What Has Gone So Wrong with Modern Women that Fifty Shades of Grey is a Hit?

   While I admit I've only read excerpts and reviews of the series,  it is more than enough to get a pretty clear picture of  both the shallow and twisted nature of the Fifty Shades of Grey series. After all, there aren't a lot of sophisticated concepts in the books that require deep thinking, yet ironically some women read them to "appear sophisticated", or because their friends are reading it and they're curious.  Instead of  viewing it as sophistication, however, the mental health community considers it pathological, listing sadism and masochism in their current diagnostic bible, the DSM IV revised. It has also been noted that people who like being abused are statistically more likely to switch into abusing themselves. 
 
    More importantly, have women who think these books are okay or even entertaining thought of the fact that it sends men the message that we really want to be sexually abused in real life? It gives men the idea that we probably do want to be treated with force or even outright taken by force.Women need to resist the subversive messages that society is sending women about what is "sophisticated."
 
     In a time when women are being raped in unprecedented numbers all over the world--not just in India and Africa but all over the US, including the military-- feminists should realize that this utter garbage written by a woman for other women only reinforces the image of ourselves as wanting to be raped, and thus makes us more likely to be raped.

     I can just imagine a trial occurring in the not too distant future in the USA where a lawyer defends an accused rapist by saying about the victim, "Well, but isn't it true that she told you she read Fifty Shades and she liked bondage and rough sex? Weren't you just having consensual BDSM?" I can see this happening quite clearly. 

    In fact, in 1986, there was the famous "Preppie Murder Trial"  in which the defendant, Robert Chambers, was able to claim that the strangling death and rape of the victim was only accidental rough sex gone wrong, rough sex that she had asked for,and the defendant walked only with a manslaughter charge.

      Real feminists should be appalled, early feminists rolling in their graves, from Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan. It is sad how unhealthy and fooled modern women are becoming. With the idiot who wrote this stuff, it's like the blind leading the blind.

"Dark Knight" Shootings: When Do We LEARN?

Another massacre has been committed by yet another deranged gunman---whether he be sociopathic, schizophrenic, or bipolar is not the point for the moment—and yet the USA is doing the same old things it does every time there’s a similar massacre, which is more than one a year now. That’s right, here in the USA there are several massacres a year, if you count the “incidental” ones that don’t get too much media attention, like a postal worker shooting himself and three others in rural Alabama, or four people in a WAWA store in Maine killed during a robbery. Not to mention the infamous one of last year in which Jared Loughner, who has been deemed mentally unfit to stand trial due to paranoid schizophrenia, shot at U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Gifford and killed several people in the process.

But this is all we do, every time:

1. Hold prayer vigils and offer “soothing words” to use Mayor Bloomberg’s succinct phrase

2. Congratulate everyone involved on their braveness and law enforcement on their rapid response; which is all very honorable but what does it change?

3. Wish the gunman was dead and fantasize about how we’d like to kill him, as if doing that will change anything.

What we should be doing in order to prevent more irrevocable violence and having to endlessly repeat steps 1 to 3:

4. Pass gun control laws so that Nobody can BUY an Assault Rifle of any kind, and nobody can buy more than 1 Handgun in an Entire YEAR.

5. Have longer wait periods for buying guns.

6. Have a mandatory psych test before you can buy a gun.

7. Make the state laws for psychiatric committal just a little less stringent, so that when mentally disturbed people start to show themselves as being deranged, we can force them to get help while they still can be helped.

        It is important to recognize that sociopaths, like Ted Bundy, are classified separately from schizophrenics, like Jared Loughner, who told other college classmates that his math teacher was missing the messages the numbers were trying to send! In many ways, sociopaths, who have no brain disease but cannot feel empathy, are more dangerous than most schizophrenics will ever be. Many people with bipolar or schizophrenia can be helped to live productive lives IF they get medicine and therapy before they develop violent tendencies. James Holmes, as everyone has seen, started out a normal high school student who was involved in extra-curricular activities such as playing soccer with the other guys, in addition to being on the honor roll. As we all see, it took him several years to "break"--- during which he earned a BA from a top college and began a  MA in another-- years in which he could have been helped and the massacre prevented.

