Baby, It's [Getting Old] Outside

Something I've noticed cropping up consistently over the past few years...

Picture it:  Two lovers have spent some time together at the Male Lover's house, just as a blizzard picks up.  Fraught with concerns over her sense of responsibility to others, the Female Lover suggests that she must leave.  The Male Lover, thinking only of spending time with his love, doesn't relent in his attempts to convince her to spend the night with him.

OR!

Picture it:  A man and a woman are alone in a house as a blizzard begins.  The woman is reluctant to stay through the storm, but the man continually pressures her into staying with him, attempting to distract her with music and alcohol.  Though he knows she has others who will want her home, he continues to insist that she stay.  She continues to resist his advances, but he does not let up.

These are two interpretations of the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside."

Life Sucks, Quit Asking Why.

**The following is from an e-mail conversation with a friend. We were discussing why I've come to admire and respect Christianity more and more as I've delved deeper into Buddhism.  It was also published in another personal blog of mine.**

The Book of Job is, in my opinion, the whole point. Everything about existence and the metaphysical unknown boils down to the Book of Job. Are you familiar with it? If not, I'll give you the short version here.

So there's this guy, Job, and he's a man with a decent amount of wealth, a good wife, and several children. He's got healthy livestock and as a result he's doing really well for himself. Job straight up LOVES God - one of the most pious dudes you'll ever meet. One day, God is chilling, watching the earth and it's goings-on, when the Devil walks over all curious like - "Heyyyyy buddddyyyy, whatcha doin'?" And God's like, "Yo, look at how awesome I am, this guy Job fuckin' LOVES me."

Lucifer, of course, is the original Devil's Advocate, and says, "Yeah yeah, that guy only likes you so much because he's got a good life. Let me go down there and stir shit up, I'll have him cursing your name in no time." At this, God chuckles and says, "You're on - Loser buys dinner."

So Satan goes on down and straight up murders all of Job's livestock, ruining his networth and effectively making him poor. Job is distraught, but still he says his prayers and totally digs on God.

"Bitch, please. I told you that shit wouldn't work - you owe me dinner," says God.

"Did I Rape Her?" - Royse, Rape, and Realization

The question itself seems stupid, doesn't it? 

"Did I Rape Her?"

Let me start out with an apology - maybe this isn't the forum, maybe this isn't even the way I should be doing it, but I'm out of ideas:

To any girl who's been sexually assaulted or raped by me, I am sorry.  Truly, deeply sorry.  This post is, in a way, my attempt to begin righting my wrongdoings.

To my knowledge, I have not sexually assaulted or raped anyone - but a recent article about "Nice Guys" and rape, and responses to that article, have gotten me thinking.  The article is by Alyssa Royse over at the Good Men Project, you'll find a story about Royse's friend, a male, getting accused of rape and coming to Royse to sort through the event and accusation.  In subsequent responses like this or this, Royse is attacked for taking the blame off of her male friend and moving it to society.  While most agreed society has a role, they continued to argue as if Royse was setting feminism and rape culture back by decades, if not more.  "The guy is a rapist," they said (I'm paraphrasing), "and he shouldn't get away with it."

Royse IS credited with never denouncing the act in question as rape - she's very clear on that point.  And I agree that this was rape.  From the small amount of information provided in the original article, we see that the two parties in question were partying, drinking, and then found themselves sleeping with (not sexing) each other.  The victim then awoke to penetration by the perpetrator (Royse's friend).  The clear response to this scenario is something akin to a Facebook response I received when I shared these articles - "A guy should know that when a girl is asleep, it's not okay to have sex with her."  I mean, ostensibly, this is true, but the incident as portrayed in Royse's article is (understandably) light on detail. 

The argument is, "Men should know not to rape."  Maybe it even goes further - "People should know..." - but I think what the responses to Royse's article failed to take into account is that maybe this guy was a "nice guy."  I hate using personal examples - one can never provide too much detail - but they've become the norm in discussions like these.  Rape is a charged issue, as it should be, but because personal examples inherently carry incredibly private details and triggering circumstances, the situations can never really be discussed in public.  I think the response that follows this particular desire-for-details is one of "Why does it need to be discussed?" because there's this sense that some agent of patriarchy (I am not in any way using this sarcastically) will attempt to use details to nitpick and victim blame.  There's validity in that thought - there's a tendency amongst males to get incredibly defensive about situations like this, and in their defensiveness, to focus too much on getting out of trouble and not enough on fixing this huge systemic problem we have.