Going to Gdańsk

I leave for Gdańsk tomorrow, so of course I am pondering my death. I always ponder my death before I travel. Pondering your own death is a good, traditional Catholic thing to do. And it reminds you to update your will, as I did last week by ripping up a codicil.  I am a terrific will-changer. Nobody will ever want to murder me for a legacy.

In the event of death, I will not leave you orphaned, for there are a number of women tilling in the Single Solidarity field.  Some of them are readers, and prominent among you are the Orthogals. who blogister (my portmanteau of blog and minister, get it?) for Single women of the Eastern Christian persuasion, aka the GREEKS. There there's Christian Grace from The Evangelista. On a completely different, and not explicitly Catholic note, there's newcomer Postum Scriptum, who writes about all kinds of traddy and vintage stuff, like the lost art of letter-writing.

Then of course there are the Professional Writers for Singles who are farther afield and either taking money from the Catholic Dating Websites or are just better than me at marketing what I give for free. And I don't have a problem with that. Just because my conscience says "donations, speaker's fees and book sales only" doesn't mean that's what their consciences say. Occasionally my conscience does twinge a bit when I point to the balance of my student loan, but it just really refuses to get involved with Catholic Dating Websites. And, yes, I know they do some good.

Which reminds me. Somehow my name has been attached to the idea of dating websites because I did a fellow freelancer a favour by answering questions about  internet dating and meeting B.A. online.  But I did not meet B.A. through a dating website; I met him through my blog. Don't believe everything you read in the newspapers: it's not that journalists lie, it's that whoever makes up the headlines and the captions doesn't know how to, or just doesn't have time to, read the actual article.

***
I had insomnia last night after watching the Sherlock episode, "A Scandal in Belgravia."  I don't often watch violent or suggestive stuff, and "A Scandal in Belgravia" was both.  Also, I have a deep loathing of sexually sophisticated people who try to take advantage of sexual innocents, so I did not enjoy watching Irene Adler's attempts on Sherlock's virtue. Sherlock is an arrogant twit, but he does not use his intellectual prowess to bamboozle people into bed. The farthest he goes is to flirt mildly with poor Molly in the morgue so that she will let him see the latest corpse or what have you.

The writers depict Sherlock and his brother Mycroft as cold fish without feeling, and seem to say coldness is why Sherlock, at least, is largely proof against sexual temptation. But as a matter of fact, Sherlock is intensely loyal and protective of the few people who are intensely loyal and protective of him. It's a great plot device: when the writers need us to feel pity and fear, they put Watson in danger of certain death and Sherlock's blue eyes positively blaze with rage. In contrast, Watson's angry, jealous girlfriends, with whom he presumably, to quote him, "gets off", are just figures of fun.

Despite themselves, the writers have hammered home the idea that in itself sex means nothing next to chaste, self-sacrificing love. Still, I don't think they would go so far as to extol Sherlock's chastity as normal and another example of his formidable powers of reasoning. But I would.

There is a quality of mercy in Sherlock. As blunt and thoughtless as he can be, and as capable of throwing baddies out the window, he takes pity on people when he realizes that they seem to love him. And this is most unlike the kind of  sociopath who punishes most those who seem to love him.

Because, to move from television to real life, there are indeed men who punish, rather than protect, those who love them because their victims love them. Perhaps there are women like that, too. But I have met at least two men like that. Their own mothers were afraid of them. And although only one of them actually said, "I enjoy making the people who love me suffer", the same was true of both.

These were not seedy gangsters. They did not have criminal records. These were mildly good-looking, charismatic, clever men with intellectual interests who attracted less intelligent but nicer men as loyal friends. Possibly one was much nicer when he was younger; the other was a sadist by 17, and by sadist I don't mean all that silly sexual game-playing so-called "sophisticated" people think so daring. I mean that even at seventeen he enjoyed making the people who loved him suffer agonies of mind and heart. I cannot for the life of me understand why, or if he could have been improved by psychiatric help.  I wonder what a priest would have said to him; I wonder how often parish priests in comfortable countries have to look squarely at evil and see a soul in palpable danger of hell.

I am quite sure that as painful as it is, it is much better to love someone like that and to suffer innocently than to be someone like that and make innocents suffer. So if these were to be my last ever written words, I would want to say, not "Look out for someone like that" but "Don't be someone like that." Satan, handsome, clever, attractive, arrogant Satan, makes a lousy role model.

Ostatnia Nigella

This morning I woke up to terrible headlines about two British celebrities who actually deserve to be celebrities, an important art collector and a beloved television chef. Charles Saatchi is a successful businessman and patron of the arts and Nigella Lawson is a successful businesswoman and daughter of Lord Lawson. We are not talking the sort of accidental celebrities who are made by appearing on reality shows or taking their clothes off for Page 3.

Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson are married, and the former was photographed appearing to throttle the latter and to tweak her nose as they sat outside a restaurant in London, arguing. Well, he was arguing; she apparently was trying to calm him down. And this being the UK, and they being celebrities, every national paper is running the story. Is Saatchi abusing Nigella? As stories go,  that's huge. The photos were released to the world on, ironically, Sunday.*

As Kathy Shaidle (don't click to Kathy if you are not a keen freedom-of-speecher) likes to say, the real story is in the comments, so I clicked to the Daily Mail for the vox populi. The vox populi was divided. Comments ranged from "Maybe he was just checking her glands" to "How dare the photographer take photos instead of step in to save the damsel in distress?" to... Actually, now that I think about it, the comments could be divided into "We should mind our own business" and "Saatchi is a wicked wife abuser."

I gave up on the comments before anyone said "If screaming, yelling and getting physical is their thing, they should save it for the bedroom" which was my second thought. My first thought was "Oh, poor Nigella! She's just putting up with it because she loves him and cares about her marriage." But my second thought was definitely in the realm of Choice C: "How awful for the other people at the restaurant."

As long-term readers know, I don't write much about marriage. I didn't like being married the first time, but I like being married now. However, I've only been married for four years, and that doesn't make me any kind of expert. But I do know that marriage depends on loyalty, and so if I get mad at B.A. for something, I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to tell anyone. Well, I'm going to tell B.A., obviously, because I care enough. I'm here for the long haul and that means confrontation and reconciliation.

But the upshot is that I'm not going to write that much about my marriage because it is not just mine, it is B.A's. Also, I might make him look like an ass, and the worst non-criminal thing a wife can do is make her husband look like an ass in public. Meanwhile, the worst non-criminal thing a husband can do is humiliate his wife in public, which is what I think Charles Saatchi has done. The whole of the UK now thinks he thinks his wife is just property he can slap around.

I am confident B.A. would not mind me saying that physical violence does not play a role in our marriage. He might be a tad shocked to know that it plays a role in other people's marriages, and there are married couples out there who slap each other, grapple and occasionally throw things and laugh about it afterwards. And there are even some married couples would would think life would not be worth living if they didn't scream and yell and slap each other from time to time. It takes all kinds to make a world.

This dynamic is not the same thing as domestic abuse although I can imagine it could quickly turn into domestic abuse, and the minute one spouse says they are sick of scream-yell-slap, that should be an end to it.

I am not myself comfortable with violence-as-vehicle-of-sexual-expression, in part because I associate hitting with boxing and boxing with a code of honour. An honourable boxer hits people in the ring, never out of it, unless in self-defense, and you never, ever hit a girl a member of the opposite sex. Also, I know it is a supremely bad idea ever to hit someone whose first impulse is to hit back, e.g. a boxer in training, particularly when they are stronger and heavier than you, and men are usually stronger and heavier than you.

However, as I said, some married couples are okay with slapping, grappling and throwing things, and therefore [Update: if that is true], the rest of us should usually butt out---as long as they keep it behind closed doors. [Update: When it is public, then the public may certainly voice its displeasure, as the British public has certainly done today.]  Because that kind of consensual violence, cherubs, lurks in the murky shadows of the sexual realm, and not only should the public not see it, neither should the couple's children. [Update: B.A. is throwing all kinds of fits about this paragraph, just so you know.]

I notice that the British newspaper-reading public is always telling female celebrities to divorce their male celebrity husbands. Speaking as a Catholic and a former divorcee, I object to this. I think female celebrities should fight for their marriages and not give David or Wayne a chance to abandon them and their children for whatever brainless hussy managed to so fatally distract them for half an hour. Not only would such a capitulation be bad for the wives and their children, it would be certainly bad for David and Wayne, et alia, who would be eaten alive by brainless hussies until the money was gone and they were just pathetic and rather creepy old men in constant danger of hell. (Oh yeah. Hell.)

Meanwhile, it's up to Nigella to decide what she wants to do. If for whatever reason the shadowy corners of her sexual psyche enjoy the rough stuff meted out by her husband, then she is well in her legal rights to stick with him. If she's sick of it, then it's up to her to lay down the law or start divorce proceedings. But whichever she decides, I hope this couple calls an end to fighting in public. It's not dignified, and it puts other people off their lunch.

*Irony explained: Nigella is almost the Polish word for Sunday, niedziela.

Update: I am much more disturbed by reports that he says he doesn't like her food. The woman is a renowned chef, and spouses can hurt each other very much by belittling each other's proven accomplishments. I cannot see what he would gain from doing so. Surely he is a big enough man without having to diminish the woman in his life to feel even bigger?  I mean, he's Charles Saatchi. Hello.

