Reading the notes before listening, I thought the disagreement was between “lay-ah” and “lee-ah” (I know women with both pronunciations). But pronouncing Leah as “lee” is incorrect. Your friend is wrong, Katie.
I'm Lea pronounced "Lee" and I had a friend growing up who was Leah also pronounced "Lee." It caused her so much grief that she legally changed it to Leigh as an adult.
A quick point on the Thomas Chatterton Williams hate: white people rabidly defending gangster rap has always confused me. The idea that only white racists and black conservatives criticize rap is laughable. I love rap, including the more hardcore variety, but some of the lyrics are incredibly violent and sexist and draw the ire of a variety of people. It’s pretty racist to insinuate that a black person has some sort of ulterior motive for criticizing a musical genre with extremely controversial lyrics and artists. But certain white progressives do this all the time: they decide that something represents a group of people, and then they vilify anyone from that group that objects.
I just watched the Dionne Warwick documentary on HBO. Apparently she invited gangster rappers to her home to serve them tea and scold them for misogynistic lyrics decades ago, and at least Snoop Dogg admitted that he was in attendance, and that the message "took" and he was duly impressed and schooled.
It is the same thing as the War On Drugs as The Most Racist Thing Ever. As if a lot of black religious leaders weren't deeply worried about crack and wanted it criticizec
When you capitalize it like that I assume you're referring to the indie rock band The War On Drugs, which is in fact one of the whitest things in existence (and also an amazing band, check 'em out). Probably a sign of my own terminal whiteness.
Also I actually do understand the argument about the war on drugs being racist - I think it's more of a reference to the fact that crack users (mostly black) were aggressively prosecuted and received long sentences while cocaine users (mostly white) were pretty much left alone by law enforcement, as evidenced by the coke-fueled NYC culture satirized by American Psycho et al. Most of my friends are white, hispanic or asian but one of my closest friends is black and in our NYC coke phase we were always very careful never to let her carry any of the drugs when we went out partying because rich looking white kids still get a pass when it comes to drug possession and if you're asian they won't even give you a second look because they assume you're some kind of math nerd who couldn't possibly do drugs I guess...
The problem.in poor black communities isn't so much drug use and possession, it's the violence associated with the drug trade. That's why communities pushed for harsh drug laws.
It's one thing for some dude to get high in mom's basement. It's quite another thing when the dealer controlling 9th Street decides he also wants 10th Street. And the dealer currently on 10th Street is not interested in a friendly negotiation.
Or when lead dealer gives one of his subordinates $1000 worth of product, but the subordinate comes back with only $500 and the product is gone. There's no binding arbitration clause in such transactions.
Or the abandoned house that turns into a crack den with zombies coming in and out and getting in petty disputes that turn violent.
The black academics and white liberals crying about the racism of the war of drugs never understood the distinction between simple usage and drug-related violence and disorder.
The violence only exists because of the criminalization. If the industry gets decriminalized we find that the death associated with marijuana and other drugs diminishes.
The violence - only to some degree. The disorder - no. “Marijuana and other drugs” is glossing that those other drugs include meth, cocaine, and opiates, which have a tendency to take over the lives of users, the stimulants can cause psychosis, and all of them kill people through overdoses (opiates obviously the worst). These are effectively decriminalized for use in SF and widely tolerated in encampments around the Bay Area, and there’s street chaos, petty property crime, and more serious violent crime associated with it, regardless of the fact that the risk of criminal prosecution of users is very low.
I’m not saying criminalization was the right answer, I’m just saying decriminalization has not made many of the secondary problems go away. When your life revolves around substance use, crime and antisocial behavior follow.
I long assumed that de-criminalization and/or legalization would lead to a dramatic decrease in violence. It's still an open question.
For example, Philadelphia de-criminalized simple possession in the last couple of years yet the murder rate is still astronomical. To be fair, distribution is still very much illegal. And I don't have access to any stats breaking down how many of the recent homicides are drug-related. And I don't know how big the illegal black market is for marijuana since the dispensaries opened 2-3 years ago.
Are drug dealers shooting each other because of the trade in heroin and other narcotics instead of weed? Again, I don't know.
Let's reconvene in about 5 years when we strong data on violent crime during the era of 'de-criminalization/legalization.
Note: De-criminalization means possession laws are still on the books but police are instructed not to enforce. Legalization means you can get a license to run a dispensary.
Yeah distribution should also be decriminalized. Ideally disputes between dealers should be worked out in peaceful ways rather than with shootouts. The reason they become shootouts is because there's a reliance on these larger organizations to protect the street-dealers to protect them from the cops so the large gangs become more powerful and can make demands that others stay out of their territory.
The problem is if we legalized all drugs, it's not like these street entrepreneurs would then easily transition over to a legally regulated heroine business, the legalization would be run by big corp interests and many of these guys would find other illegal trades.
If we want to solve for this in "bad" neighborhoods we need to slowly give power to the community via ownership. Owning legitimate businesses, owning their homes. I'm not sure how exactly to do this but this feels a bit like "if you give a man a fish v if you teach a man to fish..."
The ramped up penalties for crack were put in place because as a response to panic about the rapid proliferation of use in black communities. It wasn’t just white paternalism, black leaders were urging that we Do Something about the crack epidemic.
In terms of the war on drugs being racist, I was referring specifically to the idea that the laws themselves were racist and created out of racism. That may have neen part of it but the laws were passed in part because of huge religious Christian black support for the laws.
And as for policing. I think it is very complicated, because there was both race and class. If you look at poor rural white communities versus poor urban black communities, it looks like there was racism.in how the police investigated drug cases.
Now. We have the fact that crack is treated differently from cocaine. Which could be because crack is more commonly used by black people. Or it might be that it is more concentrated. It is probably both..
But for NYC it is more complicated. If we took black people with drugs in their homes versus white people with drugs in their homes, what was the difference? Were white people using at home as often as black people, but somehow the police were going to black homes more often? And then was the DA prosecuting the black cases more often and when doing so seeking harsher sentences?
I am sure that happened. Just as I am sure that the police would go to a crack den in Bed Stuy but not a coke-fueled party at any given UES restaurant.
But I also think that part of what happened was that poor black people were buying crack and going to crack dens to use, and these crack dens were known to the neighborhood and police. Wealthy white people were buying coke and using at home or going to private parties, which is less accessible to the police. So I think class played a much larger part than some critics are eilling to.admit. I think comparing black middle class use and treatment should be compares to white middle class use and treatment, and see what we find
I'm more than happy to criticize Rap music and "the lifestyle". And I say that as Yt cis hetero male. No apologies. NONE. This music form, in the examples I hear on the city streets (here in Harlem NYC) and on Apple Music best sellers is absolute shit. I know there's plenty of "good" progressive, non-violent, intelligent Rap music, but in the main, it is the most TOXIC, anti-female, anti-family, Pro-Criminal lifestyle, anti-progressive garbage anyone could imagine. It is in fact, exactly what the imagined hordes of White Supremacists in America would invent and inject into the ears / brains of young Black Americans to cripple them for life. It had to be said. For real.
I disagree but it's a totally understandable and valid opinion and not racist. Also it's the opinion of the average preacher, black or white. It's not like a fringe opinion it's pretty mainstream
Music in general has become more explicit in its themes, but I don't see anything fundamentally different about the messages in popular rap music and pretty much every art form for the entire span of recorded history.
I mean, shit, Shakespeare is all about gang fights, drinking, teenage sex, stabbing motherfuckers, suicide....
I don't think your opinion is racist or even odd or rare. I do think you could make an ad lib that would fit perfectly for every single generation ever and only have to update it for current colloquialisms.
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I'm more than happy to criticize________ and "the lifestyle". And I say that as a ________. No apologies. NONE. This _____ form, in the examples I hear on the city streets (here in _______) and on ______ best sellers is absolute shit. I know there's plenty of "good" progressive, non-violent, intelligent ________, but in the main, it is the most TOXIC, anti-female, anti-family, Pro-Criminal lifestyle, anti-progressive garbage anyone could imagine. It is in fact, exactly what the imagined hordes of _________ in _______ would invent and inject into the ears / brains of ________ to cripple them for life. It had to be said. For real.
