As the Pendulum Swings

Not a fun topic, but something I've been thinking about:

We’ve been asked repeatedly, angrily and condescendingly: What is it about No Means No that you don’t understand?!

What I’d like to know is when did No Means No turn into Only Yes Means Yes (my words, no one else’s) as seems to be the new normal, particularly on college campuses?

I remember seeing an informal poll once where women were asked if they would prefer to be asked before someone kisses them for the first time. Having just recently (recent to that poll, not to today!) been interested in a very hard-to-get woman of whom I asked that very question (she said Yes!), I was sure the majority opinion would be that they prefer to be asked.

In fact, it was overwhelmingly the other way, like almost unanimous (though I have a feeling the women were thinking only of guys they would actually want to have kiss them, not some random street miscreant). I could give an actual timeline and list of all the conflicting messages I’ve been given, starting with my dad as a young teen (me, not my dad) over the last, uh, 5 decades regarding how to be around women, how to treat them, how to respect them, how to be differential, how not to be, how to say nice things about how they look, why not to. And most confusing, here's the pendulum part, it has gone from one extreme to the other and back.

And what makes it all tougher is that this is one case where the Golden Rule certainly doesn’t apply. When men treat women the way they (men) would like to be treated is when they get in the most trouble. Ok, that’s an exaggeration. I’d like to be able to amend that to “…except where a crime is being committed” except that’s the point – more and more, simple innocent advances can be borderline crimes (and actual crimes according to some campus policies) under current law and definition.

But mostly I'm referring to the situations where a woman either gives something resembling consent or doesn’t say No and then waits a day or week or several months and then after being convinced by their friends, comes forward to accuse the young man of assault or rape. Certainly everyone, male and female, has been in a situation where their sexual partner started by saying no, but eventually changed their minds, usually without ever even saying yes, just over the course of continued interest, desires and advances.

Oh grr. Yet another reason I'm glad the dating scene is far in my past.

Addendum: This will be one of the few times I do some editing to a post after I first published it. I wrote this last night just before I left work and as I drove home, I realized I was uneasy with what I'd written, not so much because of anything I did write, but because it finished without a satisfactory conclusion. I tried to read it through Trev's eyes when he inevitably reads this and wonders what to think and I realized that the summary, the lesson, is this:

Sex from a legal standpoint, which is what I'm generally describing above is not much different from sex from a physical standpoint and since it seems incredibly obvious, I'm hesitant to admit this. What pleases or annoys one woman (or guy) does not necessarily please the next one. And what is "legal" to one is not necessarily seen the same way with the next. So, when you're with a girl and you do something that really gets her going, really turns her on and you think Wow - I know how to do it now! I've discovered the secret (that all guys claim to seek, though arguably, we don't try as hard as we should) on how to turn on women, and then you're with someone new and you do the same thing and she basically says "Are you done yet?!", you realize "Oh, dang - I thought I had it!" and you realize you have to start all over again finding out what works for her. (I could obviously go into a lot more detail here on specific cases, one I remember in particular from many years ago, involving a certain area that generally excites most women, that was of no interest to her whatsoever...but I shan't). :-)

I got a little off the rails there, but getting back to the legalities...or even arguably, the morals of a particular situation, it's just as confusing. What is testing (feeling them out by feeling them up?) or innocent play or experimentation or just sexual pleasure to one person can be, and has been, assault to another.

So, in the end, the lesson is this: Just get them to sign a waiver or consent form and have it notarized and witnessed by 2-3 people before hugging anyone and have a different form handy for each stage you get to.

This agreement, made December 31, 2014, by and between me, _______ McVickar, 407 Black Horse Road, 19425 and you ___________, currently residing at _________________, constitutes consent to allow me to remove your panties and it is hereby understood that such action does not suggest ongoing consent to touch you further without express, written consent.

And now, addendumizing once more, after reading the above to write a conclusion for Emma's benefit (and you too, Evie and Liss, though I'm wondering if you are maybe less likely to ever read this, or more likely have figured all this out way before you actually do read it): Be clear, be strong, be definitive. If you want No to mean No, and not mean anything less, look the guy right in the eye, grab him by the chin if you need to, like you were talking to a dog (because, well, c'mon), and say Stop It! And then remove yourself from the situation in any way possible, as you feel the need.

I love this guy, even if he is a grump...which helps explain why some people claim to love me too, I guess.

From a recent interview with Bill Murray in Rolling Stone:

Doing a Q&A at a Toronto movie theater, Murray is asked, "How does it feel to be Bill Murray?" – and he takes the extremely meta query seriously, asking the audience to consider the sensation of self-awareness. "There's a wonderful sense of well-being that begins to circulate . . . up and down your spine," Murray says. "And you feel something that makes you almost want to smile.

