There is a memorable but rather unpleasant proverb equating a dog that returns to its vomit to the fool returning to his folly. That I've once again RETURNED to the Eliot Spitzer story is perhaps foolish, but I assure you I am not at all like a dog.
What I want to discuss is the opinions of two psychologists who appeared on the CNN program, Anderson Cooper 360˚. The two analysts were asked why Mr. Spitzer, a very public and seemingly law-abiding figure, should have taken to the rather risky behavior of soliciting prostitutes. My purpose, however, is not to examine Mr. Spitzer. Rather than putting Mr. Spitzer's soul on the Contratimes couch, I want to explore the implications of the two opinions offered. Unlike the rather time-bound fall of Mr. Spitzer, there is something timeless about what we are about to explore.
PSYCHOLOGIST #1
First, let me quote the beginning of Anderson Cooper's interview, where Dr. Gail Saltz makes her case. Here's the transcript (excerpted):
ANDERSON COOPER: ... Joining us is Dr. Gail Saltz, the psychiatrist who is the author of "Anatomy of a Secret Life." Also with us tonight, psychologist David Eigen, who is the author of the book, "Men: The Gods of Love."
Thanks, both, for being with us.
Dr. Saltz, why would a guy who had prosecuted prostitution rings as attorney general do something like this? I mean, it seems so reckless.
DR. GAIL SALTZ, PSYCHIATRIST: It seems reckless, but, basically, you know, humans have urges. They have wishes. And, sometimes, their desires are basically unacceptable to them, morally unacceptable.
And what they're -- what they do in their mind is basically split off and, if you will, compartmentalize or deny those wishes, and try to make them unconscious, push them down, by being the opposite, by being this moral superstar, by being rigidly, almost inflexibly moral.
COOPER: So, you're saying this is something or a desire that has been around for a while, perhaps, and...
SALTZ: Very likely so. And the need to react to it, called reaction formation, I'm not that guy, I'm not that bad guy who wants to do that. I'm this good guy. I'm such a good guy, I'm going to convict prostitutes, basically.
COOPER: So, that's why -- you're saying, in all these cases where we see a preacher who's preaching, railing against something who then turns out to be doing whatever he's railing against, that's what's at play here?
SALTZ: Often that's at play. And when you ask, why would they do something so reckless, basically, those bad feelings don't go away, right? They feel guilty. They feel shameful. And, so, they often take bigger and bigger risks to get caught, in a sense, because they deserve to be punished. [emphasis mine]
Permit me to summarize what Dr. Saltz is saying. She is saying that buried in Mr. Spitzer's public activism against prostitution is his desire to do the very thing he is damning. In fact, the very thing he's damning is not merely a desire, he is involved in the dirty deed. Furthermore, as he secretly engages in this dirty deed, he takes more daring risks, all, perhaps, to get caught. Ms. Saltz, finally, suggests that getting caught, which is Spitzer's deepest desire, will free him from his guilt.
Now, I won't long explore this weird circle Ms. Saltz is describing; I mean, it seems clear to me that if Mr. Spitzer had not gone down his ruinous path, he would not have felt guilty in the first place, and thus would not have desired to get caught. Ms. Saltz in fact does not really answer the question why Mr. Spitzer BEGAN his journey. Surely it could not have been to liberate him from his guilt, as he was not guilty until after he met with prostitutes.
But what is important to me is that Ms. Saltz and Mr. Cooper are suggesting that those who take a moral stand AGAINST something have something to hide. In fact, there is the quite clear assertion here that those who "rail" against something are actually participating in that thing they decry. Had folks been more astute, or so it is reasoned, they would have noted that Mr. Spitzer's opposition to prostitution was actually a ruse, a disguise. His real self was hidden by his protestation and his litigation.
We have heard this sort of thing before, haven't we? I recall hearing it aimed at those who opposed homosexuality: that those who oppose gay marriage or open acceptance of gays in the military are -- perhaps -- uncomfortable with their own sexuality. In fact, the word homophobia initially meant this very thing, namely that one had a fear of one's own homosexual inklings (and those of one's neighbors). We heard such a thing stated about Ted Haggard, the evangelical leader demoted because he may have had sexual relations with a male consort; we also heard this sort of thing when Republican congressman Larry Craig, who claims to be straight, was busted for allegedly soliciting gay sex in a Minneapolis bathroom. These men, who claimed to hold traditional views on sexual morality, are really, down deep, gay.
