Can we stop pretending that norms have not changed?
Not for the first time, I find myself shaking my head at the apparent either:
A. lapse in recollection
or
B. somewhat startling contemporary obliviousness
exhibited by a whole lot of people with respect to "norms" of social-sexual behavior, and especially, what those norms were back in the 60s, 70s and 80s.
last night while driving home from work, i was listening to the odious, rude, and remarkably stupid Alan Colmes "conversing" with a caller who was trying to assert that in fact, much of what Trump has said over the years (or has been accused of saying or doing in the past) was not that extraordinary for its time. Colmes, as is his wont, dismissed this claim out of hand, reframing it as an accusatory black-and-white question and refusing to allow the caller to respond in a thoughtful way, demanding a "Yes" or a "No". "WAS IT NORMAL FOR A MAN TO PUT HIS HAND UP A WOMAN'S SKIRT??!? NO, I'M ASKING YOU, WAS IT NORMAL FOR A MAN TO PUT HIS HAND UP A WOMAN'S SKIRT??!?!?! YARGLE BARGLE ARGLE BARGLE!!!"
well, I'm here to tell you folks, whether you want to face it or not, that in fact, back in the day, yes, it was fucking "normal". this stuff was far more routine than people seem to want to believe. i know this isn't a popular thing to say. i recall that sometime in the last several months, some semi-conservative female commentator of some sort or another was reviled for suggesting that if you really want to crucify every male public figure for the crimes of a not all that distant cultural milieu, you'd better be prepared to crucify your own fathers and grandfathers. howls of outraged senses of decency ensued, and the woman's point was carried off in the huffed and puffed storm of indignation.
the problem is that the commentator was absolutely fucking right. i mean, What the Actual Fuck? have people really lost track of the conditions of pre-feminist western culture? Jesus! In a world where:
the law officially held that the phrase "rape of a wife by her husband" was a legal nonsense;
where a woman who had ever had sex outside of wedlock was effectively presumed by judges and juries to have consented to, well, just about anything else that might have happened to her in the "company" of any random man;
where more generally, any inappropriate physical contact between a man and a woman -- and especially a married man and a woman not his wife -- was presumed to be the result of Naughtiness and Imprudence on the woman's part;
where bizarre homoerotic hazing rituals were established traditions in the US Navy (google up "shellback homoerotic" if you want a taste -- or fuck it, go to this page, where a particularly damaged fuckwit defends these now-banned rituals -- ironically, given that in the immediately preceding part of his essay he praises Ross Perot, who as a Navy officer refused to submit to the ordeal, cementing his outsider status.);
where criminal violent sexual battery was a routine element of male athletic culture -- and i'm not talking about million-dollar athletes assaulting women in bars, or high school golden boys raping cheerleaders while parked up at the submarine races (not that those weren't appalling and common, as they are yet today), i'm talking about athletes -- from high school varsity right through into the pros -- physically sexually assaulting their teammates as part of established hazing traditions;
where "we" were much less sensitive (indeed, almost entirely ignorant of) such concepts as "personal space" and "ownership of one's own body" and so on, such that, other than bible-thumping cranks, nobody imagined it was a meaningfully traumatic psychological experience if a male -- a boss, a "coworker" (quoted because men and women rarely worked in conditions where the women enjoyed a status that legitimately warranted the prefix "co"), a guy at school, some asshole on the subway, or, yes, a "celebrity" -- "copped a feel" as the expression went;
etc. etc. etc.;
in that world, one well within the living memory of anyone more than 45 years old, the kind of shit Donald Trump is accused of (or has bragged about) was absolutely fucking commonplace. i simply cannot abide the fucking denial going on about this. for god's fucking sake, talk to your fucking grandmothers! Have so many people really forgotten the true nature of the battles that women like Gloria Steinem were fighting? Do you really not get the simple reality that up until about 15 years ago, some form or another of droit de seigneur was presumed to be the natural and well-earned reward -- indeed, one of the primary motivating factors -- for any male achieving high socioeconomic status? And that to a large extent it still is? Who the fuck do you think constitutes the clientele of the sex tourism industry? Do you think the planes to the Dominican Republic are filled with slope-browed open-mouthed-drooling perpetually-single basement-masturbating middle-aged virgins? If you socialize at all in circles that include "successful businessmen", then the Who the Fuck in question is, men with whom you are acquainted.
Get a fucking grip, people. It reminds me of all those folks, mostly but not exclusively women, who went to see Saving Private Ryan and were stunned to get, for the first time in their lives, some tiny little clue about what war is about, and what it looks like, and what the men in their lives -- husbands, fathers, sons, grandfathers -- had gone through. The information is not new and it's not a secret -- the literature, fiction and nonfiction, is abundant -- and nobody has an excuse for being unaware of its reality. If your father or grandfather or husband was, prior to 1990 or so, a varsity athlete (particularly, from what I've read over the years, in football, wrestling and hockey), or belonged to a fraternity at college, there's a much better chance than most people seem to want to accept that he was either a perp or a victim or both. I appreciate Chris Whatsisname's essay upbraiding Trump on the matter of modern locker-room talk, but I've also heard the songs sung by British rugby teams, and I can tell you this: If an offhand ironic reference to pussies turns your stomach, the lyrics to those songs would hospitalize you.
