I had never heard of this knob Tucker Max until a blamer inflicted him on me a couple of days ago. But I am not surprised that he exists. Like everyone else who has just turned 30, Tucker Max imagines he has accomplished something. So he has written a book to share his unique greatness with the world. The book consists of misogynist “tales” that, according to the Independent, “involve Tucker Max drinking until he vomits and Tucker Max’s sexual encounters.”
Tucker Max’s book is a New York Times bestseller. Nothing, it turns out, entertains an aspiring young date rapist like stories about some asshole getting shitfaced, hooking up with a girl he has nicknamed ‘ElephantLegs’, and in the morning smearing “whore” in shit on her toilet seat because she wouldn’t put out. The Independent reports that ‘fratire’ is the new literary sensation that’s sweeping the nation.
Like Barbie is to the 7-year-old American girl, Tucker Max is to the 22-year-old American male. Mattel calls it an ‘aspiration figure.’ Little girls aspire to anorexic pinkness. Little boys aspire to drunken assholery.
Giving oneself a reason to live through treating women like shit is hip again (to the point at which one blamer’s male boss can send out to his female staff hilarious comedy joke emails like this). Whew. That was close. The world had become dangerously ‘over-feminised’ during that brief but unsettling period in the 70’s when five or six deluded humorless radical bitch dykes had the balls to suggest that women are somewhat human.
Good grief, it’s been over a week since I got that e-mail, and it still makes me gag.
So, did you bring it up with him? Not that you’re at all required to, but those of us who rather turn the other cheek like stories of someone who doesn’t.
Erin, I’m so sorry. I don’t know your situation, but I’d like this story to end with, “So she and every other woman in that office calmly told him why this was inappropriate, then they all walked out of their jobs, sued the bastard, made a gazillion bucks which they used to found their own buisness to compete with his, were wildly successful, and lived happily every after, while the man in question was left to wallow in his own crapulence, and died bitter and alone.”
Or something like that.
Erin, I can’t imagine what must have gone through your mind when you received this. I am just about speechless with rage on your behalf (and on behalf of all women)!!! Did you give him a poke in the ass with a very sharp stick or what? If not, don’t despair….odds are another opportunity will present itself. In sisterhood.
The EEOC describes sexual harrassment as any behavior in the workplace that “creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment.” This clearly fits the bill. Report him and follow up. The EEOC has been fairly eviscerated in recent years and has lost most of its teeth, but simply filing a report and cc’ing your ne’er-do-well boss might elicit some changes in behavior if not attitude. But it looks like leaving, if at all possible, would be your best bet in revlieving yourself of the company of idiots.
On another note: this whole “Fratire” business? This is what happens when feminism is unilaterally conndemned by the myopic mainstream as a a laughable anachronism. Now male chauvinism is cute again. We must vanquish.
Once I put tacks on my boss’ chair. He never found out who did it. Of course this was before surveillance cameras were placed everywhere.
I hope your boss has a bad case of kidney stones someday.
And I had never heard of Tucker Max….he doesn’t have an upper lip. He, too, will have kidney stones. However, I hear that Mother Nature has been picking on the prostate these days. Either is fine, actually.
Is your boss married? Any daughters?
Seems like a pretty clear case of sexual harrassment.
Most of those jokes are pretty moldy oldy. Jeez… if I had known that a list of crappy barbershop jokes would make the NYTimes bestseller list, I would’ve done it years ago. My Pop is a barber and can recite those in his sleep.
;-)
-finn
The gorge rises as I read those. Stale, moldy, yes: like eating stale, moldy bread would be.
Is there a website for the outing of vile bosses, a la “HollabackNYC” or “Don’tDateHimGirl”? There ought to be.
My current response to anything offensive that is supposed to be funny is a completely deadpan “Wow, that’s fucking hilarious.” It’s fairly effective for making a point without engaging the offender in WHY it’s offensive. Because you know what? People making racist or sexist remarks know what they’re doing. You don’t have to explain it to them.
Really, almost as bad as the content is the self-congratulation that knobs attach to this shit. “Look at what a brave, subversive free-thinker I am for recycling lame stand-up schtick from sixty years ago–schtick that was just as lame then as it is now! Admire me as I strike a blow for freedom with my ‘women in the kitchen’ jokes! Three cheers for me!”
Feh.
“Women who can handle the truth”? I, apparently, can’t handle the truth.
