Oh, yeah, there's a secret club.

Jodie, you're wrong. You capitalized on your attractiveness to men until it was no longer an asset. Then you came out. Which is fine by me, but to pretend you didn't and don't benefit from "the chase" is just nuts.

What is this meant to do, Ms. Foster?

If you ladies have problems with the men in your life, get the hell away from them.

Even sailors, animals they may be, know that if you want to continue in the company of the girl of your dreams, you must make her happy!

Meanwhile - why should we listen to anyone in Hollywood, as they accepted if not approved of Weinstein so long as he could pay for his clumsy grossness with Hollywood jobs?

I think the crappy things leftist, progressive, liberal, feminist, Democrat women say about men says a lot more about the leftist, progressive, liberal, Democrat type of men in their lives than it does about men in general.

Actions speak louder than words; and when raising, training and socializing boys, role modelling is more powerful than preaching and lecturing. Maybe in Jodie Foster's Weinsteinian/Clintonesque world boys do have to be taught not to rape.

Wait! I'm not supposed to rob banks? When did that happen? Now my retirement plans are all messed up.

On a more serious note we are still working on the don't hit everything message. Don't hit your friends. Don't hit your brother. Don't hit the wall. Don't hit your face. Little boys definitely have to be taught to not hit. But if you haven't gotten the message across by 10 then there really is no hope of ever getting it across.

"Pretty much every man over 30 has to really look and start thinking about their part." How about if every woman over 30 looks and thinks about their part?

Perhaps not getting stone shit drunk while at a party where you don't know most of the people.

Perhaps not dressing to the nines with as sexy an outfit as you can and then being offended when a guy tells you that you look good today.

Perhaps not expecting every man to wish to be your meal ticket just for the sheer pleasure of being in your magnanimous company.

Can you spell self awareness? How about narcissistic and irresponsible?

A certain small section of womanhood resents the hell out of not being born male. I am sure there is this unconscious dislike and distaste that Jodie faces, having had two boys instead of two 'Children of Light'.

When you add that to Lesbianism, and particularly a Lesbian who has been forced to play sexy coquettish ingénues during her life, sighing breathlessly at Mel Gibson in a corset...well...The Accused is probably EXACTLY as Ms. Foster sees all men.

And it shows.

if you haven't gotten the message across by 10 then there really is no hope of ever getting it across.

Oh don't worry, sooner or later the little punk is going to hit someone he shouldn't, and that message will be sent again. With a bit of luck, he'll just be laying on the ground wondering how one can pack a freight train in a fist. And resolving to never be on the receiving end again.

The Accused is probably EXACTLY as Ms. Foster sees all men.

I feel sorry for her sons. It will be interesting to see how she reacts when one of them is accused of perfidy. Whom will she believe, and whom will she throw under the bus? while I would say it would be the son, I still can't get away from blood is thicker than water.

I have two sons (ages 16 and 19), and I know their perspective," she continued.

You don't know their perspective. You only know what you've seen or they've chosen to let you in on. And you've interpreted it through your perspective.

Besides, even if, by some miracle, you do know their perspective, you only know theirs. You don't know men's perspective. "Men" is not a monolithic term; it is composed of individuals.

I love how women having sons means they "know" or "get" the male side of things, but men with daughters are still knuckle-draggers, toxically masculine.

Good men do not have to be "taught not to rape," the same as they do not need to be taught not to rob banks or beat up old people.

Unless people are born "good" or "evil", then the way a good man becomes good is through the way he's taught, primarily by his parents & close family (e.g. grandparents) but also by other parts of society. And the same goes for a good woman.

In my opinion, we're not born "good" or "evil" but self-centered. Self-centered because that's natural. Survival requires it be all "Me! Me! Me!" It's the job of parents, and other parts of society, to temper and tamp down that "Me Me Me" drive; to teach kids to give and share and be thoughtful and considerate of other people; to teach kids, for example, that you don't steal money from people just because you want it, that you don't grab-ass a person just because you want to.

