Dude.

What's so cool about Katz's approach is that he's pretty aggressive about countering the "good man" notion of "sensitivity" victims, and the more mainstream notion that sexual assault is a women's issue.  Instead he said, quite bluntly, that sexual assault is a leadership issue! 

Because contrary to most of our narratives the biggest issues aren't about who the victims are.  It's not really even about who the perpetrators are.  Katz's point is that it's about who the bystanders are.  And Sen. Manchin clearly lodges himself firmly in the moist, brown, smelly orifice of bystanderhood.  "'Female' Senators have a handle on that embarrassing ladybusiness assault shit," quoth the male Senator, consequently it's cased closed for him.

Which is bull. Shit.

Katz points out, correctly, that stopping relationship or sexual violence isn't a matter of sequestering potential victims, and it definitely isn't a means of waiting to intervene.

Instead it's about leaders leading on the matter -- not tolerating it, scowling at attempts at humor, dismissing attempts at excuses or justifications, and in particular by benching not just offenders but bystanders -- by snubbing them, calling them out, letting it be known that no promotions or bonuses will be available, by turning their backs, by making their displeasure with failure known -- in other words doing what leaders do when instilling all other company, military, academic, or moral/ethical standards: leading!

Leaders who are men.  Leaders who are women.  Doing what leaders do naturally in virtually all other circumstances.

Not focusing on victims.  Not even really focusing on perpetrators.

Insetad letting it be known that there will be no patience, no tolerance, and no future in the enterprise for passive, flabby, weak, useless bystanders.

As Katz points out in his video, at Penn State plenty of people knew Jerry Sanduski was a serial abuser.  But it was a low-level whistle-blower who finally, well, blew the whistle outside the normal channels of leadership.

But at no point did any Penn State leaders lead!  The fabled head coach Joe Paterno?  Of all people he wasn't a leader, he was just another lousy bystander! The various presidents of the college who also evidently knew?  They turned out not to be leaders either -- malingering bystanders the lot of them.  Just like Sen. Manchin.Pretty contemptable, really.

Image by Flickr user pikerslanefarm.

In just a few short lines from a song, and a few more from her heart GeekyVamp reveals the complete, bleak, and total lie that is "women have all the power."

kaigenlucinda:

I’m in the corner watching you kiss her, oh.
I’m right over here, why can’t you see me? Oh.
I’m giving it my all but I’m not the girl you’re taking home.
[I keep dancing on my own]

I hear this and I am suddenly a gawky girl again on the dance floor, dancing my little hormonal heart out, desperately trying to attract a boy’s attention, and trying to hold my head up high and swallow the boulder in my chest, as I see him leave with some gazelle-like creature.

Source: Interpretive Pants

I'm not sure who started the lie but it's mostly us men who completely, 100% don't realize the only "power" women have in standard hetero dating is the "power" to answer if asked! No ask, no power. None. Period. At all. In other words no matter how gawky a boy you were, or a man you are, 100% of the "power" you might complain women have over you is power you give in the first place.

This realization, which only sank in for me back in 2007 (I first started trying to date in 1973!) was the moment I realized all the attempted "men's rights" alternatives to women's rights movements I'd been trying to get my heart into (since 1974!) weren't ever going to work because they located power where it wasn't and then complained about it. Just a little later I decided to not only drop all the variations on men's rights, men's studies, men's advocacy, etc., and even drop all the variants on "feminist allies," supporters, sympathizers, etc., and it's later variants -- especially "good men" -- and just call myself a feminist. Because that was the point when I realized men and women are both indoctrinated to the same set of artificial constructs that nominally advantage men and certainly disproportionately disadvantage women, but really continue to persist in order to control all of us.

I happen to believe, as do many others, that feminism doesn't have all the answers. But there's a giant flipping difference between "not all the answers" and "wrong." Which is why I see the work for men like me -- and I'm obviously proposing for men like you too -- as extending feminism by analyzing and challenging the consequences and not just the nominal advantages of Patriarchy for men.

And it can start with something as simple as listening to little snippets of song lyrics.