I’m shaking my head in disgust.
Some male friend of mine sent that to me a while ago — and I don’t know what bothers me more: that men actually think this way, that men that might not think this way consciously still chuckle at this as their inner latent misogynism flexes it’s muscle, or that it is now OK that this kind of heinous crap is totally OK to say OUT LOUD let alone sent to people in huge email forwards, so that the ugliness is spread far and wide to as many people as can read at once.
As a fat girl, I loathe Tucker Max. Here’s why:
http://www.tuckermax.com/archives/entries/tucker_fucks_fat_girl_hilarity_ensues.phtml#620
It infuriates me that certain men — even those who consider themselves enlightened — believe that FAT women are worthy of less respect than patriarchally accepted attractive women. Hell, make that every woman that doesn’t live up to that standard for whatever reason.
It took me years of reading and talking to other smart fabulous women to really undo the thought that my worth was based on my appearance. Tucker Max and his ilk dig into that old wound. I can’t speak for all fat girls, but this attitude HURTS ME and triggers my self-destructive behaviors. I’ve been a fat girl who was fucked “accidentally” and was treated abominably afterwards. Those scars run deep.
My Mom actually used to send me the “man hater” version of these jokes all the time. Poor thing has been without cool feminist friends in Rednecksville, Missouri for too long. Weird how 60 years of patriarchal BS makes you bitter.
What is bizarre to me is that you don’t have to be a feminist to find those jokes lame.
I see the words “Knobs on Parade” and I get a huge smile on my face. Twisty, you’re wonderful. It’s a gift to hear from you.
Erin, I can’t believe you got that via an email. I am so sorry. Jackassishness doesn’t even begin to describe that man. In fact, the word insults the furry jackasses of the world. I hope you give him (gave him?) hell in your review.
Gah. What a way to start my day.
Erin, damn straight you should report that asshole boss of yours. You can’t let shit like that stand. Even if nothing comes of it, at least he’ll have some sort of complaint against him somewhere for when he pulls that shit again. And he probably will.
LauraBora, I made the mistake of clicking on your link and I’m so simultaneously angered and disgusted (”knob” is really far, far too kind a word) that I’m thinking only a bath of that prick’s blood (preferably released from his body with a battle-axe) is going to make me feel clean again.
Gah.
Interesting, I thought the neanderthals died out in the last ice age? Clearly, I was mistaken.
I hope the next thing I read about Tucker Max includes his unfortunate encounter with a meat tenderizer, rendering him sterile.
LauraBora, I am with you in your anger.
For the life of me, I’ll never understand why this is considered funny by certain life forms that are somewhere beneath whale crap at the bottom of the ocean, meaning no disrespect to the whale crap.
I’d rather have a rat with syphilis for a bed partner than Tucker Max, and I can’t think of anything cruel enough for suitable vengeance.
“I’d rather have a rat with syphilis for a bed partner than Tucker Max, and I can’t think of anything cruel enough for suitable vengeance.”
The only thing that keeps me going when I hear about or encounter men this vile is to think that karma will come around, and that they will lead sad, vapid, pointless lives that they will need to drown with progressively larger quantities of booze that will eventually rob them of everything. If this is demonstrably false, I don’t want to know about it.
What a tremendous boon is the technological age. Previously, the women thus sexually harrassed would have had no proof.
Hey, that’s not natural selection (small feet, kitchen sink), that’s Lamarckism.
See also: Dane Cook.
Oh I feel ill at just the thought of Tucker Max. He’s really quite unfortunately talentless and seems compelled to make up for this by spouting verbal crap. How very sad. And more than a little shameful. Erin, please confront your boss! And then tell all!
Ugh… I have read Tucker Max before, with all the fascination of watching a train wreck. The bizarre thing is, he seems to realize he’s dysfunctional… but since he’s getting money and attention for it, he just keeps going with it.
That list of jokes that Erin’s boss sent out is pretty awful, though I wonder if this bit wasn’t inadvertently insighful: “Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.”
oh my. Whenever I read shit like that Tucker person, I wonder what the females who participated in raising him are like, and I hope that he never reproduces. I also wonder what Miss Manners would make of something like that, and i suspect it wouldn’t be pretty.
What’s weird is the odd not-especially-misogynist joke thrown in there, like the one about finding a woman to support you and the other about women not being able to feel sexy with no hair and a giant gut.