Yeah, no. The Hip Hop / Rap I hear on the streets, booming from the cars - the most repeated words are: Nigga / Bitch / Dick. (Once again, I know there's plenty of great, smart Rap music - I listen to it sometimes. I'm talking about what I hear on the street. ) If you or I want to enjoy this fantasy world of misogyny, non-stop violent fantasies, and glorification of criminal behavior, fine, go-ahead. Enjoy! What is really horrific is the exposure of this "music" to young kids. Toddlers, pre-school, grade school age. Yes, I see it everyday on the streets. Everyday and well into the night. Think that might have a slightly bad effect on the development of personal character? If you really think exposure to this "culture" has NO effect on young people - well, that's so absurd I'm not going to spend anytime explaining reality to you. And you can both-side this to death, if you want - Sure, there's plenty of crap "rock", some pretty nasty and evil - Death-metal, for instance, filled with fantasies of murder, cannibalism, you name it. Insane Clown Posse - I love them. What they sing about is terrible. But I'm a fucking adult. If I played that for young kids: That would be shitty behavior. Only I wouldn't do that. You don't think a large percentage of young Black children are NOW being raised with shitty, violent, unredeemable crap Rap music as their morning, noon and night soundtrack? Enjoy your fantasy life.
I LOVE the British Rapper "The Streets". Don't you? But seriously, I am literally talking about "the streets", i.e, the sidewalks, up here at 141st Street and Broadway, and there abouts...
No, but I worked closely w/this community. There is a problem of violence being completely normalized. It's from what the see, hear and live day to day. Rap isn't the thing but it's certainly part of the whole story.
“Leah” is not pronounced “Lee.” Any Leah who says it that way is saying her own name incorrectly and should feel bad about herself. “Lee-uh” is acceptable, but “Lay-uh” is to be preferred, particularly if the Leah in question is Israeli and/or Jewish.
I think I *may* have heard people use "Lee" as a nickname for Leah. Plenty of two-syllable names get shortened to the first syllable (or the last, as in Ye).
It's just a consequence of the English and Hebrew variants being spelled the same in English. Normally you see this breakdown more clearly with other names--Benjamin/Binyamin, Jacob/Yaakov, Rebecca/Rivka. You probably know a lot of Jewish Beccas also, but few or no Rivkas. Most orthodox or Israeli-American Jews I know call their children the Hebrew (or Yiddish) variant, and their Leahs are pronounced "Lay-uh." Most conservative, Rlreform, reconstructionist, or secular Jews I know call their children the English variant and their Leahs are pronounced "Lee-uh." I have known some non-orthodox, non-Israeli Jews get really into their Jewishness and go for the Hebrew variant, but it's not super common. And there are definitely lots of modern orthodox Jews who opt for English, especially when it comes to the name "Josh" for whatever reason.
Interestingly, there is a similar phenomenon with Sarah/Sara. I have known orthodox/Israeli and non-orthodox/Israeli American Jews named Sarah and Sara, but the former always say "Soh-ruh" and the latter always say "Seh-ruh." I can't think of other names that are spelled the same (in English) in English and Hebrew off the top of my head, but if anyone else has one to share I would be interested! I'm sure there are some. What's the English of "Boaz," anybody know...?
Here’s a fun one: Warren Harding’s middle name was Gamaliel, which I’ve often heard rendered in English as guh-MAY-lee-ull. If there’s a wax cylinder somewhere with a recording of the man himself pronouncing it, I imagine that’s how he’d say it. (The original is gaam-LEE-el. I’m not sure how the extra syllable in the English version got there.)
I feel like the men's names ending in -el are pretty consistent in spelling, if not pronunciation: Daniel (DAN-yuhl and Da-ni-EL), Nathaniel (Nuh-than-YUHL and Na-tan-ee-EL), Michael (MY-kuhl and Mee-kha-EL), etc..
Daniel for sure! I do feel like most of the American orthodox guys I know called Daniel actually do go by "Dan," but some of them do say "Do-NI-el" and spell it Daniel.
Nathaniel I've only ever seen written as "Natanel" or ""Nasanel," but it's totally possible there are people who write it that way. I know a couple of Michaels, but they go by Mike/Mikey. I see Michoel more frequently. (For Americans. For Israelis the only one of these names I see in my neck of the woods is Natanel, but I feel like it's very neighborhood/hashkafa specific. Lots of Russian Mikhael/Mishas in Israel, but not spelled the english way. There are men called "Dan" like the tribe, but I don't personally know anyone named Daniel/Doniel.)
Damn, those are some Ashkenazi-ass names (Nasanel and Michoel in particular). I guess I was assuming modern Hebrew/Sephardi emphatic stress and pronunciation.
I thought of writing “Orthodox Jewish,” but I didn’t want to exclude the non-Orthodox Lay-uhs. I’ve known a bunch of Orthodox Leahs, and the only Lee-uh among them was Russian. That is my lived experience, and it is valid and deserving of respect.
This Eliza character is really sad. Obviously, she’s always been attention needy. But it sounds like she went down the road of trading her sexuality for attention and in general engaged in transactional sexual behavior and found it to be very dehumanizing. I find our current culture around sex to be very dehumanizing too. I think in general we minimize how damaging the objectification of sex is to most people. I wish people could pull sexual images of themselves from the internet if they change their minds. I am of the belief that people can consent to dehumanizing pornographic behavior and we should understand why they later regret it and want it scraped from the internet.
This seems to follow a trend of people embellishing the details of their “trauma” so that no one can question whether or not the person “deserves” to feel the pain they do about whatever happened. All While still hooked on their endless need for massive amounts of external validation.
I wonder if in her next self examination of her trauma she will blame Twitter and media for exploiting her neediness and for enabling self-destructive, attention seeking. Will she say that men in media trafficked her because she was willing to tell a story that fit their agenda and massage their egos. They passed her from podcast to podcast and discarded her when the show was over.
She is the one that won’t stop selling herself. This is so dark.
I’ve been sitting on the idea that we as a society have become consent-cels. Meaning we have the Faustian belief that if someone says “yeah” to something one time then all other ethical, moral, and societal questions no longer matter. Maybe that’s a good legal standard but it’s a terrible social one when an eighteen year old girl is looking to get into porn.
This is all so true. I watched the video out of curiosity and felt bad, knowing she doesn’t want it viewed anymore, even though her objection is likely because it interferes with the new version of herself that she is selling.
I do believe she is filled with regret for all the things she did to seek attention and social validation in her past, but yet she is still stuck in the same pattern and unwilling to acknowledge any culpability. Defining her experience by using the terms “trafficking” and “trauma” instead of sex work and drug addiction ends up helping no one.
And, her narrative of victimization also deflects from the ways in which men are her targets and she takes hostages in an effort to advance her social standing. Elon is just another mark. She may be a sad character, unable to see past her need for external validation, someone toward whom I feel pity, but she has a trail of people that she has also used and discarded along the way.
Katie--please don't feel guilt for helping any person have shelter. All people deserve that. I work with a few people who have intellectual disabilities and sexual offenses in their past, and at least one of them has been homeless in the past. Also, I find the way our society thinks about pedophiles to be inconsistent with what we think we know about the science. People generally don't choose what they're attracted to sexually, and I don't think pedophiles do either. I can't imagine having to live with myself and being preferentially (and maybe exclusively) attracted to children--that must be awful. That they are a danger to our communities is true, but they are also deserving of some empathy.
People may not choose what they are sexually attracted to, but they DO have a choice whether or not to act on those attractions. The person from this story chose to rape a child. There is a big difference between a non-offending paedophile and someone who would inflict that kind of trauma on a child. I have sympathy for the former, the later can go freeze in the snow for all I care.
Yes. The attempts by psychologists and philosophers (Kinsey, Foucault, and a host of others) to say the only harm is from uptight moralists is infuriating.
I hope it is OK here to make a shameless plug for an author who deals with sexual trauma in amazing ways---she is one helluva writer. True Crime fans will also be entranced: Paula McClain's When The Stars Go Dark.
I just finished it and it gutted me. If I ruled the world, I would have an extensive reading list for all of the apologists who think childhood sexual trauma is inconsequential. Alas, I don't. Which I why I thank whatever omnipotent power reigns for dogs, horses, and booze.
