speak, girl

On kicking him to the curb.

dearcoquette:

Dear Coquette, 

He’s the worst person I’ve ever known and simultaneously the most amazing. He does the worst things you can imagine. Lying, cheating, lying about cheating. Here I am, a smart woman with no illusions about who this guy she loves really is, sticking around and letting him flay her again and again. I could explain why and what I think about it but it’s inconsequential.

Whether or not I have no illusions about him, I must be delusional or hate myself to continue to allow him access to me, right? I guess my question to you is this: Can you love someone who lies to you, hurts you deeply, cheats on you and find some way to make peace with that/be bigger than that, or am I just being another stupid smart person trying to rationalize an emotional dependency?


Of course you can love someone who repeatedly lies to you, hurts you deeply and cheats on you. You can even find a way to make peace with it, but so what? None of that is an excuse to allow the bastard to remain a part of your life.

You know damn well what you have to do. You have to kick him to the curb, but you’re weak. It’s not that you hate yourself. You just don’t respect yourself, and he sure as hell doesn’t respect you either.

That’s what you need to realize and accept: He’s never going to respect you. When he gets caught, he might beg for your forgiveness. He might make romantic overtures. He might even miss you for a hot minute when you break up with him, but you should never confuse any of that kind of behavior with actual respect.

If he respected you, he wouldn’t betray you in the first place, and if you had some self-respect, you wouldn’t tolerate being betrayed. It’s time for you to gather up all your inner strength and stop allowing him access to you. Move on, fall out of love, and learn what lessons you can. Pick better on the next go-round.

You’re in too deep right now to see it, but I promise you’ll eventually realize that he wasn’t simultaneously the worst and most amazing person you’ve ever known. He was just some cheating douchebag who got under your skin.

There’s no shame in that, kiddo. It happens to the best of us.

On men’s rights activists.

dearcoquette:

Dear Coquette,

I just did some reading about men’s rights activists and I’m a little freaked out. What are your thoughts?

I don’t want to paint all men’s rights activists with the same brush, but most of what gets labeled as men’s rights activism tends to be a very crude form of reactionary gender politics fueled by flagrant misogyny, (metaphorical) impotence and narcissistic rage.

Gender dynamics in Western societies have been slowly and steadily shifting towards legitimate equality over the last century or so. After four waves of feminism, there was bound to be some blowback. That’s all this is, really.

It’s toxic stuff, but there’s no need to let it freak you out. In the grand scheme, the dark side of men’s rights activism is little more than a temporary subcultural side effect of broader social progress. 

I’m not saying it’s harmless. It’s potentially quite dangerous, but as long as no men in your life have made it a part of their identity, it’s not something you have to fear.

That’s kind of the point, really. These men are pathetic. They aren’t worthy of your fear, and deep down, a lot of them resent the hell out of the fact that they aren’t feared (or loved) by women. It’s not that women don’t want them. It’s that women don’t need them. Women are indifferent to them, and that indifference is worse than rejection or betrayal.

Pay close attention to the rhetoric coming out of the movement and you’ll notice that it’s fundamentally a reaction to indifference. To the ego, there’s nothing worse, and to the male ego, female indifference transmutes into emasculation. That in turn develops into a sort of chronic narcissistic injury where all women are to blame for the loss of their manhood.

It’s twisted, but that’s really what’s at the emotional core of these guys. Their involvement in men’s rights activism is based on a very personal and individual reaction to their own wounded male egos. The politics is just window dressing.

That’s an important distinction to make. Despite what the most vocal men’s rights activists would have you believe, this isn’t a collective movement based on a set of unifying ideals. Not really. Any unifying ideals are an afterthought, mere packaging to wrap around a lot of repressed anger and misogyny.

In that regard, the movement as a whole is not greater than the sum of its individual members. It’s just a bunch of dudes who happen to be resentful of approximately the same thing. They aren’t really victims of some greater societal injustice, so ultimately it’s all bound to fizzle.

That being said, it’s not fair for me to summarily dismiss all men’s rights issues because of the questionable character of certain men’s rights activists. A number of the issues themselves have some merit, especially those in regard to gender neutrality in the practice of divorce, paternity, and child custody law. 

Of course, the legitimacy of any particular issue doesn’t legitimize men’s rights activism in general, and it sure as hell doesn’t excuse the movement’s undeniable undercurrent of hatred towards women.

I’m begging you, Coketalk. Please write a book. I’d buy at least five copies.

On donating to kony 2012.

dearcoquette:

Reading your thoughts on Kony 2012 is interesting, so do you think it would be a good idea to donate?

No, I don’t. I took the time to read the organization’s audited financial statement, and I didn’t like what I saw. These guys aren’t hardened in-the-shit organizers. They’re essentially a well-funded production company that makes slick documentaries. Noble intentions aside, they aren’t doing charity so much as they’re playing charity.

Then of course, there’s the project founder, Jason Russell. Read this interview that he gave. Yeah, those are his own words. His middle name is Radical. His kid’s middle name is Danger. Yikes. The guy just doesn’t sit right with me. I’d say he was a narcissist with a savior complex, but it’s hard to tell through the fog of trust fund entitlement.

To be clear, I’m not saying that Russell is a bad guy, or that Invisible Children is corrupt in any way. He’s righteous, and it’s definitely a worthy cause. Still, you should know that if you donate your money to Kony 2012, you’re donating to little more than a marketing campaign.

That’s fine. Kony really is one of the most evil fucks on the planet, and he deserves all the attention he gets. If it makes you feel good, spend thirty bucks and wear a bracelet. Whatever.

On the other hand, If you want to donate to charities that actually get shit done, then send your money to Africare or Doctors Without Borders.

On breitbart.

dearcoketalk:

Andrew Breitbart is dead. What’s the most appropriate way to feel when someone you’ve loathed is gone?

It’s okay to loathe his legacy. It’s okay to feel good about his new-media empire suddenly losing most of its symbolic capital, but whatever you do, don’t relish that the man is dead.

He was a magnificent asshole, but he was still a human being. The dude was only forty-three. He had a wife and four kids. That situation is incredibly sad.

(Source: dearcoquette)