Saturday, May 26, 2018

Spiritual Self-Defense: Part One - Commentary Two

It's rare - but so satisfying for me - when I find a CP/QF quote that encapsulates the major flaws within the mindset.   Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin served one up on a platter for me in their blog series "Spiritual Self-Defense".   The very first paragraph  of the series serves up several in a row:

We’ve all experienced that moment of panic, that sense of paralysis, after a man just said something or did something to us that crossed the line. We’ve all faced the crisis of, “Was what he just did OK?” …followed by the next crisis of “What should I do? Should I be smooth and pretend this didn’t happen, or should I do something that will feel very awkward, hard, rude, and uncomfortable for everyone? Should I roll with this, or fight it? Do I have a responsibility to do something? Didn’t Jesus turn the other cheek? What would God want me to do?” And probably the most terrifying moment of all: When we realize the strength we need and thought we had simply isn’t there.

Notice how the woman in this thought experiment has no volition in this situation.  The two things that matter are what the man did and a list of acceptable actions for men to do to women.  The woman's feelings, thoughts, and beliefs are overlooked entirely.   I suppose this will mark me as a raging out-of-control feminist, but the important question for me would be "Am I comfortable with what just happened?"  The rest of the paragraph is a mess - but most of the mess arises from the woman's failure to decide how she feels about what happened.   The paragraph pairs extremely divergent choices, skips the most common intermediate course of action, ignores any complications and devolves into a theological mess before encouraging self-blame.

Let's hit the theology first.  The "turn the other cheek" doctrine is generally applied to persecution due to religious beliefs.   Sexual harassment and assault does not fit in that category.  I think that God gave us brains and the power to use them - so we do what God wants when we respond in the way we feel is appropriate.

Let me sketch this out in real life. 

When I was a cashier at a busy grocery store, I was doing my job at a lane when someone goosed me.

The first - nearly instant - decision I made was that I DID NOT LIKE THAT.   I didn't need to think about whether what the person did was right or wrong; I just needed to be clear that I - myself - did not like it at all.

The second decision was knowing my options for response.  Here's a list of possible options:

  1. No response.  This would be most acceptable for me if I felt that any resistant response on my part would place me or someone else in danger.  I rejected this response because I was a well-liked worker in a busy grocery store and was certain that a resistant response on my part would bring more help/support from co-workers and shoppers.
  2. Verbal reprimand.  Lots of options available here ranging from "Knock it off" through a profanity laced dressing-down.    This was going to be my response if I felt physically threatened because a torrent of profanity would bring scads of attention my way.
  3. Physical attack.  I keep this in reserve for times when I am physically at risk and cannot get help otherwise.  On the other hand, this was the end of a long shift; I was hot, tired, hungry and getting goosed shoved me into the enraged category.  When I swung around to confront the person who goosed me, I was mentally ready and had my arm drawn back to deliver a left-handed uppercut to the jaw.
  4. De-escalation.  There was the possibility that I'd turn around and realize that the person who goosed me was holding a weapon - or was very drunk and aggressive - or set off my "dangerous person" alarm in some way.  In that case, I'd do whatever I needed to do to get them the hell away from me.  I'd smile, flirt or seem pleased in someway - because this is NOT a hill for me to die on.
From the options, I whipped around in my lane ready to give the person who goosed me a tongue-lashing they'd never forget and possibly deck them. 

Much to my surprise, there was no one there.  There was a woman unloading her cart too far away to have goosed me and no one else I could see anywhere around. 

I was confused as all get out.  Then, I felt a tug on my pocket and a little voice cried out "birdy!"  I looked down at a little snippet of a kid who was hanging onto my pocket.

I had been goosed by a 3 year old who had tried to grab the stuffed bird I kept on my keyring...and missed.

I busted out laughing and explained to the cashier behind me and the guest in my lane that I had just been goosed by a future bird watcher...maybe even a goose researcher!

