Protect Me From What I Want

I know that I have talked about this before, but today it is in my face.

I have a dear friend who is in yet another unhealthy relationship…and I know what you’re thinking “Um, Mikki, who are you to decide whether a relationship is healthy or not? Jerk face!”

Well, it is…it’s unhealthy. She’s abusive.

So I went to my favorite source for information on unhealthy relationships where the male is the abused and the female is the abuser, the roommate.

I asked him “Why would someone so smart, be in these recurring relationships with women who treat him so poorly?”

His response? “loneliness.”

It’s true, I’ve never actually been lonely. I don’t understand the need to search out companionship in all the wrong places.

Here’s the thing…always has been, always will be…loneliness is not remedied by settling for someone who treats you like you are worthless. In fact, the loneliness can increase when you don’t feel good about yourself in your interpersonal relationships. When one settles for being in the company of those who mentally or physically abuse him or her, it even causes issues in future relationships.

Sometimes, we want things that aren’t good for us. Like me, I really really really want a huge plate of enchiladas. However, I know that it won’t be healthy for me. Sometimes I need a prod in the right direction. Sometimes we each need someone to remind us that something…or in this case, someone is not healthy for us.

I love my friend. I value him as a person, I find him talented, intelligent and important, and so you can imagine, I want to protect him from these women who treat him badly. But I can’t. I can talk to him, make suggestions, reassure him, but when it comes down to the end of the day, I can’t convince him that it would be better to be alone than to be with someone dangerous. I can pray for him, hope for the best, and if something serious happens, I can even call the police.

I am not his keeper. He is an adult and I am not his parent. I can’t stop his poor little heart from wanting to be with these women, to find someone who is mentally stable. I can’t choose his lovers for him.

But now he is talking about marriage, and he is clear on the fact that he does not want my opinion.

So…how do we protect those we love? What options do we have but to watch and wait? How powerful can we be when all we can do is advise and be there when our loved ones finally decide that they can’t take it anymore? And what do we do then? Especially when the next one is just as bad as the previous one? How do we protect them from what they want?

Vagina and the Pornography of Anne Frank

Apparently a mother has decided that she is going to fight the school district to ban the original and unedited version of Anne Frank’s journal…which does describe in detail, Anne’s own exploration of her anatomy.

WHAT!?!

She says that her seventh grade daughter was uncomfortable with the pornographic style of Anne’s description of her explorations. She said that it is too graphic for that age group. So since I too am a parent, I thought that I’d mention that this sort of child-rearing, this ignorance is detrimental to raising a well-rounded, educated and self-aware adult.

What is this mother thinking of? Does she not talk about anatomy with the child? Is she going to pull a Carrie’s mother type of thing when the child starts her menses? I can see it now, lock the girl in the closet, scream that now the girl is a full blown sinner, and pray.

The woman could not even say the word Vagina on camera while speaking to the reporter about her anguish.

The fact is that Anne, while suffering from the crises of her young life, was still a normal child, curious and questioning about her own budding womanhood. She noted this curiosity in her own journal, I’m sure unaware that her words would some day become published. Like any child learning about absolutely anything, she was blunt and unaware that there was anything wrong with that exploration. Why? Because learning is never wrong.

It scares me that the future of the world is in the hands of children who have been raised to believe that if they are uncomfortable with something, they can edit it, change it, adapt it, or even ignore it completely. Is that really what we want to raise our children to believe?

Do we want our children to be uncomfortable with their own bodies? Do we want them to grow up to be unaware of their own sexuality and the nature of things?

Yes, that’s right, we should just teach them that storks brought the babies, that adults who marry only kiss and hold hands, and that their bodies are taboo, that their private parts are dirty and that shame is the greatest emotion that one can live with.

That sounds delightful, doesn’t it!?! Those are the people that I want deciding things in the future. Repressed, ignorant, foolish and psychologically blinded folks.

