Bereavement

I’m up and it’s only 2:30 a.m., happen to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. In a shiva house the mirrors are covered, for the most part, for that first week of mourning following the passing of a first degree relative. There are all kinds of superstitious reasons, frankly I’m not interested in them. All I know is that one of the towels fell off the bathroom mirror and there I am, looking at me, and it isn’t pretty.

Has it aged me, losing my father? Or should we say, wizened me. Both right. It is a new experience, not at all like I thought it would be. It feels as if I’ve been hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat, still, over a week later, and that I’m in some kind of daze. It is surreal, detached.

We call it Bereavement, a V code, V62.82. Thankfully I have very few of the symptoms that distinguish bereavement from Major Depressive Episode. I haven’t got the guilt over what I didn’t do, no morbid preoccupation with death, no marked psychomotor retardation (although driving has been a little scary, haven't quite got the coordination back). No hallucinations, although my dreams, really scary.

And sure, it’s hard to sleep, and it is very early in the morning. I throw on a heavy FBI sweatshirt, one that my youngest son bought on his senior trip to Washington, DC, take a tour downstairs to the kitchen. I haven’t been home in a few days, have stayed overnight with my mom. It is traditional to choose a site for visitation, so my brother and I, without ever discussing it, have been at her home for the week, receiving visitors.

It is the flip of being a therapist, ideally. Being a therapist is all listening, or 80% listening, 20% feedback. Being a mourner, in my tradition, is talking or sitting quietly, but the mourner is the initiator. You don't impose your stuff on a mourner. Visitors come to sit with you for seven days, keep you company. It's about consolation, paying condolences.

You talk about whatever you want to talk about, so if you don’t want to discuss your father you don’t have to. But this is your chance, so to speak, to honor his memory, to publicize his goodness, his life experience.

We learn about life from the obituaries, at a certain age, and the eulogies.

I'm sitting near the toy box, see toys on top, not inside, remember putting them there, picking them up from the living room. My daughter and son came in for the funeral of their grandfather, one with an almost toddler, and after they left I didn’t want to put it all away. I look at the toys and it feels as if the visit was years ago.

I make a stab at reading from a novel, American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld, a wonderful treatment of Laura and George Bush, but can’t concentrate. There are a few newspapers on the table, but the words don’t penetrate. Something about winter Olympics and bobsleds. And of course, Tiger Woods. I think, I should blog about Tiger. Then I think, I should blog about my father.

He buried my brother 40 years ago to the day of his death. Isn't that amazing? Someone says to FD, Sometimes you get a glimpse of how things are actually run. It's not all random.

Here are some of the things I said at the funeral:

My father was such a complicated man that I can’t tell you if he would want me to make you cry, or not. I think not, because he was such a social guy. He would be happy to see such a nice crowd.

He simply had this magnanimous warmth, he greeted everyone as if he’d been waiting all week for you to stop by. Always someone knocking at the front door window, the telephone always ringing. Almost always for my Dad.

Last Wednesday morning, we're in the ER. He's in terrible pain. They put a gown on him, hook him up to an IV, his clothes are in a plastic bag. He’s on oxygen.

“You never saw me like this,” he says to me, for the hundredth time since he’s been so ill. This has been his mantra for months, now, “You never saw me like this.”

Every day it surprises him, embarrasses him that he’s weak, short of breath, and he’s embarrassed about it. Like many men of his generation who did not experience the hunger of the concentration camps, being physically weak is unfathomable. It isn’t who we are, he would say, for he encouraged us to take good care of ourselves, always. You eat right, lots of garlic, you sleep right. Your body cooperates. He has to remind me; this isn’t him.

And I tell him that it’s okay. I know who he is.

A story: Kovel, Poland: the end of the Russio-Poland War, 1920. Bands of marauding Cossacks, White Russians; they're raiding towns everywhere, especially the ones with Jews. They pillage and rape and kill babies with their bayonets, toss them into the air.

My grandfather is running an errand, probably buying something for the farm. My grandmother is in bed nursing my infant father. A gang of these animals bursts in on her. They see my grandmother, a beautiful woman, probably all of twenty, nursing. One says something, probably in Russian, to the others. They argue, banter back and forth. They stare at her, they look at my father, they look at one another. The toughest one says something. They shrug. And they leave.

