Bully Culture
Everybody hates a bully, or so we say. Yesterday, the national media bullied into silence a young man who had risen to fame speaking to audiences of young women and men about the lies that the grown-ups had told them for decades.
Lies about the relationship between women and men. That women don't need men. That all men are potential rapists. That women should aspire to something other than motherhood or they are wasting their lives. That women should like casual sex with strangers, hooking up just for the sake of the orgasm. That the children will be fine if their parents divorce. That abortion is morally good.
Everyone knows these are lies. The young woman who wakes up in the morning having lost her virginity to a man who isn't there and will not marry her. The young man who is tempted into exciting and transgressive sex with an older man and finds himself trapped by his desire in a lifestyle he cannot leave. The young woman who spends her most fertile years working in a career that leaves her childless at forty because she can no longer conceive and has no husband. The young man who has no ambition to work because he has no wife to care for or children to feed.
But the grown-ups tell them to shut up, not to complain. Don't they know how awful it is that women don't earn as much over the course of their lifetime as men? Don't they know that men are still the ones with all the power, even though the number of men completing higher education has continued to drop? Don't they know that nobody should be able to force a woman to bear a child she does not want, even if she did enjoy the sex by which the child was conceived?
And then a young man comes along and tells them, they were right all along. The young women wanted to be pretty, not grotesquely overweight. The young men wanted to be strong and vigorous and manly. The young women wanted babies as well as careers, and were willing to make adjustments to their ambition in order to stay home with their children. The young men wanted to be challenged to be gentlemanly and chivalrous.
"Gender roles work," the young man told them. "Feminism is cancer. Abortion is murder." And the young women and men cheered for him, because they loved him for telling the truth.
All their lives they had been wanting to push back against the grown-ups for taking away their sense of self as boys or girls. For telling the girls that they should want to play with trucks as much as dolls. For telling the boys they were evil for wanting to play with swords. But the grown-ups had bullied them into silence.
Some bullies were worse than others. Some were their parents, forcing them to pretend to like their step-parents and step-siblings. Some were their teachers, forcing them to pretend that they liked talking crudely about sex while learning English or math. Some were actors and actresses, forcing them to pretend that they enjoyed watching ever more violent sex. Some were their peers, forcing them to pretend to like not being boys or girls. Some were adults who called themselves friends and promised to take care of them if they let the older person have sex with them.
The young man was an unexpected messenger. He talked all the time about having sex with other men. About wanting to be penetrated by black dicks. About how good he was at giving head. But he told the young women they were right to want babies and the young men they were right to want wives. He spoke often about how sad he was that he would never be able to make a child with the person he loved so long as the person he loved was another man. He joked about wishing that he might be cured, perhaps through prayer or electric shock. And he described how he had learned to be gay.
Sometimes people would ask him, "How can you call yourself Catholic when you are gay?" To which he would reply: "What else would I be?! I'm a sinner." At which the audience would laugh, as the young man died just a little more inside. Because he meant it. He never lied. Not like the priest who had taught him to suck dick when he was a teen-ager. Not like the many lovers he had had since. Not like the movement supporting his lifestyle, who had bullied and lied its way into the mainstream culture over the course of his life, so that even to suggest that he was hurting was cause for ridicule and shame.
So he made jokes about it. About Father Michael and how he, the young man, was the predator, not the priest. About the parties he had been to where boys or young teen-agers had sex with older men. About how exciting it was to be so transgressive and dangerous. About how gays had a special contribution to make because they were able to push against the boundaries by which normal people live. And he meant that, too, because he never lied. But he hated the bullies for lying, and said so.
He hated the bullies for telling young women that it was okay to be fat, despite the health risks and guarantee that it would be harder for them to find boyfriends if they were morbidly obese. He hated the bullies for telling young women that it was okay to murder their babies in the womb if they did not feel "ready" to have a child. He hated the bullies for forcing others to pretend that it was okay for men to use women's restrooms and changing rooms as long as the men felt themselves to be women. He hated the bullies for wanting to force Christians to participate through their craft in ceremonies which went against their faith.
And so the bullies came for him. They called him self-hating. Homophobic. Transphobic. Misogynist. Sexist. They mounted protests against his talks. They accused him of spreading hate. Endangering innocents. Inciting violence. They made him out to be the villain because he told the truth. And then they called him a pedophile. Because he had been abused as a young teen-ager and would not swallow the lies.
Shame on all of you. You spineless cunts. The bullies are YOU.
[NOTE: The phrase "spineless cunts" was Milo's. He used it specifically as a description of conservatives in his speech at Albuquerque. I had quoted from that speech in an earlier post, and wrongly assumed that readers would be able to recognize the allusion. I am writing in Milo's defense when the whole world has turned on him. It was conservatives (whatever that means anymore) who decided to slander him with the "advocates pedophilia" label so as to prevent his speaking at CPAC. The insult was meant to express my anger at the bullying coming from both sides.]