Yes, we love our guns and our “freedom” here in the U.S., but we should look around the world for once instead of being so megalomaniac, and see that no other country has so many massacres by deranged gunman, yet alone no other country has such a high rate of accidental gun deaths and murders through shootings. How many times do these things happen in England? In France? In Germany? In Japan?

They say that repeating the same method while still expecting to get a different result is the hallmark of insanity, and by that criterion-- the way we refuse to control gun ownership and  work more on mental health prevention--then my fellow Americans are insane.

The Welfare of Children: Where Do our Loyalties Really Lie?

June 22, 2012 was a great day for justice, both around in the world and here in the somewhat prosaic and parochial state of Pennsylvania, USA.  It was a day for making a major dent in the current social paradigm of embarrassed silence and conspiracy to keep quiet over abuse, for in that short, 24 hour period an incredible thing happened: two people in power were convicted for their egregious, nefarious crimes against children.  Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky and Monsignor Lynn were both found guilty as charged in separate Pennsylvania courts of law, the former for direct sexual abuse of children and the latter for disregarding those acts and deliberately employing commonly known or  suspected abusers near children. Two kinds of guilt are found here: to use the words of a common Christian prayer for forgiveness, guilt “for what we have done” (Sandusky) and “for what we have left undone,” (Lynn).  Regardless of denomination or even religion, these are essential truths that should have been glaring in  Monsignor Lynn’s conscience as a Christian clergyman, and indeed in Sandusky's as well.

Yet these unspeakable acts were allowed to happen because so many people did nothing, so many people allowed themselves to be overwhelmed by the shamed silence created by the social taboo of even discussing the sexual abuse they’d seen (or endured). “Evil happens when good men do nothing.” Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary initially did the right thing in going to his superiors about the loathsome “shower scene” he’d  witnessed of Sandusky performing anal sex on a young boy, reporting it  despite his natural embarrassment and disgust  at witnessing and relating something like that.  But his half-hearted try at justice, no matter how well intentioned, just wasn’t enough. Children’s physical and psychological welfare are worth more than that.  He should have gone straight to the police.  After informing head coach Joe Paterno and seeing that Sandusky was still working there, Mc Queary’s resolve to do something more should have kicked in. Why didn’t it? Because of not wanting to lose his job in retaliation, or to avoid being resented in the tight social circles and old boys' network that exists in Penn State’s athletic department? Again, this is about where we place our loyalties, our priorities.

Of course, Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno and former Penn State president Graham Spanier are even more to blame in this matter. Emails retrieved by state prosecutors have revealed their decision to cover up Sandusky’s actions, and their reasons are undoubtedly monetary. Let’s face it: anyone who lives in the USA, much less the state of PA, knows that Penn State has a lackluster academic rating, is notoriously easy to be accepted into, and that their one claim to fame and fortune is their football team. Sandusky was part of the recipe for their meal ticket, and Penn State powers-that-be decided that the children could keep getting screwed—quite literally—as long as the Penn State football team kept winning and raking in the money. To avoid upsetting the balance of their winning formula, allegedly paternal Joe Paterno helped Spanier and Co. to throw the kids under the bus.

As for Monsignor Lynn, he admittedly is partly a fall guy for the Church, in the sense that, as in the Penn Stated debacle, there were so many others in positions of power that knew about the abuse and did nothing. Here again, saving face for the organization, and the good old boy clique of the clergy, was valued more than the lives of children. Yet the State and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania simply must make an example out of him, which they did, to set the standard of future culpability and punishment, not just for the Catholic Church, but for any church or organization. 