Update 2: Fellow Catholic Cristina Odone weighs in. Normally I don't pay attention to celebrity gossip, but this is sort of the British equivalent of Guggenheim throttling Julia Child.

Update 3: After much vigorous debate, my husband B.A. weighs in here: "I think my major concern is that – prima facie – violence is bad.  Even if we can do “play” violence that genuinely causes no harm – because it is implicitly consensual and non-injurious – the default position should still be that violence is dangerous.  I can’t imagine any kind  of violence in the New Jerusalem: I conclude that violence as such is a post-lapsarian phenomenon.  So, when I hear that a man has been publicly violent to his wife and that she subsequently leaves in tears, my instinct is that something bad has happened – something which I might have been inclined to interrupt if I witnessed it.  Of course I could be wrong and find myself making a fool of myself by so concluding about any particular case.  But I think the default assumption in such a case is that harm is being done.  What, if any, mitigating assumptions might be justified – such as that the couple may find this kind of stuff fun in private – should take a back seat.  And this is precisely because that we have to have really  good reasons to think that any particular case of violence is “alright”.  That this was a man being  publicly violent to his visibly distressed wife very strongly  suggests to me that something was probably wrong."

Update 4: I used to box. For almost a year, I was the only woman who trained at my gym. Men hit me (but usually pulled their punches). I hit them. It was not such a big deal. Therefore, I have a very nuanced philosophy about when physical force is okay and when it is not. I do not have as strong a sense as B.A. that "prima facie--violence is bad." But I agree that it is dangerous.

Update 5: Guardian columnist who thought Saatchi-Lawson event might not have been a case of domestic abuse eats words. I am not a Guardian columnist, so I don't have to worry about angry Guardian readers. I am, however, a Catholic Register columnist and have written a denunciation of Fifty Shades of Grey, of which over 70 million copies have been sold, mostly to women.

Gut versus Self-Doubt

I've been thinking a lot about my controversial advice to the nineteen year old reader whose first impulse, when approached for friendship by a stranger a few older than she when she was on a family outing, was to ask her father. She was embarrassed that she had done this--and perhaps that her father  had given his opinion not only to her but to the stranger--and wondered what else she might have done.

I said she had done the right thing, and she could do it again in future. But this is not because I am a huge fan of the patriarchy. I do not think adult women should have to consult their fathers every time an adult man asks them on a date. It is because I think women should trust our gut instincts and not second-guess our snap decisions about men.

My usual example is the elevator. You are about to get on an almost-empty elevator. You see a man who instantly makes you feel uncomfortable. He looks at you. You look at him. And then either you get on or you let the elevator doors slide shut. I recommend you let the elevator doors slide shut. Who cares what he thinks? You should care what you think, and so should he, if he wants women not to avoid getting on an elevator with him. ("Wow! Maybe my four-hours-a-night internet porn habit is starting to show on my face!")

I've also been thinking a lot about the Cleveland kidnap victims. A lot. Maybe too much. It creeps me out that Gina DeJesus was the best friend of Ariel Castro's daughter Arlene. Did it ever occur to Gina that Arlene's dad was kind of creepy? And, when he offered her a ride, did she dismiss her feelings that he was kind of creepy by thinking, "Well, you know, he's Arlene's dad, and I don't want to be disrespectful"?

And I think this because once upon a time when I was a kid in Toronto, a bearded stranger in car stopped beside me and offered me a lift. Now, I had been brought up always to be polite to grown-ups, but also never EVER to get into a car with a stranger. So naturally I said, "No, thank you."

The next day at school, one of the boys in my class told me with disgust that his dad had mocked me at their dinner table. He had offered me a lift, and I had looked at him as if he were "some kind of pervert." In short, this boy tried to make me feel deeply ashamed, and no doubt he succeeded for, behold, I still remember this incident thirty years later. (Oh nooos! I had hurt the feelings of a Grown-Up I ought to have RESPECTED!)

But for all I know his dad was a pervert.  Even if I had recognized him, even if I had remembered he was my classmate's father, that would have been absolutely no reason to trust him.

Sadly, we don't need external voices like my classmate's to make us feel dumb about snap decisions we make about our safety. Many of us have an internal voice that says, over and against our gut, "Oh, such-and-such, don't be so silly" or "Oh, such-and-such, how can you be so uncharitable?" I don't know where this voice comes from. It could be the result of an unfortunate psychic accident that occurred when we were four or five and our mothers lost their tempers. "Oh, such-and-such, don't be so SILLY," they said, having no idea this would stick in our heads on a repeating loop for years.

At any rate, this voice needs to be replaced and overcome by a trust in your gut, especially before you become the victim of your own wishful thinking.

As an adult woman, I went on a date with a guy who confused me. I had met him years before when I was a lot more confident about my importance in the world, and barely gave guys like him the time of day. However, I was going through a bad patch of "Why am I Single?" and "Wow, my male religious friends are so much more supported and confident in their futures than I am!" So I went on this date, and the guy behaved in a really weird way. He kept losing his train of thought, and telling me it was because of me. He said I was queenly and that I frightened him. It was kind of flattering but also kind of weird.

It was also kind of Game. The point of Game is to unsettle a woman so that she feels like she will go crazy if she doesn't figure out what is going on and therefore looks to the Gamer for the answer. And that sure worked on me. I sat by the phone for days (at least, I hope it was days), wondering how I had simultaneously attracted and frightened this guy. And why, since he said I had really knocked him for a loop, had he not called me? So, I am sorry to say, I called him.

And so began a particularly nasty relationship featuring a lot of screaming from him and a lot of frightened apology from me. My goodness, I would sit under the phone in the kitchen with tears streaming down my face while an impassioned voice shrieked dramatic and alliterative insults in my ear. What a contrast his screams were to his little gifts, his avowals of love, the candle-lit dinners, etc., etc.

At the time, I had not heard of Game, and indeed I did not find out about it until some time later, when I recognized some of the lines and techniques and the name of one of its local experts, once referenced by Mr Screamer in one of his abusive post-relationship pseudonymous communiques. But Game works on me, which is sad, but I am indeed one of those women who scrambles to make sense of the absurd. As I told my spiritual director, I am attracted to men who behave in crazy ways, and we came up with a deal that from then on that I was going to avoid men who act in crazy ways.

I'm not sure I lived up to that since, you know, I ended up with B.A. But, actually, I never got a "Well, THAT was weird" feeling from B.A.  When B.A. proposed after ten days, it felt happy and hilarious (I giggled all the way through), but never crazy or weird. And since them B.A.'s impulsiveness has mostly manifests itself in unexpected funny remarks and puns. An inherently relaxed individual, having made a huge effort to get what he wants, he lapses back into cheerful plodding along. My gut always knew that B.A. was good.

Auntie Seraphic & Sexually Harassed at Church

In recent weeks I have received, not one, but two letters from young women upset by the bad behaviour of men at church groups. I'm not going to reprint the letters or my responses because they are very detailed and the men might be identified by other readers, and I don't want to add to any drama.

When it comes to sexual harassment, what is needed is neither drama nor a whispering campaign, but quick, decisive action by those in authority. 

The first situation involves a woman in her early twenties and an older guy with ongoing mental health issues. The latter was brought along to the the church group by a friend with do-gooder tendencies. The older guy makes my reader and other young women in the church group uncomfortable by talking about how he wants a wife, by leering at them and by getting in their faces when they don't respond to his social networking plays for their attention.

The second situation involves a teenage girl and a younger teenage boy who says things at church group that creep her out and who also made available through social networking his sexual fantasies about her. 

Neither reader wants to leave her parish or her group, but both girls hate feeling like sexual targets and wish the man or the boy would just go away. 

However--and this is one thing that makes being a Christian so difficult--there is a strong disinclination in our religion towards kicking the old, the young, the weak, the stupid, the rejected, the difficult, and the frankly quite annoying out of our parish groups. If we were 6th century Vikings, we could just get our dads and brothers to kill the old ones and beat up the young ones, and Bob's your uncle. But we're not. We follow Christ, and Christ told us to love our enemies and also to invite the halt, the lame and all kinds of disadvantaged people to our parties.  

This, however, is not an excuse to allow men, even very young, very confused or mentally ill men, to make women feel uncomfortable and unprotected in our own parish churches. And, fortunately,  parish churches have a chain of command. The buck stops with the pastor, and if the pastor just leaves it on his desk and doesn't deal with it, eventually the buck can be brought to the bishop.  Hopefully, though, things don't go that far because people are constantly pestering bishops, e.g. every Monday morning regarding Father's dumb homily and the nun who did that thing.  

However, very often it is not a priest immediately in charge of a parish youth group or other parish group. Quite often there is a "lay adult facilitator."  In such cases, the person to talk to about your feelings of discomfort and having been targeted for sexual harassment is this adult. And if for any reason you don't feel comfortable talking to this adult (for teenagers often hate consulting adults; I certainly did), then I suggest you get your mother, father or favourite aunt to do it. 

Do not attempt vigilante justice, either by thinking up some extravagant punishment for the malefactor or by getting an older boy involved. Bullying back is not the Christian way. You must go to the appropriate authority, and this is going to be either the adult lay leader or the priest-in-charge.

