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Locker room talk
Oct. 10th, 2016 09:03 pmSo, something's been bothering me for about 30-something years now, and I think it's long past time to talk about it.
"I've been in a lot of locker rooms, and I've never heard anyone talk like that" That seems to be the most common reaction to Donald's debate "defense" of his boast of sexual assault. At least among my Facebook friends and the people they link.
I myself have only been in a limited number of locker rooms, but I have heard talk like that. Twice.
The first time was in high school. One of my classmates bragged that he was with another girl at a recent party and that "she was so drunk I had her six different ways and she never even knew."
My impression at the time was that everyone was laughing except me. I felt at the time there must have been something wrong with me. Why would I care about the girl. I should be celebrating this boy's victory with everyone else. Was I not a manly enough man?
Thinking back on it, I think it was only a couple of his friends laughing, and everyone else standing in stoney silence, trying not to meet anyone else's eye. Like I was. Nobody said anything. Nobody spoke up. I couldn't even tell you exactly why I was so bothered at the time, except maybe "she never knew" would be followed up by "Then what's the point."
Perhaps, if the culture had been a little different I would have known then what was wrong. If words like "consent" had ever been spoken out loud in "health" class, I could have articulated what the problem was here.
Maybe if someone, anyone, had spoken up and said that was wrong, that's bad, that's a downright horrific thing to do, others would have joined them. And maybe the kid would feel bad and never do it again.
But nobody spoke up.
This was long before those politically correct liberal wusses had infected our school system with such concepts. Rape was bad, of course, but this girl had gone to the party on her own and chosen to get drunk, so this wasn't rape, right? How dare you accuse this kid of committing rape? Don't you know he plays football and his daddy's rich?
Actually, I have no idea if he played football. I think he did. Maybe not. I don't even remember who it was. It was a big school, I never knew everybody. And I never knew who the girl he was talking about was. It's quite possible she didn't exist. That he was just making the whole thing up. Lying to impress his friends. You know, locker room talk.
I think, though, if I'd later heard from over a dozen different girls that he had sexually assaulted them, I would have believed them.
"I've been in a lot of locker rooms, and I've never heard anyone talk like that" That seems to be the most common reaction to Donald's debate "defense" of his boast of sexual assault. At least among my Facebook friends and the people they link.
I myself have only been in a limited number of locker rooms, but I have heard talk like that. Twice.
The first time was in high school. One of my classmates bragged that he was with another girl at a recent party and that "she was so drunk I had her six different ways and she never even knew."
My impression at the time was that everyone was laughing except me. I felt at the time there must have been something wrong with me. Why would I care about the girl. I should be celebrating this boy's victory with everyone else. Was I not a manly enough man?
Thinking back on it, I think it was only a couple of his friends laughing, and everyone else standing in stoney silence, trying not to meet anyone else's eye. Like I was. Nobody said anything. Nobody spoke up. I couldn't even tell you exactly why I was so bothered at the time, except maybe "she never knew" would be followed up by "Then what's the point."
Perhaps, if the culture had been a little different I would have known then what was wrong. If words like "consent" had ever been spoken out loud in "health" class, I could have articulated what the problem was here.
Maybe if someone, anyone, had spoken up and said that was wrong, that's bad, that's a downright horrific thing to do, others would have joined them. And maybe the kid would feel bad and never do it again.
But nobody spoke up.
This was long before those politically correct liberal wusses had infected our school system with such concepts. Rape was bad, of course, but this girl had gone to the party on her own and chosen to get drunk, so this wasn't rape, right? How dare you accuse this kid of committing rape? Don't you know he plays football and his daddy's rich?
Actually, I have no idea if he played football. I think he did. Maybe not. I don't even remember who it was. It was a big school, I never knew everybody. And I never knew who the girl he was talking about was. It's quite possible she didn't exist. That he was just making the whole thing up. Lying to impress his friends. You know, locker room talk.
I think, though, if I'd later heard from over a dozen different girls that he had sexually assaulted them, I would have believed them.