My grandfather returns from the store, he hears what has happened, and he packs a few things, takes this little family to the forest at the outskirts of town for as long as it takes until the hooligans move on to another.

But you know, a small town family, they’re always waiting for another gang of Cossacks.

Probably in response to my grandmother’s fears, and being the oldest son, my father takes the protector role in life when he can, which is how I see him as a kid, watchful. Bigger than life, really. I’m a naturally fearful person, irrationally afraid of home invaders, as you know. But if he's home, I'm not afraid.

There are too many stories, a blog is just a blog. Okay, just a little more.

Things not everyone knows:

He was charitable, he couldn’t say no, especially not if people asked him for something directly. A total softy, if you looked my father in the eye, respected him for who he was, he would give you the universe if he could find a way. And honestly, he believed he owned that, too, that the world was created for him.

Which is how we’re supposed to think.

He would teach that it’s what’s inside that counts, not what you have. It’s not acquiring things, it’s living that counts, living fully. This in the heart of of the suburbs, a very material world.

The world is not going to be the same, not for a lot of people, without my father.

therapydoc

Mr P and Vitamin V

I wanted to move on, to talk about failure, but then I get this comment on the last post. It's about failure, but not exactly the failure I had in mind, and not being a failure, but fearing failure. You're not exactly a representative sample, not if you read me, but still. What do you think?

The comment is in response to my hard stand about taking Viagra for anxiety that's situational: a young woman expects a good sexual performance very early into a relationship, maybe even the first date. And a young man wants to rise to the occasion. PRESSURE.

Mr.P and Vitamin V said...

Doc,

1st of all, I'm a huge fan!!!

Let me represent Mr. P and Vitamin V for a moment..

I can tell you that very often by the 3rd date, if the man hasn't made some sort of sexual "move", the woman gets insecure and feels that something is wrong with her..And trust me, talking about how wonderful she is and saying that I like to take things a little slower does not work at all..

She wants something to happen!! Granted, I'm not complaining about that, but if something is going to happen, I like to insure that it actually happens..Without Viagra early in the dating process, my anxieties often take control and make things not work properly..

And oh my goodness, if it doesn't work, she either feels that she's not attractive OR she thinks something is wrong with me...It's not necessarily about her achieving an orgasm, it's more about showing her that I like her and I'm attracted to her. It doesn't have to be spectacular the 1st, 2nd or 3rd time, etc..It just has to happen...As things progress and I feel more comfortable, I don't need the V..

And your description of the healthy relationship is what I would love to achieve..I guess what I'm trying to say is that early in a relationship, words don't seem to have as much of an impact..They're not believed as much as they should be...Later on, words mean more..And one more thing, Doc!! I don't see 2 women for every man out there.

February 11, 2010 10:59 AM

Satisfying the Girl

When things come in threes, I write about them. I think, this can't be an isolated issue, maybe it isn't random, not if it's coming in threes.

A guy tells me that he has found a solution to dating anxiety. I'm interested in the solution, I really am. But first, of course, want to know

Why should a guy have dating anxiety?

After all, there are two single women for every single man, probably three. A man can have six eyes and he'll still be a hot property in certain circles.

Hold constant (control for) any predisposition toward anxiety, anxiety disorders in the past, anxiety disorders in the family, post-traumatic stress disorder, child abuse, obsessive-compulsive disorder; hold all that in abeyance, and there's still a likelihood, or so I'm hearing, that dating is scary as hell.

I don't mean to be glib. I understand why people are anxious about dating. It's the rejection that's terrifying. Rejection hurts, and the chances of being rejected after a first date are rather high, actually. This we understand.

What's confusing is not the anxiety, but what men are doing now to resolve it. To resolve dating anxiety, men are taking Viagra. Young guys. We're not talking just the Medicare set.

Apparently they're sure that women expect a really good performance in bed. Nobody's watching Oprah or Dr. Phil, or Dr. Laura or Dr. Ruth, not as much as we once thought. If they did they would know that a good sexual relationship does not depend upon a good performance by anyone.

