On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 12:18:50 AM UTC-5, PGage wrote: > > On Sun, Jan 14, 2018 at 8:57 PM Steve Timko <steve...@gmail.com > <javascript:>> wrote: > >> I read the article again. I don't see where they talk about digital >> penetration of the vagina. Only of her mouth. He performed oral sex on her >> and that was consensual and the night continued from there. >> > > > “She says Ansari began making a move on her that he repeated during their > encounter. “The move he kept doing was taking his two fingers in a V-shape > and putting them in my mouth, in my throat to wet his fingers, because the > moment he’d stick his fingers in my throat he’d go straight for my vagina > and try to finger me.” Grace called the move “the claw.” > > Ansari also physically pulled her hand towards his penis multiple times > throughout the night, from the time he first kissed her on the countertop > onward. “He probably moved my hand to his dick five to seven times,” she > said. “He *really* kept doing it after I moved it away.” > > But the main thing was that he wouldn’t let *her* move away from him. She > compared the path they cut across his apartment to a football play. “It was > 30 minutes of me getting up and moving and him following and sticking his > fingers down my throat again. It was really repetitive. It felt like a > fucking game.” > >> *The Humiliation of Aziz Ansari* > > Allegations against the comedian are proof that women are angry, > temporarily powerful—and very, very dangerous. > > *CAITLIN FLANAGAN <https://www.theatlantic.com/author/caitlin-flanagan/> - > THE Atlantic - JAN 14, 2018* > > > > Sexual mores in the West have changed so rapidly over the past hundred > years that by the time you reach 50, intimate accounts of commonplace > sexual events of the young seem like science fiction: you understand the > vocabulary and the sentence structure, but all of the events take place in > outer space. You’re just too old. >
> This was my experience reading the account > <https://babe.net/2018/01/13/aziz-ansari-28355> of one young woman’s > alleged sexual encounter with Aziz Ansari, published by the website *Babe* > this > weekend: the world in which it constituted an episode of sexual assault was > so far from my own two experiences of near date rape (which took place, > respectively, during the Carter and Reagan administrations, roughly in > between the kidnapping of the Iran hostages and the start of the Falklands > War) that I just couldn’t pick up the tune. But, like the recent* New > Yorker* story “Cat Person,”—about a soulless and disappointing hook-up > between two people who mostly knew each other through texts—the account has > proven deeply resonant and meaningful to a great number of young women, who > have responded in large numbers on social media, saying that it is > frighteningly and infuriatingly similar to crushing experiences of their > own. It is therefore worth reading and, in its way, is an important > contribution to the present conversation. > > Here’s how the story goes: A young woman, who is given the > identity-protecting name “Grace” in the story, was excited to encounter > Ansari at a party in Los Angeles, and even though he initially brushed her > off, when he saw that they both had the same kind of old-fashioned camera, > he paid attention to her and got her number. He texted her when they both > got back to New York asking if she wanted to go out, and she was so excited > she spent a lot of time choosing her outfit and texting pictures of it to > friends. They had a glass of wine at his apartment and then he rushed her > though dinner at an expensive restaurant and brought her back to his > apartment. Within minutes of returning, she was sitting on the kitchen > counter and he was—apparently consensually—performing oral sex on her (here > the older reader’s eyes widen, because this was hardly the first move in > the “one night stands” of yesteryear), but then went on, per her account, > to pressure her for sex in a variety of ways that were not honorable. > Eventually, overcome by her emotions at the way the night was going, she > told him, “You guys are all the fucking same” and left crying. I thought it > was the most significant line in the story: this has happened to her many > times before. What led her to believe that this time would be different? > > * * * > > I was a teenager in the late 1970s, long past the great awakening (sexual > intercourse began in 1963, which was plenty of time for me), but as far > away from Girl Power as World War I was from the Tet Offensive. The great > girl-shaping institutions, significantly the magazines and advice books and > novels that I devoured, were decades away from being handed over to actual > girls and young women to write and edit, and they were still filled with > the cautionary advice and moralistic codes of the 1950s. With the exception > of the explicit physical details, stories like Grace’s—which usually > appeared in the form of “as told to’s,” and which were probably the > invention of editors and the work product of middle-aged, women > writers—were so common as to be almost regular features of these cultural > products. In fact, the bitterly