The Botkin Sisters make it seem like the two available options are to respond positively to the breech of a boundary or be ready to fight to the death and involve the police.   "Rolling with it" or "being smooth" are not good choices if a person wants the behavior to stop.  On the other hand, there's a far wider range of responses for minor issues - which have been far more common in my life.  Looking back on various moments when I was in situations where something untoward happened, my standard reactions ran a much smaller continuum from a neutral response to glaring at the person to saying firmly "Don't do that!"

Here are some examples:

A boss (who is pretty bad at his job all around) tells a story involving a jargon term for vagina.  My response was to look at him as if he were nuts, then disengage from the conversation.  I add this to my detailed list of "issues with boss" - but it's never repeated again so I don't go any further in terms of seeking union representation or reporting him to HR.

Some co-workers are telling some pretty raunchy stories in the break room when I came in for break.  I change the topic of conversation by asking what they think of the new scheduling system; they hate it and tell me why in great detail.

A older man crashes into me outside of a historical exhibit making contact mostly with my breasts.  I'm about to say something sharp when I realize he's pale and shaking while wearing a "Korean War" hat.  The fort nearby had just fired a cannon - and he's having a fight-or-flight reaction.  I talk to him quietly about what a nice summer day in Mackinac it is and encourage him to have a seat on a nearby bench.  In a few minutes, he's extremely apologetic - and I tell him that he's got nothing to apologize for at all.

I'm waiting for a city bus when a guy I've never seen before starts complimenting me on how pretty I am.  I'm a little skeeved out - but there's no people around for backup and I need to get on this bus to make an appointment.   I say, "Thank you, but I'm engaged" and proceed to create an entire imaginary fiance.  The guy backs off when I explain how much I like ImaginaryBoy and how excited I am about our wedding.

I'm making out with a boyfriend.  He moves a hand to a part of my body where I don't want it.  I gently move his hand to a location I am ok with.  Problem_solved.

What concerns me is that the Botkin sisters don't seem to realize that there's a huge range of boundary violations - and an equally huge range of responses.   I think this happened because they have such limited life experiences.  My experiences involve three separate jobs, one vacation with a female friend, taking public transportation alone and romantic relationships - experiences the Botkin sisters have never, ever had.  The truly toxic issue is that the Botkin Sisters have been taught they should expect boundary violations and that the only way to deal is to never go anywhere without a male chaperone.  That is a terrible message to teach young women!  My parents taught us that we had the right to speak up if we didn't like something someone else did - and that as we got older we would get better and better at responding to the situations.   The advantage of my parents' teachings is that we were prepared for both strangers or acquaintances to transgress boundaries  - but we also knew we could respond if the person was a boss, teacher, relative or religious leader.

Here's one last point/theme.  The Botkin Sisters provide lots of condemnation about evil outsiders by name (like Larry Nassar) - but they stay strangely silent about Doug Phillips.  He was the leader of their cult who was accused of molesting his kids' nanny.  The entire Botkin Family was good buddies with Phillips.  It was a win-win situation.  The Botkin Sisters gave him a set of attractive role models for young women along with profit from their first book; in return, they received income from speaking fees and went on vacations with the Phillips clan. 

Remember that the Botkin Sisters have remained completely silent about Phillips' misdeeds - and the benefits their family has received from association with Phillips as we move through the blog series.

9 comments:

  1. I bet that Botkins et al believe that Phillips' abuse of the nanny was the nanny's fault. Because she tempted/defrauded him etc. They probably don't place him in the same category as Larry Nassar at all.

    Re: the point on different responses sexual assault/harassment. In my experience, I've had very different instinctual reactions based on whether it came from a stranger versus someone who I know (even as an acquaintance). If it's someone I know, I'm much more likely to immediately make it clear that this is not ok. With strangers, my instinctual response is to shrink into myself (I think some part of my brain is trying to make me disappear), and in the past I've only pushed back when I was aware that I was in a clearly dangerous situation.