Yes, good men do not have to be specifically taught not to rape. I'm a good man, I've never raped (or molested) a woman, and my parents never sat me down and told me not to rape or molest girls when I was a young boy. But they did teach me to treat girls (and everyone else) with consideration and respect and when you're taught that, then not raping/molesting girls and women (and not stealing from people and not beating up people) flows from absorbing that lesson.

Looking back over the older men I've known - uncles, father - and my sons: No, it's simply not true that men are all horrible exploiters of defenceless women. That's a crock of s#$t.

On a happier note: Have a merry christmas, Ms Alkon. You provide a red-haired island of sanity in a sea of burbling PC lunacy. Happy new year, too.

I actually think that Foster is trying to present a fairer account of what's happening, but it gets lost in her therapy jargon.

like...
"This part has been painful: these wonderful, amazing narratives that take into consideration everybody’s part in it. I’m really interested and looking forward to the men’s point of view, and what comes next in terms of therapy."

Wonderful amazing narratives?!?

She taking the same perspective as a lot of women towards #metoo, who seem to see it as a society-wide couples therapy session.

This is why they don't think it's valid for men to cite facts or appeal to reason. It's not about being reasonable. The purpose ( for many women ) is to express their anger at men, talk about their emotions, and get it all out. Men are supposed to shut up and be supportive regardless.

The problem is that men don't see it that way. What men see is a mob of hysterical women wanting the power to destroy a man's career and livelyhood on their word alone.

Unlike Foster, I'm not sure that the result of #metoo is going to be good for women. I bet that men will be more guarded among women, which many women want. But I also expect that men will increasingly avoid engaging women in their professional lives. I know I will.

Amy:

> Good men do not have to be
> "taught not to rape," the
> same as they do not need
> to be taught not to rob
> banks or beat up old people.

> the way a good man
> becomes good is through
> the way he's taught

Most any of us, man or woman, who you'd ever want to spend time with have had virtue pounded into our hearts by loving and patient families and communities over years and decades. That experience is humiliating, costly, leaky, uncertain and unstable for everyone involved. But it's essential.

Amy's comment seems especially egregious as regards masculinity. Sure... Perhaps most men, whether from the minority who are naturally kind or of the grand masses who've been properly socialized, aren't inclined to rape.

But almost every man is at risk for saying uncomfortable things, for imagining nearby women in contexts for which there'd be no enthusiasm, and for putting weird pressure on women without realizing that they're doing it. (And this describes the great majority of offenses for which so many famous men have been accused in 2017.)

Here's the thing, Amy: Masculinity is a pain in the ass for everyone. It's unpleasant to go through life checking your impulses, resisting daydreams, and letting social moments which feel so very much like cosmically provident opportunities die on the vine... Without so much s second thought, let alone a shared word of regret. Bus rides. The line at the bank. Walking down the street. This happens to almost every man, all the time, for a lifetime.

The intersection of men's aggression and sexuality is essentially the creaking linchpin of progress: Putting the lid on this, constraining it through explicit law and implicit custom, has perhaps been the enabling work of the last twenty thousand years of civilization.

Being chirpy and glib about it ("good men!") is the quintessentially feminine naivete. (But it doesn't end there: A similar hazard exists in feminine nature, but most woman couldn't imagine what we're talking about, let alone put it in a similarly condensed principle.)

Mostly, comments like yours make you sound ungrateful.

Next time Gregg brings over some Chinese food and a can of Diet Coke, pour some rum in there when he isn't looking, and get him talking about it.

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest this fool make such remarks. This is the same clown who pushes the Fixed Quantity of Wealth fallacy (i.e. you getting richer perforce makes me poorer because an economy is a fixed pie), which the most absurd & yet widespread and pernicious economic idiocy ever. So Foster is a person with only the most tenuous grasp on reality.

Snopes on Foster and fixed-pie wealthy fallacy: misattributed.

Thank you, JD. People don't seem to realize that children are NOT born angels unless they're forced to go through the motions of BEHAVING like angels, year after year, until they actually would feel ashamed of behaving differently. (When a kid hears "stop doing that, you're bothering people," the natural silent reaction is "what sort of stupid reason is that for me to stop?" Which is why the command has to be backed up with punishment if the kid doesn't stop, even it just means grounding the kid without screen time for a whole day.)