I wonder, however, if Ms. Saltz has ever noted the problem with her own analysis. If we just stick with the issue of gay identity politics for a moment, I think the problem will be clear. For if the straight man who rails against homosexuality -- the quintessential homophobe -- is actually gay, then surely that man who rails against homophobia -- the quintessential gay-activist -- is actually straight. Similarly, the man who rails against abortion is really pro-abortion; the man who supports abortion is really against it.
And what if this is the case? What if those who seem most tolerant of gays secretly harbor ill will towards them? What if those who seem intolerant of gays are actually no threat at all?
Of course we can extend Ms. Saltz' analysis even further. Surely those who promote taxing the rich at higher rates are really the most envious, greedy men on the planet. Those who abhor Exxon's profits are really those who are up to their eyeballs in Exxon stock. Those vocal liberals marching on Washington are really dealing with their own repressed conservatism; while their conservative counterparts are really dissociated liberals. I could go on, and I am tempted to. But I am afraid that if I continue railing, making even bolder and bolder comparisons, readers will find me out: I am really a closeted quiet man utterly uninterested in any of the things I write about.
In short, not only does Ms. Saltz not help us understand Eliot Spitzer's behavior, she leaves us nothing to consider but an absurdity.
Some call it insight.
PSYCHOLOGIST #2
I pray you will indulge me once more. I would like now to look, quickly, at the opinion of David Eigen, PhD. Again, we turn to the transcript (excerpted):
COOPER: David, do you think that's at play here?
David, can you hear me?
DAVID EIGEN, AUTHOR, "MEN: THE GODS OF LOVE": Oh, there you go. OK.
COOPER: Yes. Hey.
Do you think that's what's at play here?
EIGEN: I think that the man -- he's a man. And, in this society, men have been told to basically have two emotions, because the rest have to be shut down. They're shameful. And one is anger. And the other is sex, which becomes a replacement, a surrogate emotion.
I think the governor is guilty of having a situation where he's just not been able to express himself and probably doesn't know how. And, you know, there's no question men have a huge sex drive, which really is a replacement for all the other needs they have. And he just found himself in a place where maybe he just needed to go outside of that relationship.
I'm not excusing it. I'm just saying, you know, this is where men have been caught in an actual situation where they're not allowed to have feelings. So, it becomes -- everything becomes about sex.
And that's what the problem is here. Men need to be allowed to have feelings, be allowed to say, hey, you know, I had a bad day at the office and I need a hug. I need to tell you how I feel downtrodden or how it's too much for me.
Men don't do that. They say -- you know, they pretend like they're the provider. The governor, he's all those of things. And he can't say that to his wife, maybe, in his mind, because he feels like he will be judged.
COOPER: Well, I mean, it seems like we're going very far down the road of speculation. We don't really know what their relationship is like or what's going on in his family's life.
EIGEN: Correct. Correct.
[emphasis mine]
According to Mr. Eigen, Eliot Spitzer is "a man," with a huge sex drive, a drive that is really a symptom of all his other needs that are not being met; that, as "a man," Mr. Spitzer has been emotionally muzzled, like all men. Had Mr. Spitzer been given ample room to express his FEELINGS, he'd not have wandered from the governor's mansion, his marriage bed, or his wedding vows.
Question: Is this a boatload of hooey or what?
Forgive me. But seriously. Men are not allowed to "express" their feelings? Really?
What do all of the following things have in common?
The Brandenburg Concertos
The Sistine Chapel
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Christ in the Storm on The Sea of Galilee
The Four Quartets
The Brothers Karamazov
Seinfeld
The Psalms
Christian hymnody (much of it)
Emeril Live!
What each of these has in common is that they are written, painted, composed, produced, drafted, or performed by men. In fact, men have absolutely dominated much of the arts, even the finest arts, and even the most expressive arts. Men express their emotions in all kinds of ways, in all kinds of venues. They have drafted the most glorious phrases; they've crafted the most glorious buildings; they have carved the most enchanting babies cribs; they have sung the world's most popular songs.
Moreover, men express themselves in what they wear, what they drive, what sports they play (or watch). They express themselves in battles, battles on the playing field, in the board room, in the Manhattan restaurant kitchen. They express themselves in what they drink after a fine meal; they express themselves in how they walk. They express themselves in where they go to church or temple; they express themselves in pulpit and pew. They express themselves in what computer they buy and what paper they read.
In other words, men have all kinds of ways of expressing their emotions, and many men take full advantage of the many ways before them.
