Meet the Evangelicals Denouncing Donald Trump
A couple of prominent evangelicals are distancing themselves from Trump because of his recently leaked misogynist comments, but they aren’t supporting Hillary Clinton — or LGBT and women’s rights.
www.advocate.com/election/2016/10/11/meet-evangelicals-denouncing-donald-trump
John Weir on the Controlling Effect of Trump’s ‘Locker Room Talk’
Since the leak of the Access Hollywood video in which Donald Trump brags about sexual assault, Trump has insisted it was benign “locker room talk” he was having with Billy Bush. But our friend, author John Weir, posted to his Facebook page yesterday about how this kind of talk “aimed most directly and traumatically at women, is also a strategy for monitoring and intimidating men.” Weir is the award-winning author of The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket and What I Did Wrong and has let us republish the post here.
Adolescent locker room talk! The talk I remember from high school locker rooms was, “Why are you such a fag?”
The icky back-and-forth between Bush & Trump was, firstly, not in a locker room but a tour bus hired by *Access Hollywood* for the 2005 month-long “Access Across America” tour; and Trump was on the bus because he was headed to the Burbank Warners studio to do a guest shot on *Days of Our Lives*, a stunt promo for his own show, *The Apprentice*.
He and Billy Bush (co-anchor of *AH*) were miked and surrounded by TV tekkies and grips and handlers, headed for a staged meet-&-greet with Arianne Zucker, *Days of Our Lives* cast member.
John Weir
They were miked. Bush was pumping up Trump for a performance. The performance was: shoot footage of two guys being sexually icky and “suggestive” to a TV actress.
So it was not just an instance of rape culture, it was a staging of that instance, rape culture choreographed and recorded for the delectation of the audience at home. And saved for posterity.
Everyone involved knew the conversation was being recorded and potentially aired on TV. That was the point of the conversation.
The tape has two acts: audio of the unseen guys over a visual of the bus. Then the bus pulls up, a bunch of guys get out, Trump emerges, and the video and audio merge in the staged scene of Bush directing – ordering? – Zucker to hug Trump, etc.
So you have a lot of white guys sitting around on a tour bus talking, reminiscing about their past sexual aggressions, planning their upcoming sexual aggression; and then they get off the bus and there is footage of that aggression.
It was not as violent as gang rape, but it stuck to standard scenarios of how gang rape is represented in innumerable movies and novels and TV shows produced and written and directed by men; and it was sexual harassment.
Watching it – only once – I thought about how, since I hit puberty (I’m 57 years old), I’ve repeatedly been in social situations – not locker rooms! *living* rooms – where one man, or a group of men, whom I have just met, whom I am “getting to know,” has/have said stuff about women not so different from what Trump said to Bush.
It is, indeed, inevitable, that conversation: I walk into a room of men I don’t know, and sooner or later, one of them turns to me and makes a sexual comment about a woman or all women. Not like, “She’s hot!” But more like Trump saying, “I moved on her like a bitch.”
I’m a gay guy, and I’m talking here – I assume! – about straight men. Straight guys are constantly policing each other’s heterosexuality, even still, and they want to know, as quickly as possible, whether or not the new guy is a fag.
They also want to assure each other, and you, that they are not fags.
Sometimes, they’re hoping you *are* a fag, and later, when the two of you are alone, they’ll let you know they’re, wink wink, “open to that.”
It sounds like I’m talking about the 1950s, but this has happened to me throughout my teenage and adult life and even recently, in 2016, when I’m pushing 60, and not just openly gay, but openly GAY.
Maybe guys these days are more likely to go home and google you. Not the guys I’ve met, though.
Talking sexually aggressive trash about women is how straight men warn you not to be gay. It’s one of the reasons they talk to each other about sexually harassing women.
I have responded differently to this conversation at different times in my life. Sometimes, it’s clear to me that I’m not safe being gay around these guys, and I say nothing. Sometimes I know they’re not bashers, and I try to mock them or joke them out of their rapey deplorability. Sometimes they *want* me to say I’m gay, so they can ask me all the standard questions: How did you know? Are you a pitcher or a catcher? What if I told you how good it feels to have your dick in there? Can you pass that up?
I’m quoting.
Mostly, I feel deeply unsafe around these conversations, and I keep my mouth shut, or mutter something unintelligible, or shrug, or walk away, if that’s possible.
I’m not talking about “out-of-work white guys who have lost everything,” and are presumably voting for Trump. I’m talking about teenage and adult men age 12 to 80, across classes and races and regions, over the past 45 years.
So Trump’s abusive masculinity, aimed most directly and traumatically at women, is also a strategy for monitoring and intimidating men.
And men who say they’ve never heard any men talk like that, or that it was just, you know, “adolescent play,” are maybe the same guys who don’t remember, would deny, bashing fags and dykes – physically, verbally – in high school.
John Weir is the author of two novels, What I Did Wrong and The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket. This was initially published on his Facebook page.
