L.B.: Speakerphone

Left Behind, pp. 435-437

In this little section Bruce Barnes and Rayford are playing the Antichrist Game, trying to reconcile what they know about their prime suspect with the many arcane details they've compiled in their check list. Let me briefly try to explain where such details and such check lists come from.

The Bible is full of warnings not to be deceived by false prophets, false teachers or false leaders of any kind, religious or political. Read through the Bible and you will encounter, again and again, various versions of something like this:

Don't be fooled by false leaders. They deceive people with their lies, so watch out to make sure you're not taken in by them.

In many instances, the writer will use a definite generic instead of the plural, so you'll read something like this:

Don't be fooled by the false leader. He deceives people with his lies, so watch out to make sure you're not taken in by him.

Here's the fun part for prophecy enthusiasts: What if that second version doesn't simply replace the plural with the generic? What if, instead, it actually refers to a specific, actual, singular False Leader?

Let the game begin! Get a highlighter and go through the entire Bible, circling every passage that warns against this false leader. (Read carefully -- he goes by many names.) Next, go back through and write down all the descriptions those warnings provide of this false leader/teacher/prophet -- anything that might serve a clue as to this single person's singular identity. And there you have it, your very own Antichrist checklist.

Your final checklist will likely be a bit confusing. Some warnings seem to be describing the False Leader as an Israelite. Other warnings make it clear that he is a gentile. In the first part of Daniel the False Leader sounds like someone very much like Nebuchadnezzar, but in the later chapters of the book he sounds more like someone very much like Antiochus Epiphanes. Later still, John's Apocalypse makes him sound almost like some kind of Roman emperor. This is where the game gets tricky. We seem to be looking for a Jewish gentile who is part Babylonian, part Syrian, part Roman. Trying to reconcile all of those seemingly contradictory descriptions in one single person isn't easy, but that's how the game is played.

(Note: The descriptive details in your check list may seem so irreconcilably disparate or so closely bound to the various biblical authors' distinct contexts that you may even begin to suspect that these details weren't really all intend to prophesy a single, particular False Leader. But that's just crazy talk. Press on -- your speculation about the identity of the Antichrist might end up being wrong, but you won't be any wronger than everyone else who's ever played this game.)

Bruce and Rayford have an advantage over the rest of us when playing the Antichrist Game: They've got a prime suspect carefully tailored by the authors to match every detail of the check list. Yet despite that, they've still got questions, like why is the Antichrist Romanian? This is the question they seek to answer here in Chapter 24:

After the core-group meeting, Rayford Steele talked privately with Bruce Barnes and was updated on the meeting with Buck. "I can't discuss the private matters," Bruce said ...

Bruce and Buck didn't really talk about any "private matters," so I like to think that he's just saying this to give Rayford a hard time. "Hey you know that 30-something guy who's been seeing your freshman daughter? He and I talked yesterday. I can't discuss the private matters -- nudge, nudge, wink, wink -- but we talked for quite some time."

"I can't discuss the private matters," Bruce said, "but only one thing stands in the way of my being convinced that this Carpathia guy is the Antichrist. I can't make it compute geographically. Almost every end-times writer I respect believes the Antichrist will come out of Western Europe, maybe Greece or Italy or Turkey."

Turkey, traditionally, is not regarded as part of Western Europe, what with it's being in Asia, but if we're going to have any hope of reconciling all of the things in our Antichrist check list then we can't allow ourselves to be constrained by such tired geographic conventions.

Poor Rayford is just trying to keep up. If Bruce says the check list doesn't allow for an Antichristescu, then he'll play along.

Rayford didn't know what to make of that. "You notice Carpathia doesn't look Romanian. Aren't they mostly dark?"

"Yeah. Let me call Mr. Williams. He gave me a number. I wonder how much more he knows about Carpathia." Bruce dialed and put Buck on the speakerphone. "Ray Steele is with me."

"Hey, Captain," Buck said.

Upon reading the word "speakerphone" there I half expected confetti to drop from the ceiling as a Sousa march would begin to play and top-hatted officials would arrive to commemorate this apotheosis of LaHaye & Jenkins' weird fixation with telephony.

"We're just doing some studying here," Bruce said, "and we've hit a snag." He told Buck what they had found and asked for more information.

"Studying" makes it sound like they're translating obscure prophecies from ancient tomes rescued from the library of Alexandria. What they've actually been doing is watching CNN's replay of Nicolae's press conference and comparing his agenda to the Antichrist check list the late Rev. Billings left on his desk before he disapparated. One world government? Check. One world religion? Check. Peace treaty with Israel? Check. Babylonian/Syrian/Roman/Jewish heritage? Hmmm. ...

"Well, he comes from a town, one of the larger university towns, called Cluj, and --"

"Oh, he does? I guess I thought he was from a mountainous region, you know, because of his name."

Following the logic of the dialogue in Left Behind isn't any easier than following the logic of the plot. One bumps into these Python-worthy non-sequiturs at every turn: "Is the town in the mountains?" "No, it's a college town." Huh?

"His name?" Buck repeated, doodling it on his legal pad.

"You know, being named after the Carpathian Mountains and all. Or does that name mean something else over there?"

Buck sat up straight and it hit him! Steve had been trying to tell him he worked for Stonagal and not Carpathia. And of course all the new U.N. delegates would feel beholden to Stonagal because he had introduced them to Carpathia. Maybe Stonagal was the Antichrist! Where had his lineage begun?