So yes, the mom will probably win against the school board, the version of the book will probably go back to being the edited version. Yes, the students will be taught…even if it’s not consciously, that their discomfort with anatomy, biology and sexuality is GOOD! They will be taught that Anne’s curiosity, like their own, is nothing to be proud of, and that ignorance is far more powerful than wisdom and awareness.

Woohoo!

Another Decree by the Future Spiritual Leader of the World

Okay, why is it such a big deal when someone comes out of the closet? I’m serious! I want this world to be one where being gay, transsexual, lesbian, bisexual, etc. doesn’t matter at all. It’s just not that big of a deal. I want it to be a world where sexuality just isn’t something to be labelled by.

Like me!

I’ve had people say “Oh Mikki, you’ve dated girls, so you’re bisexual.” Huh?

No…I’m sexual. I am attracted to whomever might spark my interest. I don’t limit myself to one gender or the other, but rather take pride in my ability to date based on the soul of the person rather than the gender. After all, it’s a big world out there, with tons of fascinating people.

I want this to be a world where that sort of news is just not news anymore, that when someone in the public eye is of a certain sexuality, it’s not news. I mean, do we announce to the public “Guess what!?! So and so is heterosexual! Woohoo!” No, we don’t…because it sounds stupid to say that.

Well it sounds stupid to say “Guess what!?! So and so is gay! Woohoo!” Unless so and so wants to date me, I could care less.

I know, I know, these are used to help others also come out of the closet and be proud of their own nature…but what if there weren’t any more closets? Wouldn’t that be fantastic?! I mean, can you imagine such a magnificent world that the sexuality of a person, well it just didn’t matter to anyone who wasn’t having sex with them? I know, it totally would.

So this is my next decree…no more closets. Not literally of course, I have clothes that wrinkle easily, but the proverbial closet…the closet that we shove folks into who are not what we consider to be of the norm. Yay! Woohoo! No more closets! Whoopee! I’m so happy that I could make up a cheer!

“No more closets! No more fear!
All sexuality is very dear!
We don’t care if you’re straight or you’re not!
We have better things to worry about,
than who you think is hot!”

I know, I know, it’s not going to happen anytime soon, but since I’ve now announced this new decree, I figure that I’ll start seeing this change…very soon.

Let’s start idolizing folks for their accomplishments, their brains and their talents, their glorious lives, and stop worrying about who the heck they might be boinking.

I Spell M.A.N.

What is a man?

The concept has varied over years, centuries and so forth. Once upon a time, you just needed to be an adult with a penis in order to be considered a man. Then of course there was a time when being a man meant masculinity, hard labor and hair on the chest. Then we have the dapper dandies who feminized their appearance but were still these Casanova sorts, then the feminist revolution came around and men were seen as dumb brutes, always led by their nether regions. I think, if I remember right, that a group even got started where the men would wear skirts, one of those “if a woman can do it, then why can’t we?”

I happen to adore men. All shapes, sizes, races, ethnicities, sexuality, etc. I love men. They are so fascinating and so…different.

I know, I know, it’s women who have the legendary mystery, the mystique that just can’t be figured out, but men…they’re the ones who I find awesomely mysterious and interesting.

So, since I am sick and tired of seeing men nearly always portrayed as brutes, pansies, dolts, or something inherently negative in nature, I have decided to write a post (because I can) about the things which I love about the opposite sex.

1. I love that my male friends, family, lovers, clients and acquaintances are inevitably more in love with love than my female ones. I love that they are nearly always looking for that passionate love, that love which might just transcend anything unpleasant, that will make life more complete, that will fulfill all of their desires, needs and make them better men.

2. I absolutely adore that many men have adapted to the constantly changing universe of the sexes and that no longer do they want to be John Wayne or Alan Alda, but a perfect and ideal combination of sensitivity and toughness, without giving up their innate need to mark everything as their territory.

3. I love that most men no longer sag their pants down because honestly, I really don’t like seeing anyone’s underwear.

4. I love that deep down inside, most men still want to be perceived as gods, as kings, as the rulers of their roosts. I love that they try not to voice that.