I think you may be straw-manning my point. I never said or implied that the harm suffered by victims of sexual trauma was inconsequential. In addition to working with some individuals who have perpetrated these offenses, I work with more who have been victims of sexual and physical abuse. The harm is real. My points were:
(1) that having committed a sexual offense at some point in the past should not remove our desire or obligation to treat all people humanely. This is of course an ethical stance so others may not necessarily agree, but I think an ethical framework should have consistently applied principles. I don't understand the rationale that implies that these offenders are less deserving of humane treatment than other kinds of offenders. Remember that the restrictions imposed by being on a sexual offender registry are not in lieu of punishment for the offense, but rather applied after and continue for the remainder of the person's life in most cases.
(2) many people on sexual offender registries are not at all predatory and do not pose continuing risk. As I mentioned in my original post, I work with people who have intellectual and/or developmental disabilities, and this population is overrepresented among sexual offenders. Although a few of these individuals' offenses were predatory in nature and they continue to pose risk, that's not the case for most. For many, the concept of 'counterfeit deviance' appears to apply--namely, that their offense likely would not have occurred had more socially appropriate avenues for sexual expression been available to them. The first group--the more predatory--typically have a significant preference for children or forced sex, whereas the latter do not. The latter group usually fails to discriminate and finds anything sexual or nudity-based arousing. (You can actually see this with results from penile plethysmographs, where the first group has easily identified preferences for children, but the latter group is aroused more or less equally by the various stimuli.) For these individuals, at least, the presence of a disability creates some gray area regarding moral culpability and raises the question
of immoral/excessive punishment.
(3) We (our society) seems to view sexual offenders quite differently than we do other kinds of violent crime. For example, sentences for rape are often much longer than sentences for other assaults that led to injury or even death. I find that really odd, and suspect it has something to do with our Puritanical heritage.
Katy may have been able to find details regarding this person's offense that gave a better indication that he was more predatory and therefore presumably more of a continuing threat (if so, I don't think she elaborated). But you can't tell that by simply finding that someone is on a state's sexual offender registry.
I'm not sure if you are responding to me in particular or earlier comments Ithreads make that difficult to know), but I'll respond just in case. I almost didn't read when you used a more inflammatory phrase like strawman. I'd already broken one rule (don't comment on the internet), and now I'm about to break another (seriously--fight on the internet or walk the dogs--I almost never do the former). BUT I'm glad I did read because what I read was a really thoughtful, terribly informed, and smart post. Thank you for that. Does it make me less of a strawmanner (how do I gender this? :) ) in that I entirely agree with you?
The lack of nuance is sexual offender registries is staggering. It can ruiin someone's life in very underserving ways. You didn't talk about the institutional trend to diminish the impact of sexual trauma on children from Freud through Kinsey to Foucault to Rubin to Butler et. al. (I'm just including the famous ones here). That is what I'm referring to--not the work you do with the individuals (treat compassionately while trying to prevent harm). That is unbelievably noble of you (not kidding--wow). I thank you for taking the time to share your experiences in such a thoughtful way.
I don't disagree. My point about the distress they must experience about who they are--and some real penalties if they seek help--likely result in some mental health conditions that impact their behavior. If it were murder instead of pedophilia, we'd see these mental health impacts as to some degree lessening their moral culpability and have a more sympathetic view of that person. And I think the distinction is logically inconsistent and weird.
Are you really saying you think people who've behaved in that way (at what may have been a single point in their life) are undeserving of assistance for shelter?
They can be very onerous, but I appreciate the impulse. There really are a lot of sex offenders who pose little risk of re-offending (here in NY, those are considered Level 1), but they're still on the registry (though can petition a court to have them removed if they met certain criteria). I wish we'd put some effort into distinguishing between those who continue to pose risk and those that don't, but this group is certainly not a funding priority (and I'm not suggesting they should be).
And for clarification, I in no way think Katie was obligated to help someone who turns out to be a sex offender (and, tbh, if he's a current risk, his probation officer isn't doing his/her job). But I don't see any reason for her to feel guilt over helping him--in fact, I think she acted admirably and deserves kudos. So yay Katie!
I don’t know if they deserve empathy, but as a Christian I don’t think what they deserve is really the point. It’s good to show mercy, including to those who don’t deserve it. Katie shouldn’t be embarrassed.
We used to call this type of person "Drama Queen" and they would eternally wear out group of friends after group of friends until they were like 30 and ran out of people to befriend but now with social media, there's an endless funnel of new 'friends'.
Candace Owens: a younger, black Ann Coulter. Pretty simple. A carnival barker who mouths talking points.
I seriously think that if the Democratic National Committee offered her more money than whatever she gets from Daily Wire, she would jump back in a second.
I think that's an unfair characterization. I'm not saying I agree with her, but she posts interesting and insightful takes on issues largely outside the current zeitgeist.
Ann Coulter tends to post pretty smart and interesting stuff on her substack (if oversalted at times). This may be a new thing (I knew her only as a firebrand until a year ago), but there is no comparison to Candace Owens who just fits her facts to her current favorite narrative.
To be fair. I recently listened to Coulter's Substack podcast and noticed she had considerably toned down the bombast.
(I didn't know she had a Substack. I tuned in only because I'm on the mailing list for her guest; as in "check out me being interviewed by Ann Coulter").
Coulter has been conspicuously silent during the culture wars of recent years. I guess transgender, DIE and CRT aren't in her wheelhouse like immigration is.
Not a fan of either woman really, but it is unfair to Coulter to put Candace on her level. Both are fiery but Coulter is way more thought out, and principled.
Not sure if this got yanked off the Wednesday Open Thread (looks like it) but I have to encourage all you POD people to listen to Andrew Sullivan's Feb 3rd The Dishcast podcast. Great guest with an amazing life story, but what made it extra real for me was the way Andrew and his guest explained how Trans Extremism is, intentionally or not, tied to eradicating Gayness / homosexuality. The example from Iran is eye-opening. And yet another discussion re: Wokeness generally, but some points were made in a new, deeper ways. Definitely worth a listen.
Oh I think it's easy to understand why he doesn't want comments. There's plenty of people willing to drop a little money to spread a ton of vitriol. You don't have to go far in the Substack world to find some.
Just curious, what is it about Jesse that some of these women find threatening? What exactly have they said if anyone knows… This keeps coming up and I’ve seen it alluded to on twitter but with little detail. I find him almost laughably non-threatening in any context but certainly if not in person - you can’t even point to his height etc. To be fair I may have a very high bar for being around “rough” men. Most of my life has been spent in the company of rednecks, military guys, the building/manufacturing industry, and now Australians ;) I can’t get my mind around anyone getting a predatory or dangerous vibe from him and can only assume the accusations are manipulative. Anyone know what the absolute steelman best example of this is? I kinda feel bad for not at least looking into it but it just makes me laugh every time it comes up.
I'm the farthest thing from a men's rights activist or anything, but it seems like a lot of women assume a socially awkward man automatically must be sexually interested in them. That perception of interest is coded as creepy, and creepy becomes threatening. Combine that with Jesse's height which certainly can be intimidating, and that's all it really takes. Of course if you're extremely attractive none of this applies, but that type of privilege is strangely never discussed by progressives.
But also is Jesse even socially awkward? And these are pretty much all trans women who transitioned as adults. Well into adulthood. Which means they lived as men and had insights into how men think in a way women in general do not.
I don't think transwomen have any idea about how a hetero man engages with a woman. No hetero man is going to hit on a man presenting as a female, unless their is some kink involved.
The whole notion of autogynephelia is men who want to be attractive in the way that women are. This totally makes sense. Unfortunately, it just isn't achievable in most cases.
I agree with your point; it's counterintuitive because there's so much negative propaganda around male sexuality, but our sex drive is actually quite good at doing what it's supposed to do.
I did my grad school externship at an LGBT Center in 2916, so right before things got really crazy. So two clients were trans women, both were into guys. I remember one had a hard time with guys because she would date straight guys, who were worried they would be perceived as gay.
But I also think that trans women who are into guys, they were usually effeminate gay boys ore transition and were deeply mocked for how they presented themselves and their sexuality. I do not think they have that entitlement that other groups of trans women have
There's a certain logic in it; the same way one might assume that a person who appears to be ungroomed and possibly homeless is likely to ask you for money if they're walking towards you.
Of course, just because that underlying logic is there doesn't mean that it's always right, or even that it's a particularly accurate model in general.
But to be clear I think the accusers with Jessie (or most public figures, frankly) are more likely to have ulterior motives than to be acting in good faith.