So what's it like to be me? Ask yourself, ‘What's it like to be me?' The only way we'll ever know what it's like to be you is if you work your best at being you as often as you can, and keep reminding yourself that's where home is."

I love this, though too often, when I am being me is when I like me least of all…and it most frequently occurs when I open my mouth.

Christmas Magic

This morning on Facebook, I posted a reference to one of my 2 favorite Christmas songs coming on the radio and wrote:

 

I know I'm totally in the Christmas Spirit when I'm driving to work down rte 52 after a wonderful Penns Table breakfast with Michael Rellahan, and I hear the opening chords to my favorite Christmas song...and as now seems to be a Christmas tradition, by the end, I have tears streaming down my face. Dang song gets to me every single year at least once. ‪#‎sucharomantic

And my sister Laurie asked why I like it so much and then mentioned how she has a fave song that she hasn’t heard yet but had rules about how she needed to hear it, which, not surprisingly, are my rules exactly, as she wrote:

 

“I own the song, but it has to happen organically - no cheats allowed! Guess I better stream Christmas music on my laptop as I wrap today, coz time is running out, and as the singer says, "It's Christmas time!" and...."Santa Claus is Coming to Town"!”

 

So I started to write her two good Christmas stories about the Bruce song, but decided to put them here instead:

 

1 - About 17 years ago, just before Cheryl and I got together, I was living alone at my Decatur Court house and was driving over on Christmas late morning to Mom and Dad's . Dad was really sick - temp well over 100 and was totally out of it. I was driving east on the rte 30 bypass, going up the exit ramp to rte 113, feeling melancholy and actually kind of depressed, wondering what it would be like when Mom and Dad were gone and feeling bad for their age and ill health, and thinking what a lousy Christmas it was and heck, here it was Christmas and I hadn't even heard the magical Bruce song. So I'm driving up the ramp, listening to WMMR and just in the midst of my self-pity, what do they start their noon Christmas rock block with? You guessed it! Totally made my day. And I started blubbering like an idiot with the biggest of smiles on my face.

 

And in the end, that may have been my favorite Christmas ever. In my memory of it, with Dad in the next room snoozing virtually all day, Mom and I spent hours just sitting at the dining room table, just talking. And I don’t know if we opened a single present the whole time.

 

2 – Then probably just a year or two later, the week before Christmas, and I’m driving my two awesome stepdaughters-to-be, Elissa and Evelyn, to the Exton Mall so they could do their Christmas shopping while Cheryl got some alone time back at the (same Decatur Court) house. We were just passing Whitford Road on rte 30 when, again, the song I hadn’t heard yet, but HAD to! Bruuuuce! I again got a little teary and told Liss and Evie about its importance to me and told them story #1 above, getting even tearier, and when I finished and there was a pause, when little 5 or 6 year old Evie blurted out “It’s a magical Christmas moment!!!”

 

And so it was.

Deliverance from Evil

Sitting in Quaker Meeting yesterday I had a rare (religion-related) insight. I say “rare” because I’m fairly certain that there are so many people in Meeting on any given First Day who are focusing so much more directly and concentratedly on communicating with God than I am, when I am more likely to be thinking about things like this (an oldey but favey of mine from 5+ years ago on my old blog).

It struck me that while we spend so many hours and so much of our life in Meeting trying to learn important messages from God, some of the most important lessons, like compassion and tolerance and loving unconditionally, can be best learned, not from God, but only from our interactions, and often the most painful interactions, with other human beings.

And those challenges, not just experiencing those tough interactions with people, but learning how to address the pain and anger with compassion, tolerance and love, come no more easily to us than picking up a banjo and playing an intricate melody. It takes a lot of practice.

And even then, speaking...ok, writing...as someone who has been taking banjo lessons for almost 2 years and is barely much better than when I started, practicing sure doesn't make us perfect...it only makes us better.

But then, maybe it was God who sent me that message.

Now, some would say, all I need to do is take my own damn advice!

I had intended to make this a far longer post, but in retrospect, even though it meant a lot to me at the time, and seemed like it would take a lot to explain, in retrospect, it was not very earth-shattering and will probably be fairly simple to summarize.

A month or so ago, with prodding from my friend Mike Rellahan, I requested a meeting with Republican Congressman-elect, Ryan Costello. And somewhat to my surprise, within a few days, I received a response from his aide, accepting my request and suggesting a time and date to meet.