The problem is, Mr. Eigen cannot mean that men don't express themselves except in anger and sex; or that they are not permitted to express themselves in any other way. What he means, or so I believe, is that men don't express their emotions the way women WANT them to. And what way is that? Simple. The way women express themselves.
Of course, I grant that Mr. Eigen is suggesting that men are encouraged to suppress their emotions. But I don't see it. I really don't. The men I spend time with express their emotions just fine; I see no repression. But I do see men suppress their emotions when women are around, because somehow women have, in many cases, gotten the upper hand: women KNOW how to express emotion. Men, well, they just don't. They are ... MEN!
Call me a cynic, but I don't buy it. And neither should you.
What I DO see, at least where psychoses are involved, is that SOME people, male AND female,
have a difficult time connecting to or expressing their emotions. There is nothing gender specific about this: some people are indeed repressed, paralyzed. But this is hardly endemic to a sex.
Surely Mr. Eigen has seen men laugh, no? Where does laughter fit in with sex and anger?
What does this leave us with? Again, nothing. We draw no closer to understanding Mr. Spitzer's behavior following Mr. Eigen's analysis. For all we know, Mr. Spitzer was sick of expressing his emotions in a way expected of him by the society in which he found himself; perhaps a prostitute actually let him be his truly expressive self. Perhaps his wife could not let him express himself in ways that were not HER ways. Perhaps Mr. Spitzer was with a prostitute because he wanted someone gentle and kind; or maybe he wanted to be able to express an anger that his social milieu would not permit.
Regardless of our speculations, the one thing we know is that our speculations are neither closer to nor farther from the mark. The human mind is a mystery, not because it is too complex for us to navigate through towards understanding. It's mysterious because it is born of the miraculous. And the miracle remains, even after the corruption.
In other words, we take off our shoes when walking so close to the heart of any man.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Showing posts with label Prostitution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prostitution. Show all posts
Monday, March 31, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Sex, Sex, Sex: Growing Hard To The Core
I recognize that I promised to continue my discussion on learning and ignorance in America, but I feel it's important to examine some of the moral issues that may be buried in the Eliot Spitzer story. Part if not all of Mr. Spitzer's story has indeed been buried by the media avalanche which is the Barack Obama/Rev. Jeremiah Wright insanity, but that will not shake my resolve to look more closely at the underbelly of American sexual obsession and addiction.
For clearly this Spitzer tale is about obsession and addiction in more places than in Mr. Spitzer's personal and public life. American AND European media, and their consumers, are also obsessed with sex, sex scandals and the like; and not a few -- whether media producer or consumer, it matters not -- are addicted to sex as commodity, often in its most salacious forms.
Let us take note of something curious. There is a rather pervasive idea that sexual sins are private matters. One never heard the end of this particular defense when President Clinton was in office. In fact, the rather glibly spoken trope that Clinton's private life was irrelevant to his role as president was rolled out even before he was elected. And Eliot Spitzer tried to remind us all, in his resignation speech, that his sin, too, was private.
I am not here to quibble with the privacy defense, other than to point out that it is rotten and foolish to the core. What I am here to note is how our culture simply does not believe this sort of thing at all. We are a prurient and voyeuristic lot, perhaps so empty of soul and spirit that we are titillated by the sights and sounds of others' titillation. Privacy be damned!
How else to explain that thoroughly inhuman evil, the sudden interest in finding the prostitute with whom Mr. Spitzer had his dalliance? How else to explain that pornographers, like Penthouse and Hustler, want to PAY this prostitute to expose her body for their probing, salacious eyes?
It's amazing that so many folks can take the high road against those men who have sinned with prostitutes, and yet are curiously silent when those same prostitutes are paraded nude through video and print so they may incite lust and lubricity among tens of thousands. It is wrong, no doubt, for Mr. Spitzer to use prostitutes; but it is, apparently, OK for the snickering masses who denounce him (and men like him) as hypocrite to later go and salivate and secrete at the sight of the same exploited prostitutes in magazines and movies. Remember tele-evangelist Jim Bakker's 'paramour,' Jessica Hahn? Sure you do. Perhaps you remember her from her Playboy pictorials and videos that followed that scandal.
And one can never forget the great fall of that other tele-evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart, who was busted frequenting a prostitute not so he could have intercourse with her, but so he could watch her in various poses in order to whet his beastly appetites. Recall the great hue and cry over this scandal; recall the righteous multitudes denouncing (rightly so) the flagrant hypocrisy of Mr. Swaggart. "How could men of such allegedly high moral standing fall to such depravity?" many of us asked.