Dude I was bored at work a few days ago abd was sort of looking into this. I think Katelyn Burns was the first person who mentioned Jesse like stalking her and making her uncomfortable. On the internet archive Jesse published some of their email exchanges and both he and Katelyn published some of their text exchanges
I think what happened was that they talked about some very private things in public. Which made Katelyn feel uncomfortable.
And I think that is what these women are talking abpiut. And I think they are all trans women.
When they’re talking about that earlier Ep covering Jia and her human trafficking parents, I was remembering listening but had images of driving a covered wagon in the old west. I realized I was playing Red Dead Redemption while listening to that episode. A lot of my memories of podcasts are attached to where I was when listening: gaming, driving, housework, etc.
There was a months-long period during which I couldn't hear Andrew Yang's voice without being immediately transported to that day I cleaned out my garage.
Whenever they mention the episode where Katie interviewed the woman who went through a Robin DiAngelo training, I flashback to when I was taping off my son's nursery for painting.
(It's a great episode, btw, I highly recommend it to any new primos! It's from the summer of 2020.)
Yes, for sure! I listen while I work in my art studio, and when I look at work that I've made, the affiliated podcast content just pops up in my brain.
We could avoid all the trouble caused by pedophiles, sex traffickers, and grifters claiming to have been trafficked if we could all just agree with my adolescent self that sex is gross and no one should do it. Actually my postmenopausal self is starting to agree with her.
I have been low key obsessed with men my whole life- I just love them! It's just bizarre how menopause has sort of turned that off like a switch. I still love looking at guys, and find my husband very attractive, but it's not like before. Weird.
That makes me a little sad. I'm about to hit menopause just as my kids are becoming adults. It would be nice to have a some time left with a sex drive now that my husband and I are about to have a lot of privacy.
Kris, fear not. I think I may be in perimenopause and I feel like I have snapped out of a spell I didn’t know I was under. Like Molly, my high wattage lust has been turned way down in the past year or so, and I am happily and securely married, with about 15 years together and I can’t tell you how great this new stage in life is. I feel like a kid again. All that was exciting and fun about life before puberty is back, my sense of self confidence that I had before finding a mate and establishing a secure relationship was a biological imperative, is back. Not gonna lie, I married someone 18 years older than me and the fact that we are both aging out of
our reproductive drive at the same time helps. Being in a secure relationship helps, it helps one build the security that even though you love your partner and you don’t want your partner to ever fall out of love with you, you know that you would be ok anyway. Plus, when men start naturally losing interest in sex they continue to show intimacy in older couple ways that turn out to be highly underrated in our cultural narratives. Being an older couple that enjoys each other and takes care of each other is literally the sweetest stage so far. The romance is there, without the desperation. Highly recommend getting old.
Tldr: losing interest in sex naturally opens the door for other motivating interests and other ways of building and expressing intimacy to emerge. It’s also easier to have male friends because you don’t want to f them and they don’t want to f you. The men that are in your orbit are ONLY there because they like you as a person. It’s like the world is filled with brothers and cousins again. Husbands get sweeter and also more emotionally open with age. It’s kind of awesome.
I used to live in the same apartment building as Eliza in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago. It sounds like that was after Wicker Park and definitely also not a gang-controlled neighborhood. 🙄
It was kind of wild listening to this episode, cuz I spent the first 30-ish years of my life in and around Chicago (Logan Square and Wicker Park so i know the area well) and especially in the goth and alt scenes. I'm sitting there with my wife listening to this (she was in that scene too) and we're kinda looking at each other like .... i feel like we may have encountered this person before lol
As someone who lived in the Logan/Wicker area back in the day, how nice/rough were the neighborhoods? I moved into the area after it was clearly gentrified and have heard very different things about how the neighborhood was 15+ years ago.
I moved there in 2006. Wicker was long-gentrified at that point, but Logan Square was being hyped as the next up-and-coming neighborhood. And it certainly changed by the time I left in 2015. There are now big ass high rise condos on Milwaukee that didn't used to be there. When I first moved there there were bars and stuff to do, but it also felt really...desolate and empty. Maybe the wrong words to describe it, but it was pretty sparse compared to today. For whatever it's worth, my block was very much in the bustles of Logan Square, and it was well understood that the Latin Lovers "ran" our block. We were friendly with the neighbors so never had any issues, but there were certainly illicit activities going down on the block.
hey that's around when i moved to Logan Square! early 08, lived right around the corner from where they eventually built Revolution Brewing, near California and Milwaukee.
at the time, the theme for Logan Square was: "Come for the bars, stay because you got shot."
Oddly, from my buddy who still lives in the area, things seem to have come full circle as the crowds that form up along the gentrified Milwaukee Ave corridor tend to be uh .... a bit rowdy.
Ah right on! Cole's was literally a 3 minute walk from my apartment, we probably shared some oxygen at some point haha. I was more of a Neo man myself, til it closed in 2015, thus the goth scene connection
The unofficial tagline when I moved in (edit: to Logan Square, 2 blocks from the California blue line stop, Belden and California) in 2008 was, "come for the fun, stay because you got shot."
it was kinda rough lol. friend of mine lived on my block and had his ground-level apartment broken into several times. me and my roommate also had a ground-level apartment, but it only got broken into once. we were convinced our relatively quiet was due to the probably illegal chop-shop that was operated out of a garage nextdoor lol (ie, don't shit where you sleep)
Haha yeah I lived in Chicago around the time and was pretty heavily involved in the arts & music scene and even worked in the Gold Coast for a year at a 4am bar. I probably unwittingly crossed paths with her once or twice.
I’m a bit sad that you were as right as you were on this one, Katie. Not that I suspected you weren’t but this one had me in a bit of a funk the last few days. Ugly part of the world. I still kinda feel bad for Eliza, mental illness is ugly and I think she has the fame seeking variant and maybe twisted around a few things she was more complicit in to come up with the story she told. I agree with you that I don’t think she did it to make money, she just wanted to be special. That makes it sadder to me for some reason.
I just think Eliza is someone that has been trying to find her “niche” over the past couple decades. Groupie, model, actress, reality tv star, etc., but she finally found her fame in “being trafficked” and peddling ridiculous right wing conspiracies.
It seems that Elon is her new Gerard. Let’s see if she strong arms him into a relationship lol
Reading the notes before listening, I thought the disagreement was between “lay-ah” and “lee-ah” (I know women with both pronunciations). But pronouncing Leah as “lee” is incorrect. Your friend is wrong, Katie.
I'm Lea pronounced "Lee" and I had a friend growing up who was Leah also pronounced "Lee." It caused her so much grief that she legally changed it to Leigh as an adult.
Yeah, just some hard evidence:
https://youtu.be/5IVAaIyuIO0
A quick point on the Thomas Chatterton Williams hate: white people rabidly defending gangster rap has always confused me. The idea that only white racists and black conservatives criticize rap is laughable. I love rap, including the more hardcore variety, but some of the lyrics are incredibly violent and sexist and draw the ire of a variety of people. It’s pretty racist to insinuate that a black person has some sort of ulterior motive for criticizing a musical genre with extremely controversial lyrics and artists. But certain white progressives do this all the time: they decide that something represents a group of people, and then they vilify anyone from that group that objects.
I just watched the Dionne Warwick documentary on HBO. Apparently she invited gangster rappers to her home to serve them tea and scold them for misogynistic lyrics decades ago, and at least Snoop Dogg admitted that he was in attendance, and that the message "took" and he was duly impressed and schooled.
But I do LOVE the Snoop!!!
https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/snoop-dogg-dionne-warwick-confronted-him-over-misogynistic-lyrics-1235193028/#!
I am not a big hip hop/rap gal, but I love Snoop. Stuff like this is why.
It is the same thing as the War On Drugs as The Most Racist Thing Ever. As if a lot of black religious leaders weren't deeply worried about crack and wanted it criticizec
When you capitalize it like that I assume you're referring to the indie rock band The War On Drugs, which is in fact one of the whitest things in existence (and also an amazing band, check 'em out). Probably a sign of my own terminal whiteness.
Love that band! Got to see him back in June and it was a great show.
Also I actually do understand the argument about the war on drugs being racist - I think it's more of a reference to the fact that crack users (mostly black) were aggressively prosecuted and received long sentences while cocaine users (mostly white) were pretty much left alone by law enforcement, as evidenced by the coke-fueled NYC culture satirized by American Psycho et al. Most of my friends are white, hispanic or asian but one of my closest friends is black and in our NYC coke phase we were always very careful never to let her carry any of the drugs when we went out partying because rich looking white kids still get a pass when it comes to drug possession and if you're asian they won't even give you a second look because they assume you're some kind of math nerd who couldn't possibly do drugs I guess...