Second, you must write down exactly what it is that the boy or man said or did that made you uncomfortable. You must write down specific incidents in a journal with the dates. That way, when you have your meeting (or your mother/father/favourite aunt has his/her meeting) with the leader or priest, there are real, tangible incidents for the leader/priest to come to grips with. Write exactly what happened, without any exaggerations or softenings, and make sure that these are things that happened to you. You can briefly mention that other girls have complaints, but stick to your own grievances. Encourage other girls affected to write down their own, and remember that the action will be more effective if everyone is allowed to tell her own story. The last thing you want is for the leader/priest to dismiss your concerns as a drama you're secretly enjoying.

Third, having stood up for yourself by telling the story to the correct authority, try to exercise some charity. A man with mental health issues who is too unpleasant to attract women is a figure of pity. So is the teenage boy who cannot deal with his own sexuality, or that of anyone else. It is natural to be afraid of such men and boys, but it is not constructive. Mere gossiping about him is also not constructive. What will be constructive will be the leader or priest--someone trained, hopefully--to sit down with this guy as if he were a human being loved by God (which is who he is) and ask him what is going on with him. The crazy guy may confess his terrible loneliness. The teenage boy may mutely telegraph his sexual distress. And all this will be between the guy and the priest or lay leader: your part is done. By blowing the whistle on him to a kindly, Christian authority, you have actually helped him. Don't resent the authority's loving care for him. Just report any further harassment, as it and if it occurs. 

And this brings me to my fourth point. Some men and boys are so clueless that they have no idea that what they say and do is offensive to women. This may be in part because instead of telling them, women smile meekly and run away and the men never hear what the women say afterwards. 

When men offend you, do not smile and laugh nervously. I know it's difficult not to, because when men behave badly, our instinct is to placate them and make them feel at ease so that they won't hurt us. But some men are not that smart and can't tell the difference between fright and enjoyment. Instead, frown. Give him a stern look, as if to a toddler who is destroying a book. Say at once, "That's really offensive to me."  And then, if he doesn't apologize at once, but merely mimics you or huffs and puffs, turn your back and walk away. 

Yes, he may escalate the situation. Inform the appropriate authority at once. Or go home and tell your mother/father/favourite aunt first and then inform the appropriate authority.

I hope this is helpful. None of us should put up with being sexually harassed at church. I realize it is embarrassing to talk about, and it seems absolutely insane that it could happen, but it does.  And if it does, the adults in charge should know about it so they can put a stop to it. So please tell them.

Update: I forgot to address online harassment. There are people whose job it is to make sure no-one is harmed by online antics. If someone posts something inappropriate about you online, contact the administrator of the website.

Update 2: I am absolutely amazed at what Catholics think they can say to each other regarding sexual matters. Really, I am amazed. Is it from years of listening to sexual jokes on television, or what? I just don't get it, especially when such immodesty is coming from a guy giving a lecture on modesty. I mean, hello?

More on Boundaries

As I was rereading yesterday's post, it occurred to me that I ought to have said something about boundaries. Guarding your heart and, let's face it, your whole self from harm involves the setting and maintaining of boundaries.

When we are kids, we are taught a lot of boundaries. We are allowed to play in these places, and not in others. We aren't supposed to talk to strangers unless our parents prompt us to do so. (A bit confusing.) We can't take candy from strangers--again, not unless our parents prompt us to do so. (Also confusing, like so many parental mixed messages.) Some of these boundaries are about our parents' comfort and ease. But most are about our personal safety.

Civilization is all about human beings--especially weak human beings, like children--surviving, thriving and flourishing in community. It is about training the strong not to hurt but to protect or at least to suffer the weaker to survive and thrive unmolested. Christian civilization stresses that all human beings deserve to survive and thrive unmolested--unless they are hurting others, in which case they must certainly be restrained.

However, human beings are not innately civilized, and human beings are thoughtless or wicked quite a lot of the time. Some human beings dedicate themselves to destroying civilization, rather like  that game where you remove parts of a toy tower (or house of cards), block by block (or card by card), to see how much you can remove without the tower crashing down. For example, how often can a child listen to hateful, misogynist, sexually explicit, rape-culture pop music before he or she starts despising women as whores or, ahem, "ho's"?

When civilization begins to fall apart, those who are weaker are most vulnerable. And, although I'm very sorry to say this, this means women, especially young women.* Not only are most women physically weaker than most men, women--especially young women--care more about what people think of us. In general, women want to be cherished, and men want to be respected. We women want to be thought of "nice," and so we often smile ingratiatingly in even the most outrageous of circumstances. We are more likely than men to be victims of political correctness because to be called racist or homophobe or any other nasty name threatens our status of "nice" faster than it threatens our jobs.

I once knew a teenager who was mentally and emotionally abused and manipulated into doing sexual stuff she didn't want to do by a boyfriend who was confined for life to a wheelchair. Disabled men can be just as gentlemanly or as abusive as other men, that's for sure. And this is where I make my Woman Trumps Everything but Child speech.

You may discover, in life, people trying to break down your boundaries or forcing you to second-guess your instincts by acting or speaking as though you are some kind of privileged tyrant, either because of your colour, your ethnic background, your religion, your sweet demeanour, your education, your nice family, your ability to walk, whatever. I highly recommend that you have nothing to do with such people, or at least tell them that they are making you feel uncomfortable, and then talk about what they said with HR (if at work) or your chaplain (if at college).

What's more, I highly recommend that if you get on an elevator and see a man who makes you feel uncomfortable, get off the elevator, even if he is a different colour from you.  If you are walking down the street and you see a man before or behind you who makes you nervous, cross the street, even if he is a different colour from you. It is very important that you privilege your physical safety over your fear of being called a racist. And if anyone ever, ever tells you that if you don't go out with him or kiss him or anything else with him it's because you are a racist, leave at once. Call your mother. Call a cab. Get the heck out.

Woman trumps race. Woman trumps gay. Woman trumps handicap. Woman trumps poor. Woman trumps ethnic group. Woman trumps everything and everyone except children and babies because most woman are more vulnerable than most men, especially in a crumbling civilization. My ethnics prof back in Canada told students always to consider, in an ethical dilemma, "the most vulnerable person in the situation." When it comes to strangers or near-strangers, the sexual revolution, the darkened street, the drunken party, that would be you, my female readers.

This is not to say you cannot inflict a lot of emotional damage on men because of course you can, and I hope you don't do so deliberately or out of thoughtlessness. But you do have to realize that although the sun is shining and the world is beautiful, there are a lot of men who will say or do absolutely anything to take advantage of you and then, after you are crying in agony of spirit, smugly congratulate themselves on their cleverness. (To such men, any lie that does the job counts as cleverness.)

So boundaries. Now that you aren't a kid anymore, it is up to you--not your parents--to draw up these boundaries and to enforce them. Here are a list of potential boundaries you might have chosen already or might find helpful:

1. You don't allow men in your dwelling unless you have known them for a long time.
2. You don't go on overnight trips/out of town with men you barely know.
3. You do not go behind closed doors with men you barely know.
4. You don't discuss "such personal subjects" (i.e. sex stuff) with men who are not your husband or boyfriend.
5. You don't discuss your marital status.
6. You don't discuss your religious beliefs in a casual way, at work or at parties.
7. You don't accept lifts from strangers.
8. You don't discuss race or politics or [whatever] at work/with strangers/ etc.
9. You don't talk to strangers on the street beyond remarks about the weather or giving directions.
10. You don't talk about your sins, except with the clergyman in whom you have chosen to confide.

To enforce your boundaries, you have to speak up. If you have to preface the stating of a boundary with, "I'm sorry, but," that's fine as long as it's just a polite convention and you are not really sorry for your boundaries and God-given autonomy. If speaking firmly doesn't seem to convince your interlocutor of the inviolability of your boundary, or if he starts calling you names (e.g. racist, prude, selfish), then I recommend walking away. And if he tries to physically restrain you, scream your lungs out. Either way, you must then call a friend or relative to tell them what happened, so that your sense of autonomy is strengthened by someone who loves you.

*Teenage girls are particularly vulnerable to STDS/STIs.

Another Glimpse into Hell

I want to get this over with as soon as possible. In short, a reader sent me a link into the black heart of the manosphere to read a post on seducing virgins. It was simply the most disgusting thing I have read for a very long time. It was like listening to the chuckling of demons.

My response was to thank God that, so far as I know, I know only decent men, good men who would never target, trick, hurt, exploit and discard young, inexperienced women and then brag about it online. 

Your fellow reader thought someone should expose the tactics of these freaks, which work along the same lines as negging. Frankly, I don't even want to think about them, but I'll do it because it fills me with horror that such men exist and of course they get away with such things. One of the men in the combox claimed he was operating in Poland. He was amazed at how many 20 year old virgins there are in Poland. I hope he is caught by Polish guys and beaten within an inch of his life.

So here are the tactics. (I'm certainly not linking to the post!) By the way, I would like to remind you for about the twelfth time that you should not tell anyone except your mother, doctor, confessor (if necessary) and your fiance, if you have one, if you are a virgin or not. Do not bring it up in conversation with your female friends because there is a strong chance they will talk about it later, perhaps around male friends, who will tell their male friends...

The Demons' Tactics:

1. Express disappointment that the girl is a virgin. The freak author goes on and on to his victim about how he's only into "fun sex" and how sex with virgins is such a drag.  (I assume this is to shock and confuse her if hitherto everyone has been telling her what a special thing virginity is. This is also to insult her and make her feel less valuable.) 

