Honey Chil' Don' Play That Way
Don't ask why: Click for Patricia.
A bit off-topic, if I may: I used to have a button that read "Nuke a Gay Whale for Jesus."
I remember versions of that one. You know the gay whale joke, right? In San Francisco Bay?
• • •
No, Bill wasn't not nice. Bill is a man who is nice to women. Although Bill might be a sexual predator too, he isn't a Sith Lord.
I'm not entirely certain where to start.
Look, even as vapid humor, this just isn't the time in general. I'm not certain that it ever necessarily will be; there are times in the past when this sort of thing would have passed muster. I mean, there
was the one judge who became infamous some years ago when he handed out an extraordinarily light sentence to a child rapist on the grounds that Bill Clinton got away with adultery. You know, because calling down a Supreme Court justice to convene a trial that wouldn't be happening without the juristic sleight of rhetoric and process undertaken by, well, the Supreme Court is what most of us would call getting away with it.
That's why. He played word games in a deposition that never should have been allowed except for a Supreme Court justice writing an infamous carveout that will probably never be used again in particular, and in general only a right-leaning or right-wing court would ever follow the precedent structure for any similar reason. (Prior precedent and subsequent case law prescribe that presidents should not have to sit for such depositions while in office; Bill Clinton was a deliberate and calculated exception.)
Bill Clinton got hauled out and raked over the coals like few ever are. Nobody has to believe it was enough, but the truth of the matter is that we're also rushing to save ourselves in our denunciations of Donald Trump. I mean, think of some of the misogyny threads and, well, how those go over and what so many men around here think of how I see masculinity in my time and place. A major problem I have with the cultural masculinity of my lifetime is that it includes this framework:
• It is true that my American society was during this time such that it could all be true and Bill end up being a perfectly nice guy, as well-balanced as an ex-president can be. Seriously, that is the larger cultural problem, here. Juanita Broaddrick accuses a rape in 1978. That could be true in some context that society at large is more willing to recognize. That could very easily be true. 1978? The Deep South? In truth, I'm hard-pressed to think of where in the U.S., but come on, if there's one bit of Bill's reputation that sticks it's a Southern Bubba stereotype. Yeah, that kind of (cough!) "seduction" (hack! wheeze!) ... er ... ah ... right. But, well, y'know, it was kind of normalized. And that's the thing. We're reaching back to the days when the stupid idea that it's not rape unless you [escalation] actually held sway. If Bill Clinton is the kind of ... look, if he's the kind of stylish, charming, harassing philanderer that really was some manner of (cough! hack! retch!) role model―seriously, why is James Bond admirable? or, you know, consider the whole Porky's generation and how society wrangled with the morality of whether such films mucked up Christian mores while we completely ignored the fact that it was pretty much all objectifying and denigrating toward women and, though not universal, a very powerful paean to rape cult―that can stay just this side of it's not rape unless, well, at that point he is within range of masculinist defense, which still isn't especially useful. But the idea basically goes that, sure, he's in some degree of denial insofar as he will tomato-tomahto something about seduction and rape, but does evolve with the times, essentially rendering him a grotesquely emblematic symptom of society. It's actually part of what a lot of men are protecting when they freak out about feminism. To the one, yeah, sure, it sucks to acknowledge (ahem!) the fun is over, but, to the other, it can be really hard to countenance the things we've said and done. It's easy enough when it's Donald Trump. Bill Clinton's sins wouldn't pass muster in today's court of public opinion, but at the actual clinical level, we're looking at an apparently different behavioral phenomenon than what we see in Trump. Bill had his day in the dock versus the public opinion, and it was, to be certain, a far more sympathetic court back then than anyone would face today. As it is, Bill Clinton could easily be guilty of predatory and criminal behavior, have gotten away with it, and, having survived his public trial by Congress, remain in good standing among decent people today. Is there something new to unsettle that? If so, the People might well decide to go there. But until then, he gets to have this shiny, nearly sublime, Zen Bubba reputation. Them's the terms.
Donald Trump is also familiar with the era; it lasted into my lifetime such that part of it is indelibly stamped on my conscience. That is to say, had I been out of the closet in my twenties, I doubt I could have met the obligations I believed for receiving partners; I easily could have gotten myself killed.
No, seriously, I think of all the dumbassed shit we might ask of women in my lifetime, and there is
no way I can possibly give all that to a partner.
I can't. I just ... fucking ... can't.
It really does add up.
But that's the thing; my lifetime includes a defining arc of masculinity over time that does, in fact, allow Bill Clinton to be both rapist in 1978 and fine human being in 2016.
To Arfa Brane's point, there is (
cough!) something of a conflict between terms, but there is also an extraordinarily dangerous region of the discussion. The thing is that with rape there is no "worse". But at the level of discourse in which a society is collectively trying to understand itself, we
do make distinctions. Not all of them are accurate. Nor are they all fair. Nor should we allow ourselves to believe they are all necessary; we can neither presume to have accounted for them all.
And within this range, well, right: Bill Clinton
has endured his trial by public opinion,
does not currently display dangerous attitudes, and
should not be held as some debit against his wife's human decency. Donald Trump simply continues to display dangerous attitudes and behave pretty much according to type. These are the gaslight days of the Trump campaign, and we might reflect for a moment on masculine privilege:
It's insane. And astounding. And breathtaking. And thoroughly unbelievable except it's happening. And it's not me.
I get to witness this.
My mother, my daughter, my friends who just happen to be female―they're
living through this.
That's not me he's torching. I get to witness this. I get to watch and hear and analyze and I do not have to take a single one of these blows. These are not my impacts to bear.
Then again, they're American women. They'll get through this just fine. They'll carry on. It's what they do. (If I'm not tapping my foot at that last, it's because technically She's already glaring at me and tapping Her foot just fine for Herself.)
But, really, this is what the next four to eight years are going to look like. And not all of the bruises are going to be rhetorical. Trump? Maybe; we'll have to see who's in charge of the take-our-country-back noise and fury. But the fire and thunder Donald Trump has put on so far is nothing compared to how traditional male chauvinism and supremacism will respond to Hillary Clinton's election and inauguration.