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    1. I hope you're wrong, because they did mention some shocking incident that I think was a reference to Phillips in one of their lesser podcasts. They are also both Facebook friends with the former nanny. I wish I knew for sure that they supported her all the way..but I do know that shortly before Phillips went down, their family moved from TX to TN. A friend in the know told me many were aware of something bad going on with that creep, and I think the B family at least had strong indications of it.

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    2. Healing Brush - I'm totally the opposite way. A stranger messes with me and I'm ready to kill them - before they kill me. People I know I am more likely to pause for a second and run through some better option than a fight to the death.

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    3. Jenny - I've only made it through the free podcasts. The earlier ones that include the Botkin Brothers refer to Doug Phillips in glowing references. "Good Girls and Bad Guys" does have a glancing reference to shocking things that have caused the people to re-assess what they know about sexual abuse in their community. That's the only semi-direct mention I've heard of the Phillips case. My feeling after listening to "Good Girls..." was that the Botkin Sisters were hamstrung. They kept doubling down on what girls must do to protect themselves (like chaperones, screaming, and guns - none of which would have helped Ms. Torres much), but also tried to extend an olive branch that Jesus forgives sexual sins. (It's...not great...but it's a bit more lenient than normal for those two.)

      In this series, the Botkin Sisters have grown a bit more in that they don't blame the women for the sin of their attackers. (Good!) They do, however, spend way-way-way too much time conflating the choices women make in self-defense strategies with sinfulness. The Botkins Sisters believe in one method - aggressive, noisy self-defense - based on a shaky Biblical rationale and imply that deviation from that is a sin.

      From what I've read, the Botkin Sisters (on some level) fault Ms. Torres for not screaming like a stuck pig when Phillips came in the room. No quarter is given for being confused, half-asleep, only in hearing range of children, or afraid that Mrs. Phillips will attack her for seducing her husband.

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    4. NatureLover - I think for me a big part of it is some subconscious portion of my brain thinking "I have caught the attention of a person who, until very recently, did not know I existed. Maybe if I make myself smaller, they will forget I exist?"

      Totally illogical, but harassment makes us behave in weird illogical ways sometimes.

      Glad to know that they've moved away from explicit victim-blaming, if only a little bit

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    5. "No quarter is given for being confused, half-asleep, only in hearing range of children, or afraid that Mrs. Phillips will attack her for seducing her husband."

      Yeeah, they never did mention what to do if you're living in the same house as the abuser in that podcast, that I recall (of course). No surprise about the last possible reason mentioned. The people most ignorant about abuse in these systems are the naive ones promoting it.

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  2. I was confused by many parts of this series, including their paragraph here that's so vague about WHAT exactly happened. They bounce a lot in this series from describing the actions of a "seducer" to the kinds of things an abuser does.

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    1. Libby Anne over at "Love, Joy, Feminism" has a great post about the differences in understanding of consent between mainstream society and CP/QF land.

      In mainstream society, as long as consent is given by all parties in a sexual encounter, the encounter is morally acceptable. Morally unacceptable actions include using force or coercion on a non-consenting person, having sexual activities with someone who cannot consent due to youth, being an animal, mental incapacity, or unconsciousness as well as consensual situations where there is a marked power differential like boss-subordinate, teacher-adult student, or doctor-patient.

      In QF/CP land, the divider between moral and immoral is if the activity is sanctioned by the Bible - not consent. The only licit sexual activity is between married, heterosexual people that can lead to offspring.

      Everything else is illicit. This leads to the surreal setup that the Botkin Sisters often talk about where a girl and a guy who know each other, love each other, and mutually decide to be sexually active (i.e., a seducer!) is equally dangerous as a church elder who attacks teenage girls who is equally dangerous as a serial rapist who murders his victims.

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    2. Ughh, that is what they make it sound like.

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