I’m in the corner watching you kiss her, oh.
I’m right over here, why can’t you see me? Oh.
I’m giving it my all but I’m not the girl you’re taking home.
[I keep dancing on my own]

Oh!

So in Psychology Today this guy Alain de Botton says something that ought to creep out a lot of victims of sexual violence and comfort or even delight any number of perpetrators.

Involuntary physiological reactions such as the wetness of a vagina and the stiffness of a penis are emotionally so satisfying (which means, simultaneously, so erotic) because they signal a kind of approval that lies utterly beyond rational manipulation. Erections and lubrication simply cannot be effected by willpower and are therefore particularly true and honest indices of interest. In a world in which fake enthusiasms are rife, in which it is often hard to tell whether people really like us or whether they are being kind to us merely out of a sense of duty, the wet vagina and the stiff penis function as unambiguous agents of sincerity.

Source: Psychology Today (naturally)

So... What's wrong with this picture?

Two things: First, it's totally wrong that an erection (or a wet vulva) can only mean arousal, let alone that they are "particularly true and honest" indicators.  As pretty much every man who's woken up with a full bladder can tell you.  

But second, as too many victims and perpetrators(!) of sexual violence can tell you, victims of sexual violence can develop or be made to develop(!) erections (or vaginal lubrication) and even ejaculations!

See for instance this post from Living Well, an Australian site for recovering male victims of sexual violence (my italics)

People who sexually abuse boys and men often use their knowledge about male bodies to deliberately cause an erection and/or ejaculate to occur. They do this because they know it is extremely confusing and embarrassing. They might also do it to try and convince both the person being abused and themselves that what is happening is not really abuse. Whatever the reasons, ultimately they know that if the boy or man was aroused, they might be less likely to tell anyone about the abuse due to feelings of shame and embarrassment.

Source: Living Well: Sexual Assault and Arousal

Or see also this from (a more woman-focused but still appropriate for men) survivor-support site the Pandora Project (my italics.)

A sexual response or orgasm in the course of sexual assault is often the best-kept and most deeply shameful secret of many survivors. If you are such a survivor, it’s essential that you know that sexual response in sexual assault is extremely common, well-documented and nothing for you to be ashamed of.

Source: Pandora Project: Sexual Arousal & Sexual Assault

This is consistent with what a number of sources have to say about the way perpetrators (relatives, fellow prisoners, priests and scout leaders, and of course aggressive hetero date-rapists) manipulate their victims into a) submission, b) co-operation, c) deep and abiding shame, and especially d) silence.  

Oh, and sometimes?  e) ignorance and long-term misunderstanding.

For instance if you've ever been told "You're hard, that means you want this," or "Look at you, you were soaking wet, you were loving it?"  When you hadn't really been loving it but couldn't figure your way around their point about your "particularly true and honest indices of interest?"  You might want to sit down and talk with somebody who can help you figure out what was (or is) going on.

Lest you think de Botton's particularly insidious form of gaslighting applies only to victims of sexual violence, it's important to get that some perpetrators really believe it themselves!

Check this out, also from that Pandora Project article

And it isn’t just about you and the way your body responded either. It may also have been one of the repertoire of dirty tricks rapists use to get their victims to feel responsible. Diana Russell writes that “Some rapists think they’re lovers” and tells us:

(These rapists) think that if a woman is stimulated in ‘just the right way’ she will enjoy it. The conquest may seem more important if the rapist believes he has turned the woman on physically, particularly if it is against her will. Getting the victim to respond physically may also alleviate the rapist’s guilt feelings.

This, incidentally, was one of the things that completely threw me for a loop about a year ago when it first started to soak in that an awful lot of my personal assumptions about sexual behavior growing up had been learned, some of it from a very early age, by people who themselves had been sometimes radically abused and by others who were themselves active abusers.  Thrown me for enough of a loop that while I'm still pretty sure I've always been a considerate or at least very well-intentioned sex partner I feel obliged to question whole constellations of assumptions I've made in the past.  One thing for sure, for me, personally, is that "at least I'm not like those guys" and even sometimes "at least I'm not like those gals" no longer feels all that reassuring.

Summary: if you would have found de Botton's claims  reassuring, or even just reasonable, take a little time to re-think some of those assumptions.