Dealing with Details

 

Editorial cartoons are aflutter with responses to the President's physical, not many to the credit of the profession.

The rightwingers are delighted with the news not because it means their President is fit but because it dismays the leftwingers, while the leftwingers are attacking the cognitive test he took.

And in the middle are a handful of less petulant, more interesting, takes, like this one by Clay Jones who has joined the girther movement to express doubt over Trump's weight.

Yesterday, I compared the President's physique with that of a professional athlete who is the same height and weight, but his supporters have noted that fat weighs less than muscle, which means that a fat load like Trump might be considerably larger than a buff dude like Alex Roderiguez.

Fair enough, though it doesn't explain why a 6'3" president appears to be the same height as a 6'1" president.

My doctors' waiting rooms have signs saying that they must actually weigh and measure you and will not rely on self-reported stats.

Just sayin'

And there's this: While I'm three years younger, I share roughly the same health issues as the President. My doctor is not in a panic over anything, but, while the White House doctor has reportedly declared Trump fit to be President through a second term, mine certainly doesn't project where I'll be that far into the future.

Maybe the White House doctor is a member of the AARP. According to the AARP, any 90-year-old with a grain of character climbs mountains and runs marathons.

(Interesting that the stories in the AARP magazine are all about those 90-year-old mountain climbers while all the ads are for people who can no longer bend over to tie their shoe laces. But I digress.)

Anyway, that any competent physician would project what a 71 year old man who is overweight and has cholesterol and blood pressure issues that impinge upon his cardiac health will be like at 77 boggles the mind.

But then, this has been a mind-boggling administration.

 

Meanwhile, in the social wars
Darrin Bell braves the prevailing winds.

For those who missed it, comedian Aziz Ansari was accused of sexual assault or at least something approaching assault in a posting at babe.net, and you really have to read that in order to comment intelligently on the topic, but it has sparked some interesting pushback from some unexpected directions, including a lot of people who support #METOO.

The basics are that this woman had a first date with Ansari that included a quick dinner and then several types of sexual contact at his apartment, after which she complained that it had gone too far. He then apologized for misreading the signals. 

I'm not being dismissive -- that's what she reported.

And then she went public, or, semi-public, because she identified him but not herself.

So this wasn't #METOO but, rather, #SOMEBODYTOO, a point I make because, while I support not identifying victims of sex crimes without their consent, the #METOO movement is based on women having the courage to stand up and normalize the bad things they have endured. In fact, some women have given their own names, but then said only "my boss" or "a friend."

Her complaint is disheartening because the anti-feminist response to #METOO was to speculate that women would start making the kinds of accusations in this screed, which is basically a description of a first date gone bad. 

Again, you need to read it to get this point.

I've stood back a bit on this topic because I'm of a different generation. I hear that oral sex is apparently something you do when you don't want to have intercourse, but that wasn't my generation's experience.

However, I'm willing to accept that getting naked and performing oral sex on each other is not an indication that intercourse is necessarily welcome.

Still, I don't think the message of saying "Stop" and putting your clothes back on has changed, nor have the meanings of "Take me home" or "I'm leaving" been altered.

Confession: I went through a short period -- maybe six weeks -- of pushing too hard and being a jerk and I've thought about that throughout the #METOO.

I am ashamed to admit, I wasn't hearing anything much less explicit that "Stop" and "No."

It wasn't the only regrettable thing happening in those six dreary weeks, but that doesn't excuse it. I was being a jerk.

I wised up mostly by moving to Boulder where I was happier to begin with, but also where women were more explicit in setting limits and expressing intentions.

In fact, the first woman I dated out there was a radical feminist who insisted on splitting the tab on everything.

And who stayed the night on our first date because she wanted to, not because I wheedled. The relationship faded -- I was Willie Yeats to her Maude Gonne -- but the point is that she took responsibility for herself. Her clarity was refreshing and healing.

She railed against the patriarchy, but she never used it as an alibi.

Times, and sexual mores, may have changed, but "no" still means "no," and it still requires that you actually say "no" and not some nonverbal nonconfrontational clairvoyant nonstatement.

 

Elayne Boosler shares my take, but we're roughly the same age, so maybe that doesn't count.

And Friend-of-the-Blog Sean Stephane Martin, whose Doc and Raider deals intelligently with sex and relationships on a regular basis, posted a strongly worded takedown on Facebook which is worth your time.

Counterpoint: There was also an opinion piece supporting the Babe account at the New York Times, but the comments are more interesting than the piece itself.

I'm not making excuses for sexual assault. As I have said before, some men are astonishingly clueless.

But the genes for cluelessness are not found exclusively on the Y chromosome.

Male or female, you need to know when it's time to just pull up your pants and leave.

 

 

Comments

[Brian Fies]

"Male or female, you need to know when it's time to just pull up your pants and leave."

Well, that's what they tell me on the city bus, anyway.

It's brave for an older white man to express an opinion on this topic. Vaya con Dios.

[Mimi]

Middle-aged white female feminist here. I agree with you. Entitlement is found in all sorts of ecosystems. Entitlement to mind-reading is not usually indulged except amongst the very powerful, which category does not include us nor the people involved in this episode.

In other words, this account comes up against the rather self-evident benefits of "you'll never know unless you ask". By even the account of "Grace", he asked often. She may have felt cowed, which is unfortunate. She did not say "no". She sometimes acted "yes" by fairly reasonable perspectives (eg. it's not the intention, it's the impact - this time on him - she may well have understood that her non-verbal message was not being received). She wasn't raped. She was uncomfortable. She won't forget her night of a disagreeable sexual encounter, where she felt rushed and unattracted to her partner. This much is a shame.

However, the "journalist" appears to have read a lot into the way the designated victim recounts the episode and added her own piquant commentary and spin on it.

Few are as righteous as a twenty-something-year-young adult, except those who haven't matured beyond their own adolescence.

https://t.co/qTca5xA9m0

[Hank G.]

I go back and forth on the Babe story. Ansari certainly was insensitive and has picked up some really bad sexual techniques from somewhere (sticking your fingers in someone’s mouth? Who finds that erotic?).

One aspect that seems to be ignored (maybe because everyone thinks it’s irrelevant) is that she was an unknown woman trying to attract a celebrity. She even said that he initially blew her off, but she persisted and eventually he got her number and asked her out.

I’ve never been a celebrity, but I would guess that male celebrities who are reasonably presentable get that a lot. Some of them are looking to make a connection with someone famous, sometimes sexually. It appears that Ansari considered her in that category and tried to give her what he thought she wanted. She was disappointed, because she wanted to be wooed.

I have to wonder if she would have put up with that behavior had it been a guy she met at work or at bar. I suspect she would have have exited the date earlier and perhaps with more assertiveness. Maybe not. But I wonder.