Thanks to Crid as well.
_________________________________________

Good men do not have to be "taught not to rape," the same as they do not need to be taught not to rob banks or beat up old people.
_________________________________________

Haven't we all heard of "good" teen boys and girls who love, respect and fear their parents, but who also fear being unpopular TWICE as much - so, they shoplift, under peer pressure, time and again? Or "good" teens who steal even when alone because they have NO friends and need to fill the void? I.e., even teaching kids not to STEAL is not as simple as parents want to believe.

Also, any 10-year-old boy pretty much understands, when told, that unwanted sex is disgusting AND illegal, but at 15, it's too easy for him to start thinking: "Wait a minute - how come I have to wait for YEARS for sex until some girl consents, but if a GIRL wants sex on any given day of the week, all she has to do is consent? That's outrageous! Besides, everyone knows there no such thing as unwanted sex! Thus, a woman can't possibly ALWAYS have the legal right to say no!" So the message has to be taught again and again, in various ways.
_________________________________________

But if you haven't gotten the message across by 10 then there really is no hope of ever getting it across.
__________________________________________

Then why do we bother trying to use therapy to convince ADULT males to stop hitting people, with or without the threat of prison? If it never worked, wouldn't we have heard that by now?
_________________________________________

"Men" is not a monolithic term; it is composed of individuals.
_________________________________________

Good. I knew that. Trouble is, when a girl or woman takes a man at face value - even one she thinks she knows well - often she gets sneered at later for trusting him not to be violent or not at least to have a hair-trigger temper. How was she to know that he was a Jekyll-Hyde type, unless she assumed as much beforehand? Why should she?

lenona, sweetheart.

Given nearly half of sexual assaults are committed by women, why the fuck do you only shit on men?

sigh.

Jodie Foster has become another "celebrity" that I will now consider to be a loony idiot.

Are there any smart people left in Hollywood? Or, is it really a case of the smart people know to keep their mouths shut to avoid being taken out by the mob?

Given nearly half of sexual assaults are committed by women
__________________________________________

Why are you the ONLY one here who seems to believe that completely? Or are you including every pat on the rear as an assault? (Don't forget all the rear pats by MEN that NFL players are expected to put up with, at every game. As travel writer Roger Axtell pointed out in his book "Dos and Taboos Around the World": "even then, they mustn't linger," but I'd bet at least some players wish it wouldn't happen at all.)

Not to mention that if men in general really think that statutory rape of a boy by a woman IS rape, it would help a lot if the MEN stopped saying "lucky guy." (Do they take anything less than that seriously?)

Legally speaking, maybe, a pat on the rear IS an assault, but I would hope most men and women would not want anything more than to see the assailant lose a job. If you think that's too harsh, don't pat.

From the letters in response to Bret Stephens' column on MeToo (good column, but so are the letters in this case):

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/opinion/sexual-abuse.html

Bret Stephens warns the #MeToo movement not to violate “our gut sense of decency and moral proportion,” by equating the minor offender with the egregious. He notes that “all societies make necessary moral distinctions between high crimes and misdemeanors.”

It’s both rational and factual to note a difference between patting someone’s behind and rape. The problem is that we are not effective at administering punishment based on these distinctions. The burden of this failure falls far harder on the marginalized than the powerful. Our criminal justice system exemplifies this failure. Despite similar usage rates, African-Americans are incarcerated for drug charges at almost six times the rate of whites.

In this case, the marginalized are women everywhere. Sexual assault, degradation and violence have, for centuries, placed the burden of fear on them. Justice calls for that burden to shift to men. Instead of the woman fearing what might come after a boss’s inappropriate innuendo, it seems entirely decent and moral for the man to live in fear that his unrighteous act may cost him his job.

ARNAB DATTA, WASHINGTON

And, on the same hard copy page:

Re “Matt Damon Criticized Over Behavior Remarks” (Arts pages, Dec. 19): Matt Damon is absolutely right that there is a “spectrum of behavior.” As with so many crimes and misdeeds, there are obvious degrees of seriousness.