Curiously, that was about as deep a moral question we could ask, because our culture went suddenly silent as Mr. Swaggart's prostitute posed in Penthouse, hovering over the camera to reveal to the world how she serviced Mr. Swaggart's lust (yes, I saw that issue years ago, when I visited the men's room -- there was a stack of magazines -- at a tire warehouse while waiting for my company truck to be fixed). No one seemed to care that this bit of 'journalism,' too, was a form of prostitution (as is all pornography), or that millions of men were consuming in print what had been so roundly condemned only weeks before when Mr. Swaggart was a headline.
Again, I am not a person who stands on high ground in this matter. Ever since I was shown my first Playboy when I was about to enter the 6th-grade, pornography has been a difficult temptation for me (as it is for millions and millions of men). It is, indeed, an addictive product, and pornography's peddlers know it. It is also a gross product, and it is every bit as immoral and empty as prostitution. Gratefully, I have been spared the greater temptations: I've never been to a strip club (and I pray I never will), nor have I ever sought the comforts of a prostitute. But this is more a function of God's grace, and not any function of my personal constitution.
Let me put it this way for anyone who does not get the power of the visual image for men. Please note the next time you drive down the freeway: notice the chrome, two-dimensional silhouettes of women, baring virtually NO RESEMBLANCE to any woman in three dimensions, that are affixed to mud flaps on tractor-trailer trucks. Why are those there? In part, they are there to incite lust among an invisible fraternity of men: it is code that hot babes are what all men crave. It is a reminder of sex, of copulation; it is really a subconscious trigger reminding men they are designed to fertilize (a compulsion that never really sleeps). And it is a reminder that men, too, are reduced to sex objects, susceptible to the slightest temptations.
Think, then: if mere chrome stickers are known to trigger something in the brain of a man, how much more powerful the images of women on the cover of Cosmo, or in the newest Victoria Secret catalog? (And why do you think so many TV news shows have gorgeous anchors? We all know the answer, but think what it means: men can hardly go ANYWHERE where they can get a break from being reminded of what they "really want.")
Many men know that they've been trained by peer support, and the Madison Avenue push of high couture and sexually suggestive advertising, to become visual predators, stalking women they pass with their eyes, women they might see for but a moment in passing. I have talked with enough men to know that this is indeed a real problem; I have sat in cafés, or in my car on a busy street; I have watched men in the fitness club, and I have seen how they move their eyes: I HAVE SEEN HOW THEY CAN'T HELP THEMSELVES. Some men will walk out of their way while grocery shopping to catch a glimpse of the woman they spotted at the end of aisle 3.
It is, in fact, a nightmare for many of us. And I have not even touched on the fact that the internet is in our homes allowing us access to the world's darkest imagery. (And the technology is still in its primitive form.)
___________________
How is it not a matter of broad cultural denunciation that the pornography/news/internet industries are trying to find Eliot Spitzer's prostitute so they can exploit her (of course, they'll compensate her handsomely) again, and again, and again; so that they can use her body to exploit millions of men for financial gain? And think of the motive, which is not mere profit: the idea is to show her naked wonders solely to judge them, to see if she is "worthy," to see if she is "hot" enough -- or not. This is precisely why images of Mr. Spitzer's prostitute have been shown on even the pages of the New York Times; editors and readers are responding -- and I've already heard radio comments along these lines -- to the pictures with a "would YOU spend $5000 to have sex with ... this?" The very reductionism should send us out in the streets in riotous rage.
But it won't, and it doesn't. We are too dulled, too inured, to care. We can't think of it; we just leave this all to 'privacy' and 'free speech' and 'market forces' (and, for not a few, 'boys will be boys' and even 'female empowerment' are suitable defenses).
We are fools, killing ourselves, our souls; we are grinding all that is romantic and beautiful and transcendent about sex beneath our feet, grinding it into a mundane mash of culturally permitted abuse. We denounce on Monday morning what we condone Monday night; and we do not care, really, that there are millions of men and women, men like me, women like you, who are imprisoned (or have been), or will be imprisoned, by the trappings of pornography, prostitution, and all other forms of sexual oppression.
The deep cultural hypocrisy is seemingly insurmountable. It is, in the end, like a pervasive blindness, a narcotic that has stolen our time and killed our inability to feel what is perhaps our most noble emotion: moral outrage.
'Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.'
Peace to you.