5. I get a kick out of men being fashion conscious. It’s nice to see that men struggle with their self esteem as deeply as women do.

6. I love that men are so sensitive about being called boys.

7. I love that no man wants to believe that he is acting like a boy.

8. I love that most men try to transform themselves from being boys.

9. I love that many men can go from fixing the car, to building a bookshelf, to changing a baby’s diaper, to brushing his lover’s hair, to crying at a Hallmark commercial, to ogling at a strip club, to getting into a brawl with his friends, to getting his nails buffed, to shouting at his favorite team, to buying tickets to a ballet for his lover. They are so schizophrenic that it’s beautiful.

10. I love that they try. I love that they try so hard to be, in their lives, the type of man that they themselves admire and respect. I love that they, or at least most of them, want to be the kind of man that has earned the right to be ruler of the roost, rather than bully their way into it. I love that they are constantly evolving or at least trying to, into something magnificent, someone glorious, someone that not only that woman who he loves, will want to be with, but also a man that he himself will not be sickened by…after all, he has to live with that person for his entire life. I love that most of them try to be honorable, courageous, honest and intelligent, that they work on their lives with diligence and try to control their testosterone rather than letting it control them. I love when they laugh. I love their smirks, I love their temptations and I love what they act like when they resist those temptations. I love their traditions, their rites of passage, their devotion and their creation. I love how fascinated they are by women, I love how they try to figure us out.

The way that they try. I think that’s my favorite thing about them. They try…they try and try and try, on the average they are not trying for us, they are not adapting and changing because they want to win the heart of their fantasy woman (or man of course) but because men, more so than women, in my opinion, look in the mirror and see what they want to…in the end…be seen as. They try because they feel indebted to the men who have gone before, the men who have been their heroes, their idols, the men who they always thought that they’d be just like when they grew up. They try because they know, deep down inside, that they are capable of being great…that it just means working at it…and so they work.

Yes, I do have a fascination for men, which of course goes beyond the fascination at misogyny and chauvinism, because that usually just bores me. I am fascinated by their glorious growth, by their minds, their souls…and yes, I am fascinated by the fact that they can pee standing up.

Fifty or More First Dates

As I have said before, I love to date. I love dating because it’s interesting, fun and gives me an opportunity to get to know people who I might not otherwise get to know. However, with this love of dating, we come into the well-loved issue of what to do on first dates. Mine is easy, buy me coffee. That’s right, my love of coffee and conversation means that I will be able to sit across from my date at a cafe, get to chit chat, get to know him (or in some cases, her) and not be burdened by the noise of a film, the chaos of a restaurant, or the action of some of those more modern first dates, like rock climbing.

It also means that either myself or my date, has not spent an arm and a leg just for us to figure out that there is no chemistry.

When I went on my very first date…many years ago, I came home with a cup from Taco Bell. My father looked at me and said “He took you to Taco Bell?” I told my dad that the young man had asked me where I wanted to go, as I imagine most sixteen year olds don’t actually plan much out anyway, and I told him Taco Bell. My father then tore me a proverbial new one and said that if you set up the dynamics of not expecting anything more than fast food, then that would be the relationship from then on, and I should make the man “work for it.”

But then again, way back in the prehistoric times, we certainly didn’t have the economy that we do now. Back then, my date could have taken me to a nice restaurant and it wouldn’t have torn into his wallet like a tornado. Now, not so much.

My father was right, we do set the dynamics of any relationship, within the first few moments, the first few dates, the first few days. We tell those who we date, how we expect to be treated, how we expect the relationship to move forward and what we need or want from the other person. However, when we make the expectation that the first date, a date meant to be there to decide if anything might be pursued at all, would need to be extravagant and costly, we might also be disappointed later on, when that person no longer does such outlandish shows of affection and attraction.

Me, I’m pretty simple. My daughter says that I am absolutely NOT simple when it comes to dating, her feeling is that I expect an intelligent and witty dialogue, when there are those who cannot offer that on a first date. It’s true, I do love conversation, debate and I am a fan of impressive dialogue, but in all honesty, I really just want to get to know the person. I want them to also be interested in what I have to say.

