You state: "Trump’s sexism isn’t conscious. He just believes that women exist only to please him, and he is incapable of suppressing his vile instincts towards them — even in public."
I do not disagree that Trump's egocentric personality is incapable of viewing others as anything more than an extension of himself. But Ben, I believe that Trump is FULLY CONSCIOUS of his sexism. He just enjoys it no end and is absolutely unashamed of it.
Kiwiwriter, I have to disagree that Trump and American men get their hatred of women from "hookers they hire" or even "dirty videos they watch." I am not personally well acquainted with many who work in the trade, but to blame these workers for the hatred and contempt that men display for them--and to expand that blame to encompass men's hatred and contempt for women in general--is, I feel, deeply unfair and dangerous. Even removing women from the universe of persons Trump demeans, belittles and belabors on a daily basis, it is obvious that this man has a malignant, dangerously volatile personality. If he had not had the benefit of deep-pocketed parents and a trust fund, forgiving educators, and pliant investigators and lawmakers in both state and the federal government, he undoubtedly would have been incarcerated or committed a decade or more ago. It is obvious that his scruples and morals would have benefited had he bothered to learn anything from Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. We should not victimize them again.
I guess I’m not explaining myself well…sex workers have every right to hate their clientele, who treat them like dirt, and often with violence. For these women to hate their clients is a natural reaction.
I blame the men who patronize these women and the pimps who exploit them.
We have a societal problem in that we are punishing the prostitutes, when we should be prosecuting the pimps who enslave them and johns who create the demand and market. The women are victims caught in a dreadful situation.
In New York, many of them are runaway teenagers or trafficked women, sadly, in some cases, illegal immigrants.
American society is taking the wrong approach.
I was always struck by how the prostitution industry in the United States often enjoyed the “protection” of their local police agencies, with the pimps making payoffs and the hookers providing “services” in return for the girls being able to walk the streets.
In Hoboken alone, dominated by the McFeely family for decades (the entire family was in city government), every police officer had his own hooker, and the other cops left that girl alone.
I appreciate it, Kiwiwriter, and I'm sorry if I misconstrued your earlier comment. I feel like I know you, and so was a little surprised to read that portion of your comment about hookers. I have heard opprobrium heaped on sex workers for decades, while little was done to either provide them alternatives to that trade or to at least make the trade less dangerous and exploitative. And this, while they were being abused by local police, court, their clients and the people who exploited their work. I hope you are well.
I should also point out that I am NOT, in that comment, defending these people.
I am explaining it.
I also want to note something else...the Trumpetoons and MAGA men "learn" sex from prostitutes when they hire them, and the girls provide their portion of the commercial transaction.
I didn't say it was voluntary, or even remotely real. After our Trumpetoon hero forks over his $50 for the whole 20 minutes in the back seat of his Toyota or the whole hour in the Whoopee Motel, the hired hooker does what she's been paid to do.
"Oh, Donald, you're the greatest! You're such a man! You're fantastic! Yes, yes, yes, oh, God, yes!" Sort of like that scene Meg Ryan does in Katz's Delicatessen with Tom Hanks where she fakes the orgasm and then bites the chip.
After they're done, the guy drives off, with the glow of sexual power, success, and conquest, having had a good time and convinced that he was the best thing ever to happen to that girl and she will want him again.
He doesn't realize that she's left the car or motel room in a fair amount of disgust, started cleaning herself, and is preparing for the next job.
The single best comment I ever read about from a prostitute to a client came in a book about the US military in Hawaii during World War II. The bordellos did what my brother would call "land-mine" business, with GIs and Sailors lining up for the ladies.
It created a situation where one man would be putting his clothes back on in one room, another GI taking his clothes off in a second room, and the third GI in the throes of fake passion in the bedroom.
In that bedroom, the author noted, the girl would say, "Hurry up. This ain't no romance." She was right. She wasn't being evil, but she was right.
Oddly, before the attack on Pearl Harbor, female California university students took time off from school, boarded a liner, went out to Hawaii, and paid for next year's tuition by working hard on their backs. In those pre-internet days, as long as they avoided social diseases or getting in "the family way," they could earn a good buck doing that. Pearl Harbor ended that, along with regular ocean liner service to Hawaii.
I would presume that when these co-eds got married, their husbands said, on their wedding nights, "I knew you weren't a virgin," to which the new wives offered their "woman of mystery" smile.
You did misconstrue it. You did misunderstand it. As I tried to say, men learn all the wrong lessons in life. Sometimes they unlearn them. Most of the time, I don't think so.