©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
For clearly this Spitzer tale is about obsession and addiction in more places than in Mr. Spitzer's personal and public life. American AND European media, and their consumers, are also obsessed with sex, sex scandals and the like; and not a few -- whether media producer or consumer, it matters not -- are addicted to sex as commodity, often in its most salacious forms.
Let us take note of something curious. There is a rather pervasive idea that sexual sins are private matters. One never heard the end of this particular defense when President Clinton was in office. In fact, the rather glibly spoken trope that Clinton's private life was irrelevant to his role as president was rolled out even before he was elected. And Eliot Spitzer tried to remind us all, in his resignation speech, that his sin, too, was private.
I am not here to quibble with the privacy defense, other than to point out that it is rotten and foolish to the core. What I am here to note is how our culture simply does not believe this sort of thing at all. We are a prurient and voyeuristic lot, perhaps so empty of soul and spirit that we are titillated by the sights and sounds of others' titillation. Privacy be damned!
How else to explain that thoroughly inhuman evil, the sudden interest in finding the prostitute with whom Mr. Spitzer had his dalliance? How else to explain that pornographers, like Penthouse and Hustler, want to PAY this prostitute to expose her body for their probing, salacious eyes?
It's amazing that so many folks can take the high road against those men who have sinned with prostitutes, and yet are curiously silent when those same prostitutes are paraded nude through video and print so they may incite lust and lubricity among tens of thousands. It is wrong, no doubt, for Mr. Spitzer to use prostitutes; but it is, apparently, OK for the snickering masses who denounce him (and men like him) as hypocrite to later go and salivate and secrete at the sight of the same exploited prostitutes in magazines and movies. Remember tele-evangelist Jim Bakker's 'paramour,' Jessica Hahn? Sure you do. Perhaps you remember her from her Playboy pictorials and videos that followed that scandal.
And one can never forget the great fall of that other tele-evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart, who was busted frequenting a prostitute not so he could have intercourse with her, but so he could watch her in various poses in order to whet his beastly appetites. Recall the great hue and cry over this scandal; recall the righteous multitudes denouncing (rightly so) the flagrant hypocrisy of Mr. Swaggart. "How could men of such allegedly high moral standing fall to such depravity?" many of us asked.
Curiously, that was about as deep a moral question we could ask, because our culture went suddenly silent as Mr. Swaggart's prostitute posed in Penthouse, hovering over the camera to reveal to the world how she serviced Mr. Swaggart's lust (yes, I saw that issue years ago, when I visited the men's room -- there was a stack of magazines -- at a tire warehouse while waiting for my company truck to be fixed). No one seemed to care that this bit of 'journalism,' too, was a form of prostitution (as is all pornography), or that millions of men were consuming in print what had been so roundly condemned only weeks before when Mr. Swaggart was a headline.
Again, I am not a person who stands on high ground in this matter. Ever since I was shown my first Playboy when I was about to enter the 6th-grade, pornography has been a difficult temptation for me (as it is for millions and millions of men). It is, indeed, an addictive product, and pornography's peddlers know it. It is also a gross product, and it is every bit as immoral and empty as prostitution. Gratefully, I have been spared the greater temptations: I've never been to a strip club (and I pray I never will), nor have I ever sought the comforts of a prostitute. But this is more a function of God's grace, and not any function of my personal constitution.
Let me put it this way for anyone who does not get the power of the visual image for men. Please note the next time you drive down the freeway: notice the chrome, two-dimensional silhouettes of women, baring virtually NO RESEMBLANCE to any woman in three dimensions, that are affixed to mud flaps on tractor-trailer trucks. Why are those there? In part, they are there to incite lust among an invisible fraternity of men: it is code that hot babes are what all men crave. It is a reminder of sex, of copulation; it is really a subconscious trigger reminding men they are designed to fertilize (a compulsion that never really sleeps). And it is a reminder that men, too, are reduced to sex objects, susceptible to the slightest temptations.
Think, then: if mere chrome stickers are known to trigger something in the brain of a man, how much more powerful the images of women on the cover of Cosmo, or in the newest Victoria Secret catalog? (And why do you think so many TV news shows have gorgeous anchors? We all know the answer, but think what it means: men can hardly go ANYWHERE where they can get a break from being reminded of what they "really want.")