I certainly have no right to tell anyone how she, or he, should feel — or to assess the personal harm done by a leer, a lewd joke, a quick grab in an elevator or a brutal rape. But as a society we do, and must, discriminate. We’re in dangerous waters now, at risk of losing a pivotal movement in our culture to hysteria and mob-rule justice.

My daughter and my granddaughter will live in a much better country if we don’t now lose sight of what is reasonable.

PETER KEATING
CHARLESTOWN, R.I.

___________________________________________

I do know that stalking of boys by unstable girls desperate for boyfriends has been going on for at least 30 years or so, which is very rude and counter-productive, to say the least. I'm all in favor of stopping it.

From Miss Manners: "Pushy tactics are self-defeating. The real skill, in courtship, is to be able to play just slightly more slowly than one's partner."

Btw, on the subject of "teaching," do we all agree that no matter how young someone is, certain classroom behaviors, at least, MUST be nipped in the bud, and that if the parents are too lazy or uncaring, the teachers can and should stop it by any legal means - AND have free rein to do so, unlike now.

Examples of student behavior: Hitting, bullying, stealing, and calling the teachers epithets to their faces.

We agree that those must be stopped ASAP? Good. So what's the difference when it comes to "casual" racist or sexist remarks, which can easily turn into something worse when not taken seriously by adults? Or unwanted touching? (True example: A white preteen whose mother thought she'd been raising him to be tolerant casually said that a young black stranger on an expensive bike must have stolen it - and then got ANGRY when the horrified mother said that's a racist thing to say! Apparently, his understanding of the word "racist" was so limited that he really didn't think that counted.)

Oh, and here's a violent crime that most parents don't talk to their kids about, even though it happens several times every year. I'd say that in a way, it fits in with what I said about peer pressure - and being desperately lonely. (What are the odds any of those boys would have done something like that if he were alone?)

http://time.com/5080269/ohio-teens-murder-overpass-sandbag/

Finally: Since, as I mentioned on Dec. 26th, boys change a lot once they turn 15 or so, yes, they DO need certain rules/laws spelled out over and over in ways parents often don't realize - and that includes teaching boys to go against the peer pressure of other boys, of course. (Think Glen Ridge.)

1. No, you can't force a girl into sex just because she wasn't a virgin when you met. It's still illegal, believe it or not.

2. No, you can't force her just because you two have been dating for two months and you're sick of her "pretending" she's not ready.

3. No, you can't force her because you've paid for three restaurant meals in a row and you're angry about it.

4. No, you can't force her when she takes off all her clothes and then changes her mind.

5. No, you can't force her just because you two had consensual sex yesterday.

6. No, you can't assume that an unconscious or near-unconscious woman got that way in the hope someone will have sex with her. (Not that that doesn't happen, but still...)

7. No, you can't assume that it won't be statutory rape if you know she's just a few months younger than you BUT you don't know just what the laws are in your state. So girls your age and older won't give you the time of day? Too bad. There are sound reasons those laws exist.

8. Yes, unwanted sex exists, just as you wouldn't want a man to attack you and ignore your screams of "no."

And, with regard to boy's RIGHTS (which I wrote):

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2016/10/02/students_walk_o.html

"Given nearly half of sexual assaults are committed by women
__________________________________________

Why are you the ONLY one here who seems to believe that completely?"

Lenona, your ignorance combined with self-righteousness is tiresome. Check out the CDC statistics on "made to penetrate." Moreover, including all types of recognized domestic abuse, women are far and away the champions of inflicting various types of physical, emotional and psychological misery on "loved" ones.

Your posts mostly confirm the wisdom of men steering clear of women as much as possible -- at least until a woman demonstrates she doesn't suffer from a vicarious persecution complex.

Your desire that men should "fear" interactions with women is particularly revealing -- and deeply troubling. I suggest you check out Clint Eastwood's "Eiger Sanction" where Clint tells a bodyguard built like a bag of bowling balls, "You scare me. I don't like being scared" -- and then proceeds to beat the living sh!t out of him.