Further, as I've written elsewhere in the past, at least a third of the guys in my class in junior high -- myself included -- did things "to" girls that would nowadays be viewed as felonies; whether they would be prosecuted would be largely up to the discretion of the judicial authorities, but if so, the result would be to descend into the waking nightmare of modern life that awaits the classified "sex offender". (And "one third" isn't one of those randomly generated statistics folks like me throw around on blogs, that's a number I generated by iterating through a list of my classmates.)
Trump brays about "grabbing their pussies" and everybody collectively gasps as if every time in the past 50 years that a rock star or athlete or movie star or powerful politician put his hand up a woman's skirt, he either had asked permission, or he was thrown in jail. Well that's fucking bullshit. Men with that kind of status used to take such liberties as a matter of course, and, if the contact were unwanted, about the worst they usually got was a slap in the face. That may be hard to believe in an era when an NBA star might find himself facing charges AND a lawsuit for grabbing a woman's breasts in a bar -- and I say might because it still goes on plenty; one supposes that most women would rather just walk away than put themselves in the middle of a public furor -- but that's really how it was, and any conversation about how relatively horrible Der Trumpf is wrt The Clenis or Her Heinous needs to start with an acknowledgement of the cultural reality. Trump is a loathsome pig for certain, and he might indeed be a loathsome criminal pig, just as WJC appears likely to be, but there's a very wide spectrum between loathsome pig and monstrous sexual predator, and from the information we have at the moment, we cannot assign either of those two pigs a fixed position on that spectrum.
For myself, it's a non-issue. Both of the duopoly candidates are morally unfit to hold any office at all, and they would be just as much so even if they didn't both have disgusting public records of treating certain women in certain circumstances with a level of disregard that is unacceptable.
Comments
People defending Donald Trump
Yeah. I though this site started as a place for the progressive followers of Bernie Sanders who thought that Clinton was too far right. But more and more it is starting to sound like the alt-right. I don't get it either. I'm not sure what's happening, but it's starting to look ugly.
Sure hope you're not interpreting my comments
as support for Trump.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
As owner/creator of this site...
that's not at all what this site was started for:
This site was started over a year and a half ago for members of the 99% of all persuasions to have a place for free thought discussion of issues as long as said discussion was kept civil. A place where one could speak their mind without having to look over their shoulder. A non partisan site with allegiance to no one, that's why you are able to hear all view points here.
It only became a "a place for the progressive followers of Bernie Sanders who thought that Clinton was too far right" after the March Great Migration from Daily Kos. Before that this site was basically issue oriented and was not that concerned with electoral politics. We old timers hope that after this election we can return to being more issue oriented and less fixated on the electoral horse race.
amen, brother.
The elections themselves present a set of issues
but none of them can be addressed by engaging in the media's horse-race narrative, which has now weirdly become the GREAT AMERICAN HORSE RACE OF MORALITY: Who is less sexist? Who is less racist? Who is less predatory? Who is less murderous?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Thank You JtC
As one who is interested in finding solutions I appreciate the effort. I happen to be a staunch progressive who has (over the years) gotten jaded about elections of all types.
Nuff said, I'll see myself out to do my own thing . . .
Some of us new refugees hope that too, JtC
I came here after Kos issued his All Hail Hillary edict, as I knew I was done there after that. I was thrilled to find this place where people didn't obsess on electoral politics or election news. I for one am sick to death of hearing about the Clintons and Donald Trump, and I can't wait for this (s)election to be over.
I was just told by someone here yesterday that this is a "political blog" and I was bemused by that because I've read this before, this is supposed to be an issues-oriented site, which can involve politics, of course, but doesn't have to, in my view. And I've come to the conclusion over these past months that electoral politics is something I'm really not interested in anymore.
There are a lot of issues I care about and it would be great to have more space for topics other than 24/7 Clintons v. Trump.
Not only meant as...
an issue oriented site, but also meant as a community, which as I view it, has grown tighter over that last few months. In spite of our differences.
Non-political subjects are welcomed, and encouraged. There is much wisdom here to be gleaned.
The name of this site
Is Caucus 99%. How are issues as they relate to the polity, not inherently political? I'm sorry you were offended. My response to you was intended to be sympathetic since you sounded very upset. Mea Culpa, I guess.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I remember as a kid in the 1950s being shocked and disillusioned
when my dad (followed by my older brother) openly started reading Playboy magazine.
Certain people — social critics, moralists, churches — have been talking, writing, complaining, about insiders enjoying a “man” culture where anything goes, ever since I can remember.
To me as a kid in the 1950s, Hugh Hefner, Playboy magazine, and later his Playboy clubs stood for that culture.
And Playboy was a success, it sparkled, it was considered avant garde. It had a sheen that nowadays marketers would call aspirational. Yes, Hefner and his Playboy empire were considered progressive.
Paralleling the rise of Playboy, James Bond became an icon.
To me that implied widespread acceptance of the idea that an archetypal hero or “real man” just naturally tries to bed any attractive woman who crosses his path. Morality? If you have an important job like spying — or, as would come out years later, the U.S. presidency, like JFK and Bill Clinton — society (the non-stuffy part, anyway) thinks it’s A-OK.
I remember reeling when I first heard about Wilt Chamberlain’s claim to have slept with
10,00020,000 women.The proverbial Hollywood casting couch.
Rock stars and groupies.
Dirty Rotten Potty Mouth!
I am in complete agreement with untimelyripped. How can you draw a false moral equivalence between allegations of Trump's sexual impropriety and Hillary's blood-thirsty warmongering?