The ambiguity of Steve's remark -- "my boss moves mountains" -- sets up what might have been an intriguing mystery. But at this point, 436 pages into a 468-page book, it's a bit late to be introducing a new red herring. The possibility that Stonagal, rather than Carpathia, is our Big Bad is emphatically ruled out a mere 20 pages from now. Jenkins half-heartedly tries over those few pages to milk the question for suspense, but this falls flat since he's already spent so much time establishing that Nicolae is, without a doubt, the Antichrist. Readers thus aren't thinking, "Hey, Buck's right, it could be either one of them," but rather, "Pay attention Buck, you moron, it's Nicolae."

The larger problem with the section I just quoted is that we're in the middle of a Rayford-POV section. The whole point of having Bruce and Buck's conversation on speakerphone was so that Rayford, and the reader, could hear what was being said. Yet we're also somehow able to see what Buck is doodling and to hear his unspoken thoughts. Either Jenkins has completely lost track of which character's perspective he's supposed to be writing or else Rayford has some kind of supernatural mind-reading powers. ... Hey. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's not Carpathia or Stonagal, maybe Rayford is the Antichrist!

"Well," Buck said, trying to concentrate, "maybe he was named after the mountains, but he was born in Cluj and his ancestry, way back, is Roman. That accounts for the blonde hair and blue eyes."

Then again, if this strange-but-apropos Blonde Map of Europe is to be believed, Nicolae's being from Cluj, in northwestern Romania, might also "account" for his hair color.

Bruce thanked him and asked if he would see Buck in church the next day. Rayford thought Buck sounded distracted and noncommittal. "I haven't ruled it out," Buck said.

Following that paragraph is another one of these:

 

 

------------------------------

Indicating a shift back to Buck's perspective for the following section, which begins:

Yes, Buck thought, hanging up. I'll be there all right. He wanted every last bit of input before he went to New York to write a story that could cost him his career and maybe his life. ...

So immediately after reading Rayford's perception of what Buck is thinking we switch perspectives to read what Buck was really thinking and find out that Rayford had it backwards. Again. This was mildly interesting the first time Jenkins did this trick, less so the next four or five times. Here it doesn't work at all because, again, Jenkins got confused and presented Buck's perspective as Rayford's.

If you're a book editor, you should own a copy of Left Behind to take along to your annual performance reviews. Just open to a random page, have your boss read it, and then remind them that this is why you're worth every penny and then some.

Comments

[Riss]

Froborr -

Do it, and I will pay to read it.

[Uranus Coal-titHedgehog]

Sexual attractions that can't ethically be acted on are commonplace. A large proportion (I can't remember if it's actually a majority) of adult males exhibit an interest in young girls (we're talking teenagers here, not infants or whatever) which they would be ashamed to admit to, if they're even really conscious of it. I think a previous Slacktivist thread has strayed into the uncomfortable moment when a father discovers that his teenage daughter pushes a lot of the same buttons as her mother.

But urges we can't or shouldn't act on are normal anyway, without bringing sexuality into it. Ordinary, healthy people routinely reject these urges - mostly. They walk happily across a bridge without throwing themselves off. They might start a petty argument with their spouse for no reason when they've had a bad day, but they don't grab a big knife and stab their spouse in the chest. They might buy a candy bar on impulse, but they don't buy a $50 000 car the same way. Learning to resist these urges is a normal part of growing up. Your parents were unhappy when you obeyed the urge to draw on the wallpaper with crayons and to beat little Suzie next door with a plastic spade, and you learned that just because you have an idea, doesn't mean you need to act on it.

In this sense fictional portrayals of Tourette syndrome are fairly accurate. There really is sometimes a full-blown mental process figuring out that the black guy will be offended if you shout "Nigger", right before the urge to shout "Nigger" seizes the sufferers mind. It's no accident, these urges happen to other people too, but they easily suppress them. Of course the reality that most sufferers struggle only to control a more mundane physical tic rather than an urge to shout rude things at strangers doesn't make it into fiction most of the time. I guess that in theory there could be even rarer variants that are more sophisticated yet. Would you even get diagnosed if you sometimes had an uncontrollable urge to write inflammatory letters to the local newspaper ? What if you can't help trolling web forums ?

[Salamanda]

It seems to me that homophobia may partly be based on sex-is-for-children logic...

*blinks twice* It took me literally thirty seconds to understand what you really meant by that. :)

Heh. Same here. Reminds me of a brief exchange with a friend last week, whose innocent question about postpartum life came out just a little wrong:

Her: So what's sex like with a baby?
Me: Um. Illegal?
(pause)
Her: *blushes* Oh my god...

******

Oh, and while I'm here, let me be the eleventy-hundredth person to say...

Praline, I finally got a copy of your book and I'm loving it! I don't know any higher praise I can offer than this: thanks to aforementioned baby, sleep is very precious around here these days, and yet I STILL found myself up and glued to the pages a good two hours past when I should have been in bed.
*throws roses at your feet*

[hapax]

Uranus Coal Tit Hedgehog:

Nothing to add to your insightful post, but I must say your user handle immediately sent me scurrying off to short-story land.

Unfortunately, I imagine it will end up in the Must Never Admit To Having Written pile, along with the libertarian prostitute serial killer revenge fantasies and the gay Catholic werewolf erotica...

[BittySF]

gay Catholic werewolf erotica

I'm intrigued and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Praline]

Thank you Salamanda!

And hi Mabus. Yes, I can see that you might classify gay sex as a 'periodic behaviour' that one doesn't have to act on, in the same way that you don't have to sleep with every attractive person you ever see. You don't have to follow up every inclination your sexuality includes.