Many men know that they've been trained by peer support, and the Madison Avenue push of high couture and sexually suggestive advertising, to become visual predators, stalking women they pass with their eyes, women they might see for but a moment in passing. I have talked with enough men to know that this is indeed a real problem; I have sat in cafés, or in my car on a busy street; I have watched men in the fitness club, and I have seen how they move their eyes: I HAVE SEEN HOW THEY CAN'T HELP THEMSELVES. Some men will walk out of their way while grocery shopping to catch a glimpse of the woman they spotted at the end of aisle 3.
It is, in fact, a nightmare for many of us. And I have not even touched on the fact that the internet is in our homes allowing us access to the world's darkest imagery. (And the technology is still in its primitive form.)
___________________
How is it not a matter of broad cultural denunciation that the pornography/news/internet industries are trying to find Eliot Spitzer's prostitute so they can exploit her (of course, they'll compensate her handsomely) again, and again, and again; so that they can use her body to exploit millions of men for financial gain? And think of the motive, which is not mere profit: the idea is to show her naked wonders solely to judge them, to see if she is "worthy," to see if she is "hot" enough -- or not. This is precisely why images of Mr. Spitzer's prostitute have been shown on even the pages of the New York Times; editors and readers are responding -- and I've already heard radio comments along these lines -- to the pictures with a "would YOU spend $5000 to have sex with ... this?" The very reductionism should send us out in the streets in riotous rage.
But it won't, and it doesn't. We are too dulled, too inured, to care. We can't think of it; we just leave this all to 'privacy' and 'free speech' and 'market forces' (and, for not a few, 'boys will be boys' and even 'female empowerment' are suitable defenses).
We are fools, killing ourselves, our souls; we are grinding all that is romantic and beautiful and transcendent about sex beneath our feet, grinding it into a mundane mash of culturally permitted abuse. We denounce on Monday morning what we condone Monday night; and we do not care, really, that there are millions of men and women, men like me, women like you, who are imprisoned (or have been), or will be imprisoned, by the trappings of pornography, prostitution, and all other forms of sexual oppression.
The deep cultural hypocrisy is seemingly insurmountable. It is, in the end, like a pervasive blindness, a narcotic that has stolen our time and killed our inability to feel what is perhaps our most noble emotion: moral outrage.
'Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.'
Peace to you.
©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Friday, March 14, 2008
An Appeal To Men: Let Us Be Slaves No Longer (Redux)
[In light of the very harrowing tale about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's (alleged?) involvement with prostitutes, I feel compelled to replay a Contratimes essay. The Spitzer story provokes in many of us men the humbling thought that, but for the grace of God, there go many of us -- into the very pits of hell. Sexual addiction is no joke, nor is it victim-less. The pleasures of the flesh are more often than not harbingers of death.
Moreover, witness today the disgusting and prurient media interest in the prostitute involved. The world seeks to exploit her anew. Such sorrow! May God have mercy!- BG]
From February 11, 2006:
I wept last night, several times. You see, I was watching television, which is not usually my habit (particularly on a Friday night), and I found myself weeping as I watched the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies, particularly when the 9-year-old Italian girl sang the Italian national anthem; or when Pavarotti closed the show with transcendence. The pageantry and pyrotechnics were brilliant; and the Peace Dove, formed by white-clad humans scaling a vertical netted wall, was mindblowing (though the dove looked a bit hawkish, if you ask me). But I also wept when I jumped to another program, 20/20, which featured a segment by John Stossel that included film footage of the killing of African elephants. I cannot tell you how this vulgarity slays me. It is an abuse unconscionable. (I am not referring to bona fide hunting of elephants as a vital natural resource by indigenous peoples.)
I am glad for channel-changing remote controls.
__________________
But something else really tore me up last night. Something that caused me to rend my garments; to rend my heart. It is the sort of demonic reality that should set the world afire with outrage. I am referring to slave trading, sexual slave trading. I urge my readers to watch PBS's Frontline documentary Sex Slaves; and I urge you to help fight the abuse of women (and children) in a trade that is, in fact, only a few mouse clicks away from this site. In fact I urge you men, particularly, who, like me, struggle with even the casual visit to porn-sites on the WWW, to at least fight the darkness by refusing to click on a JPEG or MPEG that will cost a woman her soul. For it is all linked: prostitution, pornography, abuse: it is all part of the degradation of womanhood, of personhood, and, perhaps most of all, motherhood.
Men, lest we forget, are also victims of sexual degradation, in myriad ways. Battered women come to men in all forms: many of us are married to them, our wives having been victimized by fathers or brothers or former boyfriends (the worst culprits, usually), or the culture that begs women to throw their virtues to the wind. But we also, as men, know our own exploitation: We are told everyday in advertisements, books, magazines and porno-promos that sex is ALL we really want; that we are nothing but sex objects too, hungry with lust; that THEY know what we really, really need.