I have a very jaundiced and cynical view of humanity. We enjoy killing each other for sport. We torture each other for laughs, starting in the schoolyard, finishing up in the Naval Mechanical School in Buenos Aires. The victims' screams could be heard blocks away. The torturers, interestingly, were also often college students, who used the money paid for their...services...to pay tuition. Years later, they suffered PTSD from their guilty consciences, and vented to psychiatrists, struggling with what they did to others.
Trump is one big gross physical manifestation of centuries of elitism and misogyny. Look at today's postponement of his sentencing. The world works differently for the white and wealthy. OJ got a pass due to his celebrity, entrenchment within white elite circles, and ability to pay for primarily elite white lawyers. Historian Heather Cox Richardson traces the roots of the white anger that predates the founding of our country -- lower and middle class will give elites power, at their own financial detriment, simply to stick it to black, brown and queer people. Within MAGA, anyone who isn't on Trump's level of wealth and power, aspires to be and feels they're one lotto win away from it. Women within MAGA long for the days when they didn't have to work -- that a middle class factory man could afford a big house in the suburbs. MAGA aspires to return to the days when "Blacks knew their place" -- and if he's elected, we'll be back to the 1950's by 2026. But even when he's gone, there are plenty more at the ready to take his place, tap into that nerve, and keep driving a wedge through this country. I keep saying this, but Kyle Rittenhouse is likely the next Trump.
"Republicans have accused liberals of anti-Trump hysteria, of exaggerating his flaws and overreacting to everything he says. This is bullshit. We see who Trump is clearly. He is a sexual predator, and the sooner his political career ends, the better."
Republicans know this too and many even want him gone, allegedly. Few have spoken out against him and the rest, well, they are just cowards too jittery to look up from the ground.
Whether they’re conscious of it or not, I think most of Trump’s critics share your visceral response. I’ve noticed that whenever people make a list of all of his appalling characteristics, “misogynist” or rapist” or “sexual abuser” almost always comes first.
You state: "Trump’s sexism isn’t conscious. He just believes that women exist only to please him, and he is incapable of suppressing his vile instincts towards them — even in public."
I do not disagree that Trump's egocentric personality is incapable of viewing others as anything more than an extension of himself. But Ben, I believe that Trump is FULLY CONSCIOUS of his sexism. He just enjoys it no end and is absolutely unashamed of it.
Of course he hates women.
American men -- like many around the world -- learn that when women say "no," they really mean "yes."
When a woman says, "I'm a lesbian," she means "I'm a bisexual nymphomaniac."
When she says, "I have a girlfriend," she means "We'd like to do a three-way with you in it."
When she's being raped, she's enjoying it and acting out a domination fantasy.
And where do they get this from?
Their male pals.
The hookers they hire.
The dirty videos they watch.
Women are objects, toys, and extremely disposable.
Kiwiwriter, I have to disagree that Trump and American men get their hatred of women from "hookers they hire" or even "dirty videos they watch." I am not personally well acquainted with many who work in the trade, but to blame these workers for the hatred and contempt that men display for them--and to expand that blame to encompass men's hatred and contempt for women in general--is, I feel, deeply unfair and dangerous. Even removing women from the universe of persons Trump demeans, belittles and belabors on a daily basis, it is obvious that this man has a malignant, dangerously volatile personality. If he had not had the benefit of deep-pocketed parents and a trust fund, forgiving educators, and pliant investigators and lawmakers in both state and the federal government, he undoubtedly would have been incarcerated or committed a decade or more ago. It is obvious that his scruples and morals would have benefited had he bothered to learn anything from Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. We should not victimize them again.
I guess I’m not explaining myself well…sex workers have every right to hate their clientele, who treat them like dirt, and often with violence. For these women to hate their clients is a natural reaction.
I blame the men who patronize these women and the pimps who exploit them.
We have a societal problem in that we are punishing the prostitutes, when we should be prosecuting the pimps who enslave them and johns who create the demand and market. The women are victims caught in a dreadful situation.
In New York, many of them are runaway teenagers or trafficked women, sadly, in some cases, illegal immigrants.
American society is taking the wrong approach.
I was always struck by how the prostitution industry in the United States often enjoyed the “protection” of their local police agencies, with the pimps making payoffs and the hookers providing “services” in return for the girls being able to walk the streets.
In Hoboken alone, dominated by the McFeely family for decades (the entire family was in city government), every police officer had his own hooker, and the other cops left that girl alone.