So a few weeks ago, after a great deal of thought, and not a little angst, I went to his office in downtown West Chester and met. I can't say I was entirely surprised, but I was certainly encouraged, that I not only liked him but more importantly, liked his approach, and there were very few things on which we disagreed. On the other hand, I made a point of keeping my 3 topics, the 3rd of which we agreed to keep off-the-record, which I understand means that I can eventually include it when I write my book, but not before, fairly non-partisan.

My first issue was to ask for his support in taking up one of Jim Gerlach's top issues, which is to make the Conservation Easement enhanced tax incentive permanent. (Scares me to think that might make me a lobbyist!). Gerlach is the person he is replacing in Congress and from what I understand, he holds him in high regard. Costello seemed very open to listening and understanding the issue and seemed to say that he was generally in favor of it.

My second issue was to give him some advice. When I told him I had some for advice him I immediately started off apologetic for thinking he would be interested in what I had to say but he quickly made it clear he wanted to hear whatever I had to say. And my advice was this: Give the other side some credit once in while and it will only make people want to listen to his arguments more clearly. Sadly, I can't think of a single politician who does this.

More specifically, I suggested a way that he could make his own point of view seem stronger without the standard vitriolic lambasting of his opponent. If, say, he was speaking about Universal Healthcare, he might say: "I know this is an issue that is very important to President Obama. And we both have the same goal to improve on an already great healthcare system, maybe the best in the world. He has his approach to it, and it has some merit, but I have some other ideas that I think can even improve on his approach." And then, hard as it might be, find a few things Obama has supported in his proposal that he agrees with, surely there is something, and then say, but to make the overall bill really strong, here's what I think should be a component or should be replaced: _________.

Maybe I'm naïve, but I think way more people will listen to his plan after he starts that way than if he starts out by saying that Obama just wants to socialize healthcare and impose his Kenyan Marxist racist hate on this great country and do all he can to tear it down. Sadly, I'm sure that even though I'm exaggerating the point, one doesn't have to look hard to see how many people think that is exactly what Obama wants to do, which of course only proves what a terrible President he is, because all he keeps doing is rescuing this country from the disaster he inherited from the previous administration, instead of destroying it, which is his only clear goal.

As I say, Costello was very open to my thoughts and as far as I could tell, already felt the same way, wanting to use that very approach when possible. He even pulled out a copy of an article he had recently cut out from the Wall Street Journal, titled: Persuasion as the Cure for Incivility.

My favorite excerpt: "Civility is sometimes derided in the modern world, where bluntness and even coarseness have somehow come to be celebrated in many quarters. But civility is not a minor virtue. It is not an attempt to impose someone's notion of courtesy, and it is certainly not an attempt to suppress speech. Civility is what allows speech to be heard. It is an appeal to citizens never to express or incite hatred, which is more dangerous to the country than any external enemy."

As I say, the third issue was confidential, but had to do with some very local politics. And he was somewhat helpful and open-minded with that as well.

So, thanks, Congressman-elect. I'll take it easy on you as long as I can.

Presidential Prognosticatin'

This week's McLatchy-Marist poll has Romney and Bush leading a Republican field of 15 potential candidates when GOP voters were asked who they would support:

Mitt Romney: 19%
Jeb Bush: 14%
Chris Christie: 9%
Mike Huckabee: 9%
Ben Carson: 8%
Rand Paul: 5%
Ted Cruz: 4%
Rick Perry: 4%
Paul Ryan: 3%
Rick Santorum: 3%
Marco Rubio: 3%
Scott Walker: 3%
John Kasich: 2%
Bobby Jindal: 1%
Carly Fiorina: 1%

Unless Rs vote in Iowa the way the Iowan Ds did in 2004, choosing Kerry based on his electability, over Howard Dean, who I'm sure they liked more, I don't see the Rs nominating any of the top candidates above.

I think there are only a handful of serious possibilities of getting nominated above, but foremost is Paul Ryan. I see him as the favorite and I also think he can beat Hilary.

Other serious possible R nominees:

Romney - maybe, but not exciting enough as a candidate, not to mention as a person
Bush and Christie - their unfavorables are too high among R voters
Rand Paul - maybe, but too far outside the mainstream with some of his comments. And unless he can skirt Kentucky law that doesn't allow anyone to run for President and Senate at the same time, I don't even think he'll run for 4 more years.

And the dark horse of those not even listed here: Mike Pence from Indiana. Also, a good VP candidate.

My biggest concern is Hilary's health over the next 23 months. If she has an episode of any sort, I don't see a single D who would come within 15 points of the R nominee unless Elizabeth Warren changes her mind.

Just a tweet, tweet post

I can't resist posting these tweets:

"Of course Republicans respect Putin. He tanked an economy, started an illegal war, and hates gays."

— @SkepticPugilist

So, this whole 'lame duck' thing is really slowing Obama down eh ?
— @amyewalter