2. Tease her about it. He says things like "How can you have lived twenty percent of your life without experiencing the greatest thing on earth?" 

3. Tell her he would not want to have sex with a virgin. In a caring way, he tells his victims that they should find someone who will do it in a caring way. He simply doesn't want the responsibility, blah, blah, blah, blah.

4. Put up with the initial awkwardness and physical suffering of the girl as an investment in the (short-term) future. This was the most disgusting part, so be warned. In short, the demon disguised as a human being knows perfectly well that sex is a learned skill. It is not necessarily enjoyable the first time or the second. However, said the DDAHB, if you plan to keep the girl around for at least a month, after the boredom and the hassle of early sex you will be able to get her to do all kinds of sex acts that more experienced women wouldn't do because she is too inexperienced to know what is normal. She will be eager to please, etc., etc.   

The reader sent me to this post because guys have tried these tactics on her, although at the time she did not know they were tactics. She says she would have been devastated if she had succumbed to them and read this post later, so I hope anyone who has succumbed to these things and is feeling wretched will now go and talk to a good friend or good priest about it.  

The reader also wanted to know what I would say to this post, so here is what I have to say.

1. "Game" tactics work on some women and not on others, and this doesn't seem to have anything to do with how smart, educated, religious, high-earning, kindly or beautiful they are. Some women fall for them, and others do not. End of.

I believe they work because they are confusing. They mess with a woman's expectations so that her brain scurries around trying to sort everything out and putting everything back into order, as in Tetris. Lots of women got almost addicted to Tetris. 

It is confusing and unsettling when a guy talks casually and flippantly about such a personal thing as a girl's virginity. It is confusing and unsettling when a guy says it is a bad thing a guy should run from, not a precious thing he (like Don Giovanni) covets or (like a man who loves you) honours. It is confusing and unsettling when a man tells you he's a bad guy, not a good guy, because would a really bad guy tell you that he was a bad guy?

Yes. A bad guy will tell you anything to get laid. ANYTHING. Anything they think will work, and thanks to Game and the internet, the kind of men who think women are living sex dolls share their miserable store of magic words.  

3. And this is one of the reasons why I am adamant that teenagers and young women should not tell anyone other than your mothers, your doctors, your confessors (if necessary) and your fiances (should you have one) that you are still virgins. The subject should just not come up. Ever. If the subject does come up in casual conversation, you should consider keeping the guy who brought it up at arm's length. 

I realize that by saying this I am standing up against a lot of professional chastity educators, purity rings, and the whole "I'm a Virgin and Proud" movement. Yes. I think they are moronic. If you put your head over a parapet, expect it to be shot at. It's okay one thing for married old toughies like me to be attacked; it's another for inexperienced, innocent and sweet teenage and twenty-something girls who just want to be loved. Old married ladies have a lot of armour; young Single girls, not so much.

4. You should also--this was mentioned at Seraphapalooza--keep away from occasions for sin. A cute funny guy whom you still like and think is cool and funny even after he has told you he would never have sex with a virgin because he prefers "fun sex" is a walking occasion for sin.

As we are all sexual beings, we all have to be humble. No matter how good and pure others tell us we are, we are all subject to sexual temptation, and the reason why we are not tempted, if we aren't, is not because we are all that and a bag of chips but because a serious occasion for sin hasn't arrived yet. So when one does, get out of there. 

5. Meanwhile, don't chase men. Game tactics are all about a man chasing a woman while pretending not to, creating just enough interest so that the woman, craving his approval, will chase him. If you train yourself not to chase men, not to pick up the phone, not to send him the text, you will be safer from the tactics of the demons of the post I hope soon to expunge from my memory.

At theology school we were warned against seeing demons in human beings. However, community standards rule that I can't use bad language. And believe me, whoever the guys on that post are, Satan is definitely calling the shots in their lives.   

Questions from Seraphapalooza

On Saturday evening I met four readers in a cafe near a corner of Yonge and Bloor Streets in Toronto and we had a good chat. (Then I rushed off to a dance club on Queen Street West!) I asked the girls what they thought I should write about in future posts, and here are the questions they proposed:

1. How do you avoid the bad guys?
2. If you can't avoid the bad guys, how do you avoid being sucked in by them?
3. How can you help your friends deal with the bad guys they've been sucked in by?
4. How can you help fellow Single friends overcome their negativity?
5. How can you prevent "pity parties" or derail them?
6. Boundary issues: how many details of a romantic relationships should a woman be sharing with her friends?
7. How can Catholic girls understand that just being Catholic doesn't mean we don't need to avoid occasions for sin?
8. The carelessness of girls around a guy they say is "like a brother."
9. The horrors of the self-proclaimed "Nice Guy."
10. How to deal with guys who keep contacting you, but never ask you out?
11. How to deal with guys from other cultures, whose behaviour is very confusing.
12. Should Catholics date non-Catholics?

These are all interesting questions, and I will post about 2-12 in the future. For the moment I will address the question of avoiding "Bad Guys."

1. How do you avoid the bad guys?

First of all, there is more bad behaviour than there are bad guys. Of course, there are some egregiously bad guys out there, but there are also a lot of good guys who are merely immature, moderately selfish, clumsy, thoughtless, loud, over-opinionated, aggressive and chippy. Sometimes it can be difficult to determine if a guy is a bad guy or merely a good guy who would be improved if someone dumped a bucket of water on his head.

I recommend that, instead of being worried about meeting men who are "bad guys", you make a promise to yourself never to be silent in the face of bad behaviour. Instead of worrying about rejecting people, promise to yourself that you will reject bad behaviour. If your boyfriend embarrasses  you in front of your friends, tell him that hurt you and you expect an apology. Don't contact him again until he apologizes. If a man stands you up or cancels a date without a good reason, tell him you are hurt by his lack of respect for you, and don't contact him again until he apologizes.

Good men apologize for hurting people. Bad men don't. Bad men hurt you and then tell you it was your fault because you made him hurt you. If some guy tells you he hurt you because you made him hurt you, walk out of the room. Never contact him again.

Second, don't chase after exciting, charismatic men. If you chase an exciting, charismatic man, you will just be one of the crowd of women who chase after him. Meanwhile, the only real way to tell if a guy is "that into you" is to wait until he contacts you, if he does. You can chat to him, and smile at him, and touch his arm, and invite him to your parties, but that's it. Any chasing behaviour and he may figure you're his to accept, reject, supply him with baked goods, write his essays, etc.

It hurts me to say this, but if you chase a bad guy, you're at least partly responsible for the misery that ensues. If you don't chase any guys, then you are not going to chase a bad guy. Chat. Smile. Touch arm. Invite to parties. End of.

Third, be very careful about the people with whom you associate. If you are a prison lay chaplain then, yes, you are going to associate with felons. But otherwise there is absolutely no reason for you to associate with criminals. If you hang out with girls who hang out with abusive or criminal men, then you are going to come into contact with those men and possibly their friends, too.

Fourth, always carry cab fare at night. If you go to a party and realize you are uncomfortable with what the men are saying or what people are doing, get out. Call a cab. Go home. Phone or email a friend when you get there. Vent your dismay.

Fifth, some girls stick with a bad guy because of their sexual sins, however small those sexual sins may look to a married lady of 39+. There are girls who promise themselves they will only ever kiss one man in all their lives, and that man will be their husband. Therefore, having kissed a bad guy, they  think they must stay with him forever or lose their cherished image of themselves as Pure.

Cherubs. Cherubs. Cherubs. Cherubs. The wonderful thing about a personal life is that it is personal. You don't have to tell anyone about it, ever, if you don't want to. You don't owe anyone but yourself and God a thorough investigation of all the things you have done in your life. And everyone makes mistakes. Everyone over sixteen has done, said or thought things they would not want reported in the papers. (St. Maria Goretti was twelve.)

If you are ashamed of whatever it is that you have done with Mr Not-So-Great, then ditch him explain to him why the relationship must change or end and go to confession. You are not damaged goods; you are a person. So never, ever, ever put up with a guy's bad behaviour and abuse just because you did whatever it was. No, you shouldn't have. Now stop. Your penance should be three Hail Marys, not endless months of mental anguish.

Sixth, it is normal to feel happy and safe in a romantic relationship. If you are in a romantic relationship and you do not feel happy and safe most of the time, something is seriously wrong. You may have read in storybooks that it is exciting and romantic for a man to have tirades and break things because he is jealous, but actually it is simultaneously frightening and boring.  There are authentic ways for men to show that they care about you, and overwhelming jealousy is not one of them.

Seventh, not all non-virgin guys are bad guys. Some are, of course. But most are not. Sexual experience does not = bad.  Lack of respect for you and other women = bad. The fact that a guy had sex with a past girlfriend does not mean that he is an evil, wicked, depraved despoiler of womankind. It means that he is a typical man of the 21st century, perhaps spoiled and weak, but perhaps not.

I agree that it is better and safer to hang out with men who have not been sexually active before marriage or, if they have been, don't like to talk about it and have a lot of respect for people who firmly believe that sex is just for marriage. Perhaps they feel the same way themselves now, or always did, but messed up.

Personally, I feel that a granola-eating, serial-monogamous lefty who thinks there was nothing wrong with sleeping with his girlfriends because it was consensual and they were fond of each other is safer than a man who uses prostitutes or p*rn or one-night-stands. The granola-eater at least associates sex with respect, affection and relationships; the guy who uses prostitutes or p*rn or one-night-stands associates sex with whatever is going on inside his head, which is mightily messed up.