Speaking as a former lounge lizard, the old hand on the knee trick was a very slippery slope. Can we please put a stake through the heart of puritanical morality?
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
I'll agree w/you this much:
apparently killing tens of thousands of people so you can enrich a handful of your friends just doesn't have the same oomph as sexual assault. All those dead kids sort of vanish into the ether. Maybe it's because the sexual assault happened here and not overseas. I've noticed things are much more real to Americans when they happen here. Not sure when that started--the TV footage of VietNam shocked people to the core. It must be part of the wonderful downhill slide of the last 45 years.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
And Hillary seems hellbent on
And Hillary seems hellbent on getting us all mad at Putin, so she can justify going to war against Russia...I wonder which of her [friends] will benefit financially there?
I'm a 50 y/o female
I came of age in the eighties. I've been groped, grabbed, flashed, and propositioned in the crudest possible terms more times than I can remember beginning at age 12. I was sexually harassed at every single job I ever had until I started working for ny state in 2006. I was physically attacked by two bosses, various men on the subway, and my hs chemistry teacher. When I was a waitress, sometimes guys would try to grab my ass when I was attempting to take their order. So yeah, this was common not too long ago. I don't find it at all hard to believe that trump and many other men do this sort of thing and see it as "not so bad" or "harmless fun".
Thank you for your testimony.
I don't know who all these people are, and where they come from, that they don't seem to know these kinds of stories.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
In college, most of the women I was friends with
did not make it to 18 without having been raped or sexually assaulted.
I'm not saying "so what" about sexual assault; I am saying this is no surprise; people are acting like they thought Donald Trump was a basically OK guy with some crazy political ideas, and now OMG HE THOUGHT IT WAS OK TO GROPE WOMEN!
He's a sexist jerk from a culture that produced a whole lot of them.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Rape is rape....
Sexual assault has come to mean nothing and anything. I do object to the term being used willy-nilly - like the word terrorist because it loses all meaning and import. The three-year-old running wild in a store becomes a terrorist. As he pushes his mother away with his hands on her breasts, he commits sexual assault. How ridiculous can this become?
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
If you don't know the difference between this behavior from a
3-year-old and Trump, then that is ridiculous.
I swear I'm going to start going up to random men, grabbing their crotches and twisting hard, and see how long it takes before someone finally realizes why grabbing at random strangers is sexual assault.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
Does being deliberately obtuse help you in some way?
You seem to make quite a practice of it. Your response to the comment was unrelated to the comment. I hope you feel better now.
I'm sorry about your experiences
But what's going on now in the media is not a legitimate discussion about sexual assault. It's a cheap diversion to distract attention from the election, and the issues at hand.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
ouch
I can't apologize for male behavior, hope there is some role model you have which counters the worst... or the rest. I actually know some decent males. (meant to reply to Iogrey)
I know decent men too, of course.
There have always been some.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Was Sex In The City About Another Planet?
Excuse me folks. Are we going to pretend that "modern" women are not sexually aggressive? I've had women walk right up to me in a bar and squeeze the old family jewels. Am I supposed to believe I am somehow unique?
Can we please take a pause for the cause and have a little reality check?
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Lucky you!
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Well I've never done that and I've never seen my girlfriends
do that. But if they did, it is still sexual assault. Goose, meet gander. Hands off the body unless permission is given. Why is this such a difficult concept?
From the dictionary:
No, most women, modern or otherwise, don't do this. Of course in a bar of 100 women, you might find one doing this. That doesn't make it normal.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
Sad stuff
I was raised in a home where women were totally respected.
After I left home I was shocked by encountering all manner of sexual abuse.
Sigh. I was the naive shy wall flower girl.
No. There is nothing surprising about The Donald's comments.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Let me preface this by
Very energetically stating that I don't think the male members of your family fall in this category, I don't know them and I tend to believe rather than doubt people who post on sites such as this, BUT...
Many of the men assaulting women right and left were pillars of the community, upstanding church officers and respected family men who would kill if one of their daughters, sisters, etc were disrespected. One of the characteristics of men who behave this way is their ability to divide women in two camps: the maddonas and the whores.
And yes, assault was very common and you were supposed to not make waves about it or risk being blamed or at the very least thought as unfeminine (loudmouth, agressive, indiscrete, etc)
Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.
Thank you n/t
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Bless you. I woke up with this in mind--
I hate it when I wake up with a rant already going in my head.
In my case, it was more specific to Trump: I'm appalled at how many people are running around freaking out as if they didn't already know Donald Trump was a misogynist pig. Which has been fucking obvious at least since he went on the Howard Stern show years ago.
I understand why people want to refuse to condone such ideas, or such behavior, but that's a different issue, isn't it? Why is everybody acting so shocked that Donald Trump is a sexist piece of shit? The "punish women for abortions" thing wasn't enough? The comments on Howard Stern weren't enough? FFS, I could just look at the guy and listen to him for 5 minutes and tell that he's not only a sexist, but more fundamentally, a person who's sure he'll get away with whatever he does. Kind of like the woman he's running against, who is also sure *she'll* get away with whatever she does. In her case, it's not groping women, it's massacres in the 3rd world.
Shouldn't an October surprise be, well, surprising?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
All the Public Angst is FAUX!