Dating is so simple, and yet there are articles after articles of dating faux pas and dating discomforts and letters to the editor saying how awful the dating scene is, and so forth. I have not found that to be true, but it could be that I date, with absolutely no expectations. I go into a first date with the excitement of getting to know someone new, someone who had the spine to ask me out in the first place, so he or she already has a high score and can only go up or down in rating. I don’t expect the love of my life, I don’t expect to get laid, I don’t expect to have my heart broken, my tummy filled with butterflies, or to get married in a year. I don’t expect that each of my dating partners will fulfill me every dream or fantasy and I don’t expect them to even pay for my coffee.

Don’t get me wrong, I like when they have the coffee ordered before I even arrive, having already known what kind of coffee I drink, because he or she was interested and asked me, but it’s not really important if it isn’t done, because I have no expectations.

I think that it was either Buddha or some spiritual leader somewhere who said that if you have no expectations, then you will never be disappointed. Well this is true for dating as well as other aspects of life.

If you go into dating with simply an expectation of sharing a moment of your life with a stranger, turning that stranger into something more, even if it’s only that your date partner becomes someone you went on a date with, once upon a time, it’s still far more relaxed than changing clothes forty times and adding so much lipstick that your lips swell.

Oh and on a side note, I realize that it happens frequently, but even in this modern day and age, sex on the first date is a super duper bad idea. It is dangerous, dirty (not in a good way) and it only rarely turns into a healthy relationship from that point. Seriously, unless you’re getting paid for it, get to know the person a bit more before you share body fluids with them.

Folk Ailments and the Medical Field

So let’s for a moment look at folk ailments for those of you who aren’t familiar with them.

Folk ailments, such as Susto (in medical terms, it would be Shock, PTSD or even regular old anxiety), Amok (flipping out one day and going on a killing spree and being back to normal again afterward), Ghost Sickness (heavy duty grief and mourning), or Taijin kyofusho (social anxiety) are of course, actual ailments…symptomatic illnesses which are attributed to mystical causes.

Let me give you an example…because I have a personal one to give.

I had gone to the emergency room a number of years ago for a kidney stone. I was sitting there…if one can call it sitting…I was actually fidgeting, trying to get comfortable, when a family of about fifteen very dolled up Hispanic teens and adults came in. They had come from a fifteenth birthday party, where the young woman who was needing to see the doctor, had witnessed her boyfriend making out with the birthday girl. The young woman now sat in the emergency room, nearly catatonic, her face pale, her eyes glazed over, her respiration was nearly non existent and her parents were frantically trying to get the triage nurse to understand what they considered to be wrong with their lovely daughter. The nurse, fluent in Spanish, understood what they were saying, but not understanding what Susto was, and no one in the family could explain it to her. So I turned to the nurse and behaved like a nosy body, explaining that the girl would probably need to be treated for shock, but that Susto causes the soul to leave the body and that was what the family was especially concerned with, getting that pesky runaway soul back into their daughter’s flesh. The nurse was sweet, thanked me and told the family that the doctor wouldn’t be able to treat the Susto but that he would treat the shock. The parents were sobbing, voices were raised and the nurse went back to find out what she could do. So still being the nosy body, I told the parents that I’d love to try to put the soul back into her body if they’d let me but that she’d still need to be seen for the shock, since shock can cause all sorts of awful symptoms. So the parents let me do a pretty simple ritual, right there in the waiting room, and by the time I was taken back to see the doc, the young girl was back to her lovely color, crying like a baby about what an ass her boyfriend is, and breathing normally.

Now…was she suffering from shock, Susto, or just totally pissed off about the infidelity? Who knows, there’s really no way to prove that her soul left her body. There’s no way to tell if she just needed a placebo treatment because our culture as a whole has taught about folk ailments, mystical healing, curses and hexes and the evil eye…for…well forever. There isn’t a way to scientifically guarantee that it wasn’t something mystical. It didn’t hurt anything to perform the short ritual of cleansing, of shoving her spirit back into her skin. She still saw a doctor, who probably diagnosed it as a panic or anxiety attack, or perhaps shock. She was probably prescribed an anxiety medication which probably was taken for a few weeks before she started feeling back to her old self…ready to take on a new relationship.

