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——————- ONTO TONIGHT’S POST! ——————–
I’ve got to be honest here, I really have been avoiding talking about the topic of tonight’s post.
The current social climate around everything that has come to light with Harvey Weinstein and the myriad of other alleged sexual abusers is not something I was too enthusiastic about covering.
But given Matt Lauer’s recent allegations, I can no longer avoid addressing the inevitable.
And my approach avoidance was not for a lack of caring or outrage, but rather, because I felt that I didn’t really have anything of value to add to the conversation. Nothing that hadn’t already been said, anyway.
But eating breakfast this morning, the words finally came to me.
And it came in the form of a quote by none other than the great John Paul II.
Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, Roy Moore, Matt Lauer and all the other men facing sexual assault accusations… aside from the despicable lack of respect, abuse of authority and predatory behavior, what it boils down to is this fundamental truth:
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s use.” – JP2
The very act of sexual abuse is so painful because it bastardizes the core human need for love, and the very act of love itself. It takes the beautiful expression of love and twists it into a predatory manifestation of use.
It is the epitome of John Paul II’s quote.
It is the use and exploitation of another person for their own personal benefit. The women were (allegedly) a means to an end for these men. And it is a complete violation and disregard of the dignity and honor that is present in each person as a creation and child of God, in His image and likeness.
It’s the same with pornography.
Whenever we’re using another person for our own selfish desires, we’re distorting authentic love and deeply hurting others in the process.
Because we are all made for love. God is love, and as children made in His image and likeness, we too, have a deep desire for it.
It is in our distortion of that love where the trouble arises.
I think it is heartbreaking that this abuse has been happening for so long, and that it has taken a “strength in numbers” situation for women to feel safe coming forward with their experiences.
What has our society come to where it has come to that? Where we fear for our jobs and reputation if we speak up about abuse or assault?
But what’s more, is how has this behavior become something we could even conceive of? How has a woman’s sexuality become something that can be taken without consent?
And hear me when I say that this is no way, shape, or form an excuse or minimization of what these men allegedly did, but I do think that it’s time that we as a society need to take a cold, hard, look at how we may be inadvertently responsible for the mindset that would allow such horrific violations.
And I think the results are quite sobering.
What kinds of things are we absorbing in our media, or on our computers? The pornography business is a $97 billion dollar industry, with porn-sites getting more traffic than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined. It has been normalized – nay, glorified! – in our culture, perverting the minds of those exposed to it.
Think about all the pro-rape lyrics in the rap songs we listen to on the radio and in the clubs? What are our advertisements communicating? What kind of behavior has the dating-app culture been normalizing, glorifying, and encouraging?
We have created a society where sex has become a transaction – minimizing and dehumanizing the people involved to mere objects. And frankly, I’m deeply saddened, but not surprised at all by the fallout.
None of these are excuses for a person’s decision to sexually abuse another human being, but with the outpouring of allegations and heartbreaking stories, it begs the question, “What is going on here?”
Something’s gotta give.
My heart and prayers are with all the victims during this time. And especially those who are holding onto their own story, out of shame, or feeling afraid to come forward for fear of repercussion.
I, personally have been the victim of sexual assault, and know that the shame is very real. It happened at a nightclub in the Meatpacking District in NYC, and I wrestled for a long time with the feelings of shame and the constant thought of, “maybe I brought it on myself.” Longer than the bruises lasted.
There is a swell of courageous women coming forward, and I pray that we all can support those brave souls, and help to bring about a change.
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BeautyBeyondBones 
Well said! I was wondering what your thoughts were about this issue, and really appreciate that you waited until you knew what they were. I will probably be quoting you!
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Thanks so much, for your kind words. Yeah i didn’t want to say anything prematurely. This issue is obviously complex and really emotional so i really wanted to be intentional and think through my thoughts in their entirety. Sadly the situation is continuing to evolve, i just hope and pray that it can bring about a positive change, and i have hope that it will. So glad you stopped by. Big hugs to you, friend. Xox
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Amen, Dearest…God bless you always.
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Thanks Mar. i appreciate you kind words. Hugs and love xox
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Strangest thing, I just wrote a blog, “American Graffiti – The Old Model of Sex” https://wp.me/p1qZOe-JU
I think you are right on many facets of sexual abuse, except, maybe, one. The domination of women by powerful men goes back to prehistory. Every age of men and women have it. Look in the bible for examples, if you have time. In the past, this attitude was the accepted rule (Mad Men).The abuse of subordinate women is still the rule, rather than the exception in most of the world. I think this phenomenon is another level of “sufferage” for women in America.
Your outrage is righteous; your example is encouragement to women; use this breakthrough to stand up to anyone who abuses you; let them know you will report them for all the past abuse, if they do not treat you right, if they fire you, if they misuse the power of their position.
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. Yeah it’s really sad. I appreciate you stopping by. Hugs and love xox
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I have to say, that I would not know the first thing to say about an issue like this. There is a distortion of human dignity in our society and to point a finger at any one source is difficult, until you put the quote from Saint JP II into this very context and it is revealed what is really at stake here.