Michelle Obama being "shocked to her core" about Trump's sexual escapades, yet OK with Bill Clinton's, is just one part of the "Donald as sacrificial lamb" strategy of the Clinton campaign. When was the MSM ever as shocked about male misogyny as when Trump came on the scene? Rape of millions of Tutsi women in Rwanda when Bill Clinton refused to send help, the Tailhook scandal in the Navy, the never-ending rapes of women in the military by officers and fellow soldiers? Nope! It took The Donald, the only opponent Hill could beat, to bring out the faux hidden rage against male misbehavior.
Well, then there's the fact that the Clintons
have been friends with Trump for years. I guess his misogyny wasn't a problem then.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Bingo!
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
and what's more, i expect he said exactly the same
sorts of outrageous things to WJC, while probably exercising rather more control in HRC's company, and i would be damned surprised if WJC ever called him out on it.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Yes I would "thumbs up" Writerinres' comment 100x if allowed.
Edited to reference the comment for which I was replying.
O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.
we had our run-ins lately, but I like to say that I agree with
your comment.
Reading the threads yesterday and today I had conflicting questions. What is meant by sexual assault? When is a sexual assault a rape? And what is it, if a woman can't get her "no" accross to the man without being scared to either lose her job, not getting the job she wants or fearing to be forcefully and violently raped and physically harmed? Is that then "consenting" to sexual intercourse or is it a rape without being physically harmed, because the woman didn't fight back to save her own physical health? If a woman fights back and the man is not backing off, then the rape becomes obvious and obviously immediately. Women who didn't fight back and can't get over their encounter, but then come out with it 30 years later to fight or support one of the political candidates, is imo quite questionable and the way the media use those women, who do that, is even worse.
I didn't comment here in these threads and diaries so far. I wasn't raised in the US culture, but also didn't believe it's basically much different in the European culture, though the particularly "hazing" and "athlete's" culture seems to be much worse in the US environment. I actually start to wonder what my son might not have talked about so far ...
I could also comment, if I wanted to, in relation to "African" cultures, as you mention the Rwanda/Burundi Tutsi-Hutu genocides, but I really have no appetite to do so. To study the history and cultures of tribes other than your own is always very difficult and I kind of don't like it, especially if they go into gender related exploitation or customs of cultures they were not raised in. I also don't like it, if people use those conflicts as a political argument for other conflicts in other cultures. It rarely fits beyond a very basic truth of attempt to exploit one another for their own gain.
https://www.euronews.com/
Women even hush up abuse so as not to hurt the pro-refugee cause
https://www.taz.de/Fluechtlinge-im-Conne-Island/%215344474/
And of course, *Howard Stern* himself is a misogynist pig
yet the American public made him a superstar with a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
I already didn’t like Howard Stern’s much ballyhooed “cult of edgy” when he was on WNBC radio in the early to mid 1980s.
seems about right, I never watched or heard about Howard Stern,
but that was posted on the Washington Post two hours ago. So, I am in the know now.
Post Politics
New clips show Trump talking about sex, rating women’s bodies, reminiscing about infidelity on Howard Stern’s show
Don't know if this video embeds correctly. I am actually not listen to it any longer, bur for those who still have doubts, you can go ahead.
I gitti git.
https://www.euronews.com/
People hailed Larry Flynt and “Hustler” as somehow progressive
after having hailed, each in their turn, Playboy, Penthouse, and the porn industry in general as pioneers of sexual liberation.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/life_and_art/1997/01/rea...
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-people-vs-larry-flynt-1996
thx. lotlizard, imo, the only thing liberating sexuality was
the anti-baby pills in the sixties. What folks did with their newly found liberties is another question. I almost think they got more sexually enslaved, but I haven't really thought that through. Have other things to think about first.
Have a good weekend.
https://www.euronews.com/
Stern was a subset of the "mean is cool"
trend in the 80s, which I see, in retrospect, as having been a piece of cultural engineering.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The last sentence of your diary should actually
put the whole thing to rest:
For myself, it's a non-issue. Both of the duopoly candidates are morally unfit to hold any office at all, and they would be just as much so even if they didn't both have disgusting public records of treating certain women in certain circumstances with a level of disregard that is unacceptable.
How many people here thought Donald Trump was morally fit to be President, before this?
In other words, what are we even arguing about?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
We are argueing about the Media's full court press to
elect Clinton by hammering at frat boy talk and convenient accusations of 35 years old unprovable rape, instead of policy.
And I also see worse attached to her husband that she promises to bring back to the White House.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Just figured out what fundamentally offends me
about the Trump October surprise: it's disgusting to watch sexism turned into optics for political gain. Someone has taken the source of my pain and turned it into a convenient circus sideshow, for personal profit.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
exactly, you got it /nt
https://www.euronews.com/
Also drunk driving was considered comedic.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
The incumbent Republican whom Russ Feingold defeated
to become US Senator was a guy named Bob Kasten. Kasten was arrested and charged with at least one DUI, in Washington DC. Wikipedia says, without citation, that he was acquitted; other mentions of the incident assert that he was convicted, which is my own recollection. Either way, he was reelected in 1986, then defeated in 1992 by Feingold.
Also in 1986, a satirical student government party calling itself the BKSOD -- The Bob Kasten School of Driving -- won the elections at the University of Wisconsin. I believe the party's president was a guy named Steve Marmel, who has since gone on to a very successful career in writing animated TV shows.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
BKSOD
A worthy successor to the Pail & Shovel Party. They won on a promise to convert the entire budget they received from student fees into pennies, dump the pennies in front of the library; and give every student a pail & shovel. They did sponsor the Statue of Liberty frozen in Lake Mendota.
