They Are The Enemy
Slut-shaming is in the news these days following the Isla Vista murder rampage. Elliott Rodger’s shooting and stabbing spree followed the release of a manifesto indicting all women primarily for being, well, sluts. Rodger had found a like-minded community of incels, puahaters, and garden-variety woman haters. In the ensuing ten days, some commentators have suggested that males who aren’t enraged to the point of homicide by members of the opposite sex ought to put some real pressure on their fellow XY-ers to knock off the name-calling and the foul categorization of women as sex monsters.
From The Blog, Surviving Incel
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It ain’t easy, I’ll tell you that.
I know a young man who had a girlfriend a few years back, probably 2010, IIRC. The two were inseparable. They made no secret of their nearly uncontrollable passion for each other. They’d slip away at any time of the day or night and return, perhaps 45 minutes later, with cat-that-ate-the-canary smirks on their faces.
In fact, the only thing that could rival their hunger for each other was their taste for pot. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen two people who had more sex and smoked more marijuana in a day than those two. If I had one-tenth the intercourse and got high one-twentieth the time these two did, I’d probably be in a coma.
Let’s call them Randy and Ashley.
Randy had no job nor any prospects. Ashley worked several jobs, seating customers at a couple of local restaurants and taking pizza orders over the phone at another. They both lived at home with their parents. Those of us who knew the two figured that all the money she earned went to buy pot. They were pot aficionados. They bragged they only smoked the best. Once I asked Randy how much he typically paid for his pot and he responded, pride in his voice, “A thousand dollars an ounce.” When I reported back to the rest of the folks who know them, we all agreed that Randy and Ashley had to kill off a quarter ounce every three or four days, easily. That meant they had to come up with a thou every two weeks.
Primo
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That would be Ashley’s dough. It seemed she was perfectly content sharing her hard-earned wages with Randy. On the outside, at least. On the inside, perhaps, she might have harbored some resentment. Who knows? I only know that one day the bad news came around that Randy and Ashley had broken up. It was a shock.
Next time I saw young Randy, I asked him what happened.
“Ashley,” he blurted, disgusted, ” is a slut.”
I considered this for a moment. My first guess was that she’d found somebody else and had thrown Randy over. Generally, when a suburban stoner gets dumped, he’ll characterize the ex as a slut, a whore, a cunt, or in any and all of a dozen other ways, most of which have to do with the former girlfriend being incapable of refraining from having sex with anyone, up to and including the unwashed homeless and the dangerously insane.
As I sat there pondering this, I’d already started formulating a plan to introduce the idea to him that just because Ashley had given him the gate didn’t mean that she was pathologically sexual. People break up with each other all the time, I would say. Even married people. Often there’s Another Man/Woman involved.
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Ironically, that’s how Randy and Ashley had gotten together. He’d begun hanging out with a stoner crowd of which she was a part. Even though she was going out with another member of the group at the time, they hooked up and next thing anybody knew she’d thrown over the old boyfriend for Randy.
At no time during their torrid affair did Randy ever imply that Ashley was a slut for jumping from her old boyfriend to him. I’d imagine Randy viewed that switch of allegiances as a testament to her good sense and fine taste. She should have been lauded for that decision, I’m sure Randy thought.
“So,” I said, “she’s seeing somebody else now, huh?”
“Nah,” Randy said.
I spluttered: “Whuh?”
“Yeah, she told me some shit about how I wasn’t lookin’ hard enough for a job,” he explained. “I mean, what the fk? There’s no jobs, man! What does she want? I can’t make anybody hire me.”
I was aware, though, that Randy’s job search was limited to a casual scan of the Sunday classified ads — when his father was looking at him. Otherwise, Randy’s prospects of getting a job depended mainly on the unlikely possibility that an employer would ring his doorbell and ask if anyone who needed a job was in.
I was puzzled. “Why,” I asked, “is Ashley a slut then?”
“She just is,” Randy said, a hint of impatience in his voice. “She fks anybody.”
“Oh. But she’s not seeing anybody now, right?”
“No. Not that I know of. But she probably will. Fkin’ slut.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t get it. Why is she a slut?”
“Look, she’s a slut, alright,” Randy said, his voice rising. “I know her. You don’t. Don’t give me any shit, alright?”
“Yeah, but….”
“Drop it, alright!”
See, the worst thing a female can be is a slut. That is, even if she’s not pathologically preoccupied with sexual congress. Ashley had hurt Randy. She’d abandoned him. There may be no worse sin to commit against a young man with no ambition and no purpose than to leave him. Now, he’s stuck with himself. That’s an almost unbearable sentence.
Anybody who’d do that is the lowest form of life there is. A slut.
I don’t see much of Randy these days. I do know that he’s still looking for a job and that there still aren’t any offers coming in immediately following an unexpected knock on the front door. I never did get the chance to at least hint that Ashley might not be a slut. I should have tried harder.
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How To Play
How ’bout that Marc Tschida? Our town’s puzzle guy just got word that the National Museum of Play will be displaying one of his Bloomington jigsaw puzzles.
Tschida On The Cutting Edge
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Cool, huh?
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She’s Gone
Aw heck, I was thinking about this song after finding that 45 label above, so let’s listen to the blue-eyed soul brothers together.
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