Thank you everybody who has been participating in the most recent semi-open thread.
What I have to say about the story is that “Katie” is a passive-agressive manipulator. This kind of manipulation has nothing to do specifically with sex. It can be used in a variety of contexts to generate feelings of guilt in one’s interlocutor.
To give an example: I cooked borscht yesterday. Today, I could have told my husband, “I didn’t really feel like cooking but I didn’t want to say it and disappoint you. So I tried to send non-verbal clues to you which you ignored. I’m not saying that you are a male chauvinist pig who exploits my labor but. . .” One could have a lot of fun this way, guilt-tripping everybody in sight for not deciphering clues effectively.
My suggestion to anybody who has the misfortune of meeting a passive-aggressive manipulator is to walk away as fast as you can.
In terms of consent to sex, I have to say that I am not happy about the suggestion that a non-impaired non-disabled adult woman should expect a man to be more aware of and protective towards her emotional state than she is herself. This is yet again the annoying trend of infantilizing women we see in today’s pseudo-feminism.
I used to know a woman who had an abortion and blamed her husband for it. “He told me that he would respect any decision I made because it was my body!” she would complain. “I kept hoping he would guess I didn’t want to abort and stop me but he didn’t. Now I just can’t forgive him for that.”
If we want to have the right to our own bodies, we need to assume all the attendant responsibilities and not expect people to decide for us and read our minds.
Clarissa's Blog 
Clarrisa, your right on the money again.
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Thank you, llama! 🙂
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Of course I agree with you.
“My suggestion to anybody who has the misfortune of meeting a passive-aggressive manipulator is to walk away as fast as you can.”
People have to be able to recognize manipulation and unfortunately in these types of relationships it is more often covert. The people who are most prone to getting hooked into these types of relationships are people who have experienced it with their parent’s and families. It isn’t always easy for people to recognize it and the triggers they may have that are unconscious. In families where control, compliance and disapproval were in the form of conditional love then becoming aware is a process.
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“The people who are most prone to getting hooked into these types of relationships are people who have experienced it with their parent’s and families. It isn’t always easy for people to recognize it and the triggers they may have that are unconscious. In families where control, compliance and disapproval were in the form of conditional love then becoming aware is a process.”
-Of course. This is precisely how it works.
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Awesome post!
I have read some serious bs from Hugo. I can’t understand why he gets so much attention – I mean serious attention and not just ridicule. But then again, he’s certainly not the first we can say that about.
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What’s really disturbing is that he teaches Gender Studies at a well-known college. And that is not a good thing for the students whose minds he fills with this very weird version of feminism.
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I agree–my thoughts exactly, especially when I would visit his blog, but I just figured from the commenters there that I was in the minority. I would sometimes comment under another name, but I soon learned that different opinions were not well responded too. Mostly he would ignore my comments. He represents the types of Liberals I’ve had consistent exposure too and they don’t tend to like hearing a different opinion. Good to know that a few other people feel it is serious bs and “very weird” version of feminism. I think his is fueled by serious guilt.
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