Of course, you are probably more likely to have "The Talk" with Mr Granola than with Mr Humanae Vitae. The only appropriate response from either is "I respect your decision". Mr Granola is less likely to call you after this declaration of respect, not because he is a Bad Guy, but because he is Mr Granola and in his universe "sex is a healthy and essential part of dating."  The important thing is that he did not pressure you or make you feel terrible. If he did, he is indeed a Bad Guy and must be told off royally. The same goes for Mr Humanae Vitae if he does such things, the lousy hypocrite. And he is more culpable than Mr Granola if he doesn't call after "The Talk" because he knows better.

Why Do Girls Give In?

There is an excellent article in the UK Catholic Herald this week about p*rnogr*phy.  The Herald piece is in part a reaction to the following article in the UK Telegraph, which I want to discuss, but I will warn you that some of the remarks in the combox under the Telegraph article are vile.

It’s not often that I unleash my inner Mary Whitehouse, but the way young girls today are expected to conform to a hideous porn culture makes me want to don a pair of glasses with upswept frames and get myself one of those battleaxe perms. A friend’s daughter recently started at a highly regarded boarding school. When her mother asked how she was enjoying the mixed-sex environment, the girl said quietly: “You have to give the boys oral sex or they get cross.” Reeling with shock, the mum protested that her darling daughter did not have to do anything of the sort. “Oh yes you do,” replied the girl. “And you have to shave down there or the boys don’t like it.”

The girl in question is not some brazen, street-smart sixth-former; she is 14 years old. 

Mary Whitehouse was an English Catholic Anglican lady who campaigned against the onslaught of racy conversations and shows over the airwaves in the wake of 1963. She was widely mocked. At the same time she was campaigning, however, an unknown number of pop culture celebrities in Britain were using and abusing teenage girls and children.

I don't know if Mary Whitehouse said anything about the generations of sexual abuse in boys' boarding schools by bigger boys of smaller boys. It's something all men who went to boarding school knew about, and yet they went on to send their own sons to boarding school. And now that women know about this, too, I am amazed that anyone would send their daughters into a co-ed boarding school. What on earth did they think would happen?

It strikes me that there is a bigger problem here than p*rn, no matter how big a problem p*rn may be. The problem is that teenage boys are demanding oral sex from teenage girls, and teenage girls are actually supplying it. Teenage boys are demanding that teenage girls wax their pudenda, and teenage girls are doing it. So much for the feminist revolution--and incidentally, it is illegal for children in Britain to have sex until they are sixteen. Why, I ask, do the girls have no spine?

"So what if the boys get cross?" I would ask this girl if she were my daughter, which she would never be as I would never send my teenage daughter to a co-ed secondary school except as a last resort.  "I mean, SO WHAT?"

In prison, if there were such things as co-ed prisons in the UK, which thank heavens there are not, a girl might worry. If she didn't come across with sexual favours once actually illegal, so disgusting and against women's dignity they were believed to be, well, maybe something even worse might happen to her. But we don't put women into the same prisons as men because we are not stupid. As a society, we don't hate women quite that much.

So it comes as a nasty shock to discover that the threat of  violence hangs over girls in the co-ed schools of the UK, even if that threat is merely "The boys get cross."

As it is illegal for children under 16 to have sex, one solution is to remind children of this every once in awhile and remind them all that soliciting a child under 16 for sex is also illegal. Very rarely does anyone throw the book at a fornicating Romeo-and-Juliet puppy-love pair, but maybe it is time to begin.  At very least something more must be done to protect girls whose parents are naive enough to send them to live under inadequate supervision with a hundred or more teenage boys. Teaching them to value sexual abstinence without apology or embarrassment would be a good start.

Worldwide Culture of Death

People will use yesterday's massacre as another stick to beat the USA with, but I live within two hours' drive to Dunblane, so I won't be among them. There are massacres of innocent people in Europe, just as there are in the USA, and just as there have been in Canada. The common denominator is not gun laws but men who somehow think that their wish to kill innocent people is more important than anything. More important than life. More important than children's happiness.

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."

The one good thing about yesterday is that women--teachers--put their bodies between a twenty-year killer and their under-eleven pupils. This is what adult women are supposed to do. Adult women are supposed to protect the very young and the very old. Adult men are supposed to help us and, oh yeah, protect us from men. This could mean from men like themselves. Men who shout "You're not going out dressed like that, young lady" aren't necessarily speaking solely from theoretical contemplation of other men.

I don't know why a twenty-year old boy would shoot his mother with her own guns and then drive to her school to shoot her kindergarten class* and anyone else, woman or child, who got in his way. Jealousy? A sense of entitlement? Anger over his parents' divorce? Entitlement, almost certainly.

I was born in a country with strict gun laws, and I live in a country with strict gun laws, but somehow I cannot blame the guns. (It's too late for the USA to get rid of them now anyway. It is awash with guns, and always has been, and Americans are stuck with them. You might as well try to rid Scotland of alcohol.)

I blame whatever it is that makes a boy or a man think he is justified in killing his neighbour, let alone his own mother, or a child, or several children. Where did he get that idea? Who told him? Was it advertisers constantly appealing to his ego or sex drive, or television constantly appealing to his ego or sex drive, or movies offering up dodgy models for emulation, or video games in which he is the omnipotent slayer of thousands, or music lyrics that encouraged him to feel hard done by and to take out his rage on people around him?

Was it television news showing Palestinians dragging dead Palestinians behind their motorcycles? Was it thousands upon thousands of images of human beings being brutalised in a hundred different ways?

Was it the constant stream of books and shows celebrating the glamour of evil? Vampires, for example, are not exactly hero material.

Was it the culture of easy divorce, of the importance of parents' personal lives at the expense of their children's happiness? Should divorce laws treat married people with kids the same married people without kids? Does anyone pledge to stay together "for the sake of the kids" anymore?

Was it Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins smirking from book jackets, selling thousands upon thousands of their copies of their message that only idiots fear God. There is no God, they claim. Life is short and ultimately meaningless. It doesn't matter what you do, kid, so have a good time. If you make your mark, maybe your name will live on.

Note that I don't name the killer. Please don't name him in the combox. I wish there was some way to prevent him from becoming a hero to other rebels with a cause or clue. Why, oh why, did pop culture ever make a fetish of those people?

Yesterday showed us a failure in civilization. As an aunt of three children under ten I am sickened and terrified that a privileged, educated young man could even think of killing the little children under his mother's care en masse, let alone do it. The only, only thing that keeps me from despairing is the news that women put their bodies between him and children and said "No." Unlike the survivors of their polar opposite, their survivors can hold up their heads at their funerals and say "My loved one lay down her life for another's child."

Update: The news reports have been changing the details daily. Now it seems that the Connecticut killer's mother was not the children's teacher. There are suggestions she once worked as a teacher's aid. And there are declarations that she had no direct links to the school. One lesson we can take home from this is that the media gets a lot of details wrong and when it doesn't know something, it makes it up, and hopes you will forget later.

Small Shrill Shriek of Rage

I don't usually post on a Sunday, but having recently complained about being hassled on the dark street by non-Scots, it is only fair that I complain also about being hassled by Scots. Young, male, Edinburgh Scots. Team of two. Both taller than me.

Dear men of the world, just don't touch or talk to women you don't know out on the street after dark, okay? If you don't like what we're wearing, look in another direction. If you feel a need to fight a class war, and you feel tempted to start it with a woman wearing a fancy hat, go join the Communist Party or something. If you need to bully someone, hire a therapist to tell you why.

Obviously no woman who is just minding her own business walking from point A to point B at any time of day or night deserves to be harassed. But I must say I find it particularly annoying to be harassed before seven o'clock at night. Seven o'clock. Sure, at this time of year Edinburgh is pitch-black by five. But this does not give young men license to act like complete and total jerks.

At closing time--okay--the local women can plan for the fact that the jerk quotient goes up exponentially and put our don't-get-harassed-by-jerks plans into action. But it's really unfair to harass women at an hour we can reasonably assume ourselves to be safe from cretins.

The number one thing I detest about life in Edinburgh (and mostly I love life in Edinburgh) is how just wearing a hat makes me a target for the chippy kind of Scotsman who think hat = Margaret Thatcher or, perhaps, woman for whom his mother was a charlady. The class system--which unlike gender really is a semi-imaginary social construct--really gets on my nerves; can you not get over it? It's absolutely ridiculous. Some rugby player with a broken nose actually married one of the Queen's granddaughters. There is no such thing as the class system any more; leave me in peace to wear my vintage clothes as often as I like.

Update: Another shriek. Someone tried to destroy the icon of our Lady of Częstochowa at Jasna Góra today. Fortunately, it is covered with really good safety glass and was undamaged.

Girl Girls

My right arm still really hurts, alas, so I will condense my "Pet" post into three sentence: I'm now officially not allowed to have a pet in the Historical House, so my baby substitute options are definitely limited. Does anyone know of a plant that is like a pet? Is there a plant that purrs, or is that only on Star Trek?

The post that I've wanted to write for days is about young men who will tell you that you are not a "real" woman for some reason, and how you should correct and ignore them.

First of all, although some young men may think they are being very objective when they formulate theories about women and femininity, they aren't. So if a man tells you you aren't very feminine, you can take this as saying more about his subjective impressions of reality than about you, even if you are a tanker trucker.