While endemic in the Catholic Church, sexual abuse in churches is definitely not relegated to the Roman Catholic Church: as an Episcopalian, I am personally appalled that Bishop Charles Bennison of the PA Episcopal Church is not in jail right now like Monsignor Lynn.  In 2008, Bishop Bennison admitted unapologetically to a clerical inquiry and trial that despite the fact that he was aware years ago that his brother, also an Episcopal minister, was having sexual relations with a 14 year old girl, he did nothing and carried on, eventually rising the clerical ladder to become bishop as did his father before him.  (As Saturday Night Live’s Church Lady would say, “Well isn’t that special?”) And maybe a little too convenient.

Mr. Bennison was initially deposed from his position as Bishop, with the conviction reading thus, “The court finds that even today [Bennison] has not shown that he comprehends the nature, significance and effect of his conduct and has not accepted responsibility and repented for his conduct …” He appealed the decision, and then suddenly was restored in 2010, to the great dismay and shock of my religious community.  While the diocese states a legal technicality caused the inexplicable, sudden decision to reinstate Mr. Bennison, it is my belief that bribery or blackmail might well have occurred, as he is a man from a prestigious and well established family.

Here’s something else that Lynn, Bennison, and other clergy who profess to be Christians yet who abuse or protect abusers should remember: “And whoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” Mark 9:42. King James Bible.

As welcome as the June 22^nd convictions are, what disturbs me is that I wonder if the universal clamor of indignation over Sandusky’s victims and the Catholic school victims would be as great if they had been mostly girls instead of mostly boys? I say with great sadness that I honestly don’t believe so.  Little girls are valued less around the world than little boys, and still bear the unpardonable burden of having stereotypes of promiscuity projected onto them—of salaciously “wanting it” or “liking it”-- just as adult women bear these unthinkable, unwarranted projected stereotypes.  In these aforementioned cases, men could identify with the little boys more than they could little girls, and instinctively saw them as innocent victims, immediately sympathizing with them.

Yet when all is said and done, June 22^nd, 2012, was still a victory for children everywhere and for adult survivors of this abuse, and helps a new paradigm to arise that values children’s welfare over expediency and a conspiracy of silence. What needs to be done is for people to never forget and to keep passing laws for protection of children, keep prosecuting the guilty, and above all to remain vigilant, for this epidemic of sexual abuse of children is a silent holocaust of its own.

Songs for Slaves and Sadists--Music's Backlash Against Women

“And baby, when it’s love, if it’s not rough it isn’t fun.”  Immortal words of Lady Gaga in her hit “Poker Face”.  “Sticks and stones may break  my bones,  but chains and whips  excite me,”  deadpans  Rihanna in her 2011 hit “S&M”; nonetheless  she didn’t like it when boyfriend Chris Brown performed S &M on her face,  viciously  biting her nose and lips.  Does she even get the irony of her choice of subject matter?  Especially as she released this song praising abuse  months after she was attacked by her boyfriend.  Getting on the victim bandwagon,  Katy Perry croons  this year in  another smash hit “ET”:  “Wanna be  your victim… Infect me with you love/ and fill me with you poison.”  In the rap soundtrack by Kayne West that is often added to the song, it only gets worse as he sings of doing whatever he commands her to do  and her  total submission. Wow. With boyfriends like these, girls don’t need enemies, and with role models like Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Katie, girls already have a recipe for failure. 

Yet each one of these very young women would adamantly insist that they’re feminists, that they’re “strong” liberated women who  know their rights and don’t let anyone boss them around.  If that’s true, why are they glamourizing twisted submission for other young women?  Glamourizing  either rough sex  or   S &M, in which women always are   physically injured –sometimes seriously--and always humiliated, is not the path to female liberation.   No matter how popular inflicting pain may be becoming in the US—whether during sex or in daily life--- the mental health profession still lists sadism and masochism as neuroses in their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or DSM.   Pain is simply not the path to anyone’s liberation, because humiliating someone else for fun, especially in the act of sex, is savage, puerile, and unacceptable--whether you’re humiliating a man or woman.  And  for someone to enjoy being humiliated means that person has already been damaged and needs help.