The problem.in poor black communities isn't so much drug use and possession, it's the violence associated with the drug trade. That's why communities pushed for harsh drug laws.
It's one thing for some dude to get high in mom's basement. It's quite another thing when the dealer controlling 9th Street decides he also wants 10th Street. And the dealer currently on 10th Street is not interested in a friendly negotiation.
Or when lead dealer gives one of his subordinates $1000 worth of product, but the subordinate comes back with only $500 and the product is gone. There's no binding arbitration clause in such transactions.
Or the abandoned house that turns into a crack den with zombies coming in and out and getting in petty disputes that turn violent.
The black academics and white liberals crying about the racism of the war of drugs never understood the distinction between simple usage and drug-related violence and disorder.
The violence only exists because of the criminalization. If the industry gets decriminalized we find that the death associated with marijuana and other drugs diminishes.
The violence - only to some degree. The disorder - no. “Marijuana and other drugs” is glossing that those other drugs include meth, cocaine, and opiates, which have a tendency to take over the lives of users, the stimulants can cause psychosis, and all of them kill people through overdoses (opiates obviously the worst). These are effectively decriminalized for use in SF and widely tolerated in encampments around the Bay Area, and there’s street chaos, petty property crime, and more serious violent crime associated with it, regardless of the fact that the risk of criminal prosecution of users is very low.
I’m not saying criminalization was the right answer, I’m just saying decriminalization has not made many of the secondary problems go away. When your life revolves around substance use, crime and antisocial behavior follow.
I long assumed that de-criminalization and/or legalization would lead to a dramatic decrease in violence. It's still an open question.
For example, Philadelphia de-criminalized simple possession in the last couple of years yet the murder rate is still astronomical. To be fair, distribution is still very much illegal. And I don't have access to any stats breaking down how many of the recent homicides are drug-related. And I don't know how big the illegal black market is for marijuana since the dispensaries opened 2-3 years ago.
Are drug dealers shooting each other because of the trade in heroin and other narcotics instead of weed? Again, I don't know.
Let's reconvene in about 5 years when we strong data on violent crime during the era of 'de-criminalization/legalization.
Note: De-criminalization means possession laws are still on the books but police are instructed not to enforce. Legalization means you can get a license to run a dispensary.
Yeah distribution should also be decriminalized. Ideally disputes between dealers should be worked out in peaceful ways rather than with shootouts. The reason they become shootouts is because there's a reliance on these larger organizations to protect the street-dealers to protect them from the cops so the large gangs become more powerful and can make demands that others stay out of their territory.
The problem is if we legalized all drugs, it's not like these street entrepreneurs would then easily transition over to a legally regulated heroine business, the legalization would be run by big corp interests and many of these guys would find other illegal trades.
If we want to solve for this in "bad" neighborhoods we need to slowly give power to the community via ownership. Owning legitimate businesses, owning their homes. I'm not sure how exactly to do this but this feels a bit like "if you give a man a fish v if you teach a man to fish..."
The ramped up penalties for crack were put in place because as a response to panic about the rapid proliferation of use in black communities. It wasn’t just white paternalism, black leaders were urging that we Do Something about the crack epidemic.
In terms of the war on drugs being racist, I was referring specifically to the idea that the laws themselves were racist and created out of racism. That may have neen part of it but the laws were passed in part because of huge religious Christian black support for the laws.
And as for policing. I think it is very complicated, because there was both race and class. If you look at poor rural white communities versus poor urban black communities, it looks like there was racism.in how the police investigated drug cases.
Now. We have the fact that crack is treated differently from cocaine. Which could be because crack is more commonly used by black people. Or it might be that it is more concentrated. It is probably both..
But for NYC it is more complicated. If we took black people with drugs in their homes versus white people with drugs in their homes, what was the difference? Were white people using at home as often as black people, but somehow the police were going to black homes more often? And then was the DA prosecuting the black cases more often and when doing so seeking harsher sentences?
I am sure that happened. Just as I am sure that the police would go to a crack den in Bed Stuy but not a coke-fueled party at any given UES restaurant.
But I also think that part of what happened was that poor black people were buying crack and going to crack dens to use, and these crack dens were known to the neighborhood and police. Wealthy white people were buying coke and using at home or going to private parties, which is less accessible to the police. So I think class played a much larger part than some critics are eilling to.admit. I think comparing black middle class use and treatment should be compares to white middle class use and treatment, and see what we find
There was massive support in the Black community for the 94 Crime Bill. You could look it up.
Criminalized marijuana was more of an annoyance to users than the source of social ills.
In general, you don't see gang warfare over marijuana trade. It's too bulky and hard to transport. The profit margins just aren't that compelling.
I'm more than happy to criticize Rap music and "the lifestyle". And I say that as Yt cis hetero male. No apologies. NONE. This music form, in the examples I hear on the city streets (here in Harlem NYC) and on Apple Music best sellers is absolute shit. I know there's plenty of "good" progressive, non-violent, intelligent Rap music, but in the main, it is the most TOXIC, anti-female, anti-family, Pro-Criminal lifestyle, anti-progressive garbage anyone could imagine. It is in fact, exactly what the imagined hordes of White Supremacists in America would invent and inject into the ears / brains of young Black Americans to cripple them for life. It had to be said. For real.
I disagree but it's a totally understandable and valid opinion and not racist. Also it's the opinion of the average preacher, black or white. It's not like a fringe opinion it's pretty mainstream
Music in general has become more explicit in its themes, but I don't see anything fundamentally different about the messages in popular rap music and pretty much every art form for the entire span of recorded history.
I mean, shit, Shakespeare is all about gang fights, drinking, teenage sex, stabbing motherfuckers, suicide....
I don't think your opinion is racist or even odd or rare. I do think you could make an ad lib that would fit perfectly for every single generation ever and only have to update it for current colloquialisms.
--------
I'm more than happy to criticize________ and "the lifestyle". And I say that as a ________. No apologies. NONE. This _____ form, in the examples I hear on the city streets (here in _______) and on ______ best sellers is absolute shit. I know there's plenty of "good" progressive, non-violent, intelligent ________, but in the main, it is the most TOXIC, anti-female, anti-family, Pro-Criminal lifestyle, anti-progressive garbage anyone could imagine. It is in fact, exactly what the imagined hordes of _________ in _______ would invent and inject into the ears / brains of ________ to cripple them for life. It had to be said. For real.
:)
Thanks for creating this Form Letter, will def save me time in the future! ( :
It’s just radical chic. https://nymag.com/news/features/46170/
Let me try to clarify further:
A lot of Rap (not all, but a lot) glorifies misogyny, violence and the "criminal lifestyle".
(Indisputable)
Too many young children are constantly exposed to this type of Rap music. (Indisputable).
Exposure to any form culture does affect how young people grow up. (Indisputable.)
Yeah, no. The Hip Hop / Rap I hear on the streets, booming from the cars - the most repeated words are: Nigga / Bitch / Dick. (Once again, I know there's plenty of great, smart Rap music - I listen to it sometimes. I'm talking about what I hear on the street. ) If you or I want to enjoy this fantasy world of misogyny, non-stop violent fantasies, and glorification of criminal behavior, fine, go-ahead. Enjoy! What is really horrific is the exposure of this "music" to young kids. Toddlers, pre-school, grade school age. Yes, I see it everyday on the streets. Everyday and well into the night. Think that might have a slightly bad effect on the development of personal character? If you really think exposure to this "culture" has NO effect on young people - well, that's so absurd I'm not going to spend anytime explaining reality to you. And you can both-side this to death, if you want - Sure, there's plenty of crap "rock", some pretty nasty and evil - Death-metal, for instance, filled with fantasies of murder, cannibalism, you name it. Insane Clown Posse - I love them. What they sing about is terrible. But I'm a fucking adult. If I played that for young kids: That would be shitty behavior. Only I wouldn't do that. You don't think a large percentage of young Black children are NOW being raised with shitty, violent, unredeemable crap Rap music as their morning, noon and night soundtrack? Enjoy your fantasy life.
I LOVE the British Rapper "The Streets". Don't you? But seriously, I am literally talking about "the streets", i.e, the sidewalks, up here at 141st Street and Broadway, and there abouts...