On television, thankfully, and even in most of the books in the self-help section at the book store, we learn that a woman is supposed to be responsible for her own sexual satisfaction. If she's interested in this, sexual satisfaction, and she should be, since this is great marital glue (don't get me started, I don't know if it works as glue if you're not married)

(a) she should try to connect with her partner while she's alert, not about to fall asleep,

(b) both of them should focus on their sensuality, wake up the brain, stimulate all five senses,

(c) she, especially she, since he's had his sexuality in his hand since he learned how to urinate, but she should get to know her body, understand what makes her happy (I know, I know this is an unpopular suggestion, especially for some people who have religious concerns, one day we'll give it more time) and

(d) if she wants him to feel he's doing something, then she has to tell him what to do to pleasure her.

True story. Guy calls me for marital sex therapy. He says,

“She’s too small. Maybe we need a pelvic floor therapist, or maybe you. The doctor thinks we probably need a sex therapist like you, but I think a pelvic floor therapist.”

I haven't a clue what this is, a pelvic floor therapist, am hoping this is a sex therapist. This young man has called me many times before, but we've never met. He's never satisfied with my telephone assessment of the situation, yet I still hear from him every six months or so, feel we're old friends. (He could be a she, or maybe an avatar, we're not outing anyone here).

I reply,

“There’s no too big or too small. You need a relationship therapist, one who understands sex therapy, or a sex therapist who understands relationships.”

“No, she’s too small.”

End of conversation. No too big, no too small. At least one of us is clear on this.

That had to be said, that there's no too big, no too small. A couple has to manage with what they have and can, should, try to enjoy the process, try to figure it out. Somehow.

So if size doesn't matter, then what does?
You guessed it:
(1) communication,
(2) discussion of mechanics and myths about sex,
(3) practice at home, and
(4) resolution of emotional interference.

Why would anyone think that you can have all that, and what you don't have can be resolved, all on a first date? Surely it takes a long time to get any one of the four right, let alone all four. Most couples who come to a sex therapist have been working at it a long time and have given up. They've already spent a few years getting to know one another, getting to know one another's likes and dislikes, exploring and talking day after day, year after year, and even then, it just isn't working. They know there's baggage, too, that is in the way, even secondary trauma. We'll never get it right! There's something really, really wrong here!

This isn't second nature, really, a sexual relationship, or any other kind of relationship, to tell the truth. But we'd best focus.

Sexual behavior as a couple is learned, and it is learned in process, from one another, since there are two of you. And you both have baggage, attitudes, histories. It can years to learn to communicate in certain areas, about certain things, without fear, embarrassment, or anxiety, for some of us. And people get so angry at one another! When we communicate anger, intimidation, power, or dominance it can be a huge turn off (I know, I know, the exceptions).

And there are many of us who are depressed, and nothing kills libido like depression, nothing; and past traumas, too, like incest, or other sexual abuse, abortions, not sexy. Really not.

Then there are the mechanics of sex, the how-to's, and these are, perhaps should be, trial and error, too, and there's a lot of room for error, so it can take years, without direct communication, without straight talk, honesty, to develop a mutually satisfying sexual relationship. The joy is in the process, really.

Then there's that whole trust thing. Sex and trust go together. How are you supposed to have that on a first date? A second date? Surely you fool yourself, you say, Oh, this person's had that vasectomy, and then, surprise, he was kidding. Or she says, You're the only one, and she's checking her phone. You get hurt and your trust issues get worse, not better.

This is why people like me don't even feel it should be happening without commitment, sex. Crazy, I know, and so unpopular, so unreasonable, that this is likely not going to catch on. But it's too important, sex, too integral to what makes a healthy couple healthy, content, establishing a good relationship while naked. The reality of sex is that it exposes us. Who wouldn't be terrified, seriously?

Let's draw a parallel to aggression to explain this phenomena, the pressure to satisfy the girl, the pressure to have sex in general, no matter the status of your relationship.

It's compelling that the Saw movies are in their seventh year. Every year there is another one of these very, very violent, horrible, graphic movies. People go to them, we think, to master their fear of violence. If you see the film often, or you see a new one every year, eventually it doesn't upset you, the thought of cutting off your own leg, and well, you're tough. You're strong. You've desensitized to your fear.

Some of us would disagree, however, that this is what makes a person strong. If this is what makes a person tough, seeing violence and not feeling anything, not being affected, then that person's definition of strong is perverted.

The corollary is sex. We can regard this fascination with sex, this insistence upon it, because it is supposed to be a loving act, the flip side of violence. And we can see the obsession with it in the same way. Have it often, have many partners, do it perfectly, and at some point you will be immune to the anxiety, the embarrassment of taking off your clothes, of someone seeing you for who you really are.