Eventually people realized that the student government budget paid for a large number of critical services. Maybe the American people will come to the same realization eventually.
I arrived in Madison that winter
just in time to see Liberty, and then her burning. Only lived nearby for two years, not the best or worst of my life. I could have stayed, hub thought otherwise and it was his turn to decide.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
As much as I despise
As much as I despise Kellyanne, Chump's campaign manager, she pegged the sarcasm meter with her tweet-back to $$Hillary that yes, 'every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be believed'.
To the $$Hillbots, it's okay when their President does it.
I believe I understand this essay
and I have recommended it.
I am old enough to remember when women were second class citizens and even treated as property in legal terms. With the societal view of women being inferior to men in numerous ways, including legally, came the assumption of many men that they had the right to take liberties with women and get away with it. It was wrong, but did happen in the past and was often overlooked by society. To acknowledge that fact should NOT necessarily be seen as to condone it, but to put it into the context of the times. And I believe that is what the essayist is trying to do here.
IMHO, Trump is a narcissistic clown and Clinton is a sociopathic war monger. Neither choice is good. Yet still, the media and the candidates themselves are failing to address the biggest issues facing us as a society, number one of which is climate change. Instead we are being forced to deal with the coarse Trump sideshow.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
How far we've come.
I remember how shocked I felt when I learned that wives could be sold by their husbands early in our beloved America. Like a man selling his property, his livestock or his horses. Or like slavery.
One of my first summer jobs
was as a file clerk filing deed records. I remember coming across the term "free dealer." I asked what that meant and I was told it was a term to describe a woman whose husband or father had allowed her to execute real estate transactions under her own name.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Or if a widow,
getting a Judge's permission to allow her rather (than was common) than the closest male relation.
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.
Shit. That video of Trump was in what 2005?
Hardly "pre-feminist" days. He was almost 60 years old at the time. That wasn't normal behavior by any stretch of the imagination. It was disgusting, immoral, entitled behavior. Is it fairly common? Yes.
But there's no way what Trump said was considered a "norm" in 2005.
And in 2006, Hill accepted a big fat donation from him
for her Senate campaign.
In 1994, he had already said in a public interview that he thought getting rough with women made them treat men sweeter.
Hill & Bill had no problem with that for about 20 years. None of these famous people did.
It only became an issue when she needed a bump in the polls.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Oh ya, it was a political move.
That's why I wrote that essay last night. And now I'm talking about it. I hate myself this morning.
I appreciate your comments, Al.
There's only so much I can remember from a female perspective.
OK, I'm outta here to go get some work done, and because I do feel like it's about time to stop letting ourselves get distracted.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
Damn, do I ever feel that.
You don't know how often I think: and here I am, talking about their goddamned talking points. FFS!
Even when you're pretty highly resistant to propaganda, its camera eye is extremely difficult to resist: its tendency to aim your vision at one thing, and not another.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It's all a kayfabe heel dive
all to make the Chosen One "Inevitable" again. Next time She needs a donation, She will take his money just as readily as always.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
I'm not sure
that a "norm" exists any longer, when it comes to sexuality in North America.
native
well, yeah, there is that.
but in the jargon of social sciences, "normative" pretty much means, What People Do without being shunned. it doesn't refer to some sort of majority choice, or even plurality choice.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
And modern shunning represents old tar-and-feathering
or worse. But is not so successful, maybe. My sister had recently chance to listen to our mother's psychotic rantings, when she was living in another time period and accused sister of being her-least favorite cousin (one of many, rarely seen), and a dullard in her eyes. No idea who the reference was to.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Some people can be shunned
for doing one thing, while other people can be shunned for doing the exact opposite. Some places in the USA, two men holding hands in public will get shunned. In other places, anyone who publicly criticizes this behavior get shunned.
native
Sexual assault is too often the comedic puchline in our popular
entertainment. We provide a little bit of social acceptance of these behaviors when we laugh at a prison rape, "frat boy/girl" behavior in multiple performances, athletic hazing, work related sexual harassment and the list goes on and on and on.
The 70's rural America I grew up in these subjects were hidden family secrets not public jokes. In the early 80's college, travel and experiences with more varieties of life styles my humor became more sophisticated and I could laugh at the jokes.
As time passed and my work brought be into direct contact with victims of these situations. I can't laugh at the joke anymore, even to be socially acceptable. Instead I see faces of victims and the audience as giving a thumbs up approval of the behavior.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Celebrity culture is not a norm.
The problem with this whole issue is that Trump was really discoursing on the 'benefits' of stardom.
I have little doubt that many of the women Trump has known have not minded in the least that he grabbed them by the pussies. Star fuckers have always been and always will be, and a guy like Trump attracts them like flies.
Hell, even a raging beauty like Henry Kissinger bragged about getting more than his share because of his status.
It's heady stuff, especially for insecure guys who spend their lives craving the spotlight to make up for deep seeded attention issues.
But is that normal? Of course not.
Celebrities in entertainment and politics are circus freaks, and to try to apply their lifestyles to society as a whole only drags the rest of us down to their level.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
He said, "And they let you!"
Sounding amazed. It implies a belief in consent.
Our whole culture is corrupt.
See, that's the difference between Billy and Trump.
Trump doesn't need the State Patrol to drag a woman to his hotel room in the middle of night.