disappointed girl crying in a taxi > muttering “they’re all the same” was almost a trope. Make a few changes to > Grace’s story and it would fit right into the narrative of those books and > magazines, which would have dissected what happened to her in a pitiless > way. > > When she saw Ansari at the party, she was excited by his celebrity—“Grace > said it was surreal to be meeting up with Ansari, a successful comedian and > major celebrity”—which the magazines would have told us was “shallow;” he > brushed her off, but she kept after him, which they would have called > “desperate;” doing so meant ignoring her actual date of the evening, which > they would have called cruel. Agreeing to meet at his apartment—instead of > expecting her to come to her place to pick her up—they would have called > unwise, ditto drinking with him alone. Drinking, we were told, could lead > to a girl’s getting “carried away” which was the way female sexual desire > was always characterized in these things—as in, “she got carried away the > night of the prom.” As for what happened sexually, the writers would have > blamed her completely: what was she thinking, getting drunk with an older > man she hardly knew, after revealing her eagerness to get close to him? The > signal rule about dating, from its inception in the 1920s to right around > the time of the Falklands war, was that if anything bad happened to a girl > on a date, it was her fault. > > Those magazines didn’t prepare teenage girls for sports or STEM or huge > careers; the kind of world-conquering, taking-numbers strength that is the > common language of the most middle-of-the road cultural products aimed at > today’s girls was totally absent. But in one essential way they reminded us > that we were strong in a way that so many modern girls are weak. They told > us over and over again that if a man tried to push you into anything you > didn’t want, even just a kiss, you told him flat out you weren’t doing it. > If he kept going, you got away from him. You were always to have “mad > money” with you: cab fare in case he got “fresh” and then refused to drive > you home. They told you to slap him if you had to; they told you to get out > of the car and start wailing if you had to. They told you to do whatever it > took to stop him from using your body in any way you didn’t want, and under > no circumstances to go down without a fight. In so many ways, compared with > today’s young women, we were weak; we were being prepared for being wives > and mothers, not occupants of the C-Suite. But as far as getting away from > a man who was trying to pressure us into for sex we didn’t want; we were > strong. > > Was Grace frozen, terrified, stuck? No. She tells us that she wanted > something from Ansari and she was trying to figure out how to get it. She > wanted affection, kindness, attention. Perhaps she hoped to maybe even > become the famous man’s girlfriend. He wasn’t interested. What she felt > afterward—rejected yet another time, by yet another man—was regret. And > what she and the writer who told her story created was 3,000 words of > revenge porn. The clinical detail in which the story is told is intended > not to validate her account as much as it is to hurt and humiliate Ansari. > Together, the two women may have destroyed Ansari’s career, which is now > the punishment for every kind of male sexual misconduct, from the grotesque > to the disappointing. > > Twenty-four hours ago—this is the speed at which we are now operating—Aziz > Ansari was a man whom many people admired and whose work, although very > well paid, also performed a social good. He was the first exposure many > young Americans had to a Muslim man who was aspirational, funny, immersed > in the same culture that they are. Now he has been—in a professional > sense—assassinated, on the basis of one woman’s anonymous account. Many of > the college-educated white women who so vocally support this movement are > entirely on her side. The feminist writer and speaker Jessica Valenti > tweeted <https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/952568652066443264>, > “A lot of men will read that post about Aziz Ansari and see an everyday, > reasonable sexual interaction. But part of what women are saying right now > is that what the culture considers ‘normal’ sexual encounters are not > working for us, and oftentimes harmful.” > > I thought it would take a little longer for the hit squad of privileged > young white women to open fire on brown-skinned men. I had assumed that, on > the basis of intersectionality and all that, they’d stay laser focused on > college-educated white men for another few months. But we’re at warp speed > now, and the revolution—in many ways so good and so important—is starting > to sweep up all sorts of people into its conflagration: the monstrous, the > cruel, and the simply unlucky. Apparently there is a whole country full of > young women who don’t know how to call a cab, and who have spent a lot of > time picking out pretty outfits for dates they hoped would be nights to > remember. They’re angry and temporarily powerful and last night they > destroyed a man who didn’t deserve it. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