But there's also the question of what sexuality excludes. A gay man who isn't following up every single impulse he feels towards another man isn't just controlling his intake: he's never, ever having the kind of sex he wants. That's a much bigger deal than 'You can have sex with your wife but not teenage girls'. A man who feels an attraction to most female-shaped bodies has a whole host of alternative outlets for his sexuality where he can be happy and satisfied, even if he does keep away from teenagers. But a gay man who isn't supposed to have sex with men isn't just avoiding a periodic behaviour, he's condemned to a situation where he can never, ever have sex with anybody he finds attractive.

That's pretty sad.

Incidentally, whatever floats your boat is fine with me. You say I brought up the subject and managed to thoroughly squick out a fellow fundamentalist. Do you think he would have been equally squicked out if he hadn't been a fundamentalist? Or would have reacted differently? It seems like a potentially interesting example; an uncommon fetish might squick out many people, fundamentalist or not, in an ew-I-would't-want-to-do-that way rather than morally. Do you reckon his discomfort was religious or visceral, and if visceral, do you think it got rationalised through his religion? It might be sort of test-case to the theory that some religious objections to sexual practices are rationalisations of personal distaste...

[Nenya]

This contains some remarkable assumptions about the importance of sex as part of "what you want". Sex is an astonishingly trivial part of "what I want"--things like good food on the table, gas (or the equivalent) in the tank, money in the pocket are far more important

Well, yes. I did mean "what you want sexually" not "what you want in general." I still think the idea of never getting what you want sexually is pretty crappy, and it is exactly what people who say gay people should just tough it out and never have gay sex are recommending.

[Nenya]

(Or, ahaha, what Praline said.)

Speaking of your book, Praline, I'm a chapter or two into it, and the weird thing so far is that my brain doesn't connect it to the Praline who posts here. Maybe later in the book it will start to sound like you? Or maybe I'm just not used to thinking of you in connection with someone in so much emotional and physical danger as the story's main characters. (Actually the reason I'm only a couple of chapters in is that it's so very good at the sad and worrying parts, and I tend to only read unhappy things in small doses. But the characters are all very good and very real--which is probably why their problems affect me so much.)

[MikhailBorg]

UC-tH: Sexual attractions that can't ethically be acted on are commonplace.

Which is, of course, where a fair amount of kink comes from. Thus, it's fairly easy to find schoolgirl uniforms in adult women's sizes. And adult men's sizes, for that matter.

The description of Tourette's is interesting, mainly because it reminds me of the times for any of us where that mental filter doesn't wake up in time. The "Freudian slip", or the "Oh. I wish I hadn't said that."

("You did, Oscar. You did.")

[Tonio]

Mabus, when I suggested that fundamentalism sees sexual desire as amorphous, I wasn't talking about individual fetishes. Instead, I meant that fundamentalism seems to desire as universally non-discriminating. Fundamentalism seems to imply that all men in particular are just as capable of being aroused by men or by animals as by women. I've heard fundamentalists talk about homosexuality like they were Yoda warning Luke away from the dark side of the Force, like gay sex is an addictive narcoctic.

A large proportion (I can't remember if it's actually a majority) of adult males exhibit an interest in young girls (we're talking teenagers here, not infants or whatever) which they would be ashamed to admit to, if they're even really conscious of it.

I've read that the proportion is much smaller. According to the theory, such interest comes from control issues that corrupt these men's urges, misdirecting them on an unconscious level to young targets who are less powerful than adult women. The same would apply to adult women who are interested in teenage boys. Does this sound accurate?

Even if the proportion was larger, I would hope that this would be due to social conditioning. If it was inherent, that would be very depressing, like finding out one was destined to become the Antichrist or Lex Luthor. It might be twisted into an argument for restricting men's freedom. If that sounds like an extreme worry, remember that the justification offered for restricting women's rights was that women allegedly couldn't make informed judgments about voting or owning property.

I'm not sure the Tourette's example that you offered is comparable. Hypothetically, if a person with Tourette's was raised in a society where there was no racism or sexism or similar irrational beliefs about groups, what urges would sufferers experience? Would the absense of those beliefs remove the urges, or would the urges be more general, such as the urge to call someone a jerk or an idiot?

[Praline]

Hi Nenya. :-) I suspect, though I'd be interested to hear, that the book isn't going to sound more like me-Praline as you go along. Different forms of expression bring out different personae, in most people, I'd think. The side I show here is slightly different from the side I show in real life, which in itself varies from person to person, and the writing persona is different again - including, as you've astutely spotted, a lot sadder. All my books tend to be sadder than I sound when I'm Net-posting; that's the bit that gets my imagination going, and perhaps I do better putting the sad side of myself into art rather than life. Among other things, fiction is a safe place to put your issues! I suspect a lot of writers have different personae.

But your comment has got me thinking about a lot of interesting questions, so I'm going to mull it over on my blog, hope you don't mind...

[Praline]

According to the theory, such interest comes from control issues that corrupt these men's urges, misdirecting them on an unconscious level to young targets who are less powerful than adult women. The same would apply to adult women who are interested in teenage boys.

How old are we talking? Because if we're talking about men who feel some attraction towards girls around thirteen or fourteen, the explanation might be simpler: those girls are more or less woman-shaped, and almost anything woman-shaped gets a straight man's sexual attention to a certain extent. The thought process would be something like, 'Hey, breasts! ... Belonging to a teenage girl, ugh, I'm a bad man, let's point those eyes over in the opposite direction and think about phrases like "sex offenders register" and "skeezy old man" for a while, shall we?'