We men don't like being scared ... and women who want to instill a fear of women in men are very foolish indeed.

Check out the CDC statistics on "made to penetrate."
__________________________________________

What do you know. When I searched on those terms, the first article that came up (at TIME) was "The CDC's Rape Numbers Are Misleading."

Who wrote that?

Cathy Young.
____________________________________

Your desire that men should "fear" interactions with women is particularly revealing -- and deeply troubling.
_____________________________________

Says the man who implied in the Stanford thread that someone who's too drunk to resist and is practically comatose should be legally fair game for anyone to assault - or rob.

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2016/06/11/outrage_leads_t.html

(See June 11, 3:38 pm)

What's more, I did NOT say I want anyone to fear LEGAL interactions with anyone. If a woman is being misandrist and unfair when she assumes she can't trust any man (even one she knows well) not to attack her when there's no one else around, men have no right to assume every woman is going to make a false accusation, given the chance. Again, if you don't want to be accused of inappropriate touching, don't touch without permission.

From Miss Manners (1995):

"...Of course you don't want to be overheard around the office making tasteless remarks. Of course you should keep your personal problems to yourself during work hours. Of course you should keep your hands to yourself. Of course you shouldn't air opinions anyone at the office might find offensive. And right again--you shouldn't be writing on the men's room walls.

"This is known as professionalism. Even when there were all-male workplaces, anyone who went about spouting unpopular opinions, blabbing about his personal life, grabbing people, and writing on the walls was in trouble. Gentlemen were expected to observe professional etiquette.

"Miss Manners lives in hope that they will someday learn to extend this courtesy to their female colleagues."

Since that was less than half of what MM said, here's the rest of it (plus the letter itself, of course):

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-07-28/features/9507280006_1_sexual-harassment-special-treatment-union-work-rules

Also, can't find it right now, but there was a column from maybe less than a year ago in a newspaper. In it, the columnist tells of a colleague who griped, in effect: "remember the days in the workplace when you could just say ANYTHING you wanted and not get in trouble?!"

Pause.

Columnist: "No. No, I don't."

(The complainer was a white male and the columnist was a black woman.)

"When you've been in a privileged position where you haven't had to look at your part, you didn't 100% understand you were in a bubble." said the celebrated famous Ivy League-educated happily-married lesbian enjoying the fruits of a law passed by a mostly male Congress and signed by a male President allowing her union from the comfort of her multi-zillion-dollar Hollywood mansion.

Because privilege bubble, you bastards.

OK, found it. (Yes, I got one detail wrong, anyway.) It's by Renée Graham. (I think she's around 50.)

12 Mar 2017

"...I once worked with a woman who was so upset about a sexist remark made by a male co-worker that she reported him to their supervisor. He was briefly suspended, and some men were resentful that this woman dared to complain at all. While discussing the issue, a male colleague said to me, 'God, remember the days when you could just say anything?'

"Without hesitation, I said, 'No.'

"I had never known a time when I could just say anything, not as a black woman in a world I saw as predominately white and male. My opinion was rarely solicited and certainly not valued, so I kept it to myself. After years of both implicit and explicit silencing, when I finally found the confidence to speak my mind, that liberation overwhelmed me. Yet initially I only understood that I had a voice; how to use it effectively came later through writing, debates, and peaceful protests..."

"...In his book of essays, 'Why Black People Tend to Shout,' Ralph Wiley, an African-American sportswriter who died too early and was forgotten too soon, wrote, 'Black people are too happy just being able to shout not to take advantage of the luxury. When you have read that bits were put in some of your ancestors' mouths, you tend to shout.'..."

IRA, at that point they learn the wrong lesson. So no, after a certain age you can't teach these things. At lest not 99% of the time.

"Then why do we bother trying to use therapy to convince ADULT males to stop hitting people, with or without the threat of prison? If it never worked, wouldn't we have heard that by now?"

Yes we have Lenona. We've heard. And it doesn't work. Never really did.

Well, as with an alcoholic, if he/she doesn't really WANT to change, it won't happen. Obviously. What about when they do want to stop hurting people - at least somewhat?

