Re: Never Again

[jorn@MCS.COM (Jorn Barger)]

I have to say, if everyone keeps their heads, there just may be a
not-exactly-happy-but-maybe-*healing* ending in store for all this.  As
intense as this all is turning, I say that *out in public* is where it
has to be, and we'll all be much better off than we were, shortly, I
hope.

The 'shoals' we still have to navigate are that I have to be allowed
to show my compassion for Vickie's pain, even while I state I think
Chris's behavior falls little short of deserving *the electric chair*...
especially messy because Vickie has supported Chris thruout.

In article <CMM-RU.1.3.756179935.vickie@pilot.njin.net>,
WretchAwry <vickie@pilot.njin.net> wrote:
>That's the nicest thing you've said to (or about) me in ages. Amazing!

Vickie, I'm literally speechless.  ...Aside from pointing out what I
considered to be falsehoods you've told, have I said *anything*
insulting?  Given what you've said about me, you expected *more*???

>Until I tried to tell you, my very good friend at the time. I never got
>past the part about being regularly molested (between the ages of 2 to 6)
>by a neighbor.  You were more interested in talking about how other
>cultures view what "we" would call "molestation" (i.e. not all cultures
>consider it a Bad Thing) and how James Joyce slept with his daughter.

First, and this is critical because *if I'd really said that* it would be 
*newsworthy*--

There is ***no*** known evidence that James Joyce slept with his daughter.

The theme of a father's incestuous desire for his daughter is very
central in Finnegans Wake, and solving the riddle of FW's structure
requires reconstructing Joyce's understanding of this theme.  *I'm
arguably the world's leading authority on the general question of FW's
structure* (yes, really), so I have an extremely weighty personal *need*
to understand this problem.  It's one that happened to be at the
forefront of my thought during this first period you speak of, as my
postings to the FW email list can confirm.

***Joyce's daughter went mad***, and there's always the shadowy question,
could that have been the reason?  My position is that Joyce might very
well have *allowed us to assume* that it was, encouraging us to honor 
Lucia's memory *as an emblem of the incredibly awful tragedy of lost 
innocence*.  I said exactly this on the list during this period.


The conversation you're describing, Vickie, was our first on this
topic, I think.  I understood you to be hesitating between anger and
forgiveness.  I was encouraging forgiveness.  That's my take on life:
anger is needed when there's a present danger, after that forgiveness
is the better healer.  But some people seem to need to work thru their
anger to get to the forgiveness, and I wouldn't have asked you to deny
that by any means.  (One of my mottos is: we have *all* been violated
by the lecher's touch.)

>No matter how fascinating such discussions might be, I really needed
>compassion at that point in time, not a "it's not always so bad" lecture.
>So I quit talking to you about it.

And I never knew why you'd stopped.  And you never gave me a chance to
go in that other direction, because I assumed you'd stopped for your
own reasons, which I left it to you to bring back up.

> [...] a simple "I'm
>sorry that happened to you and that it's causing you such pain" is *much*
>better than trying to justify(?)...make light of(?)...intellectualize(?).

And if you remember the rest of the evening of 'part two', that's exactly
what I was saying: I spoke of the inner Vickie who'd been stolen from you,
and how much I wanted to help you recover contact with her.  [Insert silent
prayer, to all *cynics* reading this.]

>But that's why you had to "insist" that I tell you the rest of my story.
>I was suprised that you'd even remembered that there *was* more. Sorry,
>but it's true. I thought you'd forgotten all about it.

And you were wrong, clearly.  You were also surprised when I told you
I'd kept up with your asar postings, as you'd hinted you wanted me to.
And the reason I insisted was because I'd felt *you'd been judgmental
of me* for not insisting ("I thought you didn't care"), and because
that evening I'd just come from a 12-step group, and was feeling so
strengthened by the honesty I'd witnessed there, that I really wanted to
help you make a connection with that sort of scene, as you said you wanted.

(Side note: Chris *hates* 12-step groups.  Ironically enough, the
*real* reason I started the Magic wars was to try to open Chris to
being more broadminded about this, so he wouldn't stand in Vickie's
way... *This* is a fight we'll do well to move elsewhere, if and/or
when.)

>Oh, I didn't tell him right away, or else you would have heard from him
>sooner. I didn't tell him until *after* you two had your little tiff
>about starting a radio station, when you turned on Chris for him just
>trying to tell you the *truth* about how hard such an undertaking was.
> [...] Chris knew what he was talking about. You didn't know squat,
>yet you accused Chris of "being negative" and trying to thwart your
>"Grand Plan."

(I'll post shortly the Chinet rehash of this (just a couple of paragraphs).
I felt Chris was trying to crush any hopes I might have.  I disapprove of
this attitude, regardless of the topical details.  Hope is better than
hopelessness, even when it's farfetched.)

So when *did* you tell him, Vickie?  Sometime before the 'anonymous'
hate-spew?  (Close paraphrase: "Bleed on, Jorn, this is the most fun
I've had since the 12-car pileup, with deaths...")  Before the
'violent vibes' email you sent me (with e-hugs)?  How would I have
'heard from him"?  How would I have realized that a new element had
been added to *his already towering rage at my heresies against his
various inarguable truths*?

[...]
>Helpful Hint:  When a woman who trusts you has told you her story about
>being raped at age 13, *never* *ever* say that it's "a typical male
>fantasy to get a girl in that position."  Never, ever, indicate that
>rape makes for "a good sexual fantasy."

I'm really stuck for a response to this, because you're withholding details
(for totally understandable reasons), but here's how I remember that quote:

At the end of the evening, I said that generally I'd had a very hard
time feeling emotionally connected to *any* of the stories you'd told.
I may *not* have said, that I had the sense these had become 'stories'
you'd rethought so many times that you'd begun to see them as literary
works, and wanted me to praise that aspect of them, so that the sense of
hearing your pain was no longer an issue. (Or, somehow, I guess, not
*yet* an issue.)

About this particular story I said it was especially hard to feel pain
about, *for reasons that I again have to leave for you to fill in*,
which I did indeed summarize with the phrase "a classic male fantasy".
(Questions at issue, though: did you like the boy?  did he do *physical* 
violence to you?)

> [...] *never* say that you can't answer because
>you're too busy thinking about what a great sexual fantasy the scenario
>you just heard was.

This is just false.

>Besides, it tends to ruin friendships [...]

So why did you continue being friendly???

> [...] and cause flamewars in gaffa.

This is where I think Chris *and you, Vickie* have behaved like
utterly brainless infants, and I don't see any benefit from mincing
words about this side of things.  You've *layed waste* to the
newsgroup and bashed me relentlessly for eight months for every
tiniest move I've made *because I made a remark that you interpreted
as ghastly*???  Without offering me any chance to explain myself?
Without telling me, for *months*, where the problem had arisen from?
In the context of ongoing bashings that began *independently* of this
slight?  Please grow up.

>> ...but I still immediately sent Vickie an apology for her hurt.
>
>I don't remember this Jorn. I can't say that you didn't e-mail me, but
>if you did, why did you (according to your story) wait months after
>that March night?  Oh yeah, I forgot, you didn't *know* that you had
>hurt me. You didn't *know* that what you'd said to me had likely caused
>me problems.  You didn't *know* that what you'd said was totally and
>completely inappropriate and callous.  Sorry I didn't enlighten you, but
>I didn't think it was my job to point these things out to you.  Chris,
>though, was more than happy to, which is why you hate Chris.

Does *anyone* see any *grain* of reasonableness in this???


jorn