When Abuse is Not Abuse

More often than not, I find myself on the wrong side of a debate. That is to say “the wrong side” meaning the more logical and rational side of the debate, the side that includes ugly truths that those with opposing viewpoints don’t want to hear because changing their beliefs would be too difficult.

The 50 Shades of Grey trilogy and its associated movie is the most recent case in point. What with the film’s release a week ago, feminists are up in arms once again to remind us that the story is about an abusive relationship that, gosh darn it, is bad. (Well, at least when the one being abused is female; more on that in a bit.) My point in commenting on certain feminist articles, the salient point that rational feminists (ha ha, get it?) keep ignoring at their convenience is that in the trilogy – after one puts aside the juvenile penmanship, the unrelatable much less believable characters, the misrepresentation of BDSM, etc. – when the protagonist Anastasia (Ana) consents to the particulars of her relationship with Christian, it is not abusive. The overall implication then is that when anyone willingly enters into a relationship, particularly knowing full well what they’re getting into, that person can no longer cry foul when abusive behavior takes place. That is, when one consents to being abused, ‘abuse’ is no longer the operative word for what transpires between people.

This is not to say that abuse cannot take place. In 50 Shades of Grey, Ana signs a legal document that agrees to being Christian’s sexual slave as well as giving Christian control over several aspects of her life, such as her diet and exercise routine. So, when her binds, spank, whips her or tells her what to eat and when to exercise; this is not abuse. Certainly, Christian does abuse Ana when her rapes her in her apartment, buys out the company she works for and sells her car without permission, yet she continues her relationship with her abuser. Although she can opt-out of the relationship – Christian’s threating her not to do that being idle as she has a number of options to help deal with her situation – Ana does not. She continues the relationship with her ‘abuser.’ Feminists claim Ana is still being abused, only they must mean that it Ana who is abusing herself, because that’s the only viewpoint left now. In this way, Ana bears the brunt for what anyone else may call a toxic relationship. So while feminists claim the Western patriarchal society has been running roughshod over women for centuries, the kicker is that women bear at least some of the blame. Women have been letting men control them.

Women say they have long had no recourse of action as historically the Western patriarchal societies have made it difficult for them to leave whatever domineering situation they may have been in. To a certain extent, possibly even a large extent, I agree with this analysis. Problem is, this really isn’t true of the current age, not in Western societies. Women (or anyone for that matter), when felling abused in a relationship, can leave the offending party. Now, if it is the case that leaving is not an easily viable option such as when the offending party threatens violence or control’s the victim’s finances, etc. there are still options the victim of abuse can pursue in order to leave a relationship. So while a victim in such a situation may be being abused, the point is not to continue an abusive relationship beyond the time one has to. To do otherwise is consenting to abuse. Furthermore, if one refuses to see that they are being abused (from the perspective of an outsider) for whatever reason – “I love him or her / You don’t know them like I do / They have a lot of money” – they are not being abused; they’re not even a victim. For any of us to argue otherwise is to become another person trying to control the ‘victim’ in question. Last time I checked, two wrongs still didn’t make a right.

I can easily argue from experience. More than once I’ve dated women who would withhold sex or promise an intimate relationship if only I would adhere to certain rules and/or jump through hoops. Although in these relationships I was manipulated to the point of great psychological stress – such are the perils of love/lust – I would never go so far as to say I was abused by these women. After all, I consented to every action I thought was necessary to win their affections. Moreover, I spent more than enough time with these women that I should have realized sooner rather than later that the writing was on the wall. (Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.) If I could at all said to be victimized or abused by these women I dated, it is my own fault. If any of us have a responsibility to anyone, it is ourselves. Thus, I have to take responsibility for my situations. But we often do not see people take this attitude, much less in the feminist narrative.

What we do also see lately in relation to ‘abuse’ is lots of people deciding they are victims after the fact in order to excuse their own shortcomings and feel better about themselves by shifting blame, or, in order to make themselves feel special or part of a group. One young lady I recently came across said the reason why she has so many health issues is due to the psychic scarring she received from across time when matriarchal religions were wiped out in Europe in favor of Christianity. While this is an extreme case of fulfilling the victimhood narrative for oneself, it highlights the fact that people make excuses and shift blame in order to, say, not eat healthy or exercise or do anything that would actually be beneficial to one’s health, as I discovered in this case. When one says they were abused long after a relationship’s demise, not having recognized they were abused when the abuse was going on, was not abuse. In every instance one determines they were abused after the fact, the victim in question had to come by the knowledge of what constitutes abuse without realizing it is someone else who is doing the defining of ‘abuse.’ One woman I courted decided that she was raped long after the alleged rape happened, deciding that merely not wanting to have sex in a certain instance but having sex anyway to appease her boyfriend at the time made the ex-boyfriend abusive. Sorry, but appeasing someone despite your true desires does not make the one being appeased a victimizer. If there’s any victimization going on in such instances, it’s self-victimization. Yet this self-portrayal of herself as a victim found solace when surrounded by others who truly were victimized by someone else. This is a mentality I cannot abide by, not then, not now.

