I recently came across a truly barf-worthy post, Why Church Teachings on Chastity are Undeniably True, by an Anthony Esolen at Crisis Magazine. Esolen was piqued by an essay on Shakespeare's The Tempest that suggested Miranda, the 15-year-old female protagonist of the play, was sexually controlled and manipulated by her father, the magician Prospero. Esolen preaches that Miranda is "worthy of wonder" because she's "virtuous", which, of course, means that she is a virgin ('hardly surprising, given that she's been marooned on a desert island since she was three with only her father and an unfortunate slave for company). Her virginity is about the only thing that gives her value. Even the bewitched Ferdinand will only marry her if she is "maid". Miranda was chattel, property. She was owned and controlled, body, mind, and soul, by her father until he could hand her off to be owned and controlled by a husband.
Esolen believes the offending essay targets those who "would uphold a view of sexual morality one or two steps higher than, 'I get to do what I want.'" He doesn't defend Miranda from men who get to do what they want with her. And how about a "view of sexual morality" that avoids manipulating the sexuality of an underage girl? Esolen fully approves of the fact that Prospero, with the self-serving goal of regaining his dukedom, manipulates Miranda and Ferdinand into falling in love. He defends the fact that Miranda lacks freedom in this union by saying that "freedom" in this case is "understood as self-will, autonomy, the spoiled teenager's 'I want it!'" He apparently considers "self-will" and "autonomy" to be thoroughly unethical qualities in a young woman, particularly where choosing a lifetime partner is concerned. Female autonomy is to be quashed and a woman feeling "I want it!" about a prospective relationship is intolerably impertinent. Such a woman is a shrew to be tamed, and such decisions may only be made by white, male patriarchs, in this case, Prospero. Prospero somehow escapes being labeled a "spoiled teenager", even though it is his will and his self-advancement that must always prevail.
This made me think of a relatively minor experience I had when I was 13 (and looked about 10) and was having an eye exam. I was happily reading letters off a screen when the optician suddenly turned off the projector so that the room was completely dark, pulled my head extremely tightly against his face, and began hyperventilating into my uncomfortably squashed left ear. I was completely perplexed. 'Still am (hair/ear fetish?). He said nothing; neither did I. Girls were supposed to be polite and compliant, so I was. I simply waited -- frozen, silent, anxious, and confused -- just as some of Larry Nassar's victims must have waited frozen, silent, anxious, and confused.
I had imbibed the teaching that all females ought, like Miranda, to be both femme fatales and exceedingly "virtuous", while we were also constantly suspected of simultaneously being sluts and overly prim "Mother Superiors" who were unsympathetic to men. We were also prone to being accused of being "spoiled teenagers" or wanting "autonomy" if, God forbid, we ever wanted some control over our relationships or what was done to us. This didn't leave me with a lot of tools for coping with the situation. Eventually, the ordeal came to an end. The optician turned on the projector again and asked me, in a hoarse voice, to continue reading. Once the exam was over, he was again the noble professional, above reproach. I was certain that if I said anything to anybody, I would have been disbelieved, considered unstable and malicious, suspected of "leading him on", or, worst of all, have been accused of projecting my own twisted desires onto him. So, of course, I didn't say anything to anybody, just as many of Nassar's victims didn't say anything to anybody.
What Esolen doesn't realize is that the subservience and passivity he wants to see in women is what makes us become victims, while also allowing men to become exploitative puppet masters like Prospero, who, ironically, was much that he praised Miranda for not being. If I had believed that it was I, me, and not my parents or God or someone like Esolen or some weird optician who owned my body and had the power to decide what would be done with it, I would have boldly put a stop to a situation that was making me very uncomfortable. I had the right to do that, even at 13. We all own ourselves.
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