Boys' and men's irrational and subjective thoughts about women can be very damaging to the female psyche, as we naturally want to get along with men, and many of us are prone to self-doubt. The most terrible and extreme example I know of is a little girl whose inevitable but horrible elementary school nickname was, through no fault of her own, "Whore." This poor girl was one of the girls singled out for the elementary sexual experiences of the boys in my class, and was the most despised.

As I scroll through my memory for the usual reasons an innocent girl gets tarred with the "class slut" label--the first to get breasts, willingness to curse, the crime of listening to the wrong music or wearing the wrong clothes, the rumour of an older boyfriend--all I can see is the fact that this girl's nickname was "Whore." That's it. That is why, according to the spirit that ruled my classroom, she could be treated like crap.

And, incidentally, I was too wrapped up in my own problems to think very much about this girl at the time, and it was only after someone else in my class--a girl who had been treated with affection and respect by the boys--told me about seeing her years later, that it occurred to me how much she must have suffered. (In short, the first woman saw the second, turned white as a sheet, and crossed the road.)

My own painful brush with irrational male categories of femininity occurred when I was a teenager, the sort of Dumb Smart Girl who does boys' homework for them because they seem so desperate and only she can save them. I hung out with fellow baby neo-conservatives in a movement where the very word "feminist" was hated, and because I argued the feminist cause, I was considered perhaps a bit of a loose cannon. As luck would have it, my most vociferous critic was the boy I helped with his homework most. He wanted to be seen as an intellectual, and he certainly wasn't one, so I suppose it is no wonder that he hated my guts. Very irrationally, I was quite fond of him and wanted him to like me. (Sigh.)

He was the kind of boy who puts on chivalry like his older brother's jacket and one day bragged at a party that he always treated girls very well.

"But what about Seraphic?" demanded my friend. "You don't treat her very well."

"Oh," scoffed Mr Chivalry. "Seraphic's not a girl girl."

My therapist became very familiar with this story. Possibly my readers are already familiar with this story. Unfortunately, this is one of the defining stories of my life. And why, I ask, did I allow the stupid remark of a teenage dirtbag who begged and pleaded for me to fix his stupid essays to bother me quite that much?

And I suppose I must have thought boys were allowed to define who the "real" girls were, and as generations of women believed, that the greatest feminine accomplishment is to "make boys like you," and so, if you failed in this, you weren't that feminine.

How terrible. And how untrue. But that is enough for today because of my poor arm.

Who Gets the Keys?

I'm not posting the letter that inspired them, but I had many thoughts this morning on how women make themselves emotionally vulnerable to men. Men make themselves emotionally vulnerable too, sometimes, so I'll add something about that to the end of the post.

The easiest way a young woman can make herself vulnerable to a young man is to tell him that she is crazy about him and wants him to be her boyfriend.

The best case scenario is that the young man is beside himself with joy because he never dreamed that Suzy-Q felt the same way about him as he felt about her.

Then there a number of unhappy scenarios, each worse than the last.

1. The Good, Sensitive Man

The young man is shocked because he never thought of her this way. A very sensitive man, he now wonders if he has been leading her on without knowing it, and is sorry. Mindful of her feelings, he says that this is the greatest compliment he's ever had, but he doesn't want to date her. One great face-saving remark is "I don't want to ruin the friendship."

This sensitive young man then avoids the girl for the next month or two because he intuits that his presence may be a source of pain to her. He keeps her at a friendly distance, and then slowly returns to his normal schedule. He is careful not to give her any encouragement, and if she renews her advances, he says "No, I'm sorry" very firmly.

2. The Good, Insensitive Man

The young man is shocked and says he doesn't want to ruin the friendship, but he just carries on as before. He doesn't understand that he and the girl are no longer on the same page. He doesn't understand that she isn't one of the guys and that treating her like one of the guys is a constant source of pain. He might even call her up to tell her all his personal problems, just as before, and all about the girl he has a crush on.

3. The Emotional Opportunist

The young man is shocked because although he has been working on his cover his entire life, he always thought this girl might have guessed that he was a closeted homosexual.

He realizes that her regard for him is compatible with his lifelong goal of not being suspected of being gay. So he either agrees to become her boyfriend--a paragon, too, as he will never initiate kissing, let alone pressure her for sex--or he will hold out a carrot to keep her hooked. In the case of one of my readers and her closeted gay love interest, the carrot was "For now, just friends."

Then they go everywhere together (when he wants) and are the very bestest of friends and only the girl's most sophisticated friends are quizzical rather than envious when she brags that Boyfriend has never even tried to kiss her. Meanwhile, she wonders why she has never met his best friends in the city, or what he does on holidays, or why she has never met his parents, or why he has so many gay friends.

By the way, I know perfectly well not all closeted gay men act like this. But some darn well do, especially in communities where gayness is still such an issue, e.g. ours.

4. The Sexual Opportunist

The young man is not shocked because her feelings have been obvious to him for some time. In fact, he is rather amused. He knows that her feelings will not go away just because he says No. In fact, if he says "No" but acts "Yes" he can always point to the butt-covering fact that he had said "No" and she was free to do what she wanted. Then he proceeds to play her like a violin, and if he drives her crazy enough, she will eventually offer some kind of sexual intimacy, and off come the clothes faster than you can say Chloderlos de Laclos.

And that's my worst case scenario: you make yourself vulnerable to a cynical, clever, sophisticated, monstrously selfish man, and he takes both emotional AND sexual advantage of you. It probably happens every day, most often to sweet, innocent, religious girls who had no idea men could act like that.

So even if you do not believe, as I do, that you should never, ever make a first move as obvious as "I like you, be my boyfriend", for heaven's sake--and your own--consider both the reputation of the man and if there are any very, VERY clear signals from him that he likes, admires and respects you before risking making a fool or a victim of yourself.

Now a word about innocent men. All the scenarios I've listed above can be flipped, so that the besotted person is a man and the startled beloved is a woman. I will state for the record, however, that I have never heard of a closeted young Lesbian using a besotted, oblivious young man for cover.

You may have come across classic novels in which young women are very proud of the suitors they have and dangle them on a string. You may remember, for example, beautiful Philippa Gordon of Anne of the Island, trying to decide between Alec and Alonzo. You may also remember the heroine of An Old-Fashioned Girl deciding not to lead on her rich admirer anymore because she had learned her best friend was in love with him. Their behaviour was never strictly condemned, possibly because both plain Lucy Maud Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott wished they had that kind of power over men themselves and because it was the only power 19th century women really had.

But it is the 21st century and we are full citizens who can vote, work, save and spend money. Whatever men can do by law, we can do by law. There is no longer an excuse for using men's feelings to get the thrill that power brings.

It is not okay to jerk men around for a thrill or because you are too cowardly to give one a plain and firm "NO." Men are just as human as you and I. The Golden Rule applies.

Toxic Glue

I got an email the other day that I don't want to post right now as I am worried about the reader being identified. It's an unusual situation for most of my readers, and I hope even the bare outline doesn't make anyone say "Aha! It's my old friend X!"

In short, my reader is in a toxic, emotionally intense, if physically chaste, relationship with a very troubled, recently divorced man. She has tried to get out of it, but she is having a really hard time, in part because he keeps contacting her, and in part because she misses him and in part, I think, because of toxic glue.

Toxic glue is a phrase I have just invented for whatever it is that keeps you hooked to a guy even though being hooked to him makes you very unhappy. It's worse than a crush, because a crush implies unrequited love, whereas toxic glue gets its strength from mutuality. It's not that the guy doesn't reciprocate your feelings of attachment: it's that he does when he shouldn't.

Not all my readers are Catholics, so some will not agree that a divorced man might still be a married man. However, I hope I can convince these readers at least that it is a supremely bad idea to get involved with an unhappily married man, who becomes a divorcing man, who becomes a divorced man. People caught in marital breakdowns, especially if domestic abuse or children are involved, go at least a little (and sometimes a lot) crazy. And the divorce rate is so high, not because most people divorce, but because divorced people are more likely to divorce again. In a panic, many divorcing people throw themselves into rebound relationships.

The idea that marriage can be impermanent is so entrenched in English-speaking society, it's no wonder that even Catholic girls are influenced by it and think it might be okay to date a divorced man who has not had an annulment. The zeitgeist puts Catholic girls in a weird mental position: "I shouldn't be dating a married man, but he isn't really, really married, is he? I mean, like, he could have grounds for an annulment. He probably has grounds for an annulment, and it isn't really dating anyway."

And the guilt and fear of disapproval from Catholic parents and peers might keep such girls from asking for help in situations where such men have serious personal problems, either those that come along with the agonies of failed marriage or even worse ones. It's so easy, isn't it, just to curl a lip with disapproval and say, "Well, you should have known better." But what a failure of love that is. Love says, "You deserve better. How can I help you?"

I mentioned "dating," but never mind the whole artificial, shifting concept of dating, which is usually just whatever a person says it is. Emotional attachment is emotional attachment, plain and simple. My guess is that most of the time Single women can go out for a coffee with a married male friend or colleague, no problem, and then toddle off home without a pang. This coffee is a whole lot more innocent than an emotionally intimate email exchange between a single woman and an unhappily married man, even if they never go out for coffee.

