Boys Will Be Boys

One of the most disturbing aspects of the Brett Kavanaugh accusations is that though the #metoo movement has brought sexual assault into the spotlight, and made it a lot tougher for men to get away with it, it's also brought out the Neanderthal thinking of yesteryear. I mentioned in a previous post that the aged white men on the Senate Judiciary Committee don't believe Dr. Ford or any other woman who has accused Kavanaugh (though I think they're lying). Lindsey Graham added, in a bit of fetid verbosity, that he believed Kavanaugh know matter what Ford would testify, which would get you kicked off a jury any where in the country.

But there are those who support Kavanaugh that believe Ford. We were subjected to a panel of "typical" Republican women supporting Kavanaugh, and we heard some shocking things, things that we might have thought would have gone the way of the dodo. But no, women in 2018 were saying, "What boy didn't do that?"

Excuse me? What boy didn't try to rape a fifteen-year-old girl? Are they serious? The "boys will be boys" argument has never withstood scrutiny. I was a teen-aged boy, I know. I managed to make it through my entire school years, including college, without attempting rape, or waving my penis in the face of a woman without her consent. I will admit at a party I was very drunk and put my hand on a girl's ass, but she didn't seem to notice and I quickly took it away after another guy, perhaps her boyfriend, knocked it away and gave me a look that killed. That is the extent of my life as a sexual predator.

My sister-in-law, who is a sweetheart, is also deluded into believing anything that Fox News says and that Trump is a good man, posted the above meme on Facebook. Even though she's as right wing as Mussolini, this still shocked me. She is a mother of two girls--would she want them to go through what Ford went through, or any other woman for that matter? She also has a son. He doesn't need to be told not to talk to girls. He only needs to be taught to treat people in a respectful manner, which Brett Kavanaugh didn't seem to know how to do.

But poor Brett, he's just a victim of white privilege. We see it over and over again--white men who get off easily after rape or other sexual assaults. A man in Alaska recently got out of jail time after choking a woman and masturbating on her. What memes like the above do is reinforce old thinking, that all girls who inform on their attackers are either liars or had it coming, and that boys are just sewing their wild oats. If a girl was drunk, she was asking for it, if the guy was drunk it's an excuse. Don't these people have the slightest bit of empathy? Graham also said he wasn't go to ruin Kavanaugh's life. Does he not give a though to how Ford's life has been ruined?

It's been a perfect storm for sex abuse in the news. Bill Cosby, thankfully, was sentenced to jail time for his monstrous acts. I don't care how old and sick he is, he doesn't get a free pass. And a whole barrel of monkeys was released regarding priests and child molestation in the Catholic church. This led to Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, declaring that if there's no penetration there's no rape, which is almost as bad as Franklin Graham's comment about how Kavanaugh showed respect for Ford because he "didn't finish." Maybe he and Donohue can engage in race toward Hell.

I hope, before I die, that it becomes commonplace that everyone agrees that touching someone without their consent is wrong, no matter the age of the participants, their sobriety, and what they are wearing. Is that too much to hope for? Maybe.