Even truly dangerous people often have more self-control than they realize. That is, when they say they can't help themselves, they're lying, in a way.

True example, from Dr. Michael Kimmel's book:
_______________________________________

...This guy—let's call him Al—had recounted that he had returned home from work one evening. It had been a particularly hard day; he was a contractor and several workers hadn't shown up, and he was already pissed that he had to pick up the slack for them. Deadlines were looming larger and larger, and he was starting to get anxious that they might not make it. When he arrived home, though, his wife, who did not have a job outside the home, was just starting dinner. “What could she have been doing all day?” Al asked.

As I'd been trained, I asked him to describe the room in as much detail as possible. (Therapists often argue that it's in these details, and especially in our recollections and narratives of these details, that the clues to successful interventions may lie.) Al described the kitchen. He was in the door frame between the dining room and kitchen, half in and half out of the room. His wife was by the stove, where there was a frying pan for the chicken she was cutting up on the cutting board next to the stove. Frozen french fries were in a bag on the counter, and some vegetables were lying, unwashed and uncut, on the counter.

“So that's when you lost control,” I asked, “when she was standing there cooking, and you came in and she hadn't done what she was supposed to do?"

“Yeah,” Al said. “I mean I do what I’M supposed to do, right? I work my ass off and come home to that shit?"

"So what happened?" I asked.

"I start yelling, and so she starts yelling about the stuff she has to do, like cleaning and cooking and shit, and we just start yelling, and it gets pretty intense in there. She’s such a fucking bitch, man. I work, and she complains. I got really, really mad.”

“And that’s when you lost it?”

“Yeah, man, I just lost control. I just lost it.”

“Hmm,” I said, sort of buying time, wondering how to interrupt this selfjustifying conversation. “Well, I'm trying to picture this. She's standing by the stove; there's food everywhere, some forks and knives and other cooking stuff around, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, why didn’t you just pick up a knife and stab the bitch?” I asked.

Suddenly, the room grew silent. A couple of guys looked at me as if I finally “got it,” finally understood things from their point of view, that I finally understood that sometimes the women just deserve it, you know?

But Al looked at me somewhat blankly. “What the fuck do you mean, man?” he said. “Stab her? Are you fucking crazy? I didn’t even hit her with a closed fist! I didn’t want to kill her!”

“Wait a minute, Al,” I said. “You mean to tell me that you didn't even punch her, that you didn't close your fist when you hit her?”

“No, man! Open hand, open hand.”

“Then how can you sit there and tell me that you lost control? I mean, if you and I got into it right here, and you lost control, do you think you'd say to yourself, 'Now, Al, don't close your fist. Hit him with an open hand'? Of course not. You DECIDED to hit her. You DECIDED not to pick up a knife. You REMEMBERED not to close your fist when you did. You were in control the whole time!”

Bear in mind that Al's wife had ended up in the hospital that night, with a black eye and a hairline fracture to her jaw. But what happened in that moment was that I had inadvertently interrupted the casual consensus that men hit women when they lose control. The loss of control is the pretext, the facilitator that enables him to do what he INTENDED to do, which is to which is to use violence to control her, as he feels entitled to do. Losing control provides plausible deniability, explains away the intentionality, the purposiveness, of the violence.

But if that violence is purposive—intentional, deliberate, and rational —it is also expressive of a feeling that the power and control that you assume, to which you feel entitled, have been eroded, compromised. Violence is the way to restore what should have been in the first place. It doesn't happen when everything is going smoothly, when “his” power is unchallenged. It's only when it breaks down. Violence is restorative. Afterward, everything is returned to its “rightful” state.
________________________________________

(end)

When they want to change Lenona they do. They don't need therapy. It doesn't work. It never has. They need to stop wanting to hurt people. Since it really isn't hard to not hurt people that is the end of it. They don't need lessons. Don't need training. You just don't do it.

There's also such a thing as wanting to stop - but not completely wanting to. As with alcohol and all the bad behavior (and attitudes) it aggravates. Not everything is black and white.