Such emotional intimacy can become glue, and it is toxic glue if the woman realizes that she wants and needs to get out of the dynamic between her and the divorcing (or otherwise troubled) man but cannot get out. And in such a situation, she really needs to get help. She might need to sit down and tell her parents everything or, if for whatever reason she is afraid of her parents, a trusted older relative, a priest or a therapist.

One thing I cannot stress enough is that young, single people are vulnerable. Young single women are particularly vulnerable because, as far as I know, unhappy older men are more likely to exploit younger single women than unhappy older women are to exploit younger single men. (I am mentally listing examples of the latter, however.) Younger people are often awed and flattered by the attentions of older people, as long as the older people are not TOO old and still attractive in some way. Younger people are more likely than older people to believe whatever they are told, especially about an attractive person's "awful" husband or wife.

Oh dear, it's all so sad. Anyway, if you are in a toxic relationship with a man to whom you are not married--sexual, not-sexual, emotional, professional--and you cannot get out, please tell someone in a position of responsibility (parent, aunt, priest, therapist) who might be able to help you.

Crowds of Drunk Men

To be philosophical about it, it could have been worse. The guy at the tail-end of the crowd of eight (or ten or whatever) only grabbed the top of my head as I passed. In that space of time, he could have broken my nose.

However, I didn't get a sense of violence from either this guy or the guy in front of him who had made a grab at my friend and missed: I just felt a wave of disrespect. I am not sure how if it was merely Disrespect for Women or Disrespect for LOCAL Women. All I really know about these guys was that they were all white ("very white" observed my friend) and that they weren't speaking English. I am good at recognizing languages, but I hadn't been paying attention.

I hadn't been paying attention because my friend and I had had a small dinner and cocktails at our favourite cocktail bar before donning our berets and long wool coats (mine tweed) to go back into the dark evening and walk to a ceilidh dance. We were cozy and comfortable and looking forward to the dance, which was only a brisk walk over Edinburgh's South and North Bridges and down Clerk Street, hey presto. We were chatting and although I saw the big group of 20-something men--too old to be language students--coming towards us, it simply did not occur to me to get out of the way.

It has been over fifteen years since a random stranger on a Toronto street suddenly screamed in my ear, and about that since a former-Yugoslavia demonstrator on another Toronto street blew a shrill whistle in my ear. (Idiot--I supported his political opinions and would have said so, had he asked.) But I cannot remember anyone grabbing me in the street, and I always put that down to a certain inner intimidation factor. I have a rapid, don't mess-with-me walk.

And although I have seen way more than my fair share of assaults in Edinburgh, I have not seen men lay hands on women. Solitary men or pairs of men (especially under 30) are at much more risk of attack by men than "lassies" or, in our case, "wifies." The idea that however "hard" a man you are, ye cannae lay hands on a lassie or wifie (especially if unrelated to you by blood or affection) was deeply entrenched in the Scottish male psyche for a long time. Thus, although not as safe as they could be, the Bridges are not Tahrir Square.

My pal thought the men were tourists. I hope they were tourists. Because if they weren't tourists, they live here. And as aggravating as it is to experience a gang of drunken tourists acting as though they owned the streets of your town (like hundreds of "England" fans in Frankfurt in '06), it is way worse to imagine blue-collar continentals working out their resentment of Edinburgh life by grabbing at (they would have presumed) Scottish wifies as they passed.

Or is it? Did the nationality of the idiot who grabbed the top of my head and give it a shove matter one whit? Would it not be fairer to assume that he would have behaved the exact same way in his native country, towards women of his native country? And I am reasonably certain he would be much less likely to behave this way had he not been in a big group of male drinking buddies, which makes the issue of the Group and the Drink rather more important.

One way to avoid harm as a woman in an urban environment, even in elegant little , Edinburgh at 8 PM at night, with a friend, wearing a beret and a tweed coat as if you were your own Edinburgh great-granny, is to avoid crowds of drunk men. As angry as I am this morning at the thuggish way this particular man acted in his crowd towards me, I am also a little angry I allowed myself to be caught unawares. Usually it is easy to avoid crowds of drunk men; all you have to do is back up or speed up and cross the street. But I wasn't paying attention.

However, as I said, it could have been worse.

(Idiots.)

A Change in Attitude

By the time I was 27, I was an angry little camper, people. I remember telling Shrink darling how much I hated men. Shrinkie thought this meant I had a problem with my father and my brothers. I told her that no, I hated all men EXCEPT my father and my brothers. This did not fly with what Shrinkie learned at shrink school, but it was true. Well, almost true. I didn't hate my boxing coach. I adored my boxing coach, who was a hoot, and I think fondly of him to this day.

So why did poor little Seraphic (age 27) hate (most) men so much, eh? Could it have anything to do with the row of Andrea Dworkin books on the shelf in her bachelor apartment? Maybe. But it probably had more to do with 17 years of disappointment with male behaviour.

Dwelling on disappointment with male behaviour goes against my philosophy of Seraphic Singleness, so I will be brief.

First, I had the really bad luck of being in a toxic elementary school environment. Two or three of the boys in my class were sexually precocious (why?) and from about the fifth grade on (which means from when they were ten) they were the model for many of the other boys in my class. I read a lot, so I knew that our faith disapproved of ten year old boys making out with girls behind the school, and was shocked that they and their chosen girls did.

But that was innocent compared to what followed as we all got older, which was sexualized name-calling and, not to put too fine a point on it, sexual attacks. A number of girls were deemed worthy of groping, including mass gropings; oddly, these were the "popular" girls. Fortunately for me, I was not popular. (The paradox of good fortune in not being popular still blows my mind.)

Classically, I didn't say anything to anyone about all this until my sister reached fifth grade, and then I went to see the (male) principal.

Second, the (male) principal said, "Boys will be boys" and "It's all part of growing up."

(In contrast to the principal was the school custodian who actually caught one of the boys with his hands up one of the girls' tops, and he was outraged. He grabbed the malefactor--definitely not the worst offender--and, shouting, roughly led him off to the feckless principal. How sad that our custodian caught him in Grade 8, not Grade 5.)

Third, my (male) Grade 7 teacher made sexist little jokes about girls all the time and blamed us girls for the boys' bad behaviour towards us.

It was about then that I learned about feminism and started to read feminist stuff, which confused me because although feminists were so sensible about some things, they really hated the Pope and Catholicism in general. Whenever a feminist journo mentioned JP 2 she sounded like a lunatic.

(In contrast to my sexist Grade 7 teacher was Stan the Bus Driver. I cannot remember Stan ever saying anything pro-woman in general, but just the memory of Stan brings back safe and happy feelings. Possibly Stan was really good at suppressing bullies on the bus. Hmm. I see that the two most stellar men of my elementary school were the janitor and the bus driver, not the teachers or principal.)

Graduating from elementary school and going to to all-girls high school brought a welcome relief from witnessing the sexual violence of children. However, adolescence brought all the disappointments of unrequited love, which I suffered probably every day. And I do mean every day. In fact, I think I had a crush on someone from the ages of seven to twenty-five without a day's rest. But it was the worst in high school.

I did rather better, socially speaking, in university where, I now realize, I was a heartbreaking menace, the rose-stem chomping bane of Nice Catholic Boys (well, a few of them anyway). But, unfortunately for him and me, I married Mr Protestant Totally Wrong, and that was a total nightmare and led to being divorced at 27, reading Andrea Dworkin and weeping on Shrinkie's couch.

I forget what train of thought led to this exercise, which I wrote about in My Book, but one day when I was sitting about being angry at men, and simultaneously attracted to men, which is definitely hard on the brain, I wrote out a list of everything bad I believed about men. And then beside all the bad things, I wrote the exact opposite, e.g. "Most men would rape if they could get away with it."/"Most men are horrified by rape, and in fact men have enacted laws against it."

And looking at my list, I realized that the opposite list was probably more true than the first list. And when I made that leap of faith, I stopped hating men.

If you are a Lesbian separatist, your life will still be made poorer by hating men, but at least it will be consistent. But if you are an ordinary woman like most women, a woman who wants to get married to a man and is open to having male children, hating men is going to seriously mess you up.

I understand why it is easy to hate men. All you have to do is read the crime pages or see yet another photo of a missing child on a milk container or read an account of the civil wars in Yugoslavia or hear about what happened to your great-aunt when the Russians invaded in 1945. All you have to do is hold a friend's hand as she cries because that man she had a crush on for so long used her and tossed her aside like a tissue. All you have to do is think about what bad stuff has happened to you. Soooooo easy to hate men. So tempting. But a seriously bad idea.

It is a seriously bad idea because if you get into the mental habit of hating men--and I know you might have very compelling reasons for doing so--you are not going to be able to see good men or the good in men who sometimes annoy you. The bad stuff will get blown way out of proportion. And so will the stuff that other women find only moderately annoying.

Benedict Ambrose and I almost blew it the first day we met. I tumbled off the bus from London, exhausted and jet-lagged. I demanded a meat pie and a pint of ale. So B.A. led me out of the bus station to a nearby pub. On the way there, I saw a man emerge from an alley with a bloody nose. I stopped to rummage in my handbag for a package of tissues. B.A., however, put his hand on my back and propelled me into the pub.