[*And, needless to say, the potential relationship went nowhere fast.]

While there is some abusive elements to the 50 Shades of Grey story for Ana, what is never mentioned is the abusive manner in which Ana treats Christian. What I mean is that Ana doesn’t accept Christian for who he is and from the perspective of a male reader, consciously sets out to change him. If one of the talking points of the current liberal narrative is anything, it’s that everyone should accept everyone else for who they are (though of course in reality that means accepting everyone for who they are so long as they qualify as liberals). So what if Christian is into BDSM? Ana doesn’t have to become his sub but she does so because she’s curious and because Christian is a handsome billionaire. Ana figures at some point she can get Christian to dispense with the kinky sex and have the rest of her cake and eat it, too. So, it’s not exactly as though Christian does the only manipulating in the story. In fact, if manipulation is a part of abuse, Ana certainly does abuse Christian. Naturally, feminists will completely ignore this analysis because, hey, I am a male after all and only women can make relevant points.

Just because someone makes a claim of abuse doesn’t mean abuse is actually taking place. Of course, change the definition of a word enough or broad enough and suddenly everything qualifies. Eventually history will get to be written by the losers.

For someone who is often called a sophist, I am in dubious company. 

I Watched It So You Don't Have To: 50 Shades of Grey

Okay, I lied. I haven’t seen the movie. But do I really need to in order to review it? If you’ve read the book, you know that this movie will be the one single movie in all of cinematic history to be better than its source material. That said, I think it a timely matter to revisit my original assessment of the book…

I once heard someone say of this book, "Either you love it or hate it." But the fact is that such a statement requires clarification. You either love it or hate it based upon two things: If you've never read anything BDSM-related before, you might find it entertaining or perhaps provocative. However, if you've ever read any great work of literature, you may want to find the nearest fireplace. The sex scenes – which is the real reason anyone would pick this book up – aren’t particularly tantalizing, much less erotic, if you're at all familiar with Jackie Collins. The real crime in this book comes not from adults consenting to BDSM or even the female wish-fulfillment of changing a man, but the manner in which the book is written, stylistically speaking. Though we may be reading 50 Shades of Grey for the sex, it is very difficult not to laugh or even want to cry at the author's sophomoric writing skills. The word count for the word 'murmur' alone is astronomical: 5 times on one page even! Furthermore, besides protagonist Anastasia's character, there isn't a single remotely interesting, much less believable, character. Christian Grey's character, for example, is so unbelievable – a handsome billionaire with a huge penis yet psychologically damaged enough that he requires changing – that no suspension of disbelief is possible. It is also clear that the author did no research whatsoever beyond the sex, and I’m not even talking about the finer points of bondage. Perfectly clear Seattle skylines in May? LOL! There is no plot either unless you consider scenes of sex-breaking up-make up sex-breaking up-make up sex etc. a plot. But wait, there’s a second book! And it’s worse than the first. In the second book 50 Shades Darker you'd think by this point in a trilogy in which the first book was slammed for its incompetent writing style and witless dialogue, EL James would care to rectify the many criticisms she received of her freshman effort. But, I guess when you're laughing all the way to the bank and given that most Americans do not read above a sixth-grade level, why bother? EL James somehow manages to take her ineptitude to the next level by not only dispensing with the BDSM for most of the sex scenes this go-round, but by fumbling an attempt at a plot, and ultimately switching between first and second person points of view with a level of incompetence that hasn't been seen since the Titanic was built. All the while people are still murmuring, muttering, putting his hand in his hair, wowing, and pressing their lips into a hard line. And EL James has the nerve to say her editor rocks in the Acknowledgements? What editor?? If you don't wish to read the books but still want to know what happens, here's the entire series in a nutshell: Boy meets girl. They fall in lust. They quickly get back together after being apart for an eternity, that is, five days. They're happy. Information is revealed. They fight, make-up, and have sex. Repeat ad nauseum. Near the end of the second book, switch to another character's point of view for no reason what-so-ever, or, laziness. After finishing the second book, consider that your life will flash before your eyes before you die – do you really want to read the final book? Well, I suppose there are those instances when one need to kill time in the restroom.