From time to time Towleroad re-publishes great posts from social media that have resonance for our readership. If you see something that we should consider bringing to our audience of 1.5 million monthly, drop us a note with links either to our contact form at www.towleroad.com/contact or through our tips at towleroad.com email.
The post John Weir on the Controlling Effect of Trump’s ‘Locker Room Talk’ appeared first on Towleroad.
John Weir on the Controlling Effect of Trump’s ‘Locker Room Talk’
Mike Pence, Shawn Mendes, Joe Jonas, Billy Bush, Cover Girl, Chelsea Manning, Glenn Beck, LGBT Ghosts: HOT LINKS
ON THE STUMP. Mike Pence responds to woman who spends all day on social media and says she’s ready for the revolution if Hillary is elected.
Woman: “If Hillary Clinton gets in…I’m ready for a revolution, b/c we can’t have her in”
Pence: “Don’t say that” t.co/P5OrJBGW55
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) October 11, 2016
BYE, GIRL. Billy Bush has been fired by NBC over ‘P—y’-gate tapes: “One source told the news channel that the network will announce Bush’s departure ‘in the coming days.’ Neither Bush nor his assistant has been in the office this week, according to CNN.”
BUSH LEAGUE. And Bush reportedly has himself to blame for being fired: “Billy was bragging about the tape to other NBC staff while in Rio. If he knew about the tape, and remembered the full extent of such an explosive conversation with a presidential candidate and didn’t disclose that to NBC News, that is a very, very serious problem.”
LOCKER ROOM TALK. Eric Trump says sometimes bragging about sexually assaulting women ‘happens’ when alpha males get together: “I think sometimes when guys are together they get carried away, and sometimes that’s what happens when alpha personalities are in the same presence.”
SKIN. Shawn Mendes goes shirtless for L’Uomo Vogue.
MIA. Chelsea Manning is reportedly missing: “She’s missed several planned calls, and family, friends and her legal team have not been able to contact her. They’re describing her as missing, an alarming development after her suicide attempt in July and subsequent sentencing to solitary confinement as punishment (she was sentenced to two weeks, but had one week suspended). As Jezebel says, ‘Military officials have not issued any statement explaining her whereabouts.’”
CONSPIRACY THEORIES. New official Trump ad recycles conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton’s alleged ‘health problems.’
DON’T LET HER FOOL US AGAIN. pic.twitter.com/3QSoADFh7S
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2016
NOTHING TO SEE HERE. Cat caught in the act of knocking vase off table.
GROUND GAME. Hillary Clinton is trouncing Trump.
THE OTHER JONAS BROTHER. Joe Jonas goes shirtless in new video ‘Body Moves.’
EASY, BREEZY, BEAUTIFUL. Cover Girl announces its first male spokes-model, James Charles: “Charles makes beauty history as he joins current ambassador Katy Perry to promote the brand’s products. And we’re not talking about a one-time sponsored Instagram post, people. The teen will star in TV, print, and digital campaigns for the brand. The first product launching with Charles’ stamp of approval? CoverGirl’s new So Lashy Mascara.”
GOP CIVIL WAR. Glenn Beck kinda sorta endorses Hillary Clinton: “It is not acceptable to ask a moral, dignified man to cast his vote to help elect an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity,” Beck wrote on Facebook in reference to Trump. “If the consequence of standing against Trump and for principles is indeed the election of Hillary Clinton, so be it. At least it is a moral, ethical choice.”
HUNTING FOR LGBT GHOSTS. New web series focuses on finding queer ghosts: “As one of the hunters explains in the opening trailer, the filmmakers were tired of the presumption that all ghosts had to be heterosexual. LGBTQ ghosts, many of whom spent their lives in hiding, have stories that desperately need to be heard by the living.”
HISTORY. Brady Piñero Walkinshaw could become the first openly gay Latinx member of Congress.
SHE’S JUST BEING MILEY. Miley Cyrus talks coming out as pansexual: “My whole life, I didn’t understand my own gender and my own sexuality. I always hated the word ‘bisexual,’ because that’s even putting me in a box. I don’t ever think about someone being a boy or someone being a girl.”
TOO HOT FOR TUESDAY. Tahitian model and swimmer Stéphane Debaere.
The post Mike Pence, Shawn Mendes, Joe Jonas, Billy Bush, Cover Girl, Chelsea Manning, Glenn Beck, LGBT Ghosts: HOT LINKS appeared first on Towleroad.
Coming Out to Yourself
Realizing you’re LGBT may be the scariest moment of all.
Former Disney Star Garrett Clayton On Getting Body Part Ready For “King Cobra” Shoot
The makeup artist is painting my ass, and the AD is like, ‘We’re losing light!’ And I’m like, ‘This is gonna project about 40 feet high, and I’m gonna see it for the rest of my life. So let’s get it right.”
Garrett Clayton to Out, describing preparing for his backside’s big closeup while playing Brent Corrigan in King Cobra.
Watch the trailer for King Cobra below:
h/t OMG
Anita Hill Exposes What's Missing From Coverage of Trump's 'Locker-Room Talk' (Video)
You must be 18 years old or older to chat