That's pretty sad, isn't it? In a good relationship, one that is trusting, loving, caring, and kind-- taking off your clothes might still be embarrassing, but it's a good kind of embarrassing, a shy kind of embarrassing, even, an intimate one.

You might say, for example, "I've gained five pounds this winter," and your spouse will say, "Don't ever lose them! I love them! I love these pounds!" For he knows that you are responsible for your own weight, too, and he doesn't want to work your program, he just wants to make love. And he loves you.

And in a good relationship, one that is committed, you are staying the night, so staying the night isn't even a question, it happens all the time, it's not a big deal. So theoretically, if you have that, commitment, you can roll over when you're both a little tired of sex play, and say, Goodnight, even if everyone's not completely satisfied, and it's okay.

But not anymore. Oh, no. Committed or not committed,

NO! YOU (I) MUST BE SATISFIED OR FORGET IT! WE CAN'T POSSIBLY CONSIDER GOING TO SLEEP YET!

Where are people learning this?

This dysfunctional pressure to reach orgasm is perhaps a reaction to what could have been the rule, perhaps even as recently as forty years ago, a covert rule that men didn't need to concern themselves with female satisfaction. Nice girls didn't like sex. So slam-bam, thank you ma'am, theoretically ruled. But perhaps that whole thing was a myth, that men who loved their women ever even did the slam-bam, thank you ma'am thing. Yet the reaction formation for sure is alive and well.

Now, men have to perform, their needs are important, but hers are, too, and she's demanding a performance, or so some of the guys feel. The guys are thinking they have to be studs again. THEY have the secrets to female satisfaction, and if they don't, well, no second date. So of course they're anxious, because in their minds, and apparently in hers, too, what makes it great, sex, is that erection.

Zachen v'aitzen Columbus. (Yiddish for, What in the world is wrong with this picture? Don't ask me for a direct translation. Find my mother, ask her.)

This is fantastic news for the makers of Viagra and Cialis. Forget that only one woman in five has orgasm during intercourse, anyway, with or without these drugs. Forget that without an intimate understanding of a partner's arousal, physiology, and how much he or she had to eat, meaning how extended, distended, in other ways one might be, that there's no way one partner can help the other achieve orgasm. Forget that foreplay should take a half an hour, intercourse maybe five minutes, maybe ten, or it's going to hurt, certainly will irritate her. None of this matters. It's all about Mr. P.

It shouldn't baffle us that the importance of sex has taken on such magnitude that a man will take a medication that could be dangerous, just to be sure to please a date. This is horrible and is indicative of a related issue, that we have grown accustomed to instant relationship gratification (hand me my phone, please, I need to read my email NOW). She wants it now. Or so he think. Why waste time?

Nobody's taking the time to nurture the relationship.

And the joke is that people think they can nurture their erection, their arousal, without it.

therapydoc

Deadly Distractions

I throw my backpack into the backseat, announce to FD:

I'm doing something radical. I'm just leaving my phone in the backseat of the car.

He goes into a rant:

You, on a bad day, checking email while driving, texting, answering calls, making calls, talking on the phone. . . you're still a better driver than most people.

I think it's about skill, attention, coordination, . . .blah, blah, blah.

And that is so about denial, I tell him.

It is radical, and delicious, I learn, driving without the extra stress, without having to attend to one more thing, the phone. Throwing off the yoke of the volunteered slavery, I find myself changing channels on the radio, figuring out how to do this without ever taking my eyes off the road.

And would you believe? As I'm thinking about this, about how scary it is, knowing that the guy in the car behind me, the woman in the car in front, is tempted to distract, that song comes on, Your Song. Rod Stewart is singing it, not Elton John, and Rod sings it even better, something else FD would disagree with me about.

How wonderful life is, while you're in the world.

They all have people, probably, most of them, that they value, that they don't want to lose, who don't want to lose them, not for the sake of a lousy text.

Makes you kind of wonder, doesn't it, what we're doing?

therapydoc

Enlightened

I see a lot of really good people. You could say that most of the people in my practice-- no, make that all of them-- are just great people. Not that some don't have personality problems, or disorders that make them difficult to like, necessarily, or to be around, but if you get to know people, basically, they're pretty lovable.