I also wonder what Miss Manners would make of something like that, and i suspect it wouldn’t be pretty.
Miss Manners, for all her charmingly retro fussing, makes short work of men who whine about not being able to make nasty remarks at work.
LauraBora, you are beautiful. And Tucker Max is as unattractive as they come.
Erin, I worked for someone like that back in the 70s. This is the worst thing he did (and remember, there was no recourse then except to quit and work elsewhere):
He only hired attractive women or weird men (the weirdest was the guy who eventually ran away to join the circus. No kidding). One of my coworkers, Sue, was a devout Christian woman who was tall and slender and probably wore a DD size bra. She dressed elegantly but modestly (calf length skirts, high cut necklines, tailored clothing but never tight or clingy) and while it was evident she was a person of faith, she never pushed that at anyone (I liked Sue a lot; she was intelligent and got along well with everyone, even the circus guy). Sue was never, ever flirtatious; always professional and always low-key. Twelve of us worked in a big open office, so everyone could hear what anyone else said.
One day the boss came in with a Playboy magazine and opened the centerfold right in front of Sue’s face and said, “Look! She looks just like you! Breasts and all!” She turned fire engine red. All the rest of us were speechless and angry. It would have been bad to have done that to any of us, but it was sheer EVIL to have done that to Sue. Sue and I and one other coworker quit shortly after that.
I am amused by Tucker’s protestations against accusations of woman-hating in his FAQ.
“He only hired attractive women”
I’ve not only heard this from several women, I’ve been one. A few weeks after getting a job in a big box bookstore I was out drinking with my new co-workers and one man let it slip that my application had “gotten an X”, meaning the men had a system where attractive women’s applications got an X marked on their applications. Only then did I realize that every woman working there looked eerily similar: cute and on the short end of height with large breasts and long, dark hair.
I tried to ignore it as best I could but when one of the managers insisted there was a “rumor” going around about the two of us hooking up (preposterous and ew) I transferred.
Erin, I hope something good comes for you and your women coworkers out of this insulting awfulness. Knob indeed.
Thanks, everyone. The guy’s an ass, and though I’m in a white-collar office job, it’s in an old-boy’s industry, and stuff like this happens all the time. This one was particularly outrageous because there was nothing resembling a joke involved, and because it went out only to the women, and during the week when this guy was going to sit down with each of us and offer reviews of our performance that will be sent to Human Resources (and go down on our permanent records, natch). It took a boring annual HR exercise and added a little sinister misogyny to the mix, which I really could have done without.
When I sat down in my review, after we’d discussed the normal stuff, I told him very calmly and very firmly that I didn’t want to get these e-mails any more. He blustered and bloviated about it just being a joke, and how we “girls” (I’m in my early thirties and am the youngest woman by about 15 years) should feel comfortable to “come right back at him,” and how no one else had complained about it, so why was I taking it so seriously? I said that all of my previous attempts at sarcastic brushoffs hadn’t accomplished what I wanted to happen, and that what I wanted was for him to stop sending them to me. Using my best puppy training voice (also works on small children and, apparently, recalcitrant bosses), I told him that this e-mail in particular was not funny, that it was insulting, derogatory, absolutely unprofessional, and mean, and that I thought that it would be the best thing for our relationship as boss and employee for me not to have to even delete the garbage. I may also have mentioned that I printed out three or four of the previous “because women don’t like me, they’re all obviously defective” e-mails before deleting them.
I’ve been in this job for over three years now, and I’ve been banging my head against its knob-filled corporate culture for almost exactly that long. I don’t know (beyond simple economic reasons like rent-paying) why I stay, and this is the impetus I need to get out of there. I’ve got savings, and I’ve talked to my sig other, and once I’ve taken full advantage of glorious health insurance (stupid necessary things like maintenance meds, etc.), I’m offering my resignation, whether I have something lined up or not, and I’m bringing my folder of laffs to the exit interview.
He’s scared of me right now. And he really should be; the only thing that will make my remaining tenure difficult would be if he goes from being afraid to being angry. I’m 25 years younger than him and half his size, and he knows I’ve got him now, so there’s a part of me that worries about that. But, if anything happens, I’ll go straight to HR, and I’ll take him down now, instead of waiting.
Oh, and yes: he has a daughter. A teenager. And I’m sure she’s as sick of hearing his favorite line that “Anything a woman says can be boiled down to ‘feedmebuymeshowmetakemedome’” as I am.
