pktechgirlbackup (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pktechgirlbackup) wrote2012-08-19 06:12 pm
pktechgirlbackup) wrote2012-08-19 06:12 pm
Needful things
Today's pattern is best exemplified by this letter to Dear Abby:
Oh...sweety.
There's so much going on in five little sentences. First, the story has unnecessary set up involving the cat. Either the intro is important in ways we don't understand, or she's preemptively defending herself against accusations of doing something wrong. It strikes me as not-un-possible that it was actually her parents who woke her up, but she can't bring herself to admit it.
Second, there's the fact that she doesn't own her discomfort, and projects it on to her little sister. This could be a horrible manipulation, but I'm inclined to believe she's fallen victim to the fairly common problem of teaching little girls that they don't have a right to anything for themselves and their feelings don't matter, but they are strongly obligated to look out for other people. Given that incentive structure, of course they start using other people as reasons. This might actually explain the cat thing too- "I was just caring for another one of G-d's creatures when..."
Third, watch how her language gets more and more distance. She starts with "making love", which is somewhere between euphemism and romantic description, then "this sort of thing" and then finally just refers to sex as "that."
Finally, and most heart breaking to me, is her use of the phrase "don't need to" to mean "shouldn't". There's a pattern here that's operating just like the "you're not entitled to want things" problem, but I don't know what it is. All I can think of are all the other times I've seen "necessary" used to absolutely shut someone down. One possibility is that it is in fact the same problem: you can't/shouldn't want X for yourself, so once I tell you no one else wants it, you must stop wanting it. Another is that it implies X is so horrible you could only possibly be doing it out of necessity, and once I tell you it's not required, you'll stop. It's incredibly shaming.
My favorite high school teacher, the only one who was really on my side, once observed a very rare incident of me (verbally) standing up for myself to another student. His comment afterwords was "that was unnecessary." With 10 years of retrospect, I can see he might have meant it in a comforting fashion: "you didn't need to get so upset about that because her opinion has no material impact on you life" What came across at the time was "protecting yourself is not necessary because it doesn't matter if you get hurt." Which is a terrible thing to teach anyone.
So I guess what's going on here is the use of the need preemptively invalidates any other reason for doing something. "I want" is sufficient for actions that don't hurt other people. What's extra tragic in this case is that she's not only invalidating her parents' desire for physical pleasure and intimacy, but her own desire to not bloody hear it, which is a thing I think she's entitled to want and have reasonable accommodations made for.
Dear Abby's answer is, of course, worse than useless. Tell the girl she ought to be happy about it and should not talk about it and moves on to sex ed for her sister. First, it turns out that the fact that something is associated with good things (like your parents still being in love) does not obligate you to be happy about it. Second, don't tell anyone, but especially not adolescent girls, to be happy about something but never speak of it. Seriously, don't. Third, her sister's sex education is not her responsibility. So an all around failure.
DEAR ABBY: One night I woke up to my cat scratching at my bedroom door to be let in. When I got up and opened the door, I heard my parents making love. They were so loud it grossed me out, because my little sister is 10 and we share a room right next to theirs. She still doesn't know about this kind of stuff.
I want to tell them they don't need to be doing that, because what if she got scared and woke up and tried to go in there? What should I do -- tell them to go to a motel? -- GROSSED OUT IN MADISON, MISS.
Oh...sweety.
There's so much going on in five little sentences. First, the story has unnecessary set up involving the cat. Either the intro is important in ways we don't understand, or she's preemptively defending herself against accusations of doing something wrong. It strikes me as not-un-possible that it was actually her parents who woke her up, but she can't bring herself to admit it.
Second, there's the fact that she doesn't own her discomfort, and projects it on to her little sister. This could be a horrible manipulation, but I'm inclined to believe she's fallen victim to the fairly common problem of teaching little girls that they don't have a right to anything for themselves and their feelings don't matter, but they are strongly obligated to look out for other people. Given that incentive structure, of course they start using other people as reasons. This might actually explain the cat thing too- "I was just caring for another one of G-d's creatures when..."
Third, watch how her language gets more and more distance. She starts with "making love", which is somewhere between euphemism and romantic description, then "this sort of thing" and then finally just refers to sex as "that."
Finally, and most heart breaking to me, is her use of the phrase "don't need to" to mean "shouldn't". There's a pattern here that's operating just like the "you're not entitled to want things" problem, but I don't know what it is. All I can think of are all the other times I've seen "necessary" used to absolutely shut someone down. One possibility is that it is in fact the same problem: you can't/shouldn't want X for yourself, so once I tell you no one else wants it, you must stop wanting it. Another is that it implies X is so horrible you could only possibly be doing it out of necessity, and once I tell you it's not required, you'll stop. It's incredibly shaming.
My favorite high school teacher, the only one who was really on my side, once observed a very rare incident of me (verbally) standing up for myself to another student. His comment afterwords was "that was unnecessary." With 10 years of retrospect, I can see he might have meant it in a comforting fashion: "you didn't need to get so upset about that because her opinion has no material impact on you life" What came across at the time was "protecting yourself is not necessary because it doesn't matter if you get hurt." Which is a terrible thing to teach anyone.
So I guess what's going on here is the use of the need preemptively invalidates any other reason for doing something. "I want" is sufficient for actions that don't hurt other people. What's extra tragic in this case is that she's not only invalidating her parents' desire for physical pleasure and intimacy, but her own desire to not bloody hear it, which is a thing I think she's entitled to want and have reasonable accommodations made for.
Dear Abby's answer is, of course, worse than useless. Tell the girl she ought to be happy about it and should not talk about it and moves on to sex ed for her sister. First, it turns out that the fact that something is associated with good things (like your parents still being in love) does not obligate you to be happy about it. Second, don't tell anyone, but especially not adolescent girls, to be happy about something but never speak of it. Seriously, don't. Third, her sister's sex education is not her responsibility. So an all around failure.