No, but I worked closely w/this community. There is a problem of violence being completely normalized. It's from what the see, hear and live day to day. Rap isn't the thing but it's certainly part of the whole story.
“Leah” is not pronounced “Lee.” Any Leah who says it that way is saying her own name incorrectly and should feel bad about herself. “Lee-uh” is acceptable, but “Lay-uh” is to be preferred, particularly if the Leah in question is Israeli and/or Jewish.
I think I *may* have heard people use "Lee" as a nickname for Leah. Plenty of two-syllable names get shortened to the first syllable (or the last, as in Ye).
I cannot think of any non-Jewish Israeli who is named Leah. Unless I guess the Israeli in question converts out of Judaism.
I know a lot of American Jewish women with that name and every single one pronounces it "Lee-uh"
It's just a consequence of the English and Hebrew variants being spelled the same in English. Normally you see this breakdown more clearly with other names--Benjamin/Binyamin, Jacob/Yaakov, Rebecca/Rivka. You probably know a lot of Jewish Beccas also, but few or no Rivkas. Most orthodox or Israeli-American Jews I know call their children the Hebrew (or Yiddish) variant, and their Leahs are pronounced "Lay-uh." Most conservative, Rlreform, reconstructionist, or secular Jews I know call their children the English variant and their Leahs are pronounced "Lee-uh." I have known some non-orthodox, non-Israeli Jews get really into their Jewishness and go for the Hebrew variant, but it's not super common. And there are definitely lots of modern orthodox Jews who opt for English, especially when it comes to the name "Josh" for whatever reason.
Interestingly, there is a similar phenomenon with Sarah/Sara. I have known orthodox/Israeli and non-orthodox/Israeli American Jews named Sarah and Sara, but the former always say "Soh-ruh" and the latter always say "Seh-ruh." I can't think of other names that are spelled the same (in English) in English and Hebrew off the top of my head, but if anyone else has one to share I would be interested! I'm sure there are some. What's the English of "Boaz," anybody know...?
Here’s a fun one: Warren Harding’s middle name was Gamaliel, which I’ve often heard rendered in English as guh-MAY-lee-ull. If there’s a wax cylinder somewhere with a recording of the man himself pronouncing it, I imagine that’s how he’d say it. (The original is gaam-LEE-el. I’m not sure how the extra syllable in the English version got there.)
That is fun! Ah and you've just reminded that "Levi" fits here, too.
I feel like the men's names ending in -el are pretty consistent in spelling, if not pronunciation: Daniel (DAN-yuhl and Da-ni-EL), Nathaniel (Nuh-than-YUHL and Na-tan-ee-EL), Michael (MY-kuhl and Mee-kha-EL), etc..
Daniel for sure! I do feel like most of the American orthodox guys I know called Daniel actually do go by "Dan," but some of them do say "Do-NI-el" and spell it Daniel.
Nathaniel I've only ever seen written as "Natanel" or ""Nasanel," but it's totally possible there are people who write it that way. I know a couple of Michaels, but they go by Mike/Mikey. I see Michoel more frequently. (For Americans. For Israelis the only one of these names I see in my neck of the woods is Natanel, but I feel like it's very neighborhood/hashkafa specific. Lots of Russian Mikhael/Mishas in Israel, but not spelled the english way. There are men called "Dan" like the tribe, but I don't personally know anyone named Daniel/Doniel.)
Damn, those are some Ashkenazi-ass names (Nasanel and Michoel in particular). I guess I was assuming modern Hebrew/Sephardi emphatic stress and pronunciation.
I thought of writing “Orthodox Jewish,” but I didn’t want to exclude the non-Orthodox Lay-uhs. I’ve known a bunch of Orthodox Leahs, and the only Lee-uh among them was Russian. That is my lived experience, and it is valid and deserving of respect.
Agree. The only time I’ve heard “Lay-uh” is when it’s Leah from the Bible. Regular Jewish person? Lee-uh.
“Too annoying to be trafficked” is certainly one way to own your narrative.
This Eliza character is really sad. Obviously, she’s always been attention needy. But it sounds like she went down the road of trading her sexuality for attention and in general engaged in transactional sexual behavior and found it to be very dehumanizing. I find our current culture around sex to be very dehumanizing too. I think in general we minimize how damaging the objectification of sex is to most people. I wish people could pull sexual images of themselves from the internet if they change their minds. I am of the belief that people can consent to dehumanizing pornographic behavior and we should understand why they later regret it and want it scraped from the internet.
This seems to follow a trend of people embellishing the details of their “trauma” so that no one can question whether or not the person “deserves” to feel the pain they do about whatever happened. All While still hooked on their endless need for massive amounts of external validation.
I wonder if in her next self examination of her trauma she will blame Twitter and media for exploiting her neediness and for enabling self-destructive, attention seeking. Will she say that men in media trafficked her because she was willing to tell a story that fit their agenda and massage their egos. They passed her from podcast to podcast and discarded her when the show was over.
She is the one that won’t stop selling herself. This is so dark.
Brilliant analysis.
I’ve been sitting on the idea that we as a society have become consent-cels. Meaning we have the Faustian belief that if someone says “yeah” to something one time then all other ethical, moral, and societal questions no longer matter. Maybe that’s a good legal standard but it’s a terrible social one when an eighteen year old girl is looking to get into porn.
This is all so true. I watched the video out of curiosity and felt bad, knowing she doesn’t want it viewed anymore, even though her objection is likely because it interferes with the new version of herself that she is selling.
I do believe she is filled with regret for all the things she did to seek attention and social validation in her past, but yet she is still stuck in the same pattern and unwilling to acknowledge any culpability. Defining her experience by using the terms “trafficking” and “trauma” instead of sex work and drug addiction ends up helping no one.
And, her narrative of victimization also deflects from the ways in which men are her targets and she takes hostages in an effort to advance her social standing. Elon is just another mark. She may be a sad character, unable to see past her need for external validation, someone toward whom I feel pity, but she has a trail of people that she has also used and discarded along the way.
100 %.
Katie--please don't feel guilt for helping any person have shelter. All people deserve that. I work with a few people who have intellectual disabilities and sexual offenses in their past, and at least one of them has been homeless in the past. Also, I find the way our society thinks about pedophiles to be inconsistent with what we think we know about the science. People generally don't choose what they're attracted to sexually, and I don't think pedophiles do either. I can't imagine having to live with myself and being preferentially (and maybe exclusively) attracted to children--that must be awful. That they are a danger to our communities is true, but they are also deserving of some empathy.
People may not choose what they are sexually attracted to, but they DO have a choice whether or not to act on those attractions. The person from this story chose to rape a child. There is a big difference between a non-offending paedophile and someone who would inflict that kind of trauma on a child. I have sympathy for the former, the later can go freeze in the snow for all I care.
I am sorry. No. Being attracted to children is one thing - we cannot help our attractions. Abusing children is a whole other thing.
Yes. The attempts by psychologists and philosophers (Kinsey, Foucault, and a host of others) to say the only harm is from uptight moralists is infuriating.
I hope it is OK here to make a shameless plug for an author who deals with sexual trauma in amazing ways---she is one helluva writer. True Crime fans will also be entranced: Paula McClain's When The Stars Go Dark.
I just finished it and it gutted me. If I ruled the world, I would have an extensive reading list for all of the apologists who think childhood sexual trauma is inconsequential. Alas, I don't. Which I why I thank whatever omnipotent power reigns for dogs, horses, and booze.
I think you may be straw-manning my point. I never said or implied that the harm suffered by victims of sexual trauma was inconsequential. In addition to working with some individuals who have perpetrated these offenses, I work with more who have been victims of sexual and physical abuse. The harm is real. My points were:
(1) that having committed a sexual offense at some point in the past should not remove our desire or obligation to treat all people humanely. This is of course an ethical stance so others may not necessarily agree, but I think an ethical framework should have consistently applied principles. I don't understand the rationale that implies that these offenders are less deserving of humane treatment than other kinds of offenders. Remember that the restrictions imposed by being on a sexual offender registry are not in lieu of punishment for the offense, but rather applied after and continue for the remainder of the person's life in most cases.
