Taking a swing at a case of real abuse
Eric Schneiderman abusive pig.
Unlike other men who’ve been accused of acting inappropriately but denied it, Schneiderman has actually admitted that he “played a role,” namely, the Marquis de Sade. Although he denied “crossing the line” into that area where women say “stop, you’re hurting me,” he has pretty much ‘fessed up to being a member of the “50 Shades of Let Me Beat You To A Pulp” Book Club.
So at the risk of being called a hypocrite and having people tweet vile things I’ll never read about Bill Cosby and Catholic priests, I believe the women who have called Schneiderman out, because their former partner has said he played rough.
I know that there are some couples who slap each other around and call that a fun date, and I love watching Paul Giamatti being dominated by his therapist wife Maggie Sieff in the Showtime series “Billions” (who knew a Bryn Mawr grad could be so good with a whip?), but I’m hoping that these revelations about New is an York’s former attorney general will give them pause.
The type of conduct engaged in by Schneiderman is criminal. It is abuse. It is violence, and it sent at least one woman to the doctor with permanent damage. Mistaking one girlfriend for a punching bag, gallant Eric smacked her in the ear and burst her eardrum with the force of the blow. He also called another girlfriend his “Brown Slave” (she was South Asian) and threatened to wiretap others who weren’t willing to be Connie Corleone to his Carlo (rent “The Godfather” if you need a refresher and fast-forward to the dining room scene).
I have had personal contact with abusive men, and I know what they are capable of doing. I also know that women learn to be silent about that sort of domestic abuse because they have no other options, unlike some of the women of the #Metoo movement whose complaints amounted to “he leered at me and made me feel uncomfortable.” Sister, try having someone put his hands around your neck and squeeze until you black out and then tell me if catcalls still make you sweat.
Schneiderman is different from many of the targets of the #Metoo movement because there was real, animal violence involved in his actions, and it became obvious that he was truly a Jekyll and Hyde sadist who got his jollies attacking Donald Trump before 5 p.m. for doing far less than he himself engaged in after midnight.
That’s one angle of the story I can’t avoid, the sheer hypocrisy of a man who pretends to admire and respect women and who knits his own pink pussy hat and walks beside us at marches and demands reproductive rights for his daughter and thinks conservative women are idiots, but who turns around and beats us into bloody pulps in the dark recesses of the bedroom.
But there is something even worse, something that transcends politics and leftright partisanship.
About 15 years ago, women went crazy over a new series called “Sex and the City.” I never watched it during its original run, but have caught all six of its seasons on DVD and I even paid good money to see the movie and its (horrible) sequel. At one level, it’s escapist entertainment, especially if I get to freeze frame the episodes with Chris Noth staring back at me with those bedroom eyes.
But when I actually reflect on the “Sex and the City” phenomenon, I realize what lasting damage it did. While feminists were embracing the free sex mantra of the four glam girls and trying to convince us that the whole thing was about “empowerment,” I just saw a bunch of sad and aging urbanites who bartered their self esteem for a roll in the hay (albeit on nice satin sheets). Sex became synonymous with love, and love became something that evaporated at the end of a 22-minute episode.
Then came the whole “50 Shades of Grey” phenomenon where middle-aged women tried to pretend that it’s OK to have rape fantasies, as long as you make sure to send that donation to Planned Parenthood when you wake up. Having dirty thoughts and welcoming pain as an accompaniment to pleasure used to be called mental illness, but feminism changed all that. We can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and then let the man hit us with the same pan, ‘cause we are women! Sexy.
Eric Schneiderman took advantage of that zeitgeist, and convinced himself that being a feral beast was acceptable foreplay.
Shame on him, and us.
Schneiderman is different from many of the targets of the #Metoo movement because there was real, animal violence involved in his actions, and it became obvious that he was truly a Jekyll and Hyde sadist who got his jollies attacking Donald Trump before 5 p.m. for doing far less than he himself engaged in after midnight.