Folk ailments are very real, to those who believe that they are. However, by attributing real symptoms to a mystical disorder, could lead to an error in treatment. Although I am a big supporter of holistic or naturopathic treatments for disorders, I also know that these practitioners are still trained in medicine. They are authorized to make diagnoses. When a curandero or faith healer, shaman or priest are the ones making the diagnoses, they are rarely trained in diagnostic medicine.

Those of us who practice mystical healing are still obligated by morality, if nothing more, to insist that a medical specialist be the one to diagnose and even to work on treatment from their end, while we do the treatment of the mystical variety.

Working together, we eliminate the possibility that we might not be doing everything possible for the client/patient, in order to heal them.

Educating the public is another responsibility of mystical healers. Telling the client that although we might believe that folk ailments are real, the fact is that what if it’s not, what if what the client or patient needs has nothing to do with their soul, or a curse, or anything of that nature. We have an obligation to our fellow man to let them know that no, having sex with a virgin will not cure you of H.I.V., that it is more likely that you are suffering from P.T.S.D. than Susto, that grief and guilt after someone dies is a completely normal part of the grieving process and it’s not likely that the spirit of that person is trying to take your client to the afterlife.

It is important to educate people that they can impeded their health if they automatically assume that their ailment is of a mystical nature, that no doctor is needed as long as they have a spiritual healer step in and take care of things.

Recently in the news, parents are being charged with a crime due to losing not one, but two children to physical ailments that they decided to let prayer heal. This is ignorance above common sense, it is ignorance to believe that whatever god that they might worship, seriously wants to be bothered with something that would have been so easily treated by doctors.

Holism means treating the entity as a whole, so treating the body as well as the spirit, the mind as well as the body and so forth. Although I am in support of treating the spiritual aspect of ailments, I am also in support of referring clients to those who are trained and educated in the fields which I am not.

A well known psychic once told a client that she or he should have an MRI done because a surgical tool had been left inside them. Well, if she had been a doctor or even an x-ray technician, she would know that MRIs are magnetic, powerful magnets that can indeed pull metal from the body…she should not have recommended a medical procedure, because she is not a medical practitioner. When I know that a client needs medical attention, I tell them to see a doctor, I even tell them where I believe their ailment may reside, but I certainly don’t go beyond that, I am not a diagnostician.

Folk ailments can feel real, hell, they can even be real, but what is also real is the symptoms, which do need to be treated by medical professionals.

Bad Hair, Face, Thigh Day

I’m having one of those days.

You know the days, those mornings when you wake up and it seems as if you just don’t feel up to…well anything.

So today is one of those days.

I feel like chopping off my hair, leaving my legs unshaven, not putting on any makeup and hiding in my room. I feel like I’m fatter today, uglier today and far more loser-ish than I know myself to be.

I hate days like that.

So, since I am a) superstitious and b) know enough about human psychology to be able to recognize that continuing to feel like this, will only make it worse, I have done my nails in a black and white mod look, I am going to do up my makeup to match, of course after taking a nice long hot bubble bath, and I am going to go for a walk on this beautiful sunny afternoon.

What is it about low self-esteem? Why does it seem to pop up in the middle of nowhere? It’s an annoying companion in life, and seems to show up at the most inopportune moments, just to say “Hi! Remember me?! I’m the one who made you despise your teen years, the one who told you how much less than everyone else that you really were, that you were fooling yourself into believing that you were important, beautiful, intelligent, talented and worthy. I just thought I’d stop by and see how you’ve been…oh I see that you still suck!”

Well, I hate that rotten entity. Really, I do. In fact, when I counsel my clients, more often than not, it includes a ton of uplifting reminders that the client, no matter who he or she is…is important, beautiful, intelligent, talented and worthy. I want to kick the proverbial ass of every single person’s low self-esteem, insecurities and self doubt…I’m serious…every single person…in the world.

