Despair, Impatience and Sin

 Susan strikes again, with words as keenly chiseled as a reredos:

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Religion is the greatest obstacle to living a godly life. Like all human institutions, religions are corrupted to suit human purposes, which are overwhelmingly about power and money, and subject to the fears and superstitions of the ignorant. So what's a person who loves God, his/her fellow creatures and the planet to do? Julian of Norwich recognizes only two sins: impatience and despair. Those are the two tough ones. I'm impatient for human beings to get our act together, and I despair that we ever will. One small ray of hope: things like war and the death penalty are at least controversial now, and we don't pack up the family and a picnic to view public hangings as a form of entertainment.

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Well, yes. Despair and impatience come all to easily to me as well. And yesterday, as I wondered about “legitimate” rape, it was all the more difficult to keep from sin.

OK—let’s try to be fair.  I’m sure—I’m at least trying to be sure—that Akin meant something other than there is “legitimate” rape. He probably meant what used to be called forcible rape. A maiden is sleeping virtuously in her bedroom at night, her flannel nightgown covering all her nasty bits. An intruder jimmies the window, steals into her bedroom, and puts the gun to her temple. Her pupils constrict in terror.

That sort of stuff.

This is in contrast to the “other” kind of rape. A woman goes to a bar by herself. She’s wearing her best clothes, looking good. She meets a guy, he buys her a drink, they talk. She flirts. At some point, in the car going to his apartment, or in the apartment itself, it turns nasty. She says no, he overpowers her.

What happened?

Rape.

But to all too many people, there’s still that voice—“she lured him on”—in the back of their heads.

However, the representative seems to have gone further. Apparently, he really believes that in cases of “forcible” rape the woman’s body will reject the spermatozoa, and she will not get pregnant.

I tried, Susan, I really tried to give this argument the benefit of the doubt. It’s said that more male children are born in times of war than peace. Is it true? Well, I looked it up and, yes, it appears so. I also remembered a story I read in my Walmart days of women being more receptive to a stranger’s sperm than to her regular partner’s. Therefore accounting for more pregnancies as a result of a casual fling than in a monogamous relationship.

Too tired to look that up….

Or rather, I realized that it wasn’t the point. My belief? The senator doesn’t want anyone to have an abortion. Period. As a result of rape, as a result of poverty, as a result of a life- threatening condition—zip. NO ABORTIONS!

OK—but why twist science to justify it?

Oh, and by the way, the representative is on the House Committee of Science, Spaceand Technology.

Does this inspire confidence?

And then I began to wonder about how men have justified rape in the past. One of the myths common in my childhood was that no woman could be penetrated against her will. The idea was that the vaginal opening was a sphincter, which would automatically snap closed if needed. So any penetration meant implicit consent.

And then I remembered the book that changed it all—Against Our Will. Yup, Susan Brownmiller. Anybody remember her?

What she said was quite simple. Rape is an act of aggression. No is no. There’s no difference between the maiden sleeping in her bed and the girl out for a good time in a bar.

She went further. Here—as always!—is WikiPedia:

Brownmiller argues that rape had been hitherto defined by men rather than women, and that men use, and all men benefit from the use of, rape as a means of perpetuating male dominance by keeping all women in a state of fear.

Wow! When I read that in 1975 it set my head spinning. Me, a gay guy benefiting from rape?

“Of course you’re racist—you’re living—we’re all living—in a racist society,” said a black lover of mine, when I asked him if he thought I was racist. And Brownmiller, I suspect, would argue much the same. At the age of 55, a perfect Kinsey 7—I’m a pretty safe guy for a woman to be around. But the fear of rape changes every woman’s life, and mine as well.

Right—so they were strong words to hear. I read Against Our Will several times and eventually understood it and agreed with it. And after the initial shock, I no longer reacted defensively to the notion that all men benefit from the use of rape.

And now, I yearn for the earnest directness of the late sixties, seventies. Brownmiller came slugging out with her book, knocked us out of the water, changed the dialogue, maybe changed our beliefs. 

And now we have this little weasel trying to pull us back into the rap again.

So no, Susan and Julian of Norwich, I shall not sin. I’ll just say what should be said of all bad thinking and dishonest motivation.

Ne fas!