So it baffles, me, low self-esteem, even though it shouldn't. A therapist like me will be working with a perfectly wonderful person, an individual that most people like, indeed rely upon, the go to guy, girl, and this person doesn't feel he or she measures up. The person I see as kind, good, caring, unprejudiced, compares himself with other people and thinks, I'm so not as good.

I, personally, want to blame society, more-so than the family, the values of the greater culture, the world out there, television, advertising, the movies, movie stars, professional athletes. How can we compete, seriously, with the wealthy, the talented, the beautiful? Most of us equivocate about buying a new purse, new socks.

When I say most, I mean most.

So society knocks us down several notches. And then there are parents. It's not cool to pick on parents anymore (so much else enters into the equation), but parenting matters when it comes to building self-esteem. Kids are vulnerable, look to parents as large people, giants, really, whose judgment means every thing. I told my son recently that I know that I still hope, want, approval from my parents, and feel that's a good thing. It isn't a primary motivation for my behavior, but it's in there, deep inside. And they weren't bad, to tell you the truth. They esteemed me plenty.

Not all of us are great at self-esteem building, even when we think we're doing a great job. It's a humbling job. In fact, we can be perfectly clueless when it comes to values. We really want our kids to learn these things, so we try hard to get our message across, and often it is received and the answer is no. (Like unanswered prayers). But sometimes we're trying to inculcate a value that doesn't need inculcating, like humility. Now there's a value that needs to be reconsidered.

Humility, I've humbly suggested on this blog before, can work against kids, not for them. It's a good thing to understand that in the grand scheme of things, we're very little, that it's not about us. Our contributions are few, and our lives are short. We spend most of our lives becoming, changing, maturing, changing some more, and when we're old enough to really understand the errors of our ways, it's too late. When we get old and sick we lose the power to do anything about it, can no longer start all over again.

So we should be humble, really, because face it, we're so limited.

But a person has to believe in himself. You have to believe in yourself, if you intend to ever accomplish anything. You can't say, Why bother trying? Because if you don't bother you'll never know who you are. You'll never recognize your own skills, your own value. What's the worst thing that can happen? You fail. Aw. Get over it, get over yourself when that happens, no big deal. Brush it off, try something else. Life is long, or it might be.

It can feel huge, failure. Slows us down, is what it does, smashes the ego, forget about deflating the ego, these aren't balloons. Unfortunately, not knowing that potential is immeasurable, failure slows most of us down, sometimes to a crawl, not a good crawl. So it has to be good to brush ourselves off, pick ourselves up, not look back. Learn from it and move on as fast as we can. Let's not dwell here in our failure. The company is depressing.

Ball players know this. A professional football player can play ball with a dislocated shoulder. Not that that's a good thing, but that these men do this is significant, illuminating, really. The human spirit dominates pain, can forget, can get over anything. (For $50,000 a game, I might consider this too, come to think of it.)

Probably the only good thing about humility, actually, and this is a very good thing, is that it tempers conceit. No one finds conceit attractive, indeed it's pretty repulsive, a big ego, which is probably the reason some fiercely believe in beating a kid into humility. Not to argue with religious teaching, discuss this with your clergy-person, please, but you don't want to miss the lesson that most of us will fall somewhere between narcissism and being a nobody. (Jewish joke, remind me to tell you one day).

Thus a little humility is a good thing, but beat the "I" out of a kid only if you want that kid to forever compare himself and come up short. Any beating will do, to facilitate low self-esteem. Just name your abuse of the day-- emotional, verbal, physical, financial, sexual-- they'll all do the job.

The most clever method, of course, often innocent, too, is denying praise. Deny it. Deny this thing called praise. It is in your power, as a parent, to do so. You don't want your kid to grow up with a "big head", right?*

Never say, Great job. For sure don't say, Brilliant! And those little pictures they make in nursery school? Be sure to say, oh, don't worry, one day you'll be better at this.

If your kid is upset about a 'B' be upset, too. Tell him he should have made an 'A'. What an idiot, seriously, for getting a 'B'. He could have done, should do better.

Parents who buy into this method of child rearing tell me that it gives the kid a bar, a standard to strive for, "You'll do better next time, you'll try harder, study more, workout more, practice more." Not all of them will, however, do better. Sometimes you want to go with what you got and see it as good, do your best with what you've got.

Thankfully, most kids are resilient. They know their strengths, and they resent, rightfully, a parent who withholds praise. It feels good, praise, doesn't it? Who doesn't love praise?