I appreciate it, Kiwiwriter, and I'm sorry if I misconstrued your earlier comment. I feel like I know you, and so was a little surprised to read that portion of your comment about hookers. I have heard opprobrium heaped on sex workers for decades, while little was done to either provide them alternatives to that trade or to at least make the trade less dangerous and exploitative. And this, while they were being abused by local police, court, their clients and the people who exploited their work. I hope you are well.
I should also point out that I am NOT, in that comment, defending these people.
I am explaining it.
I also want to note something else...the Trumpetoons and MAGA men "learn" sex from prostitutes when they hire them, and the girls provide their portion of the commercial transaction.
I didn't say it was voluntary, or even remotely real. After our Trumpetoon hero forks over his $50 for the whole 20 minutes in the back seat of his Toyota or the whole hour in the Whoopee Motel, the hired hooker does what she's been paid to do.
"Oh, Donald, you're the greatest! You're such a man! You're fantastic! Yes, yes, yes, oh, God, yes!" Sort of like that scene Meg Ryan does in Katz's Delicatessen with Tom Hanks where she fakes the orgasm and then bites the chip.
After they're done, the guy drives off, with the glow of sexual power, success, and conquest, having had a good time and convinced that he was the best thing ever to happen to that girl and she will want him again.
He doesn't realize that she's left the car or motel room in a fair amount of disgust, started cleaning herself, and is preparing for the next job.
The single best comment I ever read about from a prostitute to a client came in a book about the US military in Hawaii during World War II. The bordellos did what my brother would call "land-mine" business, with GIs and Sailors lining up for the ladies.
It created a situation where one man would be putting his clothes back on in one room, another GI taking his clothes off in a second room, and the third GI in the throes of fake passion in the bedroom.
In that bedroom, the author noted, the girl would say, "Hurry up. This ain't no romance." She was right. She wasn't being evil, but she was right.
Oddly, before the attack on Pearl Harbor, female California university students took time off from school, boarded a liner, went out to Hawaii, and paid for next year's tuition by working hard on their backs. In those pre-internet days, as long as they avoided social diseases or getting in "the family way," they could earn a good buck doing that. Pearl Harbor ended that, along with regular ocean liner service to Hawaii.
I would presume that when these co-eds got married, their husbands said, on their wedding nights, "I knew you weren't a virgin," to which the new wives offered their "woman of mystery" smile.
You did misconstrue it. You did misunderstand it. As I tried to say, men learn all the wrong lessons in life. Sometimes they unlearn them. Most of the time, I don't think so.
I have a very jaundiced and cynical view of humanity. We enjoy killing each other for sport. We torture each other for laughs, starting in the schoolyard, finishing up in the Naval Mechanical School in Buenos Aires. The victims' screams could be heard blocks away. The torturers, interestingly, were also often college students, who used the money paid for their...services...to pay tuition. Years later, they suffered PTSD from their guilty consciences, and vented to psychiatrists, struggling with what they did to others.
We are a dreadful species.
Trump is one big gross physical manifestation of centuries of elitism and misogyny. Look at today's postponement of his sentencing. The world works differently for the white and wealthy. OJ got a pass due to his celebrity, entrenchment within white elite circles, and ability to pay for primarily elite white lawyers. Historian Heather Cox Richardson traces the roots of the white anger that predates the founding of our country -- lower and middle class will give elites power, at their own financial detriment, simply to stick it to black, brown and queer people. Within MAGA, anyone who isn't on Trump's level of wealth and power, aspires to be and feels they're one lotto win away from it. Women within MAGA long for the days when they didn't have to work -- that a middle class factory man could afford a big house in the suburbs. MAGA aspires to return to the days when "Blacks knew their place" -- and if he's elected, we'll be back to the 1950's by 2026. But even when he's gone, there are plenty more at the ready to take his place, tap into that nerve, and keep driving a wedge through this country. I keep saying this, but Kyle Rittenhouse is likely the next Trump.
Or Kid Rock... Jesse Watters... that idiot place kicker for the Chiefs...
100%. Trump was a misogynist long before he became Russia’s best useful idiot.
"Republicans have accused liberals of anti-Trump hysteria, of exaggerating his flaws and overreacting to everything he says. This is bullshit. We see who Trump is clearly. He is a sexual predator, and the sooner his political career ends, the better."
Republicans know this too and many even want him gone, allegedly. Few have spoken out against him and the rest, well, they are just cowards too jittery to look up from the ground.
Whether they’re conscious of it or not, I think most of Trump’s critics share your visceral response. I’ve noticed that whenever people make a list of all of his appalling characteristics, “misogynist” or rapist” or “sexual abuser” almost always comes first.