There's a distinction between men who are more sexually interested in teenage girls than adult women, or even exclusively interested, on the one hand, and on the other, men who are capable of finding a teenage girl attractive because she's at the lower end of an attraction-range that encompasses anyone female between about thirteen and seventy, but who are basically interested in adult women. I foresee complications if we get the two confused!

[Tonio]

The thought process would be something like, 'Hey, breasts! ... Belonging to a teenage girl, ugh, I'm a bad man, let's point those eyes over in the opposite direction and think about phrases like "sex offenders register" and "skeezy old man" for a while, shall we?'

That's what I mean about feeling like the Antichrist or Lex Luthor. Somewhere, Andrea Dworkin is reading that and laughing in triumphant satisfaction. When you hear about the lengths that cattle ranches and horse fanciers go to control their male animals, the implied message is that there is something evil about maleness.

There's a distinction between men who are more sexually interested in teenage girls than adult women, or even exclusively interested, on the one hand, and on the other, men who are capable of finding a teenage girl attractive because she's at the lower end of an attraction-range that encompasses anyone female between about thirteen and seventy, but who are basically interested in adult women.

While I would agree, those are indistinguishable from the outside. So it would be natural to assume that all men fit the former description.

[MikhailBorg]

While I would agree, those are indistinguishable from the outside. So it would be natural to assume that all men fit the former description.

No, it would actually be bigoted to make such an assumption.

[Jon]

Praline: The thought process would be something like, 'Hey, breasts! ... Belonging to a teenage girl, ugh, I'm a bad man, let's point those eyes over in the opposite direction and think about phrases like "sex offenders register" and "skeezy old man" for a while, shall we?'

That sounds like a pretty accurate assessment of the thought process, though in my case I also tend to end up thinking about how said girl is actually younger than my niece, whose diapers I was changing when I was the same age as the girl who just caught my eye, and who, even though she's 21, I wouldn't want some creepy older guy leering at. *Sigh* I'm old.
Anyway, I know that for me it's just about general attractiveness, with no "forbidden fruit" appeal (there's a pun in there somewhere), or desire to exercise control or anything like that. Basically, as far as making quick appraisals go, for me, hot is hot, regardless of age (assuming that there is a clear "womanliness"). Of course, after the initial reaction upon spotting someone who fits the attractiveness bill who is not of age, my thoughts immediately veer to the "that's inappropriate" line of thinking.
As long as I don't dwell on the thoughts and especially as long as I don't act on them, I don't see anything terribly "wrong" about having that initial reaction.
And anyway, I can't really see myself with anyone too much younger than I am. After all, I didn't have much in common with teenagers when I was one.

[Tonio]

No, it would actually be bigoted to make such an assumption.

I'm not defending the assumption, I'm questioning why a woman would not make the assumption. Doesn't the existence of the urge disgust women on a very deep level, since they were once teenagers?

[Tonio]

As long as I don't dwell on the thoughts and especially as long as I don't act on them, I don't see anything terribly "wrong" about having that initial reaction.

Wouldn't you feel bad for having the reaction at all? What would life be like if we could eliminate all our negative impulses or reactions?

[Izzy]

The "sex-is-for-children" thing reminds me of playing Silent Hill with friends:

"Oh, yeah. A handgun's the best way to deal with the kids."

This contains some remarkable assumptions about the importance of sex as part of "what you want". Sex is an astonishingly trivial part of "what I want"--things like good food on the table, gas (or the equivalent) in the tank, money in the pocket are far more important...

Sure: hierarchy of needs and all. If I don't know where my next meal is coming from, celibacy isn't going to register high on my mental scale. (Though "...and I haven't gotten laid in MONTHS" got tacked on to general financial-woes-and-apartment-suckage ranting in my immediately-post-college days.) But once the food/shelter/security basics are taken care of--as my more socialist leanings say they automatically should be for everyone--then yes, sex is pretty important, in the same way that friends or music or books are pretty important. Bread *and* roses, y'know?

Also, just as there's a difference between not ever getting what you want and not always getting what you want, there's a difference between both those things and not even being allowed to *try* and get what you want. I may be too busy to date most of the time; I may not be attractive to the men in my area, for some reason; the whole relationship thing may just not work out for me. And that's not great, but I can accept it. Whereas saying that I'm never allowed to, say, put on a short skirt and go to a party--that I don't even get to take a shot--is not something I'm okay with.

[Jon]

@ Praline:

I should mention that I've also recently picked up a copy of your book, though I've been saving it to read on an upcoming trip. I'm definitely looking forward to finally cracking it open.

[Praline]

Doesn't the existence of the urge disgust women on a very deep level, since they were once teenagers?

Nope. Not if the guy was able to separate 'I'd like to touch' from 'I should be able to touch'. Creepy men are men who want to ignore or manipulate your will; it's perfectly possible for a man's eyes to snag briefly on a teenage girl in a bikini but to look away precisely because he's aware she's a human being and should be respected as such. That's not a man being creepy, that's just a man being heterosexual, and if he's polite about it, the girl won't even know he was looking.

The thing is, the fact that an impulse would be wrong to act on doesn't automatically make it 'negative'. Men noticing a pretty teenager is just a side-effect of the fact that men like how women look, and that's basically a good impulse: it makes them fall in love, it makes them dedicate themselves to families, it makes good relationships, and it keeps the species going. A man who didn't find women in general attractive would not be a desirable partner: the ideal partner is a man who notices other women are pretty because he likes how women look - which benefits you, because you're a woman - but who doesn't cheat or molest just because his eyes occasionally wander.