My colleagues didn’t make it as easy as yours to document their crap, Erin. They just stuck printouts in our mailboxes so we couldn’t tell who it was from, although only faculty and female staff had the key to the mailroom. Wouldn’t it be interesting if all of you showed up to your evaluations with a printout of your email and an HR person.
Erin, just in case you need it later, be sure to save copies of everything, and write down some notes after each conversation with this guy. Put dates on everything and arrange it all chronologically in a nice organized folder — electronic, physical, or both. You may want to take action some day!
“I’m offering my resignation, whether I have something lined up or not, and I’m bringing my folder of laffs to the exit interview.”
Brava, Erin! I hope your exit interview is with this guy’s superior.
Good for you, Erin. Sorry you had to put up with that. Twenty years ago, we all had to put up with it. Oh, and we all had to pretend to like it. What fun. (Not really.)
I liked ’s review at The Huffington Post on another example of the new “frat lit”:
“Misogyny For Sale: The New ‘Frat-Lit’ Trend”, by Melissa Lafsky
I didn’t read the comments there, so I apologize in advance if you find further cause for inflammation among them.
All right, I screwed up my code. (It happens when I post after work. Sorry.)
I meant to say Opinionista’s review.
Strike back?
Yeah, the patriarchy was really on the ropes prior to the sending of that mass email.
Why oh why is there this fuck-ton of “edgy” “humor” about “women”? Like this fuck face, and Family Guy and every other thing I see? Why the fuck isn’t there any edgy humor about how the very concept of masculinity is a big fat lying lie. Now I dont mean everybody loves Raymond/Tim Allen or everything else that really gives a wink to the asshole guys, I mean getting nasty and raw and mean and dirty and funny cause its actually true stuff. Where the fuck it that. I’m an urban twenty something, evey piece of marketing on earth should be directed at my and kid free disposable income, so how there’s nothing for me out there. Fuck you free market, supply and demand my unamused hipster ass!
Some say guys like this get so very angry because they’ve somehow against all odds subliminally figured out that Mommy didn’t want them.
Not before they were born.
And not after.
Big-time. As Dirty Dick would say.
It would be better if they figured this out, had a good long cry about it, and got on with their lives, would it not?
“edgy humor about how the very concept of masculinity is a big fat lying lie.”
http://www.phemisaurus.blogspot.com/
LOL. The more I hear men squealing like pigs, the more I can smell the bacon frying.
pony,
dinosaurs eating heman makes me happy.
thanx
People actually buy book’s like tucker Max’s, how the ******* did he get on the Times best seller list, how could anyone stand the monotony, predictability, lack of imagination and complete ignorance the book promises on just reading about it. I’m profoundly shocked. The boy is doomed to unhappiness, but its difficult to pity someone for such obvious self-inflicted stupidity.
What a charmer:
http://www.tuckermax.com/archives/entries/the_tucker_max_female_rating_system.phtml
I suppose it is all our fault for having feminism. And reading stuff like that, I can’t imagine why we ever thought we needed it. According to his FAQ, he LOVES women! In CAPITALS! A bit like how Big Brother loved Winston Smith.
I know I shouldn’t descend to Tucker Max’s fetid, violent level, but can’t help hoping that just one among this parade of faceless women who apparently roll through his bed on an alarmingly regular basis has a little surprise up her, um, well - not her sleeve exactly, but: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9145415/
Can we volunteer Dickhead Maximus to be the live male test subject for that spiky thing?
What I like is the way that the dominant class portrays itself as the oppressed class. “Men strike back,” indeed.
Tucker Max is a caricature (not to mention an attention whore). And reading his stories is a little like watching a really bad accident. If you want to shut him down, ignore him. He’s just responding to the demand out there. Now THERE’S a problem worth addressing. Why is there a demand for stuff he writes? What to men (and alas, a lot of women) find so entertaining about his stories?
Pony, that phemisaurus site was brilliant. Thanks so much for sharing.
I love people who can photoshop. The joy they bring me justifies my monthly broadband bill.
Anybody know Erin, IRL? Is there a paypal solidarity support fund here?
Erin, if you leave, those e-mails might also be your ticket to an unemployment check. Consider filing and challenging any claim that you “left of own free will” on the basis of harassment. A (male) friend of mine did something similar when he was fired without cause - and won.