With Trump, they come to him. The guy takes his his pick from both the Hollywood and New York socialite scenes. He's like a kid in a candy store.
The funny thing is, right before the pussy comment he had just finished saying how he struck out with another woman (furniture shopping with Donald Trump probably not the most romantic afternoon imaginable), which tells me he at least understands no and is not afraid to admit it.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
I disagree.
That something is common doesn't make make it a norm. I don't think I have illusions about the horrible things most women are forced to endure. I've heard plenty from my wife and sisters. I believe the the men who do these kinds of things, at least the more flagrant, aggressive things, are in a minority. That's possible if they do it repeatedly and get away with it. (Consensual sex is a different matter. If Wilt Chamberlain slept with 20,000 consenting adults of any gender its his business and theirs.)
The sexually based initiation rights of many sports teams are someplace on a continuum. If you want to be on the team there is overwhelming pressure to participate. But it's not OK. One college team in a revenue sport had most of its season cancelled when such an incident, limited entirely to the young men on the team, came to light. Many men join with women to move forward.
The preponderance of men I know don't behave in this manner. I don't associate with the few I know who seem to. And don't confuse two people on a date making out with Donald Trump. Yes, culturally males tend to grope on dates until they're told to stop. As long as they stop when told, I don't see it as assault. One boy's offensive groping might be a romantic/erotic encounter on a date with a boy that a girl likes more.
That powerful, wealthy men get away with such things isn't shocking. It's terrible. Powerful, wealthy men get away with theft on a massive scale too. I don't think many people here needed the recording to convince themselves that Trump is a misogynist. The recording is thought of as unassailable truth to be presented to people who refused to believe. To hear it dismissed as old news not relevant to the campaign is painful.
Since I will not vote for Hillary Clinton I reject accusations that I am downgrading Bill Clinton's similar behavior or Hillary Clinton's war mongering. If you're pointing out a double standard in the media, I agree. It was if anything greater in the primaries. I thought we were past that here.
I have detected over the past few weeks what seems to me to be an effort to reverse the "lesser of two evils argument." Many people here, myself included, are furious with Hillary Clinton. The growing argument seems to be Hillary is so bad that we need Donald to save us. Apologies if you are not among this group. Some of the comments seem to be.
Try an experiment. Racism is pervasive in our society. Every PoC has felt its pain By your definition it's the norm. If David Duke were running for president, promised he opposed trade agreements and would produce jobs, would there be a problem with bringing out recordings of his most disgusting statements?
Well said. There's a difference between encountering
sleaze balls regularly, and thinking that they are the norm. We may encounter hundreds or thousands before we encounter one sleaze ball. But if you are surrounded by people, some of them will be the sleazy people.
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Excellent comment. Thank you.
love every word.
I'm very appreciative of the men especially who are speaking out on this.
"The recording is thought of
"The recording is thought of as unassailable truth to be presented to people who refused to believe. To hear it dismissed as old news not relevant to the campaign is painful."
I completely agree with this. Many of the comments I'm reading here in support of the OP appear to me to lack nuance. More than one thing is going on here with this "Trump is a sexual predator" meme at the same time. Clinton operatives with varying degrees of cynicism and opportunism want this story to continue and gain momentum. Some are certainly lacking in the self-awareness to realize that they are pandering with the psychic pain of people who have been sexually abused to varying degrees for the political and thus financial benefit of Clinton's campaign, but many will have convinced themselves that it's worth it, while others don't care because they simply are that vile and cynical.
Women who are coming forward to relate their stories of Trump doing these things to them personally may not all have pure motives, but that is not for me to judge. Any who accept money for their story will have lost at least some credibility with me, but otherwise the numbers adding up may generally help the cause of survivors of sexual abuse separate from whatever effect they have on electoral politics, so I can only be happy about the part that is to me a good thing. The political part is of less interest to me, although I admit that this will all have a mixed bag of results that will be difficult for many to separate in the manner that I'm doing.
Anybody who implies or states that being grabbed in a sexually-attributed bodily area isn't sexual assault is to me completely wrong. There are degrees of sexual assault, but they are all damaging to some degree with the degree dependent on the individual. Different individuals react in different ways to having this happen to them, but just because you have an anecdotal example that a person that experienced a similar thing wasn't much troubled by it carries no more weight than any other anecdotal example.
The law is far from perfect in language as well as in enforcement most certainly, but I think it's right that different levels of assault are observed and carry different types of sentences. What differentiates many of the things Trump has done from a guy on a date trying to get to second base, being rebuffed, and then stopping himself from further attempts, is that Trump was often in some position of authority over his targets. In my opinion that makes what he did worse.
Here and there in this comment thread, speaking as a person with an advanced degree in literature and language who is used to parsing language for subtleties, I am seeing indications that some are longing for the good old days before the idea that verbal communication of consent is needed during sexual encounters started gaining some acceptance. It isn't remotely universal yet by any means and is encountering significant push-back, but I'm in favor of it. To me the idea of mystery in romantic encounters has more wrong with it than right. If women are empowered to own their sexualities then they won't need to be seduced. If "good" girls and women only have sex when they are seduced or worn down by repeated groping after they have pushed that hand away a couple of times, then they are far more likely to feel guilt and shame afterwards. If they instead actively choose to participate and decide what they want and don't want, then maybe that silent battle of wills that I remember from my dating days can die off and go away. This applies to women pressuring their male sexual partners as well because our culture definitely puts a different kind of pressure on males to never pass up any sexual "opportunity" they have, which is also wrong. How would it be a bad thing if all sexual partners have the peace of mind of knowing that they have experienced a mutually-consensual sexual experience?