Because honestly, women are the same. Boys of thirteen and fourteen tend to be short and gawky, so the age bracket is probably a bit higher, but if you see a handsome boy younger than you, you notice. You don't do anything about it, you just notice. You're not harming him; you're not disrespecting his humanity, you're just feeling the effects of a basic impulse, which is to find male-looking people attractive. (Or female-looking people, if your bent runs that way.)

This isn't a male-female thing, it's a human thing. Unless they're asexual, everybody clocks nice-looking people. Either we have to find the whole of humanity disgusting, or we have to judge on how reasonable they are about it, and most people are reasonable.

[Praline]

And thanks, Jon! :-)

[MikhailBorg]

I'm questioning why a woman would not make the assumption.

Because said woman does not have the right to assume she knows what's going on in your head, any more than you have the right to assume you know what's going on in hers. Living in a male-dominated society does not free adult women from the responsibility to act and think like grown-ups any more than it does men.

Doesn't the existence of the urge disgust women on a very deep level, since they were once teenagers?

I assume that by "urge" you mean the instinctive interest of men in any post-pubescent woman?

For one thing, you'd have to ask individual women. Women are not cattle, and they hold at least as many and varied opinions on such matters as men do.

I can tell you, from experience, that there are many women who are pleased that there are men who are interested in their bodies, just as there are many men pleased by the expressed interest of women when it occurs. It's not even difficult to find a teenaged woman below the local age of consent who is nevertheless pleased at the attention of, and her potential power over, older men who are physically attracted to her. (Hell of a sentence there.)

If a man acts on those desires against the law, it's another matter. If he acts on those desires against the wishes of the woman, it's another matter again. But I suspect that if you cleansed every temporary anti-social desire from a person, what you'd have left might be an un-troublesome member of society, but it wouldn't be much of a human being either.

[ralph]

Now, for bizarre gynecology, we have the Omen TV movie (early nineties, I think) in which Faye Grant's five year old adopted daughter turns out to be, by the power of Satan, the identical twin to her newborn son--it turns out the son was a twin the daughter had absorbed into her body until a Satanist gynecologist could transport the fetus into Grant.

While I appreciate there are myriad of other issues with the scenario you've laid out - you can't have MF identical twins, can you? I suppose. Maybe you can if you're the antichrist and all - i mean, be an evil twin!, but anyone(thing) else might be pushing it..

[Izzy]

Doesn't the existence of the urge disgust women on a very deep level, since they were once teenagers?

No.

First of all, women have their own sexual urges, including those they wouldn't act on because of consent/power issues, *including* attraction to underage people--mention the name "Daniel Radcliffe" on LJ sometime and watch a million fangirls shuffle and look at their feet. We're capable of understanding that being attracted to teenagers doesn't mean being attracted to *only* teenagers, or actually acting on said attraction.

Plus, yeah, we were teenagers. So what? I remember my teenage years fairly well. I was aware that odds were that some adult men found me attractive, but as long as they didn't hit on me, that's how it goes. You don't get to choose who you find hot, and it would seem unreasonable of me to resent non-predatory guys for having that attraction.

Don't do the Estrogen Paladin thing, please, dude. It doesn't sit well with a lot of women--this one especially.

[Praline]

Estrogen Paladin?

[Jon]

Wouldn't you feel bad for having the reaction at all? What would life be like if we could eliminate all our negative impulses or reactions?

In reference to your second question, I'm going to go with "bland."
As for the first, no, I don't feel bad because no actual harm was done. That I find a teenage girl attractive doesn't harm her in the least if the thought stops there (which it always does, for a variety of reasons). And again, my reaction isn't one of "Ooh, teenage girl! Must corrupt innocence!" It's more like, "Wow, she's very pretty and has a great body, but she's clearly very young. Oh well, moving on."
On the face of it, that's no different from being attracted to, say, a woman of 25, or 30, or, well, whatever age, who has the same or at least similar attractive qualities as the teenager. Where it actually becomes something negative is if I ignore that "but she's clearly very young" part and fail to move on, or if I find that I'm exclusively attracted to young girls, which I'm not; I'm exclusively attracted to what I find attractive. More often than not, that means being attracted to women closer to my own age, and in terms of any attraction that I might follow up on, there's rather more to it than physical attractiveness.
I have a friend the same age as I am who's currently in the midst of a divorce because her husband left her for a 19 year-old (she was actually 18 when the affair started). Is the 19 year-old more appealing physically? Maybe; she's quite a bit thinner and someone more fresh-faced, and sure, I had some thoughts flash through my mind when I first saw her, but she lacks the character and personality of my friend, and is therefore, in my opinion, less attractive overall.
(Also, my friend has much bigger boobs.)
Because of this, I view her husband, who didn't rein in his inappropriate thoughts about the teenager, to be a complete idiot who pointlessly threw away a 12 year relationship with someone really special because he was obsessed with finding a "better deal."
Anyway, I'm sure there's a point somewhere in this, though I may have lost it.

[Izzy]

Sensitive New Age Nice Guy, basically. The sort who jumps to the defense of women--all women, everywhere, whether they need it or not--is quick to condemn the horrible licentious violent dishonest nature of men, and so forth. He Understands Your Oppression, whether or not you're feeling any.

Common at colleges. Wears hair in ponytail. Horrible in bed. The one I knew, after the 2004 election, posted a hysterical rant about how "women won't be able to walk alone at night--not that they can now!" (Guy: first of all, shut up, and second, I don't think the Republicans, horrible as they may be, will send out trained rape squads, and finally, shut up.) Which did cheer me up nicely, since I was pretty upset myself. But still.