This  glorification of victimhood in pop culture is just the tip of the looming iceberg,  proving  that there is still an ever growing  backlash against women’s rights and their very humanity—as  renowned feminist Susan Faludi, author of “Backlash”,  noted years ago.   Sadly, now  the backlash is being perpetrated by as many women as  by men.   If we , as women, can’t count on each other,  who can we count on?  Now even  very little girls have  sexual  perversion  and stereotyping to fight, even coming from their parents,  thanks to the popularity of hooker costumes and pancake make-up  in toddler beauty pageants.   Gaga, Perry, Rihanna, and other female celebrities  may be self-deluded into  thinking  that they are liberated, but they are only just victims of Stockholm Syndrome—having  been brainwashed  by male dominance to believe  sexual  submission and  masochistic perversion are  signs of freedom  and liberation.   But in fact they’re only signs of degradation  and emotional , even physical captivity.  And if celebrities don’t truly subscribe to these abuses, it is an even greater crime for them to so callously sell them to us,  infecting us with their poison, as Perry so eloquently puts it. 

Martyrdom and Misogyny in the Twilight Franchise

Author Stephanie Myer’s gift of capturing the essence of an insecure, perceptive teenage girl in the Twilight novels, while simultaneously offering readers idealizations of feminine self-sacrifice, is both an enormous waste of talent and a grievous injustice to young women. Via the rationalizations of teenage Bella Swann, reinforced by several themes and events in the Twilight novels, Meyer conveys the idea that it is fine to subvert your true nature-- even giving up your life to become a predator as does Bella-- as long as you can spend eternity with your true love. The fact that Bella will ostensibly become a “vegetarian” vampire—not eating people-- like the rest of the Cullen clan seems to justify the psychological conflict and sanitize her plight.

In addition, there are many significant elements of unchecked abuse of females and /or “accidental” victimhood in the book, such as Bella’s “good buddy” Jake forcing a kiss on her, as well as repeated occasions that Bella is the victim of others to the point of suffering broken bones, such as when she tries to defend herself against Jake, who callously laughs at her injury. With friends like that, who needs enemies? All of this victimhood is conveniently eradicated by her achieving the physical immunity and beauty of a vampire, as if her puny natural state was truly destined to be extinguished and replaced by the more rarified, eternal flame of a vampire.

The character of Edward Cullen, Bella’s boyfriend, is ironically the one most resisting Bella’s, “becoming a monster,” in his own words.  Perhaps the most profoundly poignant quote in the book is Edward’s earnest plea to Bella, “Isn’t it enough to spend one lifetime with me?” as he attempts to get her to see everything she will be losing as a human in her emotional greed to spend forever with him as one of the undead. From a literary perspective, this character’s resistance, besides providing necessary dramatic tension, provides an obfuscation of the other underlying message of the book supporting Bella’s decision.  Edward’s unwavering opposition to her self-sacrifice helps to paint her decision as a healthy act of self-will.   His chivalric refusal to bite her with his vampire venom until they are married seems to mask the sadomasochistic nature of the act, and at the same time to put the act of being bit by a vampire on a parallel with sexual intercourse.

Like Bella, most teenage girls are confused, allured, and held captive by the dichotomy of violence and extreme tenderness that they may see in their partners.  Yet this dichotomy of tenderness and violence is exemplified--almost personified-- by the character of Edward Cullen.  Edward’s repeated excuses for his often curt, abrasive, and controlling behavior of her have an eerie ring of similarity to the excuses offered by many abusive boyfriends and husbands. (Think of the mantra “I’m just doing it to protect you, it’s for you’re your own good,” words often spoken by Edward.)  Examples of this behavior, glossed over by Myer, are Edward’s stalking her daily activity, invading her room at night to watch her sleep, and his repeated habit of forcibly steering her around by the arm with his “iron-like grip,” which is mentioned often in the novels but left out of the movies. The director decided wisely that repeatedly seeing a man steer a woman around or physically restrain her would look just like what it is: controlling abuse.