(2) many people on sexual offender registries are not at all predatory and do not pose continuing risk. As I mentioned in my original post, I work with people who have intellectual and/or developmental disabilities, and this population is overrepresented among sexual offenders. Although a few of these individuals' offenses were predatory in nature and they continue to pose risk, that's not the case for most. For many, the concept of 'counterfeit deviance' appears to apply--namely, that their offense likely would not have occurred had more socially appropriate avenues for sexual expression been available to them. The first group--the more predatory--typically have a significant preference for children or forced sex, whereas the latter do not. The latter group usually fails to discriminate and finds anything sexual or nudity-based arousing. (You can actually see this with results from penile plethysmographs, where the first group has easily identified preferences for children, but the latter group is aroused more or less equally by the various stimuli.) For these individuals, at least, the presence of a disability creates some gray area regarding moral culpability and raises the question
of immoral/excessive punishment.
(3) We (our society) seems to view sexual offenders quite differently than we do other kinds of violent crime. For example, sentences for rape are often much longer than sentences for other assaults that led to injury or even death. I find that really odd, and suspect it has something to do with our Puritanical heritage.
Katy may have been able to find details regarding this person's offense that gave a better indication that he was more predatory and therefore presumably more of a continuing threat (if so, I don't think she elaborated). But you can't tell that by simply finding that someone is on a state's sexual offender registry.
I'm not sure if you are responding to me in particular or earlier comments Ithreads make that difficult to know), but I'll respond just in case. I almost didn't read when you used a more inflammatory phrase like strawman. I'd already broken one rule (don't comment on the internet), and now I'm about to break another (seriously--fight on the internet or walk the dogs--I almost never do the former). BUT I'm glad I did read because what I read was a really thoughtful, terribly informed, and smart post. Thank you for that. Does it make me less of a strawmanner (how do I gender this? :) ) in that I entirely agree with you?
The lack of nuance is sexual offender registries is staggering. It can ruiin someone's life in very underserving ways. You didn't talk about the institutional trend to diminish the impact of sexual trauma on children from Freud through Kinsey to Foucault to Rubin to Butler et. al. (I'm just including the famous ones here). That is what I'm referring to--not the work you do with the individuals (treat compassionately while trying to prevent harm). That is unbelievably noble of you (not kidding--wow). I thank you for taking the time to share your experiences in such a thoughtful way.
And good podcasts :)
I don't disagree. My point about the distress they must experience about who they are--and some real penalties if they seek help--likely result in some mental health conditions that impact their behavior. If it were murder instead of pedophilia, we'd see these mental health impacts as to some degree lessening their moral culpability and have a more sympathetic view of that person. And I think the distinction is logically inconsistent and weird.
Yup won't be losing sleep of pedophiles freezing to death in the cold or whatever.
Are you really saying you think people who've behaved in that way (at what may have been a single point in their life) are undeserving of assistance for shelter?
Nope. Just that I feel comfortable if Katie hadnt given him money for the night.
I think the laws governing where people on the sec offender registries can live - they are overly onerous
They can be very onerous, but I appreciate the impulse. There really are a lot of sex offenders who pose little risk of re-offending (here in NY, those are considered Level 1), but they're still on the registry (though can petition a court to have them removed if they met certain criteria). I wish we'd put some effort into distinguishing between those who continue to pose risk and those that don't, but this group is certainly not a funding priority (and I'm not suggesting they should be).
And for clarification, I in no way think Katie was obligated to help someone who turns out to be a sex offender (and, tbh, if he's a current risk, his probation officer isn't doing his/her job). But I don't see any reason for her to feel guilt over helping him--in fact, I think she acted admirably and deserves kudos. So yay Katie!
Yeah no. Child rapists can go die.
I don’t know if they deserve empathy, but as a Christian I don’t think what they deserve is really the point. It’s good to show mercy, including to those who don’t deserve it. Katie shouldn’t be embarrassed.
Full disclosure, my thoughts on this did not keep me from laughing at some of the jokes.
And, by providing him shelter, she probably reduced his chance of re-offending. Desperate people have fewer concerns about going back to prison.
We used to call this type of person "Drama Queen" and they would eternally wear out group of friends after group of friends until they were like 30 and ran out of people to befriend but now with social media, there's an endless funnel of new 'friends'.
I feel mean because I really don't have much sympathy for Eliza.
Candace Owens: a younger, black Ann Coulter. Pretty simple. A carnival barker who mouths talking points.
I seriously think that if the Democratic National Committee offered her more money than whatever she gets from Daily Wire, she would jump back in a second.
I think that's an unfair characterization. I'm not saying I agree with her, but she posts interesting and insightful takes on issues largely outside the current zeitgeist.
https://eu.lubbockonline.com/story/opinion/columns/2018/07/30/coulter-trump-was-right-about-central-park-rapists/11201294007/
Pretty much the farthest thing from just "mouthing talking points".
Concise read on a fraught subject. I watched a 5 part video series on this from basically the same angle and this sums it up very well.
Ann Coulter tends to post pretty smart and interesting stuff on her substack (if oversalted at times). This may be a new thing (I knew her only as a firebrand until a year ago), but there is no comparison to Candace Owens who just fits her facts to her current favorite narrative.
To be fair. I recently listened to Coulter's Substack podcast and noticed she had considerably toned down the bombast.
(I didn't know she had a Substack. I tuned in only because I'm on the mailing list for her guest; as in "check out me being interviewed by Ann Coulter").
Coulter has been conspicuously silent during the culture wars of recent years. I guess transgender, DIE and CRT aren't in her wheelhouse like immigration is.
Not a fan of either woman really, but it is unfair to Coulter to put Candace on her level. Both are fiery but Coulter is way more thought out, and principled.
Not sure if this got yanked off the Wednesday Open Thread (looks like it) but I have to encourage all you POD people to listen to Andrew Sullivan's Feb 3rd The Dishcast podcast. Great guest with an amazing life story, but what made it extra real for me was the way Andrew and his guest explained how Trans Extremism is, intentionally or not, tied to eradicating Gayness / homosexuality. The example from Iran is eye-opening. And yet another discussion re: Wokeness generally, but some points were made in a new, deeper ways. Definitely worth a listen.
I had some hopes that given his new push for subscribers he'd add in comments, because it would have been interesting to discuss this one.
I agree. Can't understand why no comments...
Oh I think it's easy to understand why he doesn't want comments. There's plenty of people willing to drop a little money to spread a ton of vitriol. You don't have to go far in the Substack world to find some.
Yeah, I get that. It's just too bad. Reader comments, discussions, arguments, etc., are 50% of the value. To me, anyhow...
I listened to the free version, which helpfully cuts out right as the conversation shifts to the woke stuff. :(
I actually felt compelled to pay the $5 for a monthly premium just to hear the rest of the interview. Well worth it.
Just curious, what is it about Jesse that some of these women find threatening? What exactly have they said if anyone knows… This keeps coming up and I’ve seen it alluded to on twitter but with little detail. I find him almost laughably non-threatening in any context but certainly if not in person - you can’t even point to his height etc. To be fair I may have a very high bar for being around “rough” men. Most of my life has been spent in the company of rednecks, military guys, the building/manufacturing industry, and now Australians ;) I can’t get my mind around anyone getting a predatory or dangerous vibe from him and can only assume the accusations are manipulative. Anyone know what the absolute steelman best example of this is? I kinda feel bad for not at least looking into it but it just makes me laugh every time it comes up.
I'm the farthest thing from a men's rights activist or anything, but it seems like a lot of women assume a socially awkward man automatically must be sexually interested in them. That perception of interest is coded as creepy, and creepy becomes threatening. Combine that with Jesse's height which certainly can be intimidating, and that's all it really takes. Of course if you're extremely attractive none of this applies, but that type of privilege is strangely never discussed by progressives.
But also is Jesse even socially awkward? And these are pretty much all trans women who transitioned as adults. Well into adulthood. Which means they lived as men and had insights into how men think in a way women in general do not.
Jesse is socially awkward (I've been to a live show) but he probably comes off as even worse than he is on the internet
It may be a rarely spoken of form of privilege but it can also be a crushing burden for those of us afflicted…
I see what you did there :)
The beautiful people or men? or both?
The “pretty privilege”.
I don't think transwomen have any idea about how a hetero man engages with a woman. No hetero man is going to hit on a man presenting as a female, unless their is some kink involved.
The whole notion of autogynephelia is men who want to be attractive in the way that women are. This totally makes sense. Unfortunately, it just isn't achievable in most cases.