[Tonio]

sex is pretty important, in the same way that friends or music or books are pretty important. Bread *and* roses, y'know?

I suppose it would be important if one has a realistic expectation of sex. I went through many years where the idea of encountering a woman who was sexually interested in me didn't seem realistic. I've always had the problem of never knowing if a woman is interested in me, and I wasn't social in the first place. So at one point in my 20s, without consciously deciding to do so, I stopped looking for dates for about five years. It wasn't an attitude of self-lament. It was more like an attitude that sexlessness was simply a reality of life.

[Praline]

Living in a male-dominated society does not free adult women from the responsibility to act and think like grown-ups any more than it does men.

Thank you! Quote from Naomi Wolf's Fire With Fire:

This 'feminist' reluctance to assign women responsibility for their actions, evil as well as good, mirrors the opposition's traditional claim that women are children, incapable of signing a contract, managing their own affairs, bearing witness in court, or voting. One of the injuries on the list of injustices set forth by power feminists in the Seneca Falls Convention's 'Declaration of Sentiments' was that men withhold from women the right to be held accountable for crime: 'He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband.' Accountability for crime sounds, from a victim-feminist point of view, an odd 'right' to demand. But the moral adulthood of power feminism knows that real justice is not a sentimental pardon, but a contract or covenant, and that the sword of justice has two sides.

[Jon]

Additional pointless thoughts:

In my last comment "someone more fresh-faced" should read "somewhat more fresh-faced."
Also, just sort of for the record, if I didn't know my friend at all and she were placed side-by-side with her husband's teenage girlfriend and I were asked which one I found more attractive, I might pick the teenager based purely on physical attractiveness. (Not really sure; they are both very attractive, and my friend does have the aforementioned bigger boobs)
However, if told their ages and then asked which one I'd want to pursue a relationship with, I'd pick my friend.

@Izzy: LMAO at "Estrogen Paladin."

[Tonio]

Men noticing a pretty teenager is just a side-effect of the fact that men like how women look, and that's basically a good impulse...

Praline, I agree with most of your post. I'm saying that the impulse in that specific situation feels bad.

You're not harming him; you're not disrespecting his humanity, you're just feeling the effects of a basic impulse, which is to find male-looking people attractive.

We're talking about the impulse being in an adult person toward a teenage person. The teenager may perceive the impulse as involving power or position.

I can tell you, from experience, that there are many women who are pleased that there are men who are interested in their bodies, just as there are many men pleased by the expressed interest of women when it occurs.

And Mikhail, I agree with most of your post. I guess I was placing myself in the position of the teenager, where I would feel threatened by an adult finding me attractive because adults would be in positions of power over me.

But I suspect that if you cleansed every temporary anti-social desire from a person, what you'd have left might be an un-troublesome member of society, but it wouldn't be much of a human being either.

While you're probably right, I don't understand why it would be that way instead of some other way. Why wouldn't we have some sort of separation between our impulses for good and our impulses for bad? From what you suggest, it's like our impulses are neutral and we simply steer them, like a boat's helmsman.

Sensitive New Age Nice Guy, basically.

I wasn't trying to be like that at all. My point was that if I as a man have negative impulses such as finding teenage girls attractive, then I'm not sure I have any standing to refute the "All men are pigs" attitude. I guess I simply want to be judged as an individual according to my own actions.

[Tonio]

I don't think the Republicans, horrible as they may be, will send out trained rape squads

Hilarious! I can imagine G. Gordon Liddy as the drill sergeant.

[Praline]

There seems to be a school of thought, in quite a wide variety of different social groups, from fundies to over-concerned activists, to the effect that male sexuality is inherently malign and female sexuality is more or less non-existent. Doesn't sound right to me. Sexuality can come out in benign or malign ways, or just irresponsible ways, but a lot of women find male sexuality a positive force; Naomi Wolf, again (I think) was once asked by an interviewer if she thought the penis was the enemy, and she laughed and said that a lot of women go home at the end of a hard day thinking of the penis as a friend.

A lot depends on personal experience, I think; Andrea Dworkin, for instance, is often misrepresented - her views are complex and don't precis well - but an important factor in her views on rape is that she herself was the victim of sexual assault more than once, and hence, was speaking from the dark end of the spectrum. Which is a legitimate contribution to the debate, and should be heard, but it doesn't necessarily encompass every possible condition. People who've had positive experiences with the opposite sex tend to feel much better about their sexual impulses, right to consent and so on. But what about considering your own gender's sexuality malign? Is it just the tendency to feel guilty about every desire you shouldn't act on? Is it partly heterosexuality (I'm a man and wouldn't want to have sex with a man, men who want to have sex are icky)? I wonder.

[Tonio]

Is it just the tendency to feel guilty about every desire you shouldn't act on? Is it partly heterosexuality (I'm a man and wouldn't want to have sex with a man, men who want to have sex are icky)?

It may be as simple as hearing "All men are pigs" or "All women are bitches" over and over until one believes that about one's self. Or until one longs to convince the people who hold those opinions that they are wrong. Or both.

[MikhailBorg]

Why wouldn't we have some sort of separation between our impulses for good and our impulses for bad? From what you suggest, it's like our impulses are neutral and we simply steer them, like a boat's helmsman.

But we do! They are called experience, intellect, and morality (quite the overlap there, ne?).

A cat, for example, has little to no separation between its impulses for good and bad. It doesn't see any moral reason why it shouldn't knock the plant of the shelf for the eight time, though experience has told it that the big bald monkey will make lots of noise, inflict minor discomfort, and withhold snugglins for a while if it does. (Sometimes it seems worth it nevertheless.)