[On a side, side-note, I find it interesting that while today’s women want to be accepted for who they are and what they look like, none of the women who are fans of this trilogy admit to reveling in the fantasy that is Christian Grey. Admit it, ladies, if you met someone like Christian Grey and he wasn’t a billionaire or at least very handsome, you would never allow yourselves to be coerced into BDSM. Just sayin’.]

Michael Shermer, New Atheism and Hypocrisy

[I admit I am late to this topic. I am a busy person with little time to read People magazine. But I am addressing now only having recently found out about the indecent behavior of one of New Atheism’s ‘saints,’ Michael Shermer.]

If there is one thing you can count on people to be, it’s a hypocrite. It doesn’t matter if a person is Black, White, Asian, American, European, theist, agnostic or atheist. At some point, people turn their back on what they say they believe and demonstrate what they really think. Case in point: Noted author and founder of Skeptic magazine, Michael Shermer.

Although Michael Shermer is not one of the Four Horsemen of atheism, he is nonetheless highly respected among (most) New Atheists for his contributions to rational thought. But as any of us know who have ever had more alcohol to drink than we probably should have, rational thought and alcohol do not mix. Since mid-2008, Michael Shermer has been on the receiving end of numerous allegations of sexual misconduct (to put it politely) at several conventions across the U.S. While there is no hard evidence to hold Shermer legally accountable – no pun intended – there is enough testimony from several sources considered reliable to indicate that Michael Shermer has a problem with his libido. Along with the evidence, what is also missing is the outrage from the atheist community.

A timeline of Shermer’s misconduct can be found here on freethoughtblog.com. Note that in September 2008, another well-respect atheist DJ Grothe intervenes to stop Shermer from fondling a woman’s breasts. He had (apparently) recanted this sordid story many times before denying it in 2014. Why? Perhaps he is trying to protect a friend from allegations that didn’t go so far as to be out of hand, in Grothe’s estimation. But then note what the highly respected James Randi said about Shermer in late 2014: “Shermer has been a bad boy on occasion — I do know that[.] I have told him that if I get many more complaints from people I have reason to believe, that I am going to have to limit his attendance at the conference. His reply, […] is he had a bit too much to drink and he doesn’t remember. I don’t know — I’ve never been drunk in my life. It’s an unfortunate thing … I haven’t seen him doing that. But I get the word from people in the organization that he has to be under better control. If he had gotten violent, I’d have him out of there immediately. I’ve just heard that he misbehaved himself with the women, which I guess is what men do when they are drunk.”

There is something very strange about Randi’s statement and I don’t mean that it sounds untruthful; Randi recognizes that there is some kind of problem with Shermer at conferences but fails to ascent to the requisite outrage. Ah, but so does the New Atheist community who for so long has claimed the moral high ground over theistic institutions such as the Catholic Church that has for decades covered up sexual abuse by priests. I’m not drawing an analogy here, I’m making a direct comparison. Why is Shermer getting a pass, because he is ‘one of our own’ to atheists? That’s not rational and it is exactly the kind of behavior atheists have long rebuked the Catholic Church for. In other words, atheists that defend Shermer while believing in any kind of moral objectivity – as many New Atheists do – are hypocrites.

While Shermer has written about the evolutionary roots of our morality, I can’t be in Shermer’s head to know exactly his thoughts on morality. I do highly doubt he believes in moral objectivity himself. If he did, he must acknowledge that this morality becomes faulty in the presence of alcohol or is otherwise somehow able to conveniently justify his behavior. But what’s worse is that the rest of the New Atheist community ignores Shermer’s behavior as well and it’s not hard to tell why; if they do acknowledge Shermer’s conduct, then the argument from atheists about how terribly theists behave is weakened. If the New Atheist community really wants to be the paradigm of virtue and morality for the future, they need to have the strength of their alleged convictions. Shermer’s behavior is not okay. But it’s worse to ignore it altogether.

[Adam Lee wrote about The Wall of Silence Around Michael Shermer quite eloquently. Here is a link to that patheos.com article.]