Let's not forget, too, that peers at school can be harsh, and siblings merciless. I'm preaching to the choir, you all know this, when I talk about parenting. Anyone interested in being a good parent should be able to do a pretty good job; there are parenting classes at community centers, zillions of websites and blogs to read. If you let your kids carp on one another, beat on one another verbally, physically, sexually, the siblings will do damage. Nothing like brothers and sisters to humble a person.

So what have we got here? And do football players have low self-esteem?

I don't know. But let's review:

(a) there's that comparison thing, looking around and seeing how small we are, how incredibly powerless, and how inferior to others in, well, so, so many things

(b) and there's the social war our egos have to battle, growing up with people who beat on us, remind us how inferior we are (even if we're not), how fat, how dumb. And remember, we're supposed to take failure on the chin, especially as adults, for failure makes us feel like losers. Failure in adulthood can hurt us even more if our parents and siblings have already fertilized the field,

and finally,

(c) the praise-deficiency model, which suggests that we need praise, and without it some of us will never be quite sure of ourselves, won't ever have a solid, I'm good enough feeling. Not that that's always good, feeling good enough. It suits some of us well to feel we could always be better, try harder.

But you don't want to be feeling bad, inferior, not all the time, not to the degree of pining and moping, depression. You just don't. And praise is the antidote for this. It's like water. A little every day, some form or another, and a person thrives.

Apparently there's a movie, can't remember the name, about enlightenment. (oh, someone just told me it's the Celestine Prophesy and the book is by James Redfield). It's sci-fi and the idea is that some people in society are enlightened, they get it, and others don't, and those who do try to keep it to themselves. Apparently enlightenment is understanding that the only thing that really matters is kindness, being a good person, meeting people in a way that communicates acceptance and understanding.

I might be wrong about the message of the movie, because I didn't see it, but that's what I got out of my friend's description. What it means to me is that enlightenment and self-esteem may actually be discrete variables (are very different, don't intersect, necessarily, at least not significantly). People who have all those enlightened qualities don't necessarily feel enlightened, not if their self-esteem is low. Which means that one has nothing to do with the other, maybe.

Okay, so you already knew that. But I thought it was interesting.


therapydoc

*I am being facetious, here, tongue in cheek. Do not withhold praise thinking it a good parenting strategy, and do not abuse children, either.

Wheelbarrows

Just one of my favorite social-political action initiatives, Men Can Stop Rape.

I'm an urban girl, so when the word wheelbarrow pops up twice in a week, it has to be discussed.

I have fond memories of a sturdy wheelbarrow in my father's backyard, me tossing dandelions into it. He was the consummate suburban farmer in his day, my father, second only to his own, my grandfather. Huge zucchinis. Real sunflowers. The gene passed me by, however hard I tried to grow things, although I did manage to sprout a few avocado trees in college.

Still. You don't want me to water your plants while you're away.

But back to wheelbarrows. The other day they were filled with bodies in Haiti, today we fill them with women who have been raped. It's an obsession with me, right? The sexual assault thing is an obsession, gets me riled up, and the very idea of marital rape sends me into Let me at 'em mode. Militant, angry, feminist. Whatever you want to call the outrage that describes mine when I hear about rape.

Anyway, today I'm reading from a women's anthology, Transforming a Rape Culture (some of you wanted to know what I'm reading lately, this is excellent, but admittedly, Prep is on my list). This is the 2005 edition and it opens with a reprint, an essay by famed feminist Andrea Dworkin. She speaks to 500 male attendees at the regional conference of the National Organization for Changing Men, 1983, St. Paul, Minnesota.

How would you begin such an address? Five hundred men! Here's how Ms. Dworkin begins:

What I would like to do is scream; and in that scream I would have the screams of the raped, and the sobs of the battered; and even worse, in the center of that scream I would have the deafening sound of women’s silence, that silence into which we are born because we are women and in which most of us die.

Every 3 min, a woman is raped; every 18 seconds, a woman is beaten, she tells them.

Could this still be true, 27 years later?

What would you say if I said, Yes.

Actually I don't know. I was hoping one of you could tell me.

She beats on them, of course, the men who have come to learn to be better men. She tells them she doesn't care much for their guilt, for their sadness at the way things are, sorrow for seemingly unstoppable male aggression towards women. She cares not at all for their feelings or determination to change themselves as people, or partners, friends. She wants action, some kind of political action that will inspire a truce, a 24 hour truce. No rape, not anywhere in the world, for 24 hours. That kind of truce.

