Sexualized politics

Marie and I had the strangest argument tonight ... admittedly after both of us had had way too much to drink. On the one hand it gave me what I think are some useful insights into how she thinks about politics. On the other hand, it made me despair of ever reaching a common understanding with her on the subject. It's not just about correcting this or that factual misunderstanding that she might have picked up somewhere along the way. For her ever to understand the way I see American politics—or as an alternate goal, using the famous Straussian criterion, for her ever to understand her opponents as they understand themselves—will require a total demolition and reconstruction of the furniture in her mind related to politics. It would have to start with massive cognitive dissonance and proceed through total breakdown. I don't want to inflict that on her, and I don't foresee it. But this means she will be a prisoner of her peculiar delusions for the rest of her life.

It all started when I was talking about something else. I was describing how people interpret moral topics, and I said that people respond far more than they realize to the intuitive picture in their head. So when a Malefactor does something bad, you get some people who see him intuitively as a saber-toothed tiger or a cave bear—that is to say, as a lethal threat to their friends, neighbors, and children. Then there are other people who see him as an erring child who can learn better with a little education. These two groups argue with each other over what to do with the malefactor; they quote studies and statistics, and delve deeply into academic criminology to argue their cases. But all this sophistication is window dressing. What really motivates the two groups is their intuitive picture of what is going on. Is he a saber-toothed tiger, or an erring child? On that question hinges the pragmatic decision whether he should be killed straightaway, or rehabilitated.

That was the theoretical point I was trying to make. So far, so good.

Marie stopped me to say that sometimes the roles switch. She said that in cases of rape or sexual crimes, Liberals are more likely to condemn a Malefactor as irredeemable, and Conservatives are more likely to wink and let it pass on the grounds that "boys will be boys."

Now, I had never used the words "liberal" or "conservative" in my discussion. So what I should have said is. "OK fine, that's one more example of what I'm talking about." Perhaps I could have reminded her that I never used words like "liberal" or "conservative" because I was trying to talk about a general disjunction in how people treat Malefactors, and not to make a political point. Then I should have steered the discussion resolutely back to the most general level possible.

But no. I was drunk, and therefore I let the oversimplicity of her political moralizing irritate me. So while I agreed that yes, this was exactly another example of what I was talking about, I also pointed out that many conservatives oppose rape. When I said it, I didn't think it was actually a controversial point. And I added that I had read conservatives on Twitter who were clearly opposed to rape.

Immediately she shot back, dismissively, "How many of them voted for Trump?"

Of course the truth is that most people are opposed to rape; since, in addition, Trump voters constitute a wide cross-section of the country, it is a reasonable inference that most Trump voters also oppose rape. This should be obvious.

Besides all that, there are lesbian feminists who voted for Donald Trump! Heidi Briones is one public example, and she lives with her wife in Portland, Oregon. I'm pretty sure she's also opposed to rape. But I didn't quote her by name, because I didn't want Marie to know that I recognize any Trump voters by name. So I just said that people don't always post how they voted, but you can still tell if someone is conservative and also (often) whether they are likely to support or oppose rape.

Even so simple and anodyne a point as that, though, made her mad. It took her a while to articulate why she was mad, and I would probably remember more of the intermediate steps of the discussion if I hadn't had so much to drink. But her final position was something like this.

The country is divided into two parties. 

• On one side are those who promote Purity Culture for women, while winking at sexual crimes committed by men. These people regularly push for laws to make rape easier to commit and harder to prosecute, and they have infiltrated all levels of American government. Marie specifically referred to rapists—plural!—who sit today on the Supreme Court. She also identified this group with Evangelical Protestants, with Roman Catholics, and with the Republican Party.
• On the other side are those who oppose the first group: those who oppose Purity Culture and also rape. Marie identified this group with those who are secularly-minded, and with the Democratic Party.

Having characterized these two groups, Marie then reminded me how much damage she had done to herself by internalizing the beliefs of Purity Culture—that she had been incapable of any normal sexual response for forty years, between the time she reached puberty and her first date with me. She blamed the people who taught her about purity for the suffering she endured, and by extension blamed Evangelicals, Catholics, and Republicans—because they all belong to the same Party, and all believe the same things, and all conspire to torment girls and women to this very day by their malevolent teachings. And she concluded by saying that any time I cast doubt on her understanding of these things—any time I say a good word for this or that Evangelical, or Catholic, or Republican—I am in fact denying all her pain and suffering.   

Wow. What am I supposed to do with that?

A pedant might point out that the whole picture is preposterous, and that anything painted with so broad a brush cannot be true. 

• 
  Evangelicals and Catholics agree about everything important, or everything political? That would be news to them! 
• Also, Marie's little sister (Cuñada) was raised with the same teachings, and they seem to have slid off her back like water off a duck. Therefore the teachings aren't guaranteed to take root. How, then, is it the fault of her teachers that Marie decided to believe all this crap when her sister—and probably most American girls of her generation—blithely ignored it all? Is it their fault that Marie proved uniquely gullible?
• And how many rapists does Marie actually think sit on the Supreme Court? I assume she is counting Justice Kavanaugh, although he has never been found legally guilty of sexual assault in a court of law. Who else? Are there convictions or accusations I don't know about? Do I need to get out more?

Of course I didn't say any of these things. As noted, I was drunk, and therefore not too swift on the uptake. Also Marie was just at the beginning of her visit, so I didn't want to get us off to a bad start.

But the whole argument, ending as it did with Marie's passionate declaration of her political beliefs as summarized above, made me very thoughtful. On the one hand, I'm no longer in any kind of hurry to introduce her to other people I know, now that I understand how much of her own identity is wrapped up in her decades of sexual dysfunction. (Who knows what she might say?) And on the other hand, as I noted at the beginning of this post, I despair of ever discussing politics or current events at any real level. It feels like my only option will be to pat her on the head and say, "There, there, of course that's what's happening." I don't want to let her understand that I am condescending to her, of course; but also I can't take anything she says seriously.

It's sad.