Now, I happen to hate pushy male behaviour. I like having the door opened for me, but I don't like being pushed through it. I like country dancing, but thanks to Mr Totally Wrong, I loathe being pushed and pulled around a dance floor.* So I was inclined to think that B.A. was One of THOSE Guys. But then, probably thanks to the Holy Spirit, I decided to trust that B.A. had a good reason for his masterful hand-on-the-back routine. And actually he did because B.A. knew, as exhausted I did not, that Mr Bloody Nose was in the middle of a street fight.**

It would have been so easy, though, were I still in the habit of finding wrong in whatever odd thing men did, just to sit in the pub resenting B.A. for his masterly behaviour. And indeed if I wanted to I could now mentally list all the annoying male stuff B.A. does, and that our males friends do, and sift through any evidence that they might not really like women, and then ponder the crap some Catholic men write about women on the internet, and the fact that I was once a rising star of my theology school and now couldn't take up the collection at Mass without causing mass hysteria. In short, I could make myself miserable and mentally and spiritually cut myself off from men.

And I don't want to do that because, all together now, men are the caffeine in the cappuccino of life. Sure, you can live without them, to a certain extent--Christian women don't want to live without Our Lord who was, scandal to the post-Christian feminist theologians, a man as well as God--but do you really want to?

And if you don't want to live without men, you must seriously ask yourself if you are giving off vibes that say that you do.


Note: Changing your fundamental philosophical/emotional orientation towards men-in-general does not mean ignoring the evils that follow upon fallen masculinity and fallen femininity. It means refusing to let them to dominate your life in any way, including mentally. It means refusing to hate people, no matter what as much as you are able. (I edited this because in fact I hate rapists. And I mean rapists, not seducers. Seducers are not my favourite people in the universe, but at them I merely sneer. Rapists I hate. I am nowhere near a level of spirituality where I can love the rapist and hate his rape. Uh uh.) It means neither pessimism nor optimism but caritas.

*Obviously I still have mental work to do so that I can stop thinking partner dancing is somehow connected with male tyranny. Thousands upon thousands of men and women just enjoy partner dancing without thinking of it as men pushing women around. Possibly I should pay Alisha $60 an hour for pro-dancing psychotherapy.

**When in doubt about male behaviour that troubles or confuses you, ASK. You can always begin with a neutral, friendly, "Out of curiosity, why did you...?" Listen carefully to the answer. Deduct points for "It was your fault" if it clearly wasn't. Actually, I think I am going to ask men friends pay me a fine of 10 p every time they tell me something is my fault. It will be like a swear jar.

Auntie Seraphic & the Catholic Website Dater

Dear Auntie Seraphic,

I am fuming. I don't know if you remember or not, but I wrote to you a while back about a guy I was going to visit I had met on [Catholic dating site] and everyone was giving me a hard time about staying at his house. Thank you, by the way, for your advice. I think at the time I was going too crazy to remember to write back to say that. Well, things were fine with him at first, and then he started pressuring me to sleep with him, and it took me a while but inevitably things ended. (Obviously.)

But the thing is...on my second visit, he tried to get me drunk. I didn't really take it that seriously at first because I had no intention of getting drunk and thought he was mostly an idiot for trying, and then an even bigger idiot for ADMITTING to trying to get me drunk and take advantage of me. Because that's what he was doing, and he was stupid enough to admit it. He actually said, the next day, that "he didn't think it would work, but he was hoping it would." This was after I had told him no more than once, and after he had promised to stop pressuring me.

And then I noticed that he was back on [Catholic dating site], so I told them what happened, because I'm worried that he's going to try this on some other girl who may be too young and naive to understand or resist. He is a potential date rapist, basically. I assumed they would at least pretend like there was a chance that they would pull his account, at the very least because he was pressuring girls to sleep with him on a Catholic website, but the addition of alcohol adds a whole other element to the situation! But they responded by saying that since there was no police report (!!) and nothing in the messages about it, there was nothing they could do unless some other girl complained. So in other words, they're going to wait until he ACTUALLY SUCCEEDS in date raping some girl, and then they're going to shut down his profile.

By the way, he tried ALL the tricks. He told me he thought I was the one, that he cared about me, was ever so nice and thoughtful, went way out of his way to do nice things for me...and it's only because I'm pretty jaded about guys in general that I knew what was up as soon as sex entered the picture. (In the first week...after a few days, actually.) There are a lot of sheltered and very vulnerable girls on that website who really want to find someone who is going to say ALL of those things to them, and who knows...maybe he's gotten to a few of them already. He was never the tiniest bit threatening or aggressive. Oh, and, although I haven't admitted this to anyone because I'm embarrassed I didn't break things off immediately, I found a copy of "The Rules of the Game" in his room. I don't know why this stuff happens to me...I'm a nice person and I'm really careful about the guys I date. Oh well.

Please tell me there's something I can do about this.

Regular Reader

***

Poppets, since I got this email I've been in regular correspondence with Regular Reader, so I'm going to address my comments to you.

First of all, I honour Regular Reader's wish to do something to protect other women who subscribe to Catholic dating websites, and I hope that she has succeeded by permitting me to post her email on my blog.

Second, I want to remind you that Catholic dating websites are businesses. And just because they have "Catholic" in their name does not mean they have oversight from any of the ecclesiastical structures designed to protect us. Some might. But some probably do not. They are not "ministries." They are in the business of staying in business. And some of them will play upon your deepest sorrows, and use holy days, to get you to send them money: "Why be alone this Christmas?"

Third, the men you met on dating websites usually are strangers. In judging whether or not to chat with them or meet them, you have only their word to go on. The Catholic dating website does not sit down with them and do a personal interview before they are allowed access to the profiles of thousands of young Catholic ladies.

Fourth, the very nature of the internet is impersonal. If Regular Reader had stormed into an office and demanded an interview with a real, live, matchmaker who had carelessly set her up with this jerk, then it is very possible the matchmaker would have given her a cup of tea, listened to her, given her a tissue, and possible cried herself.

But Regular Reader's interactions with the Catholic dating website were entirely over the internet, and instead of giving her tea and a tissue, they threw the responsibility for the men they shelter back onto her. No police report, no cancelling Mr Horny Toad, no loss of Mr Horny Toad's $15 a month, or whatever it is.

Fifth, the very nature of dating websites is consumerist. You pick men by photo, and they pick you by photo. Dating websites are department stores of people. They can provide comfort and amusement for people who are too afraid, or can't be bothered, to meet people in "real life." For this reason, I recommend that people who are serious about meeting people actually MEET the people they "meet" on websites, but certainly in public places and with all due caution.

An alternative to Catholic dating websites is to ask your friends about their more interesting Facebook friends. That's how I first heard about B.A.

Sixth, Regular Reader brought up the word "rape", and I had a long, somewhat fraught conversation with my husband about this, because he used to teach ethics and philosophy of law. I am not a lawyer, and neither is he. But he convinced me it is important to distinguish between two kinds of rat-bastard behaviour, seduction and rape.

Occasionally I get emails from rape survivors. They break my heart, but that's okay. We should weep with those who weep. These survivors were violently attacked. So far I have not heard from a survivor who was raped after she lost consciousness--I think. (My sincerest apologies if I have; I do recollect reading accounts of such things, but not where.) If I understand properly, if a woman says "No" and the man still has sex with her, it's rape. And if the woman is not free to give consent (e.g. because she is unconscious), but he goes ahead, that's rape.

It is also rape if a man extracts "consent" from a woman after threats and coersion and maybe false promises or claims.

But merely offering a woman drinks, hoping thereby to change her mind, is not yet attempted rape. It is a form of seduction, and although it is a very stupid one, I can see why a rat-bastard would attempt it.

College campuses feature girls who think they should have sex, but their natural modesty gets in the way, so they drink themselves silly. It's very pathetic and sad, but it is their choice to drink the drinks and then throw themselves at whoever. Of course, then the legality of having sex with these girls is murky because their freedom to give consent has been compromised.

But this is not something Catholic men should even worry about because Catholic men should know perfectly well that it is a serious offence against God and neighbour to have sex outside of marriage. Even pagans know that "No means No" and only "Yes" means "Yes." Christians are supposed to be even better than that.

I don't know if Regular Reader's Catholic dating website date would have laid a hand on her if she had accepted all his stupid drinks. So I wouldn't call him a potential date rapist any more than any other man or woman. This does not, mean, however, that he is not a rat-bastard.

He is a rat-bastard and a bad Catholic and I think at very least [Catholic dating website] should contact him and tell him there has been a complaint about his behaviour and then tell Regular Reader they have done so. If a friend had set them up, the friend would have apologized. Regular Reader deserves an apology.

Seventh, I am very angry with Catholic men who pressure women to sleep with them.

I am not angry with Catholic men who merely suggest it in the context of loving relationships. If you make out enough, such suggestions are likely because making out is Nature's way of preparing human beings to have sex. I cannot think of a better way to break down even the most devout Catholic's resistance to the desires of his body than prolonged making out with him. But Catholic men who pressure women to sleep with them or ply them with alcohol in the hopes of changing their minds are Judas.

"But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, then it is better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." --Matthew 18.6

Eighth, there are lots of good men. Many, many, many. I think most men are good men, and it is sad that bad men just make more of an impact, like the tiny percentage of priests who abused teenagers and kids.

Generations of good priests--hundreds or thousands of years of good work--have been eclipsed by a handful of monsters. It's so unfair, but there it is. One bad guy can hurt hundreds of people and so the damage he does is disproportionate to who he is.

Don't let the bad guys make you think there are no good guys. There are. Where? There.