I'm quite sure we're still waiting for it.

Ms. Dworkin continues to say,

Do you remember pictures that you've seen of European cities during the plague, when there were wheelbarrows that would go along and people would just pick up corpses and throw them in? Well, that is what it is like knowing about rape. Piles and piles and piles of bodies that have whole lives and human names and human faces."

Most men received the address with love, she remarks. One threatened her physically, but her female body guard stopped him.

Anyway, it's time we promoted male responsibility here on the blog, and I'm embarrassed, really for taking so long. And it's time you knew that men, actually, do get involved. They do more than rape. Most probably don't rape, is the truth.

The National Organization for Changing Men has morphed into NOMAS, the National Organization for Men Against Sexism.

They're still standing. And then there's Men Can Stop Rape, a truly fabulous worthy cause. I have one of their posters up in my office, the one you see above.

Also check out Men Against Sexual Violence.

You would think, seriously, that rape is no longer a spectator sport, with all this attention. But wouldn't you know? It still is. Boys still think it's cool to brag about their conquests, and they grow up into men who do the same, and sometimes one or two of them will hold a woman down while five to ten more rape her. This still happens.

Why? Because if a guy is invited to rape a woman and he says no, he is obviously a wimp. Or maybe he's gay. That's the thinking. Men afraid of other men. Peggy Sanday learned this while studying fraternities. Read Fraternity Gang Rape for more, but frankly, everybody quotes her. We'll get to athletic teams another day.

And although men are now claiming responsibility for changing the definition of masculinity, are fathering more proactively and compassionately, and empathizing much, much, more than ever before. . .

the proportion of births to single mothers continues to grow. In 1990, it was 26.6 percent of all births. By 1998, it was 32.8 percent. Among African Americans it has gone from 66.7 percent to 69.1 percent.* More and more boys are growing up without fathers in the home, and often without any positive male role models in their lives.

and although studies show that while most single mothers succeed in raising decent sons, a disproportionate number of violent boys come from fatherless homes with no consistent ly present male figure they can identify with and model themselves on. Sociologists use the term hypermasculinity to describe the extreme concern of these boys with proving their masculinity.

That thanks to Myriam Miedzian, How Rape is Encouraged in American Boys and What We Can Do to Stop It.

What can be done about this ugly phenomena? Some men are learning how to father with empathy, to lose the dysfunctional macho, I AM MAN, but others don't see a father figure at all, indeed resent their mothers, come to hate women, even see them as the objects of their suffering, something to punish.

Ms. Miedzian suggests that the only thing that can be done is to make child-rearing a mandatory class that children must take at school. She visited such classes attended by inner city children and walked away amazed at the enthusiasm. She writes books, too. Boys Will Be Boys, for one.

And then we have to do something about the rapist role models on television, in the movies, the slasher films, the video games. Now there's a thought. We're desensitized. Our children don't see violence as abhorrent. It's natural.

Twenty-four hours. Just 24 and we'll all be free, according to the late Andrea Dworkin. It's going to take years.

therapydoc

P.S. Andrea Dworkin only lived to 58. She wrote 10 books on radical feminist theory. Her website is a must-see.

Quote from the home page:

"Every century, there are a handful of writers who help the human race to evolve. Andrea is one of them."
Gloria Steinham

P.S.S. You can always go to a carnival on sexual abuse, too.

*Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2000 (Washington, D.C. Census Bureau). Perhaps the 2010 census will show different stats.

Earthquakes

Today:

FD says to me, “Maybe I’ll go to Haiti. They need doctors there. Some of the guys at the hospital are talking about it.”

I nod. I want to make a joke, “What would you eat?”*
But I don't.

The New York Times delivers meta-messages, news about news, The World News Media Enters Port-Au-Prince and on the radio, from Port-Au-Prince, Carry Kahn reports:

Buildings of cement and steel are still standing, masses on the move, huge buildings fall over on cars and other buildings, people sleeping on the streets, the sounds of shovels, screams, cries, Help me. Help me. Pillows, cushions, make-shift beds, and then an aftershock, another jolt, more chaos as if this weren't enough.

Oy vey.