I remind that entity that it wasted far too much of my youth, of my early adulthood, and that even though it shows up less frequently now, I still despise it.

Sooooo….that being said, I am going to pop my confidence in the back of the head, wake it up, tell it to stop slacking and to get back into the game.

Because I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I like myself better than I can express, that I am worth it…whatever it might be today, even if that it turns out to just be me loving my big, beautiful thighs that I’m sure are quite capable of holding me up on these bad days.

To Protect and Serve

I am one of those people who was raised in a household where police officers, fire fighters, as well as military personnel were considered to be real life superheroes. This could have been because both of my parents had served in the military, or that my mother had worked at Los Angeles Police Department, or it could just have been because…well…those employed in those specific fields are supposed to be superheroes.

Okay, I’ll admit it, I’ve grown up since then. I, like most folks, recognize that these men and women are just human. They are full of flaws just like the rest of us, only they are in a day in and day out, face to face with some pretty big horrors, unlike many of us who just have to see it intermittently.

The roommate and I were watching Pride and Glory, a sort of modified good cop/bad cop movie, which was actually pretty decent. I cried throughout most of the movie though, so today I have a bit of puff under my eyes.

It’s hard for me to know that sometimes these folks do super duper bad things. It’s that little girl in me that still believes.

When the pictures of those military personnel showed up in the media everywhere, you know the ones, the soldiers, both men and women, torturing their prisoners, humiliating them, laughing and smiling and showing about as much evil in their faces as one can possibly show in a photograph, I think that I lost a bit of that childhood belief.

When my daughter’s father was pulled over and told, in front of my five year old daughter that he (the police officer) could blow the head right off of my ex and put my daughter into a foster home, and no one would question it…yeah, I lost some of that belief then as well.

But then…my neighbor (he and his brother are both mildly mentally disabled) was hit by a car and taken to the nearby hospital. A police officer came to my neighbor’s door and explained what had happened, was kind and gentle and reassuring and offered to take my neighbor to the hospital, a job that I know isn’t really his responsibility.

I know, it’s a little thing, right? It’s just one little moment, but hearing it from my kitchen window (yes, I was totally nosing in), was so…uplifting. And to the neighbor, it was very heroic.

It reminded me that because they are human, they are capable of being heroes. It isn’t a specific job, a specific religion, a specific age, gender, ethnicity or race, lifestyle, or anything else that can lead to heroism.

Heroism is accessible to everyone, available for the taking, plenty to go around. Whether it is a simple thing that is heroic to only one person in this big wide world, or whether it is heroism on a grand scale, witnessed by many, we are each capable of doing something…something that leaves a piece of us, a beautifully shared piece of us, with another.

So although I don’t still think that all police officers, fire fighters and military personnel are heroes, I certainly still think that they are all capable of it…it’s simply a matter of choice.

So now, my superheroes are a little more diverse; single parents who, in this crap economy, still manage to be excellent parents and teach their children to grow up to be great adults, those who give their children up for the child’s benefit, the man in Watts who was smoking pot in front of his little shop but still took the time to send his teenage son with me to take pictures of the Watts Tower, because he didn’t want me walking “in that neighborhood alone,” the absolutely gorgeous young man who was kicked out of his home when he came out of the proverbial closet, living under the bridge and yet walks around the park when the sun goes down, to make sure that everyone there is warm enough, those men and women who have been victims of abuse and have survived, but also not perpetrated the cycle, and how about those children, all over the world, whether abused by their families, or kidnapped, or assaulted, or forced into militias, who survive, live to tell the tale, and make sure that they heal from their ordeals. My superheroes are the grandparents who babysit, the bloggers who fight the iniquities of the world with their words, the doctors and nurses who volunteer at free clinics and around the world, even the celebrities who use their fame to change the way we see the plight of mankind. Heroes are the ones who stand up to bullies, who right the wrongs, who remind us that each of us has the opportunity to stand amongst them, to join them, to put our capes on, whether crushed velvet, satin, polyester or sackcloth, and be heroes ourselves.