Lies about the relationship between women and men. That women don't need men. That all men are potential rapists. That women should aspire to something other than motherhood or they are wasting their lives. That women should like casual sex with strangers, hooking up just for the sake of the orgasm. That the children will be fine if their parents divorce. That abortion is morally good.
Everyone knows these are lies. The young woman who wakes up in the morning having lost her virginity to a man who isn't there and will not marry her. The young man who is tempted into exciting and transgressive sex with an older man and finds himself trapped by his desire in a lifestyle he cannot leave. The young woman who spends her most fertile years working in a career that leaves her childless at forty because she can no longer conceive and has no husband. The young man who has no ambition to work because he has no wife to care for or children to feed.
But the grown-ups tell them to shut up, not to complain. Don't they know how awful it is that women don't earn as much over the course of their lifetime as men? Don't they know that men are still the ones with all the power, even though the number of men completing higher education has continued to drop? Don't they know that nobody should be able to force a woman to bear a child she does not want, even if she did enjoy the sex by which the child was conceived?
And then a young man comes along and tells them, they were right all along. The young women wanted to be pretty, not grotesquely overweight. The young men wanted to be strong and vigorous and manly. The young women wanted babies as well as careers, and were willing to make adjustments to their ambition in order to stay home with their children. The young men wanted to be challenged to be gentlemanly and chivalrous.
"Gender roles work," the young man told them. "Feminism is cancer. Abortion is murder." And the young women and men cheered for him, because they loved him for telling the truth.All their lives they had been wanting to push back against the grown-ups for taking away their sense of self as boys or girls. For telling the girls that they should want to play with trucks as much as dolls. For telling the boys they were evil for wanting to play with swords. But the grown-ups had bullied them into silence.
Some bullies were worse than others. Some were their parents, forcing them to pretend to like their step-parents and step-siblings. Some were their teachers, forcing them to pretend that they liked talking crudely about sex while learning English or math. Some were actors and actresses, forcing them to pretend that they enjoyed watching ever more violent sex. Some were their peers, forcing them to pretend to like not being boys or girls. Some were adults who called themselves friends and promised to take care of them if they let the older person have sex with them.
The young man was an unexpected messenger. He talked all the time about having sex with other men. About wanting to be penetrated by black dicks. About how good he was at giving head. But he told the young women they were right to want babies and the young men they were right to want wives. He spoke often about how sad he was that he would never be able to make a child with the person he loved so long as the person he loved was another man. He joked about wishing that he might be cured, perhaps through prayer or electric shock. And he described how he had learned to be gay.
Sometimes people would ask him, "How can you call yourself Catholic when you are gay?" To which he would reply: "What else would I be?! I'm a sinner." At which the audience would laugh, as the young man died just a little more inside. Because he meant it. He never lied. Not like the priest who had taught him to suck dick when he was a teen-ager. Not like the many lovers he had had since. Not like the movement supporting his lifestyle, who had bullied and lied its way into the mainstream culture over the course of his life, so that even to suggest that he was hurting was cause for ridicule and shame.
So he made jokes about it. About Father Michael and how he, the young man, was the predator, not the priest. About the parties he had been to where boys or young teen-agers had sex with older men. About how exciting it was to be so transgressive and dangerous. About how gays had a special contribution to make because they were able to push against the boundaries by which normal people live. And he meant that, too, because he never lied. But he hated the bullies for lying, and said so.
He hated the bullies for telling young women that it was okay to be fat, despite the health risks and guarantee that it would be harder for them to find boyfriends if they were morbidly obese. He hated the bullies for telling young women that it was okay to murder their babies in the womb if they did not feel "ready" to have a child. He hated the bullies for forcing others to pretend that it was okay for men to use women's restrooms and changing rooms as long as the men felt themselves to be women. He hated the bullies for wanting to force Christians to participate through their craft in ceremonies which went against their faith.
And so the bullies came for him. They called him self-hating. Homophobic. Transphobic. Misogynist. Sexist. They mounted protests against his talks. They accused him of spreading hate. Endangering innocents. Inciting violence. They made him out to be the villain because he told the truth. And then they called him a pedophile. Because he had been abused as a young teen-ager and would not swallow the lies.
Shame on all of you. You spineless cunts. The bullies are YOU.
[NOTE: The phrase "spineless cunts" was Milo's. He used it specifically as a description of conservatives in his speech at Albuquerque. I had quoted from that speech in an earlier post, and wrongly assumed that readers would be able to recognize the allusion. I am writing in Milo's defense when the whole world has turned on him. It was conservatives (whatever that means anymore) who decided to slander him with the "advocates pedophilia" label so as to prevent his speaking at CPAC. The insult was meant to express my anger at the bullying coming from both sides.]