I agree with your point; it's counterintuitive because there's so much negative propaganda around male sexuality, but our sex drive is actually quite good at doing what it's supposed to do.
I think that even in the case where it is achievable, pheromones' derail the whole thing. Your eyes might be fooled, but your body isn't.
I thought AGP is attracted to one's self as a woman. And then wanting men to have sex with you as a woman. Cobfusibg
No, AGP is the fetish of being attracted to oneself as a woman and HSTS is wanting to be attractive to men. AGP are the transbians.
edited: yeah what you said on your other post I agree with
I did my grad school externship at an LGBT Center in 2916, so right before things got really crazy. So two clients were trans women, both were into guys. I remember one had a hard time with guys because she would date straight guys, who were worried they would be perceived as gay.
But I also think that trans women who are into guys, they were usually effeminate gay boys ore transition and were deeply mocked for how they presented themselves and their sexuality. I do not think they have that entitlement that other groups of trans women have
There's a certain logic in it; the same way one might assume that a person who appears to be ungroomed and possibly homeless is likely to ask you for money if they're walking towards you.
Of course, just because that underlying logic is there doesn't mean that it's always right, or even that it's a particularly accurate model in general.
But to be clear I think the accusers with Jessie (or most public figures, frankly) are more likely to have ulterior motives than to be acting in good faith.
Maybe he's so non-threatening that it seems suspicious and loops back around to being threatening?
This is genius! Bet that’s it.
His whole vibe is non-threatening! I completely agree.
Dude I was bored at work a few days ago abd was sort of looking into this. I think Katelyn Burns was the first person who mentioned Jesse like stalking her and making her uncomfortable. On the internet archive Jesse published some of their email exchanges and both he and Katelyn published some of their text exchanges
I think what happened was that they talked about some very private things in public. Which made Katelyn feel uncomfortable.
And I think that is what these women are talking abpiut. And I think they are all trans women.
Interesting… thanks!
LOL That's a hell of a way to be exonerated...
When they’re talking about that earlier Ep covering Jia and her human trafficking parents, I was remembering listening but had images of driving a covered wagon in the old west. I realized I was playing Red Dead Redemption while listening to that episode. A lot of my memories of podcasts are attached to where I was when listening: gaming, driving, housework, etc.
There was a months-long period during which I couldn't hear Andrew Yang's voice without being immediately transported to that day I cleaned out my garage.
I have that with a ton of podcasts, too! "I was walking on this street," "I was on a plane to x city," "I was folding laundry" Etc etc.
Whenever they mention the episode where Katie interviewed the woman who went through a Robin DiAngelo training, I flashback to when I was taping off my son's nursery for painting.
(It's a great episode, btw, I highly recommend it to any new primos! It's from the summer of 2020.)
Yes, for sure! I listen while I work in my art studio, and when I look at work that I've made, the affiliated podcast content just pops up in my brain.
We could avoid all the trouble caused by pedophiles, sex traffickers, and grifters claiming to have been trafficked if we could all just agree with my adolescent self that sex is gross and no one should do it. Actually my postmenopausal self is starting to agree with her.
I have been low key obsessed with men my whole life- I just love them! It's just bizarre how menopause has sort of turned that off like a switch. I still love looking at guys, and find my husband very attractive, but it's not like before. Weird.
That makes me a little sad. I'm about to hit menopause just as my kids are becoming adults. It would be nice to have a some time left with a sex drive now that my husband and I are about to have a lot of privacy.
Kris, fear not. I think I may be in perimenopause and I feel like I have snapped out of a spell I didn’t know I was under. Like Molly, my high wattage lust has been turned way down in the past year or so, and I am happily and securely married, with about 15 years together and I can’t tell you how great this new stage in life is. I feel like a kid again. All that was exciting and fun about life before puberty is back, my sense of self confidence that I had before finding a mate and establishing a secure relationship was a biological imperative, is back. Not gonna lie, I married someone 18 years older than me and the fact that we are both aging out of
our reproductive drive at the same time helps. Being in a secure relationship helps, it helps one build the security that even though you love your partner and you don’t want your partner to ever fall out of love with you, you know that you would be ok anyway. Plus, when men start naturally losing interest in sex they continue to show intimacy in older couple ways that turn out to be highly underrated in our cultural narratives. Being an older couple that enjoys each other and takes care of each other is literally the sweetest stage so far. The romance is there, without the desperation. Highly recommend getting old.
Tldr: losing interest in sex naturally opens the door for other motivating interests and other ways of building and expressing intimacy to emerge. It’s also easier to have male friends because you don’t want to f them and they don’t want to f you. The men that are in your orbit are ONLY there because they like you as a person. It’s like the world is filled with brothers and cousins again. Husbands get sweeter and also more emotionally open with age. It’s kind of awesome.
I love the last few sentences of your post- you said it perfectly!!
You can always take hormones- that has worked well for my friends.
And, for reference- it just means that I want to jump my husband once a week now- so things are not dire.
Funny how that circles around isn’t it :)
I used to live in the same apartment building as Eliza in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago. It sounds like that was after Wicker Park and definitely also not a gang-controlled neighborhood. 🙄
It was kind of wild listening to this episode, cuz I spent the first 30-ish years of my life in and around Chicago (Logan Square and Wicker Park so i know the area well) and especially in the goth and alt scenes. I'm sitting there with my wife listening to this (she was in that scene too) and we're kinda looking at each other like .... i feel like we may have encountered this person before lol
You probably did! at least we were able to avoid getting to know her 😂
As someone who lived in the Logan/Wicker area back in the day, how nice/rough were the neighborhoods? I moved into the area after it was clearly gentrified and have heard very different things about how the neighborhood was 15+ years ago.
I moved there in 2006. Wicker was long-gentrified at that point, but Logan Square was being hyped as the next up-and-coming neighborhood. And it certainly changed by the time I left in 2015. There are now big ass high rise condos on Milwaukee that didn't used to be there. When I first moved there there were bars and stuff to do, but it also felt really...desolate and empty. Maybe the wrong words to describe it, but it was pretty sparse compared to today. For whatever it's worth, my block was very much in the bustles of Logan Square, and it was well understood that the Latin Lovers "ran" our block. We were friendly with the neighbors so never had any issues, but there were certainly illicit activities going down on the block.
hey that's around when i moved to Logan Square! early 08, lived right around the corner from where they eventually built Revolution Brewing, near California and Milwaukee.
at the time, the theme for Logan Square was: "Come for the bars, stay because you got shot."
Oddly, from my buddy who still lives in the area, things seem to have come full circle as the crowds that form up along the gentrified Milwaukee Ave corridor tend to be uh .... a bit rowdy.
Ha, I lived at Talman and Milwaukee from 2010 - 2015 so I was there for all of that. Spent many, many nights at Cole's.
Ah right on! Cole's was literally a 3 minute walk from my apartment, we probably shared some oxygen at some point haha. I was more of a Neo man myself, til it closed in 2015, thus the goth scene connection
The unofficial tagline when I moved in (edit: to Logan Square, 2 blocks from the California blue line stop, Belden and California) in 2008 was, "come for the fun, stay because you got shot."
it was kinda rough lol. friend of mine lived on my block and had his ground-level apartment broken into several times. me and my roommate also had a ground-level apartment, but it only got broken into once. we were convinced our relatively quiet was due to the probably illegal chop-shop that was operated out of a garage nextdoor lol (ie, don't shit where you sleep)
Haha yeah I lived in Chicago around the time and was pretty heavily involved in the arts & music scene and even worked in the Gold Coast for a year at a 4am bar. I probably unwittingly crossed paths with her once or twice.
I’m a bit sad that you were as right as you were on this one, Katie. Not that I suspected you weren’t but this one had me in a bit of a funk the last few days. Ugly part of the world. I still kinda feel bad for Eliza, mental illness is ugly and I think she has the fame seeking variant and maybe twisted around a few things she was more complicit in to come up with the story she told. I agree with you that I don’t think she did it to make money, she just wanted to be special. That makes it sadder to me for some reason.
I just think Eliza is someone that has been trying to find her “niche” over the past couple decades. Groupie, model, actress, reality tv star, etc., but she finally found her fame in “being trafficked” and peddling ridiculous right wing conspiracies.
It seems that Elon is her new Gerard. Let’s see if she strong arms him into a relationship lol
Katie, he is a human and you recognized his humanity. You did good. Still a hero.