That said, it isn’t he hate, it’s the stupidity. The jokes are lame enough and even somewhat self-depricating - it was the context of their delivery that lacks a certain, um, sensitivity?
As for Tucker Max, SSDD. This kind of stuff has been around for ages and mostly relegated to pulp, but now it gets attention because boomerspawn are spewing it and because it is “naughty” or “revolutionary”. His readers will find out soon enough that it is also wholly or partly made up. Definitely for the unimaginative wanker. Max simply wrote down his fantasies and hoodwinked others into buying that they were his adventures. Unlike Henry Miller and Ernst Hemingway, he can’t even write.
On the topic of evil bosses: oh yeah. The last one I had–many years ago, thankfully–was this tiny little man who hired only strong, talented women to work for him. Then he would methodically break them down through criticism until he got them to cry, at which point he’d accuse them of being ‘hysterical’.
When he tried it on me, which happened about a day after I figured out what the pattern was, when I still didn’t know what I was going to do about it and was still simply reeling from the perfection of how fucking evil he was, I picked him up by the throat and forced his top half out of the second-story window and threatened to drop him. I wound up breaking his collarbone hauling him back in.
I worked for him for an additional year after that, and he was a complete lamb. I really enjoyed sneaking up behind him and standing there until he saw me and flinched or jumped–that damn game never got old.
Erin: I admire the hell out of your resolve and your professionalism, especially since I tend to be lacking in the latter quality, and I wish you all the best, as well as a much better environment in your immediate future!
I worked for my father last summer, and I had to tell him REPEATEDLY that the Victoria’s Secret (gak) wallpaper he had on his desktop was not appropriate in the workplace. The only thing that finally made him change it was mentioning that the Mormon sales manager (a man!) found it offensive too.
I adore my father, but he sure does love the patriarchy.
Same blogger as Phemisaurus:
http://sparklematrix.blogspot.com/
Work from home. I decided long ago all that bullshit was destroying my life. The whole assholery mess with male co-workers and bosses, the pretense at workplace equity, the office gossip mill, the screwing around followed by promotions. The enforced ‘volunteer’ work for which credit accrues to the employer, the whore that is journalism.
Walk away if you can. There is still some water carrying that goes on, but it’s possible to hone it to minimum.
Work from home. If you can. The benefits by far offset the drawbacks.
>>Some say guys like this get so very angry because they’ve somehow against all odds subliminally figured out that Mommy didn’t want them.>>
Never mind about mother not loving them - check out the bit where Ouzounian talks about his father:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/06/02/maddox_qa/index1.html
Ouzounian Sr’s weedy computer-programmer son has obviously decided that the only way he’ll ever convince his dad he’s a Real Man is by sitting in a nice centrally heated room spouting misogynistic garbage all over the internet. Which might explain why this kind of thing seems to be on the rise - if men all had to live up to the patriarchal ideal of “fought in Korea, drives a nuclear waste truck and runs a Montana cattle ranch in his spare time”, 98% of them would fall short. And they know that.
Well, I am new to IBTP but not to spurious statistics.
Well, I mean, the movie Fight Club?
I think Keely is right but may be overestimating the reliability of EEOC in its present form. A series of court decisions and commission appointments has made it harder and harder to get results from all these mechanisms (EEOC, NLRB for union organizing, et al.) and easier and easier for employers to stall, evade, and generally wear complainants down. I certainly agree that Erin should talk to a good anti-discrimination lawyer in her area–maybe talk to a couple and compare–but the idea that it’s a straightforward matter to sue and collect big bucks is, unfortunately, a myth (one that the whining oppressors themselves like to promote, in fact.) It was never that easy, and it’s much tougher now.
It’s worth remembering that all these protections and remedies, intended to redress at least some of the inequality between the powerful and the rest of us, were the products of direct action–strikes, sit-ins, boycotts, militant demonstrations etc. Once we made the mistake of believing we’d accomplished our goals (and the other side hypocritically assured us that we had) we relaxed the pressure, at which point all our gains began to be rolled back. Time to renew the movement–less focus on lobbying and legislation, I think, and more on raising hell.
Alright the blaming party is rocking!
Men are so wedded to masculinity, they have no wiggle room. They must constantly prove what Valerie Solanis demonstrated to be a falsehood.
Women have far more freedom in who we are and what we can think, because we do not have to conform.