Humans on the other hand, have the additional tools of intellect and morality to realize that "replacing the plant will cost money, I'll be made to clean it up, I like the plant anyway, and it's just wrong to mess with people's stuff".

Expecting the distinctions to be built-in at the lizard-brain level is unrealistic.

[Praline]

We're talking about the impulse being in an adult person toward a teenage person. The teenager may perceive the impulse as involving power or position.

If all the impulse involves is a flick of the eyes while riding the bus, odds are he probably won't even notice. Even if he notices you looking his way, he may not conclude that you're checking him out. Even if he does, you're a stranger to him, and you have no power or position: he can simply walk away - and if you only look briefly, the odds of him being discomfited are extremely low. I've been a teenage girl out in public; a lot of glances struck me as entirely neutral, if I noticed them at all, and while come-ons could be irritating, I could just change seats - and that was actual come-ons, well over the line we're discussing. We're not talking about a teacher hitting on a student, we're talking about passing glances here.

From what you suggest, it's like our impulses are neutral and we simply steer them, like a boat's helmsman.

When it comes to sexual desire, that's probably a pretty good description.

Incidentally, Izzy, if it's not too much information as as we've established that Tonio is not that guy, what was it about his politics that made him so bad in bed?

[Praline]

A cat, for example, has little to no separation between its impulses for good and bad. It doesn't see any moral reason why it shouldn't knock the plant of the shelf for the eight time, though experience has told it that the big bald monkey will make lots of noise, inflict minor discomfort, and withhold snugglins for a while if it does. (Sometimes it seems worth it nevertheless.)

Tee hee. My cat has worked out a system: if she scratches the sofa for a while, the big bald monkey will look her way, and then she can put in her request for food, attention or help with the cat flap. Scratching the sofa is her equivalent of ringing for the butler.

I don't think anyone here is saying 'all men are pigs' or 'all women are bitches'...

[MikhailBorg]

It may be as simple as hearing "All men are pigs" or "All women are bitches" over and over until one believes that about one's self.

In this case, I can only suggest that you endeavour to spend more of your social time around men and women who know better, and to learn to take such claims with a critical ear when you hear them.

(There's a fair chance that anyone who repeatedly expresses such claims is just trying to sell you something. Either they've got a new book out, or they hope to influence your social interactions to their own benefit.)

[Praline]

There's a fair chance that anyone who repeatedly expresses such claims is just trying to sell you something.

Or they've just had a bad break-up and aren't quite ready to admit that they may have made a mistake dating that particular individual. Blaming the entire gender is a common reaction of the crossed in love, especially when they haven't quite fallen out of love yet.

[Izzy]

We're talking about the impulse being in an adult person toward a teenage person. The teenager may perceive the impulse as involving power or position.

Not if the adult never acts on it.

If an adult finds a teenager attractive and is blatant about it , then, yes, you have problems. That's one poorly-socialized asshole of an adult, for one thing: part of growing up is learning how to keep your eyes in your sockets and refrain from drooling down your shirt when confronted with an attractive person. Hell, a guy who has an unrequited crush on me and is freaking obvious about is is a guy with whom I will rapidly become very, very annoyed, and it's hardly a power issue for me.

But an attraction that you never impose on other people is not a problem.

I wasn't trying to be like that at all.

That's cool. Just watch the "Well, don't women get upset?" questions in the future. In general, if a woman's upset, she'll let you know.

My point was that if I as a man have negative impulses such as finding teenage girls attractive, then I'm not sure I have any standing to refute the "All men are pigs" attitude.

Sure you do: you don't act on those impulses in a way that harms said teenage girls. And the impulses themselves aren't necessarily negative: plenty of awesome guys play "cheerleader and history teacher" with their fully-mature girlfriends, and everyone has a great old time.

There seems to be a school of thought, in quite a wide variety of different social groups, from fundies to over-concerned activists, to the effect that male sexuality is inherently malign and female sexuality is more or less non-existent. Doesn't sound right to me.

Me either. Frankly, I find that attitude particularly annoying, both because it denies my own sexual agency and because I dislike people trying to protect me. (Dworkin also bugs me, mostly because I dislike people who turn their Personal Trauma into a "but the whole world must be like this" crusade. I have the same problem with the Hollow One sorts who are atheists because their parents got divorced when they were thirteen, or whatever: way to lack perspective, doofi.) It's particularly irksome coming from guys, because it comes off as just another form of patronization.

[Izzy]

Incidentally, Izzy, if it's not too much information as as we've established that Tonio is not that guy, what was it about his politics that made him so bad in bed?

Oh, that was a shameless generalization about a number of guys, few of which I've had any personal sexual contact with. ;) Anecdotal evidence, however, suggests that they're...well...wimps.

Not that I, or most women, want Neanderthal he-men bikers on crack. But the Sensitive New Age Guy is the sort who will ask if he's hurting you just as things are starting to feel good; who will look at you with shock and appalled horror if you express a desire for, um, rough trade or dirty language; who often kisses in a style my friends and I dubbed "squidmouth" (no firmness about the lips or jaw); and who may well play Barry Manilow. Or Yanni.

[Tonio]

Expecting the distinctions to be built-in at the lizard-brain level is unrealistic.

You're probably right. Perhaps any impulse that could lead to negative behavior feels to me like a vulnerability, or something that could be used to negatively judge me.

We're not talking about a teacher hitting on a student, we're talking about passing glances here.

I had in the mind the jerks at a hockey game that I heard about, holding a sign that counted down the days until the Olsen twins were legal.