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Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on this. Yeah- there’s definitely a lot more at stake than what meets the eye. Thanks for stopping by. Hugs and love xox
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Wow – that JP2 quote is so very powerful. So insightful. Thank you for sharing, I won’t be forgetting that one!
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Thanks so much Maggie! Hugs and love xox
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I started to respond to your post. I wanted to respond to your question, “What is going on here?” As I began writing about the influences from the past that have brought us to where we are today in US society the words began to flow. After a few pages I determined that this was to in depth a response for your post. What is posted is the short version.
I was surprised by the questions in your post, i.e. “What has our society come to where it has come to that? Where we fear for our jobs and reputation if we speak up about abuse or assault?… But what’s more, is how has this behavior become something we could even conceive of? How has a woman’s sexuality become something that can be taken without consent?” These are important questions but I thought that most people were well aware of why this is happening. Men (and women) have been taught to do this.
I am a cradle Catholic who at 55 years of age has done in depth literary research of Catholicism, the Biblical text, etc. for the last 30 years. One of the things I love about life is that I run into ordinary people every day who tell me something I didn’t know about the religion of my ancestors and the scriptures used in the Catholic ritual of the mass.
Women being treated like sexual property has been the unspoken law of the land since before writing was invented and obviously still holds weight in todays culture. The evidence runs through ancient literature from many cultures but since you favor the religious traditions that call Abraham “Father” I will point to a couple stories from the biblical text that when read closely should send chills up the readers spine.
One is found in found in Genesis 19 that tells the story of Sodom and Gamorrah. Keep in mind that many of the stories in the Genesis narrative are recordings of stories that where passed down orally for over 800 years before the words were recorded. So the story of Lot / Sodom and Gamorrah are somewhere around 3500 years old. At verse 8, Lot offers his two daughters to a mob of violent rapist in place of his newly arrived male guest. The chilling part of this exchange is Lot’s immediate willingness to sacrifice his daughters in a tone of complete indifference. Treating women in this way is not even worth a mention from the scribe who recorded the story. I have not found any mention of the treatment of Lot’s daughters in this story until the 20th century AD. If you want a more contemporary version of this type of treatment by a father to his daughters just visit a porn website. Porn producers provide what sells. This scenario is what men or women want to see when they visit the site.
Another similar story is seen in Judges 19, albeit told in more graphic detail. In this story we have another father who offers his virgin daughter to a lust hungry mob, but before the mob can react, a male guest who is staying at the father’s house with his “concubine” immediately “thrust” his concubine outside the house to the mob. She is gang raped to collapse and found the next morning unresponsive at the door step of the house where she was staying. Her owner/husband throws her unconscious body on a mule and they travel home. Upon arriving home, to convey his disgust at how -HE- was treated as a guest in that town; he dismembers her body into twelve pieces and sends the parts throughout the territory of Israel. Again, the author makes no mention of the plight of the women.
The women who have come forward recently to expose this disease in our culture are brave to announce the moral outrage that was inflicted on them. I pray that each woman is able to regain peace within themselves and that every offender goes to jail. However, many of their stories seem quite tame compared to the stories that I here on a regular basis.
I am a meditation instructor and you don’t offer private instruction to people without getting involved in some from of spiritual counseling. The abusive histories of child and adult assault and rape from both men and women often come to the fore. What follows is one such story. The story of “L”.
L and I sat down at the kitchen table after a meditation and we began to talk about how past events can place mental obstacles in the mind preventing the clearing of the mind during meditation.As we talked she began to tell me of some of the anguish she faced growing up. Her mother was the secret mistress of a married man and L was her father’s hidden, unwanted child. Her father was a raging alcoholic who would vent his frustration through repeatedly beating and raping her mother. On many occasions before her 10th birthday she would go to the neighbors when her mother was being beaten and beg them to help. None would directly intervene for whatever reason. She would use the neighbors phone to call the police. The police came to the house many times but would always leave when her father told them that nothing was going on as they stared at her mother who stood in the background her head sunk, blood on her face, and blackened eyes. On some nights she would sit at the kitchen table during supper next to her mother. As an argument would erupt she would cover ears as her father would pull out a pistol and begin firing bullets into the wall behind them narrowly missing her mother’s head. When L’s father grew tired of her mother he would start in on L. As we worked through L’s past she relayed that her mother eventually shot her father do death.
I have heard hundreds of stories of this severity in the past 20 years. Each has been carved into my mind and heart.
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This is the saddest story I’ve heard in a long time. I want to say God bless you in your job as you minister to these people, but I also want to say that I’ll pray for L and her situation, wherever she finds herself today. Thanks for your comment. hugs x
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Dear BBB, thanks for the response to my reply. L has found some sense of peace. What that means is these past violations do not imprison her mind and heart as they did before. Her psychic/spiritual wounds are healing. I never know how people are going to respond to some of the raw stories that emerge out of the counseling sessions. I am sorry if I offended. You have to spend time in the face of the suffering of others to make since of your own. I would guess that you already know that considering your battle with anorexia. I have a niece who went down the same path 15 years ago and survived. She now thrives.