First love never wants to die, which is compellingly human and natural, and a very few of us mere mortals are lucky enough to sustain a first love into adulthood happily. Yet Myer is preying on that undying wish of immature teenagers, and perverting it into something not just literally undying but emotionally unhealthy: propelling them to that dangerous concept of becoming a martyr for her man. This very martyrdom fantasy is what keeps many women in physically and emotionally abusive relationships, according to countless mental health experts, such as Dr. Robin Norwood, author of Women Who Love Too much.  What  Dr. Norwood explains of the psyche of the abused female sounds like a dead-ringer for Bella’s affinity for Edward and Jake: “ The situations and people that others would avoid as dangerous, uncomfortable, and unwholesome do not repel us, because we have no way of evaluating them realistically or self-protectively.  We do not trust our feelings, or use them to guide us. Instead we are drawn to the very dangers, intrigues, dramas… that others with healthier and more balanced backgrounds would naturally eschew.”

Most interestingly, as a blatant departure from the historically subliminal connotation of vampires as being sexually predatory, in Myer’s series vampires are portrayed as just the opposite: the knight in white armor saving women from sexual violence. This is established through three important events in plot: Edward saving Bella from would be kidnappers/ presumed gang rapists in the first book, Twilight; the aforementioned instance in New Moon of Bella’s only mortal male friend Jake forcibly kissing her, only to be warned by Edward; and the third event coming full circle with family patriarch Carlisle “saving” Victoria after she has been brutally gang raped by her own fiancé and his friends and left to die.  Yet Edward the vampire gallantly adheres to the look but don’t touch rule:  though he unapologetically admits to watching her sleep, he never violates her sexually.

Myer may be sending this message to teenagers subconsciously, seriously believing that it’s all quite romantic and that she’s doing no harm.  Perhaps she is unconsciously reflecting her own martyrdom scenario from a situation she witnessed or absorbed in her childhood. Tellingly, the admission of Myer that the well spring for these novels came from a dream she had may well account for the subliminal and irrational mixed messages in the Twilight saga.  Yet perhaps she is also simply reflecting the many internecine themes, Jungian archetypes, and social paradigms in society that insidiously whisper, “Stand by your man,” even if he beats, rapes, or kills you.

Unfortunately, the cinematic use of actor Robert Pattinson has led a cult-like popularity to the Twilight machine, which now consists of innumerable franchised goods in addition to the movies themselves.  With his undeniable beauty, natural elegance and expressive face, Pattinson lends an exquisite sensitivity to the now iconic role of Edward Cullen, making it almost impossible for the average teenager to clearly see the issues through the nebulous flush of first love and onscreen chemistry of costar Kristen Stewart and himself.  Indeed, both actors seem like a director and author’s dream, as if they were made for those roles. Their reported off-screen romance only adds to the appeal of Twilight, and helps to obfuscate its true message that happiness can be found through descents into darkness and denial of self.

Further maddening is the fact that Myer openly advertises her books as high school reading material by offering possible study questions in the appendices of some editions. These  questions compare it to the love found in  Romeo and Juliet, and of course do not even hint at the trenchant themes of misogynistic belittlement and glorified feminine martyrdom that are ubiquitous throughout the Twilight  saga. If  Myer feels that her novels are on a par with  literary  fare such as  Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story,  she is deluding herself not just on her works’ literary quality but on its message: in those great works the young lovers were victims of outside social restrictions, not misogyny masquerading as virtue.

Having used all of the critical plot elements of star crossed lovers throughout history, Myer has added a toxic dose of glamorized, feminine self-annihilative fantasies to create a lucrative literary franchise, while doing a serious injustice to young women around the world.