CannibalFemme, wow, while I gotta say I can’t advocate violence, just hearing about you dangling your boss out a window gives me such a vicarious thrill imagining myself doing that to a particular boss I still rant about in my head. He wasn’t a really blatent case, but still the ex-wife jokes get one down after a while. I’ve recently decided to take up weightlifting and I have a feeling your story will help to keep me motivated!
“I had never heard of this knob” and, until now, I hadn’t either. ew!
Nonetheless, the workplace stories again make it abundantly clear; there’s more than one needs to be hung outside a window: dear CannibalFemme, may I offer you gifts? If that didn’t really happen, don’t tell me. Despite his improved behavior, did you regret not dropping him? Yeah, I know; a mess and annoying questions from the law. Oh well.
I haven’t been regularly employed in more than a decade, so my HR and legal expertise, somewhat sketchy to begin with, is woefully out of date. I therefore have no reliable basis to assess Erin’s chances if she should decide to strip, gut, and hang that creep. Perhaps Marx on “momentary interest” may be helpful.
And perhaps I’ve had enough caffeine for the day. IBTP.
No gifts necessary, Johnie; the act is a gift in and of itself. And I honestly can’t say I regret not dropping him, because I had a whole year of fun making him stutter and twitch. I hope he’s still doing it.
Also: I’ve been extremely fortunate in that of all the scumbag asshole men who’ve been granted the opportunity to benefit from my violent impulses, not one has ever chosen to press charges. Not a single one. I think it’s luck, although I like to imagine that it’s got something to do with getting beaten up by a *girl*.
And, Rootlesscosmo: I wonder, I really wonder, about the details of what it was that caused that ‘relaxation of pressure’–and yes, I know it wasn’t one thing, but rather many things. I’m keeping a lookout for the next wave, I guess. At any rate, on raising hell: I’m right there with you.
I’m so glad this website is here to remind me that, no, my antenna aren’t just sticking out a little too far, popular and political culture has whole-heartedly embraced the sort of frat-boy misogyny that used to turn my stomach even in college.
Erin, I feel for you. May your boss come back in his next life as a woman and be employed by a man just like him.
Tucker Max is just venal and hateful and a complete waste of space and “men” like him are one the big reasons I got fat. I got really tired of being hit on, stared at, ogled, objectified, pressured, insulted and abused by complete douchebags who didn’t get that I was a person and not some pretty, shiny toy. Reading Tucker Max’s enchanting rating system just brought back all my “happy” memories of being young and pretty with big boobs and dealing with creeps so piggish, obnoxious and foul I used to want to come home and scrape off my skin after being hit on by one of them. Thank goddess that my husband isn’t like that.
“Knobs on Parade.” This would make a great series!
(Twisty: Please?)
I wonder, I really wonder, about the details of what it was that caused that ‘relaxation of pressure’–and yes, I know it wasn’t one thing, but rather many things.
It’s an important question, and I don’t have a solid answer. I think the discussion of what happened (the “backlash” etc.) has generally focused on what the movement(s) did, or didn’t do, while neglecting the broader context, which was (very briefly) that the post-WW2 “golden age” of the economy–the full-employment, steady-growth, cheap-energy background against which progressive movements framed their demands for justice–came to an end over the course of the 70’s; by 1980 (Reagan, Thatcher, California’s Prop. 13) there’s a clear shift to a new, much harder policy, accompanied by a new, much more aggressively hostile tone. I have a vivid memory of Thatcher having a speech interrupted by the politest, most nicely-dressed little group of English teenagers objecting to her coziness with the apartheid regime; rather than trying to temporize, she turned confidently toward her audience and said “You see why I must fight these people,” and the audience cheered. The brazen hate speech of Tucker Max (et al.) suggests to me that we’re still living in the early 80’s; how we get back to 1966–and what we should do differently next time, if anything–I don’t know.
I think your best choice may be determined by what state you are in. Some states have have very effective proceedures still in place, in spite of the destruction done to EEOC by ReganBsuhBush and the asshattery congress.
The thing I miss the most about working for the state is the knock down drag out of teaching the supervisors up the chain of command just exactly what could happen to them if they pulled that kind of crap on their subordinate officers. In the early eighties it was quite the education for them.
IBTP for every stinking beat of the drum from pundits to parents, anti-feminists, and asshatts pounding out the beat of down, down, down on your knees womankind.
Never again.
CannibalFemme, I’m glad to hear that story was true. That was quite inspirational!