[Dash]

Nenya: Speaking of your book, Praline, I'm a chapter or two into it, and the weird thing so far is that my brain doesn't connect it to the Praline who posts here. Maybe later in the book it will start to sound like you?
Praline: I suspect, though I'd be interested to hear, that the book isn't going to sound more like me-Praline as you go along. Different forms of expression bring out different personae, in most people, I'd think.

Just my two cents' worth (or, given the exchange rate, one penny's worth?) I didn't think the narrator sounded much at all like Praline-on-Slacktivist, or, for that matter, like Praline-on-her-own-blog. It hadn't occurred to me before, but at least for some writers, writing must be something like acting: the characters you create, and most noticeably the narrator, may or may not have a great deal in common with you. And of course the context is going to be entirely different. (At least, in the case of Benighted, one certainly hopes the context is entirely, completely, totally different. [Glances nervously out window.])

Anyway, IMO Praline creates very different--and very convincing--voices for all her characters. Won't say more for fear of creating spoilers, but yeah, it's good stuff. Gets hard to put down at points. Enjoy!

[Praline]

I don't mind Dworkin - I mean, I disagree with a lot of what she said, but I think she got a bad deal in how her views were represented. I see what you mean about personal trauma, but at the same time, personal experience is very often how we learn and come to conclusions. If you believe that X is always the case, and then somebody does something contrary to that, you have to factor it in. You can blow single incidents out of proportion, but conclusions reached traumatically aren't always reached foolishly...

[McJulie]

Re: Estrogen Paladin

Heh!

The whole hysteria -- from ostensible feminists -- over women walking alone at night is a particular sore spot with me. I just don't see fear as a feminist act.

Which reminds me of this recent series of stories from my home town:

On March 2 of this year, a Bellingham woman reported being raped and beaten while she was running on a trail.

This incident prompted a public event on March 31,
called Take Back Our Trails, in which approximately 500 people traversed the same 5k route the woman took on the day she was allegedly attacked.

On April 17 of this year, the woman's story was revealed to be a fabrication, after an extensive crime scene investigation failed to turn up any physical evidence that corroborated her story.

The Take Back Our Trails story is unintentionally hilarious when read in light of that. It's absolutely chock full of what I now know to call Estrogen Paladinism.

[Jon]

Praline: Blaming the entire gender is a common reaction of the crossed in love, especially when they haven't quite fallen out of love yet.

Very true. In the time since my friend split with her husband I've heard plenty of complaints about my gender.
Sometimes it can be a little hard to take, particularly when she claims that "all men are cheaters," given that my marriage ended when my wife cheated on me.
But for the most part, I just shrug and recognize that she's having a rough time, and that her comments aren't really directed at me.
Of course, that they aren't directed at me can be kind of bothersome in its own way, as it doesn't necessarily indicate that she thinks of me as an exception to the rule, but that she doesn't really think of me as being a man in the first place, which is a whole other kettle of fish that I probably shouldn't dive into.

[hapax]

Tonio: Why wouldn't we have some sort of separation between our impulses for good and our impulses for bad?

C.S. Lewis has a nice riff in The Screwtape Letters, where the Senior Tempter laments that, despite centuries of research, Hell has yet to invent a single pleasure.

In other words, people don't really have "impulses for bad." The things that we want to do, that we delight in -- pretty women and men, tasty food, sexual satisfaction, sufficient sleep, safety, comfort, a really intense backscratch -- these are not only good things, they are necessary things.

The "bad impulse" comes from putting my own desire for this good thing above the needs of others. I want to gaze at this pretty person in a way that makes them uncomfortable. I want to have sex with someone who is not able to give free consent. I want more food than is healthy for me. I want to sleep more than I want to fulfill my responsibilities. I want my safety and comfort even though they will deprive other people of their basic necessities.

All of this "badness" is utterly context-dependent. How on earth could we program are lizard-brains to automatically be this discerning?

[Tonio]

Sure you do: you don't act on those impulses in a way that harms said teenage girls.

Obviously. I'm saying that when I have the impulses, I feel no different from the men who DO act on them. I can't ignore the possibility that I may be the "good German" on this issue, mistakenly thinking myself as different from those men.

Just watch the "Well, don't women get upset?" questions in the future.

Valid point. I was trying to articulate the concern that people might automatically expect the worst from me.

Hollow One sorts

What does that term mean?

[Praline, linking here to a post on Method Writing]

I had in the mind the jerks at a hockey game that I heard about, holding a sign that counted down the days until the Olsen twins were legal.

Ah, but the Olsen twins weren't actually there to be viewed with desire. What's creepy about those guys is that they're making a parade of it, as if it conveys some kind of identity they're proud of.

It hadn't occurred to me before, but at least for some writers, writing must be something like acting: the characters you create, and most noticeably the narrator, may or may not have a great deal in common with you.

I call it Method Writing. Of course, every character has something in common with you, because they all came out of your head. With pretty much every character, the question I use is: 'How would I feel if I'd had that person's life?' So they're sort of you, but with an entirely different history, hence different convictions, sore points, ideals and instincts. Other people may vary, but the basic assumption is 'I'm a human being, and my emotions are probably fairly normal; so, if I think how I'd feel in this situation, I'll assume that's how another human being would.' That at least narrows down the range of likely behaviours, and then you can pick.

Considering that the hero of my next book is more or less a talking atheist fish with a violent streak, I'll be most amused if anybody points out similarities between him and me...

[hapax]

Tonio: To quote Madeleine L'Engle:

"Love isn't what you feel. Love is what you do."

The same holds true for malice and abuse.