Sexual encounters where either or both partners isn't comfortable enough to talk to the other person about how they're feeling aren't healthy. We have a long, long way to go to get there, but in my opinion it's a goal we should be striving for. To provide context and disclosure, my views are shaped by personal experience of multiple examples of sexual harassment and abuse including so-called "date" rape. This doesn't make me any kind of expert, but I do tend to support ideas that will help advance sexual communication and the struggle to change patriarchal views of power and sexuality that reinforce coercive and abusive sexual behavior up to and including the most egregious examples of rape and sexual slavery.
Yes, things were worse in the past, but the standards of the Golden Rule have been around for a long time and do not excuse wrong behavior in the past. Trump hasn't seen the light and changed his ways anyway, so to me that's a moot point. I can be educated about how much worse things used to be without choosing to dwell on it. It's the reason I had to stop watching Mad Men. I could appreciate the skill level and artistic merit of the show, but it depressed the shit out of me to see the casual sexism and racism that was the "norm" (a contextually-slippery word), so I chose not to watch. Others weren't similarly affected and could compartmentalize and protect themselves emotionally from those depictions. I couldn't and decided I didn't want to even try.
Finally, at this point choosing the lesser of two evils between these two candidates is also something I refuse to participate in any longer. I find both of them repellent and have no intention of voting for either of them. On this point I think I agree with the OP, but I find the language choices and tenor of the argument used to make the point unconvincing and borderline offensive. I can't judge the writer's intent, so I am only voicing my own reaction. In other words, I may agree somewhat with the point that I think is being attempted to be made, but as a piece of writing, I don't personally find the rhetorical strategy effective or appealing. This in no way negates the writer's freedom to express him or herself as he or she sees fit. I also realize that many of my views stated in this comment may not resonate with people who are tired of the manipulation of various identity-based issues for political gain, but again in my view nuance is my friend. I can reject this political manipulation without sacrificing my own ardent support of the goals of these movements. Cynically co-opting a good idea or cause doesn't invalidate the idea or cause, but it can inhibit progress, so I despise those who do it.
Edited to correct spelling.
Are you speaking as an English Major
or as a psychologist?
To me, it isn't clear:
so far so good. But here's where you lose me:
That's a bridge too far, to me--you're using language to convey authority because you study language, yet you speak as a doctor might. The fact that you state you are "speaking as a person with an advanced degree in literature and language who is used to parsing language for subtleties" allows your qualification to be questioned to this end. I don't know if what ANY of what you say is true or not, and I frankly do not care. If you parse language for a living--like I do--you know that going in the weeds in a five- or six-paragraph mini-dissertation is often in and of itself a way to bamboozle other readers. Even if I'm completely wrong about the motivation, the bigger fact is that we are granting way, WAY too much importance to what The Media Told You Donald Trump Did--because they continue to refuse to apply any other context to it.
All those disgusting things Donald Trump said and did did not happen in a vacuum. Get back to me with this thoughtful analysis when it takes that into consideration.
from the perspective of a social scientist, that something
is common explicitly does make it the norm.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
No
In the sense that you're using the word, norm is more or less a synonym for typical. I stated clearly my belief that the behavior in question is not typical of a majority of men.
Many things are "not that extraordinary" without being the norm. If you were arguing that facing sexual aggression was a normal part of the experience of women I would agree with you. Having reread your original comment it still sounds to me as though you are writing that Trumps behavior is or was the norm. It certainly wasn't in 2005.
Also, you seem to be implying that something is less blameworthy if it's the norm. I disagree with you there as well.
I will thank you not to tell me the sense with which
I am using words.
In the sense I am using it, "norm" is a very near approximation of the social science concept. Like any other complex society, the US comprises hundreds, if not thousands, of overlapping subcultures. Each of these subcultures has its own norms, and each has a varying level of understanding and tolerance for the various other norms of the various other subcultures. Very often, there is rather more tolerance than one might expect, due largely I suspect to considerable levels of ignorance, much of it strenuously willful and/or contrived by the organs of mass communication. Trump's behavior, I hate to tell you, is still the fucking norm within dozens of American subcultures, including the one whose flagship is the Lolita Express. So is paying for the pleasure of fucking women who are, by any reasonable standard, slaves of their pimps. These things can only happen because they are the norm within the subcultures of their perpetrators, which perpetrators being, not ostracized loners lurking outside the perimeters of mainstream society, but ordinary actors operating on the same ordinary stage as everyone else. What has changed -- is still changing -- is that slowly these things are being brought out into the open, and they are being denounced, and that's great. What is not great is when one incident or one individual is exposed and treated as an aberration, when it needs instead to be treated like that one cockroach that signifies hundreds or thousands more hiding outside the lamp light.
This country is run by sociopaths, and nothing Donald Trump is accused of is outside the behavioral norms of that subculture. Do you honestly imagine that Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton or any other female powerbroker is unaware of what the Men of Power get up to when they are outside of the public eye -- the same men with whom these female powerbrokers share polite and sophisticated company at dinners or cocktail parties? Pshaw. The women all know, they all tolerate it, the more pathetic among the enable it, and God knows the worst among them participate actively. The only reason we're all talking about Trump and not any of the other 1000 high-profile regional or federal politicians who have throughout their lives behaved similarly horribly is that those others have been political aspirants their entire lives, and so they've made a career of not saying out loud the things that they actually believe.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Like Humpty Dumpty . . .