My conviction is that we men must stop the demand for the consumption of women by refusing to participate it in any form. Moreover, I believe we men must begin, perhaps in grand over-reaction, to honor women, elevating them if we must, by viewing their bodies, not as playgrounds, but as cathedrals, as sanctuaries, as temples of holy life. We must stop the tyranny, even if that tyranny turns a profit through increased ad revenue, circulation, retail sales, or web-traffic.
I confess that I am guilty. I have looked at photographs (many!) that are indeed indecent, photographs presented in ostensibly up-scale magazines like Playboy, Penthouse, or some such 'proper' website. I apologize to the women that I've exploited, unwittingly perhaps, with each mouse click. I stand ashamed.
But I will fight nonetheless for the souls of women. I cannot express to you the horrors under which many women (and children) are living right now. As one woman said, a former sex slave, she did not know "that there could be places on this earth that could be so evil. ... I kept waiting for one of my clients (pause) to help me. ..." There are women abducted and sent to foreign soil, chained in rooms, serving up to sixteen men a day, sexually, perversely, in abject decadence worse than Dante's lowest tiers of hell. Governments and legal authorities turn blind eyes towards these obscenities; men and women participate in luring and trapping vulnerable girls in schemes that are nothing short of sick.
I weep today, and I pray my tears are not for show, are not in vain. There is no hope for this planet if we do not honor women; if the womb is reduced to a commodity. I beg you to pray for me, and all earnest men, that we will fight, genuinely, for the glory of mother, daughter, sister, wife; that we will honor our wives; that we will heal our women; that we will heal ourselves, by refusing to countenance this evil any longer. Let us stop the evil; humans are not objects for sale.
Men, wake up and repent with me. We are needed.
©Bill Gnade 2006/All Rights Reserved.
Moreover, witness today the disgusting and prurient media interest in the prostitute involved. The world seeks to exploit her anew. Such sorrow! May God have mercy!- BG]
From February 11, 2006:
I wept last night, several times. You see, I was watching television, which is not usually my habit (particularly on a Friday night), and I found myself weeping as I watched the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies, particularly when the 9-year-old Italian girl sang the Italian national anthem; or when Pavarotti closed the show with transcendence. The pageantry and pyrotechnics were brilliant; and the Peace Dove, formed by white-clad humans scaling a vertical netted wall, was mindblowing (though the dove looked a bit hawkish, if you ask me). But I also wept when I jumped to another program, 20/20, which featured a segment by John Stossel that included film footage of the killing of African elephants. I cannot tell you how this vulgarity slays me. It is an abuse unconscionable. (I am not referring to bona fide hunting of elephants as a vital natural resource by indigenous peoples.)
I am glad for channel-changing remote controls.
__________________
But something else really tore me up last night. Something that caused me to rend my garments; to rend my heart. It is the sort of demonic reality that should set the world afire with outrage. I am referring to slave trading, sexual slave trading. I urge my readers to watch PBS's Frontline documentary Sex Slaves; and I urge you to help fight the abuse of women (and children) in a trade that is, in fact, only a few mouse clicks away from this site. In fact I urge you men, particularly, who, like me, struggle with even the casual visit to porn-sites on the WWW, to at least fight the darkness by refusing to click on a JPEG or MPEG that will cost a woman her soul. For it is all linked: prostitution, pornography, abuse: it is all part of the degradation of womanhood, of personhood, and, perhaps most of all, motherhood.
Men, lest we forget, are also victims of sexual degradation, in myriad ways. Battered women come to men in all forms: many of us are married to them, our wives having been victimized by fathers or brothers or former boyfriends (the worst culprits, usually), or the culture that begs women to throw their virtues to the wind. But we also, as men, know our own exploitation: We are told everyday in advertisements, books, magazines and porno-promos that sex is ALL we really want; that we are nothing but sex objects too, hungry with lust; that THEY know what we really, really need.
My conviction is that we men must stop the demand for the consumption of women by refusing to participate it in any form. Moreover, I believe we men must begin, perhaps in grand over-reaction, to honor women, elevating them if we must, by viewing their bodies, not as playgrounds, but as cathedrals, as sanctuaries, as temples of holy life. We must stop the tyranny, even if that tyranny turns a profit through increased ad revenue, circulation, retail sales, or web-traffic.