However, I do still swoon over a man in uniform…just a little left over childhood I guess.

Brother Dean and the Rape of Reason

Well well well, it appears that a University of Arizona student is big on picket signs and not so big on our fairer sex! The self proclaimed Brother Dean says that his fellow students (or any woman at all I imagine) who are of the female persuasion, that might happen to wear shorts, short skirts or any other clothing which he might consider to be too revealing…well those gals deserve to be raped.

Now, honestly, he’s not the first person to think this, nor is he the first person to say this…or something like it…and I doubt that he will be the last.

Survivors of rape have, throughout history, had to defend themselves against society as well as their assailants. It is something that most survivors of rape just know is going to come…someone…even if it is one person, is going to say that the victim was somehow asking for it.

So this story, well it’s just not as surprising as it should be. With the two rape cases currently in the media, an ignorant college student really isn’t just that hot of a topic for my little brain to mull over that much.

However, it did get me to thinking…although I am not suggesting this at all, in fact as spiritual leader of the world, I do decree rape as inexcusable and unforgivable sin, a free ticket to some new horrific realm of hell that I will think of at a later date, but what if men were the more frequent rape victims? I know, there are already male victims and my prayers go out for them as often as for the female ones, but what if that was the most common victim? Some man, who through no fault of his own, fell victim to a crime which is known to be driven by violence rather than lust, and he was then told that had he not been so good looking, had he not been walking alone that day, had he not been drinking that night, had he not been wearing his snazzy nicely tailored suit at that specific moment, perhaps he may not have been violated.

What if that was the case? What if men, in all of their glory, were to be told that they must start looking as if they are slouches, as if they had nothing beautiful about them, that they needed to stop taking care of themselves, stop dressing so nicely, stop wearing shorts that showed off their legs or shirts that fit snug? What if they were told that it is their fault that this was occurring in society, that if they would just stop exhibiting themselves in such a way as to incite lustful thoughts in women, then rape would just go away?

Pfoooooof….

Just like that, in a blink of an eye, hide all of your men away…and then with no victims, there can be no perpetrator. Right?

So of course, I think, that there would be stricter laws regarding sexual assault. I think…and remember, I totally failed my political science class, that if men were the primary victim of sexual assault, our patriarchal world would have a fit. I think that we, as a world, as a society, we would make it more of a big bad, to commit the big bad. We would set up stronger preventative measures, such as self-defense in grade school, accessible counseling and in depth education at each grade level, to educate and counsel children in social behavior, to recognize potential threats, behavioral issues, and so forth. I think that we would make the justice fit the crime, it takes, in some cases, entire lifetimes to recover from the violation and victimization, why should the perpetrator be out in time for the two year anniversary of the assault?

This is of course, my imagination going wild….zip…see, there it goes….right out the window.

My preference, of course…would be that parents would teach their children about healthy social interactions and healthy interpersonal relationships…from birth. My preference is that anger management counseling would begin as soon as folks recognize that their little ones have a bit of a temper. My less than humble preference would be that society would be sensible and reasonable, and realize that a survivor of rape, is never, never, never, asking for it, deserving of it and should never be blamed for it.

No matter what Brother Dean might say.

The Devil Made Her Do It

A woman here in Oregon was couch surfing at another woman’s home. Basically she was staying there for free. Well, this week, the house guest was found with all sorts of strange things, doing some sort of murder/autopsy on her landlady’s cat.

Well, the house guest was arrested, and one of the Oregon reporters went to speak to her in jail.

Ashley, the twenty-one year old house guest said that “My body was there, I was sitting there like this and there was something else doing it. Like it just used me.”

She also said that she loves animals.

Then of course we have those folks down in Chile who burned a three day old baby on a bonfire because they thought that the newborn was the Antichrist.

You know that I believe in absolutely everything. So possession is not outside my realm of belief and understanding. I get it, I believe that it happens, probably more frequently than we might even think.