These horror stories are only apiece of a persons life. Many of these life stories are mixed with incredible incidence of hope and caring. Violence and abuse are embedded in our culture through past influences but, many (not all) people are working their way out of their crippling affects. Consider some of the stars that shined in the past and those that shine today that repudiate the notion that people have to succumb to anger,violence,judgement, and condemnation. To be clear, sexual harassment is another form of dominating, controlling, violence.
One of my favorite stories of healing that includes on of my favorite stars is seen in the Gospel of John -Chapter 8, In this story Jesus turns the male dominating social attitude of the time period, and the violence and judgement that comes with it, on its head with one statement. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” These are powerful life giving words from a man who had suffered and strongly identified with the suffering women in the story. The words immediately placed everyone in the scene on a level playing field. The words removed any ability for the accusing men to attempt to continue to dominate and control the women in the story or the situation in general. When God gets involved things can turn around in an instant!
These wounded women who are coming forward recently to share their stories of abuse and the outrage that has followed are a definitive indicators that most people in the world will no longer willing to tolerate this evil.
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I’m glad to hear that your niece is thriving. Xx
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Great post BBB! And truly, it’s a sad state of affairs. And especially sorry to hear you’ve been through such assaults!!
I often wonder, though if pornography is playing a role in keeping even more pent-up sexual impulses concealed within the privacy of teenagers bedrooms rather than out on the streets where even more people could be damaged by it (similar to the argument about how violence has decreased as the use of violent video games has increased). I’m not really arguing in favor, just curious. But either way…. given the extensive traffic porn and violent entertainment is getting, it should at least give us pause to wonder what the hell is going on with our culture that has made these pent up desires so prevalent to begin with. Japan is even moving onto sex robots where at least nobody is getting harmed (other than their depleting and aging population which will ultimately lead to their extinction of course).
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Thank you Kamal. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on this. Very scary state of things. Hugs and love xox
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Sorry to be away from reading blogs for soooooooo long… too many distractions and other commitments…
As to this topic, I have had thoughts rambling around in my head for a month, but have avoided writing them partially because the complexity of the issue and my uncertainty of what tone to take. My wife & I have had long conversations during our commute about the historical progression of sexual activity which has lead up to the accusations going back 40 to 50 years (though sexual exploitation goes back thousands of years). And, we are fascinated about what has contribued to the current wave of public attention to the subject. One idea we heard discussed on NPR was how we use language to protect the perpetrator while emphasizing the woman (usually) as a victim… “She was raped, abused, etc.” rather than “ML/RM/DT/AF/et al abuse her”. As we move into the Advent season, when we should be venerating the miricle of birth of love, we do need to address the sin of selfishness. Isn’t that why Jesus had to come in human form? To teach us to be loving humans? – Oscar
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Thanks you so much for sharing your thoughts on this, Oscar. That’s really interesting and sad about the language. True. Hugs and love xox
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hey! this isn’t about this post specifically; but i wasn’t sure where to contact you about your amazon link. i just have a question about it, if you have time could you please email me at blissfullycreating@gmail.com! thank you so much!
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Never mind! lol i figured it out!
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Great!!
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Sure thing! It’s beautybeyondbones@yahoo.com
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It’s scary actually where the world is heading. These days, every page on the newspaper is making me lose hope in humanity and I’m starting to fear the safety of our future generations. I still don’t understand how people could perform such barbarous acts with zero remorse.
Your post is touching and true. The media really is partially responsible for promoting rape culture. I’m so sorry to hear about your experience. Its tough to forget but we shouldn’t let an incident diminish our strength and faith. You’re inspiring in all levels.
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It really is scary. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Shilpa. And thanks for your kind words. I am truly touched. Hope you’re having a nice week so far. Hugs and love xox
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Yes thats true sexual abuse is turning someone into a thing. I wonder when the paedophilia in the Catholic Church will finally be expunged and when Donald Trump will be brought before the courts for his flagrant use of women
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. sadly, there is abuse in the catholic church, and in the government and politics and really everywhere. It just makes me sad though, that the few isolated priest abusers — which don’t get me wrong, what they did was horrible and awful and sad and disgusting and wrong — but it makes me sad that those few men have literally tainted the reputation of the overwhelming majority of good men who have literally given up their lives and their ability to have a family, all to earnestly and totally serve God. It makes me sad. It’s the whole, “few bad apples spoiling the bunch” sort of thing. But all those people need our prayers. And obviously, so do the victims, and those who are keeping in their victimhood for fear or shame. it just is an all around tragic situation. Hugs and love xox
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Thank you for this! We are all complicit in this. And change first gas to start from the inside out.
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Thanks Esther! Yes it does! Hugs and love xox
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I like it 👍👍
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thank you!
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