In spite of whatever force it is that always truncates the end of the Rachel Maddow show, I managed to watch most of her interview with Ronan Farrow. This dialogue was remarkable, partly because Rachel has a very idealistic notion about sex that is not afraid to be right-up-against-the-worst. Early on in her own development living in SF, she was an activist, a major force in protecting inmates who had HIV and their need in those days for high grade medical care. (They still need it, but by now they can be somewhat medically protected and people mostly know it.) She is tall, physical, lesbian in a strong relationship, and both brainy and funny. I mean, one would think she could probably hold her own.
Ronan Farrow was on the show tonight (10-25) and Rachel confessed that on first reading his book about his treatment by NBC management she had confidently marched in to her own bosses and asked them to explain why they suppressed Farrow's stories. The result is on the NYTimes feed, and repeated here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/rachel-maddow-unloads-nbc-bosses-ronan-farrow-book-very-hard-stomach-1250222) She is "hot" enough at the moment (in terms of performance but not sexual) that she could dare do this. NBC seemed to react honorably but I would counsel Maddow to watch out. They can hold grudges for a very long time and take revenge in devious ways.
The massive cultural reversal of understanding the rules about sex is such a potent access to how we think about each other that I also need to know all kinds of stuff, dangerous stuff. It's not so much physical sex as all the life-rules that derive from the physical. Certainly, in my own life gender has been the tectonic plate behind major passages from my total resistance to sexual relationships until I was 21, on a rez, and hooked up with a man twice my age (never regretted) to leaving him ten years later when everything had changed (never regretted). Starting over, I became over-fond of my boss. I still miss him but like so many major figures in my life he's dead. I knew there was no place to go with that, so I left to join what I thought of as an ivory tower haven, Div School, and then dedicated service in an ideal context, the UU ministry.
The Emerson Avenger is a character who was treated badly by a UU minister when he had a vision which the clergyman didn't take seriously. It did sound like madness with an organic cause. When two grandiose narcissists attack each other, it doesn't go well. I was surprised that this accuser who now tries to shame all UU ministers. accusing them of every possible sin, sexual and otherwise, is still insuppressible and even on Twitter. At one point I tried to reason with him, but that's not his universe.
So I was as naive as Maddow in thinking that simply talking would change anything. But I had never heard of her when after a decade in the ministry I was saddened by the chicken yard of clergy behavior, both male and female. I never heard of incidents in which some depraved old man turned up semi-naked and demanded a massage. But I did hear of a minister who worshipped naked in the Church of Venus while nude women "dusted" him with feathers. This upset his wife to the point of divorce and caused him to move to the other corner of the continent, becoming a counselor instead of a minister. No one wants me to tell you this. Some will say this is proof that people can't believe any old thing without trouble.
American denominations are various institutions of like-minded people gathered on the basis of socio-economics. UU's are generally educated semi-professionals, "nice" people who politely fail to conform. But behind the curtain between parishioner and minister, things happen that #me-too and the Emerson Avenger consider to be wrong, often because of a plea for counseling. The personal overcomes the institutional. My ideals broke when a isolate misfit man (one might say an adult "incel") came into my office and demanded sex, on grounds that I was a servant to his needs. I told him I was not the temple whore. He was surprised, saying that his previous female minister had agreed to "put out". He was telling the truth. This is not the only case and soon led to denomination-wide but rather private reforms.
Sex is a jumble of ancient/ last century/ future century ideas that get at us deeply through our identities. The whole world knows that Farrow is working a lode of very personal -- even genetic -- stuff about entitlement, taboos, and practical survival. He seems to be doing very well with it and provoking some reluctant people to confront the dilemmas. He is mostly concentrating on the power gradient between men who think that they are naturally entitled to treat women like candy and whose surrounding culture agrees with that, even some of the women. He is working specifically on cases of power gradient where the most powerful person dehumanizes the lesser person. In our culture old white rich men are likely to be the more powerful. They almost define power.
My own dilemmas are nothing like that. I'm asking about how to safely handle nurturing wounded men who ask for comfort in the form of sex, a traditional role of women but not clergy. I'm asking about what to say to valued male friends who are sex addicts, always seeking. What about rival women who seek to assert superiority over me by bragging about their exploits deviously controlling powerful men? What about this culture that in part asserts that sex is natural, pleasant, without consequences -- the guiltless hookup world, esp among gays? Young tribal women come on Twitter with highly sexualized selfies, defiantly defending their right to do that because they need the power, just before the always-rolling Twitter list of murdered women comes up. To criticize that is to be labeled racist.
My personal intimate thoughts are about attachment, which can happen even without physical contact. The shocking contemporary situations are about DEtachment, people in passing, armored, acting out, presenting instead of being. This is "religious" because it is moral, spiritual, a challenge to tradition and social order. Yet "family", "marriage", and identity in our times are defined by actual fertile sex, even as science proves physical sex to be fluid. Much thinking is needed. Even on television talk shows.
No comments:
Post a Comment