However…let’s just for a moment consider that it might not be possession. After all, courts can’t do anything about a spiritual possession, thank goodness. Can you imagine how ridiculous our justice system would be if it took into consideration any pseudo science at all?

In fact, I was recently a family minister in a court case where the ex-husband brought a bag full of all sorts of goodies that I had made for his ex-wife over the years, amulets of protection, house blessings, protections for the kids and even a banishing of the ex-husband’s mistress. He poured the contents out onto the table and told the judge that I had caused him to contract a virus, a kidney infection, as well as problems with his prostate through said contents. In each of these medical situations, he had sought medical help and had to be on antibiotics for weeks with each incident. Because of said situations, I should not be allowed to testify.

I know that right now you are imagining the judge’s face, right? Yeah, I know.

Anyway, the judge proceeded to scold the ex-husband, explaining to him that (his word) witchcraft doesn’t cause illnesses, that whether I created those items or not has no bearing in the case and that because I was still the spiritual adviser of his family, I was still a viable witness to what had occurred within his marriage to my client.

Truth is, my workings for the client were never about the ex-husband. Well the banishing was, but none of the workings were to cause him to be sick, cause him to die or cause him to need antibiotics. Because he had known that he was not being a good husband and father, he may have inadvertently caused himself to have illnesses, we know that our emotional state can affect our physical state.

I remember an episode of either Buffy the Vampire Slayer or its spin-off Angel, in which a little boy is possessed and then when they finally get the demon out of the little boy, the demon says that the little boy was so horrific, so sadistic, that the demon itself was terrified, trying to escape from this little monster’s body, mind and questionable soul.

We want to believe that the human soul cannot be capable of such horrors. We want to believe that it is something more sinister, more supernatural, which causes people to behave in a way that is beyond animal nature. We want to believe that those same horrors can be explained, banished and sent away to some inexplicable Hell from whence they came.

Yeah, I do too. I want to believe that this young woman certainly couldn’t have done something like this, with her own two hands, and indeed she must have been possessed.

It’s unlikely.

What is likely is that the same monstrous behavior which took a newborn and tossed it onto a fire, was present when that cat suffered.

The human soul. We are not exempt from such behavior. We can explain it away with psychoanalysis, religion, and even sociological studies, but when it comes right down to it, there is nothing supernatural which causes this behavior. There are no demons which possess our bodies and make us commit cruelties and atrocities. In fact, I’m sure that if we asked a demon, he or she would be appalled by this behavior, after all, we are human.

Then again, maybe the more time goes by and more horrors are committed by human beings, the more demons laugh at us, at our supposed quest for good, our supposed search for redemption and the love of whatever god we might worship. Maybe they are amused and shocked and awed and completely horrified by our choices, by our actions, by our very thoughts.

Maybe they sit there watching us, peeking out at us from behind hands held up in front of their eyes, not wanting to see the entire picture, just watching enough to be scared, to get a little adrenaline rush. Maybe they watch us the way that we watch horror films.

Maybe they laugh when they are blamed for our behavior, maybe they…in unison, cheer “The devil made me do it!” every time someone uses that as an excuse. Maybe they wait, hiding, for the moment that one of them is actually tried in a court of law. Or maybe they are pissed. Pissed that we even for a moment, think that it could be their fault. Pissed that this young woman killed a living creature, pissed that the Chilean mother offered up her newborn baby to the flames of a bonfire, pissed that there are things like this going on all the time, all around us, yet the religious right is still going on about such far from evil things as gay marriage.

Maybe they’re confused as to why the truly evil continues all around us and yet the justice system says that animal abusers will get nearly no jail time at all, rapists will be set free before their victims are even finished with their first rounds of counseling, and child abusers are put on house arrest. Maybe we’ve got their panties in a bunch over how we seem to simply let the true horrors slide, while the imagined affronts seem to spill over and absorb everyone’s lives.

Interesting idea, isn’t it? That the epitome of evil, demons…might just be scared to death by the human soul.