Yesterday:

I drop off FD at work, head over to Jewel for groceries, flick on the radio. That intro to Viva La Vida, I Used to Rule the World by ColdPlay wakes me up, makes me happy. This is refreshing, for all morning long I've listened while making lunches, straightening up, getting dressed, the numbers are impossible, they make 9-11 a minor-league player, nature is the real terrorist and there's nothing, no scanner that can stop her. Thousands upon thousands.

A home now a hovel, children stand on rooftops, the ones that remain, looking around, dazed, people push wheelbarrows full of other people, the smells of death, dust, destruction. This is the largest earthquake to hit Haiti in 200 years, a 7.2 on the Richter.

The Richter is a logarithmic scale, FD tells me in the car, and my almost 21-year old physics-major son reiterates this as we bring in the groceries.

A text to my youngest son:

Am in the car. Can u help w/ groceries?

The night before:

One of my doctoral students works in Haiti, on hiatus in New York for her doctorate. She calls me as I walk in the front door, but I don't recognize the caller ID and she is babbling incoherently. Must slow her down. "Who is this again?"

Ah.

"Did you hear?” she cries, breathlessly.
“Everyone I work with! The entire agency!"
(This is a social service agency.) "No one has heard from them. I won’t be able to concentrate in class if I make it to class at all.”

Class is online. We'll pray, I tell her. We understand.

They’re sorting through the rubble. I lecture for almost 2 hours about research questions and hypotheses, finding meaning in inquiry, being clear about change, how to measure it.

Now:

Reality check. Viva la vida means Long live life. For the first time, on my way to the store, I catch some of the words of the song!

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemies' eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing
Now the old king is dead, long live the king

One minute I held the key
Next the walls are closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

It's a pretty sad song, self-deprecating if not abnegating, spouts the wisdom of having lived beyond I live for me, why wouldn't I, the cocky confidence of youth and omnipotence, having the world by the tail. Ruling rocks, for sure, like rock stars do.

So what, cuz I'm a rockstar, go the lyrics to another song, I'm a rock star. Pink is one of these people, so what, who cares, in your face. My five-year old grandson introduced me to that video, identifying with the chutzah, the so what, the how should I know?. But you don't have to be a rock star is the truth, to have that omnipotence, a high that some people, certainly not all of us, feel as adolescents, or rock stars, the young, the strong. It's a feeling that is punctuated with acting out and careless, risk-taking behavior, cuz hell, you rule.

Depletion precipitates a low, the very normal depressive drop of serotonin, so much bopping around. Until it is gone. You think you rule the world, and then you don't, nothing to do with earthquakes.

Quick story, a composite of many, with a happy ending:

Guy in his forties by now.

Had strength, good looks, intelligence, even as a little boy, surely as an adolescent. More than a little wild in his youth, takes nothing from no one, no criticism, no orders. Doesn't care about school, drinks and parties, women come easy. He continues to rule into his twenties.

Bad health takes him down several notches, but he beats it, eventually. Even so, in the years of fighting biology loses his mojo, never quite lives pain free. Seeks out illicit drugs for the pain and these are easy to find. His doctors won't prescribe the narcotics he wants, they know his history.

Years of self-medicating with whatever people give other people on the streets, alone, homeless, wakes up one day in rehab, the family is trying to help. You want to save your kid, believe he is worth saving.

He takes a job, can't cut it, too much pain. Finds his way to me, depressed and for all intents and purposes, catatonic.

I tell the story because this is how it is for so many. Most of us can't rule the world forever. A biological, if not sociological, ecological reality, there will be a drop. What goes up, must come down. Then we work do the brush ourselves off, pick ourselves up, start all over again thing.

But there's a post script to the story! Although it's been years, I get cards on occasion, he keeps up with me, and wouldn't you know, is married, has a doting spouse and a kid he adores. He's doing well, despite the chronic pain, sits at a desk job, sells something, maybe magazines, and although his partner makes more than he does, she apparently couldn't care less, loves him for who he is, a person he's still finding.

Of course he goes to meetings, has found serenity, always a good thing, whatever it is called, peace, equilibrium, his way, is working a program like many people at TSR one of your better recovery websites.

And you have to wonder, you know, if he sings that song, viva la vida.

therapydoc

*This is a reference to kosher food. People from my tribe have to figure out how we'll eat when we go on vacation.

I liked this one better than the band's original video.