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I worry about the sexual health of our nation. Two months ago we shamed Aziz Anzari and Louie C.K. for their incompetence regarding healthy sexual relations. These “creeps with consciousnesses” both took responsibility for their actions and promptly disappeared.
What each of these men did was inexcusable, but also normal. Not like, “happy family normal,” but more like “our sexual culture is fundamentally broken” normal.
And to see Louie and Aziz vanish frightens me. How long is it before our cultural conversation about sex is dominated by pretenders who see themselves as blameless White Knights in a grungy world where bad things are done by other people?
How many “creeps without consciousnesses” are milling around out there and getting away with murder because they don’t have the shame to admit they’ve done wrong?
I want Louie and Aziz back. Not because I need more jerk-off jokes or seasons of “Masters of None,” but because I feel like there are fewer and fewer people willing to talk about their spotty pasts in a way that would further the cultural conversation about healthy sex.
And why would they?
It’s so much easier to disappear or deny. Even for these two men who made a killing off of pointing out weird, gross idiosyncrasies about 21st-century living the choice was clear: vanish.
We’ve got no place in our society for people to stand up and say, “I learned how to have healthy sex by traumatizing the ever-loving hell out of myself and my first partners.” Even though it’s true for 99% of people, male and female.
I guess it’s social suicide to stand in that particular grungy spotlight but I wish a few people had the courage to bite the bullet before our whole culture rips itself apart.
I’m not sure what I’m asking for here. I’m not packing my camping gear to be the first in line for the Louis C.K. “I Told Ya I Was a Creep” tour but I do want to vent my frustration at the current stagnation of the conversation.
Everyone is either a blameless ally or a rapist monster and the reality is that violence is cyclical and we’ve all played our part.
I hate to say it, but if you think you’ve never hurt someone you probably didn’t pay close enough attention.
I love you all and happy healing. I’m sorry and I forgive you.
#metoo #imhim
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