Erin, I thought the timing of that particular email was the truly insidious thing. It seems like he was daring someone to say something about it. I’m really impressed by how you are handling this. You had the ovaries to stand up and say something about it while still keeping it on a professional level. I have let things like this slide all too often in my life because I just didn’t know what to say. Thanks for the script!
ugh.
in a related vein, what’s your thought about the humor value of this?
CannibalFemme, I think I’m in love; that story made my day.
OMG…..I don’t know why I did it. I went on Tucker’s site. I followed the link. I read one of his stories on his first time at anal sex. He talked about how he USED TO BE horrible and mean. Used to be. I am so fucking sick right now. Why? Why do they hate us SO much? Why?
CannibalFemme, it’s a pity that my office building has only one floor, and that the windows don’t open. What a fantastic visual; I’ll be chuckling about your story for weeks, I know it.
FWIW he actually claimed that he IS horrible and mean, but that he was MORE horrible and mean, and now he is LESS.
I clicked on a few of the other links. There is a considerable quantity of self-deprecation going on, and I’m not entirely sure what it means.
I am sure it means an attempt to deflect legitimate anger at his brazen exploitation of evil for self-promotion.
The Salon.com interview with the Maddox writer asked this question and got this response:
“But why are women an easier target than a racial minority?
Well, that’s a really tough question but probably the difference is in the scope of the suffering. Talking about not being able to vote versus picking cotton in the field … I don’t know, it just seems the civil rights movement for blacks in this country was against a much stronger evil. Teasing women about not being able to vote is different than teasing a black person about the history of slavery. I’d have to think about it more. [Institutionalized racism] is a much more extreme version of discrimination; there’s a lot more pain and suffering associated with the civil rights movement. ”
Although this guy goes on and on about how the book is satire not meant to be taken literally and he’s just a regular guy who respects his girlfriend, the sad fact is that he miserably fails to understand the extent of suffering women have endured under the old patriarchy (and still under the present).
Women’s experiences are still dismissed out of hand no different than when Freud made his proposal about a molestation/rape linkage to women’s sufferings and the victorian outcry that made him change his tune to accomodate. Although laws have changed through drastic social movements and articulate protests, little in our culture has changed. People still are stuck in the victorian age.
I visited the Tucker site and was appalled and yet not surprised at the number of women posting there and not posting in hated rants.
I have found workplace harrassment not always so direct, but couched in more subtle ways such as the email that Erin suffered (which I have received from a dumb-ass male i know and found it equally horrid to read). It is difficult always to pin direct and consequential suffering on something so subtle as being excluded in casual chit-cats among ‘the boys’ that often include important company communications, speaking about women and conquests thereof among all women or just the male bonding that constantly takes place in the office among male superiors and male subordinates that always seems to land said subordinates in better positions, receiving more attention and training and basically more access to ride to the top.
Last I read somewhere, the EEOC has a backlog of cases spanning something like three years, meaning you often can’t even count of getting a response out of them until a long time after you make your complaint. By then, the matter is forgetten and gone or the complainant is.
I can relate to both Keeshound and LauraBora. I was once a nubile young woman who gained a lot of attention everywhere I went. It was confusing for me thanks to my shaming upbringing. It also was annoying as hell. Why do men, even fat, ugly men think they are entitled to oogle and flirt with women? Why do men think that women enjoy this attention? I used to often feel like prey in the forest, constantly having a million hungry eyes staring at me, wanting to touch me, to possess me, to humiliate or break me. Then after poverty, three kids and some mean depression, I got fat. That’s a whole new ballgame. Suddenly no one listens to you, you are invisible, many men and women alike will belittle, discount and oftentimes even be downright offensive. Where doors once opened (because men wanted something) they are shut in my face.
So how to win? Women can’t win. I am attempting to lose weight because I think now that I am older and wiser, I can handle the bullshit much better and of course, I realize that I am not 22 any longer and probably won’t engender so much attention anyway. I can’t afford to be discounted, my livliehood relies on people listening to me and granting me some credit, getting in through that door is very important. I have to feed myself because I’ll be damned if I am going to find a man to feed me.
A very sucky dichotomy indeed.