. . .words mean just what you choose them to mean--neither more nor less.
In another comment you use the term "social norms." That creates an even greater ambiguity since the phrase can refer to typical behavior or a standard of behavior.
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."
You can be the master. This conversation is not a productive use of my time.
To me, this is both brilliant and wise.
A mature observation and an empathetic balm.
Did you say you are a social scientist?
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
I think I'm going to vomit.
Suck up much?
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Moderation: uncool. The comment isn’t even directed to you. n/t
I agree with Pluto
It is nice to see discussion around here that isn't based on feelings and beliefs. I also agree with lotlizard.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
i have dabbled in history and economics.
it's not what i do these days.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Well maybe you have a different definition of norm.
Summer is common. It is not the norm.
Being assaulted is apparently common for some. That doesn't make assailants the norm.
My definition of norm: More than 50% do it.
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then we certainly do have a different definition of "the norm".
your definition surprises me. it excludes an awful lot.
my working definition is not simple. actually, i've never attempted to encapsulate it in a few sentences, and if i do it is going to sound extremely technical -- the vocabulary will be rooted in the jargon of the fields within which i specialize. in fact, i just abandoned the attempt to provide a detailed "specification"; let's just say, "the norm" is implied by a set of vectors, each of which somehow represents the distribution of observed examples within some category of sociological phenomena. in reality, this set of vectors is a large, unknowable and infinitely complex mathematical space; "the norm" is a fluid, plastic many-dimensional volume (or possibly disjoint set of volumes) or maybe surface (or possibly disjoint set of surfaces) within that space.
when referring to "the norm" in ordinary discourse, some constructions are linguistically incorrect -- one could say they are not "the norm", even though they may be technically correct. it depends partly one what one is discussing and how one is discussing it (and particularly, whether one is speaking in the negative or positive). it's one thing to say that Republicans are "not the norm" in Dane County, Wisconsin, simply to mean that they are outnumbered significantly by Democrats, or to say that they are "not the norm" to mean that they represent a behavioral aberration implying a pathology.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Speaking as a
person who continues to pursue the native language on a doctoral level? That is a correct statement:
Whether society considers something acceptable or not doesn't change the fact that its commonality makes it The Norm in The Moment.
Jesus Christ, are we really parsing the parsing? This is what happens when you point out things that either make other people really uncomfortable, or that you point out things which others don't want you to consider because you might figure out their bigger motivation. I don't always agree with you, UntimelyRippd, but you hit it out of the park with this essay, and the comments reflect both, in spades. Thank you!
Norm Gets Blamed for Everything! Poor Norm ‽
"Society Says", "It's the Norm", and the ever popular "Everybody Else (insert phrase). In the 1950s I actually thought I was responsible for my own actions. I learned early on that integrity was only thing of value I would ever possess. "Slim is a nice guy, but count your fingers if he shakes your hand", dad would say, sadly, "The last thing you will ever have is your good word." Yes, my dad said that.
He also taught me how to treat women and other human beings. It sounds "old fashion" and "corny" but actions speak louder . . . , et cetera. I learned from my betters and learned what not to do from the others.
I am not perfect (in spite of what Bandit might have thought) but at least I know how difficult life really is for some, and how to not add to their grief. I am not special so why is this so very difficult for others to understand.
Perhaps among some social classes, but far from
universally, at least pre-eighties and nineties. Drumpf is the perfect example, wealthy, privileged, lout, also drunken fratboys, but the victims were also generally those unfortunately situated to be targeted. Bozos groped targets of opportunity.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I'm a 64 y.o. female who grew up with the double standard. I
was coached by both my parents on how to behave within this ethos. My personal "clean-ness" was my responsibility both parents made clear.
My mom said that if a man made unwelcome advances, I was to give him a cold stare. I don't recall any comebacks she might have told me. When I was in college a manager grabbed my thigh while I was up on a ladder. I gave him the cold stare and it worked. I was lucky!
BTW, there was no one you could report that sort of behavior to. No one!! A complaint would likely get me fired, and I "knew better" than to complain because it just wasn't done! That was the norm.
My dad told me not to engage in "jitterbug" (already an outdated term) dancing and to only dance with "good" young men. Not very helpful.
When my mom ran away from home for a while he told me that some men would take the daughter "into their bed" to take the mom's place. He never did, but I later learned that his only sister had been assaulted by my grandfather (my dad's dad). There was tons of creepiness just under the surface in those days.
I suppose having grown up under such conditions made me quite willing to excuse Bill Clinton's escapades. I should not have.
Now I say mea culpa. I should not have enabled that sort of behavior then. I therefore don't see how Trump's escapades differentiate him from the Clintons.
Well except for one thing. The Clintons used their position in elective office to intimidate, delegitimize and silence victims. Trump never had that particular advantage.
So we are still down to a choice between two types of shit sandwiches. One is on Wonder Bread with mayo. The other is on artisanal whole grain bread with the crusts cut off, cut into bite sized pieces all the better to swallow them whole. That's no kind choice for me. I'm for Jill.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
And we're all being perfectly played
Even those of us who don't have cable, don't ever watch TV, and don't pay any attention to the Corporate Media. We're ALL talking about "this" instead of the real issues. Lose-lose-lose.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
So right.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
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