I confess that I am guilty. I have looked at photographs (many!) that are indeed indecent, photographs presented in ostensibly up-scale magazines like Playboy, Penthouse, or some such 'proper' website. I apologize to the women that I've exploited, unwittingly perhaps, with each mouse click. I stand ashamed.
But I will fight nonetheless for the souls of women. I cannot express to you the horrors under which many women (and children) are living right now. As one woman said, a former sex slave, she did not know "that there could be places on this earth that could be so evil. ... I kept waiting for one of my clients (pause) to help me. ..." There are women abducted and sent to foreign soil, chained in rooms, serving up to sixteen men a day, sexually, perversely, in abject decadence worse than Dante's lowest tiers of hell. Governments and legal authorities turn blind eyes towards these obscenities; men and women participate in luring and trapping vulnerable girls in schemes that are nothing short of sick.
I weep today, and I pray my tears are not for show, are not in vain. There is no hope for this planet if we do not honor women; if the womb is reduced to a commodity. I beg you to pray for me, and all earnest men, that we will fight, genuinely, for the glory of mother, daughter, sister, wife; that we will honor our wives; that we will heal our women; that we will heal ourselves, by refusing to countenance this evil any longer. Let us stop the evil; humans are not objects for sale.
Men, wake up and repent with me. We are needed.
©Bill Gnade 2006/All Rights Reserved.
[I have written a poem addressing the struggles men face with sexuality and pornography which is available here. Please note that the poem is unflinching in its use of language. I wrote the poem several years ago, and it was presented in workshop at a writers' conference at Colgate University. The leader of the workshop skipped over it for less controversial material. It's not that bad, but it is serious.]
Monday, March 10, 2008
Dershowitz On Spitzer: No Big Deal
Alan Dershowitz, the well-known Harvard Law School professor, offered his profound insight into the cause of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's (NY-D) very recent downfall: It's America's fault.
I happened to catch Mr. Dershowitz's comments this afternoon on MSNBC. He was interviewed by phone not 90 minutes (it was probably within the hour) after the New York Times broke the story of Spitzer's involvement with a high-society prostitution ring. In Huffington Post blogger Sam Stein's piece posted late today, we find a video link of Dershowitz's MSNBC appearance; Stein quotes Dershowitz saying that Spitzer's fall from grace is "a uniquely American story:"
"I feel terrible for Eliot and his family ... But I feel that this was a story that we have to put in perspective. Big deal. Married man goes to prostitute. In Europe, this wouldn't even make the back pages of the newspaper."
Amazing, no? America is to blame for Gov. Spitzer's political and moral decline, or so avers Mr. Dershowitz. After all, if America could only get over its moral archaisms; if it would just show the moral maturity of France or Italy, Spitzer would not be losing all his political capital in what is really, in the proper scheme of things, no "big deal."
In short, Spitzer is a victim.
To be honest, I am grateful Spitzer is not being accused of cannibalism, for surely the American outcry would be just as embarrassing. Everybody knows eating one's neighbors is not newsworthy among certain tribes in Papua New Guinea.
Consider it another victory for European moral hegemony. And to think America is considered imperialistic, imposing its standards on the world.
©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
I happened to catch Mr. Dershowitz's comments this afternoon on MSNBC. He was interviewed by phone not 90 minutes (it was probably within the hour) after the New York Times broke the story of Spitzer's involvement with a high-society prostitution ring. In Huffington Post blogger Sam Stein's piece posted late today, we find a video link of Dershowitz's MSNBC appearance; Stein quotes Dershowitz saying that Spitzer's fall from grace is "a uniquely American story:"
"I feel terrible for Eliot and his family ... But I feel that this was a story that we have to put in perspective. Big deal. Married man goes to prostitute. In Europe, this wouldn't even make the back pages of the newspaper."
Amazing, no? America is to blame for Gov. Spitzer's political and moral decline, or so avers Mr. Dershowitz. After all, if America could only get over its moral archaisms; if it would just show the moral maturity of France or Italy, Spitzer would not be losing all his political capital in what is really, in the proper scheme of things, no "big deal."
In short, Spitzer is a victim.
To be honest, I am grateful Spitzer is not being accused of cannibalism, for surely the American outcry would be just as embarrassing. Everybody knows eating one's neighbors is not newsworthy among certain tribes in Papua New Guinea.
Consider it another victory for European moral hegemony. And to think America is considered imperialistic, imposing its standards on the world.
©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
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