I agree wholeheartedly also with another poster’s assertion that possibly much of this mysoginy comes from a deep feeling of being cheated out of the ‘american dream’ so typified by the fifties nostalgia-feed. Young people today have no job security, don’t have any idea if they will ever own a home, even have one car much less two and live in a world that is scarier, more predatory on every front and resultingly more hostile. The picture of mom being at home with fresh-baked cookies is one of nostalgia, not reality, whether in the fities or today. Women of course, are the acceptable avenue for this misplaced rage as the popular media propaganda has successfully diverted the average American mind from where the real fault of its suffering lies.
Also, I blame the right wing, which gained power in the early eighties. From the highest office in the country, ridiculing and blaming women became acceptable again. Reagan gave a new life to that old tired, irrational bull of classism, racism and women hating and let it out in the open to run wild. The left, taken by surprise still hasn’t come out of hiding for fear of being trampled.
And might i close with saying that many on the left are perfectly fine with sacrificing women in order to gain a little upper hand politically. They play with fire and they are soon to get seriously burned.
GRRRRRRRR. I thought “chick-lit” was bad.
acm,
I clicked your link. What is there to say. To be considered a good sport we are now required to be amused by a man brutalizing his wife. And isn’t it interesting that she provides someone for him to be better off than. Those “jokes” and this onion article could come in handy for the very young women who haven’t yet developed an asshat detector. She could hand a potential friend a copy of this crap and watch to see if he smiles while reading it. I think that only sociopaths in training could find it amusing.
KTal….great post. I couldn’t read Maddox after seeing his smirk. I abide by my grandmother’s advice…’don’t pay them any attention. that kills ‘em.’
Skinny, fat, tall, short, homemaker, engineer….it doesn’t make any difference what a woman does, it is ALWAYS wrong. That statement set me free once upon a time. If what we are and what we do is wrong in their eyes…then let’s be and do what makes us happy.
I enjoy kicking ass….figuratively speaking….only cuz my ‘peaceful’ friends won’t let me pick up a 2 x 4 to get their attention.
blame blame blame.
It always amazes me when those creatures with the small brains try to strike back against social evolution. Don’t they realise there are some things bigger than they are?
KTal, as has already been said, excellent post. Helped lead to a kind of epiphanization for me about what kind of “scapegoating” (a là “being cheated out of the ‘american dream’”) we’re up against now (being that racism, etc., are so non de rigeur now).
And mel, my empathy knows no bounds. I’ve been in a deep funk after unfortunately deciding to peruse Tucker Max’s site some more as well, including the anal sex episode you mentioned and his relationship with Ms. Northeast-State beauty pageant winner (no more hits to *his* site to confirm said state), and thus even more realizing how mainstream this gender hatred is now.
Plus just recently surfing past this indicator of what kind of testosterone poisoning we’re really up against (is there any
Dear Erin, I know the corporate world can be soul-destroying, but for my own selfish reasons I hope you don’t quit. We need fearless warriors like you on the front lines to fight our battles.
I work in the mining industry - an industry that is 90% male. I have been in this industry for about 15 years, and the number of women never changes. My worst moment was attending a formal dinner where the guest list included 98 men and 2 women (I never did see the other woman). In the middle of discussing copper prices with the man beside me, a man seated across from me said, in a loud voice “We don’t care about copper prices, we all want to know who you are leaving here with tonight”. I turned bright red, so then he had to add “Ahhh, look, we’ve embarrassed her!” I told him that I wanted him to change the tone of the conversation, at which point he kept on, at which point I said I wanted him to change the tone of the conversation. At which point the table of 7 men became quiet, there was a long ugly pause, with me, of course, looking like the heavy.
Women need to be in positions of influence not only in political life, but in corporate life to create social change. And you have already started that process by taking on your boss. I’ll miss you if you go!
–continuation of my dis-HTMLized former post:
Re: the kind of testosterone poisoning we’re really up against (and is there any hope for my daughter’s future? — and, actually, any link to phytoestrogens/testosterone that is evidenced by this kind of insanity?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKvztQBlraQ&mode=related&search=
I’ve come to the conclusion (not a new one, but every one comes to it in her own time) that men act like this because they can. Tucker Maxes and mysoginist bosses do what they do because they know there will rarely, if ever, be any consequences — there will always be at least one woman who thinks that it’s better to be with an ass like that than to be alone. Heck, there’s probably more than one woman, so there can be an unseemly competition for that scarce resource: the single man.
Women will never, ever be free of this bullshit until we are willing to either hold out for better, or opt out entirely.
Wow, diggingdeeper, that took guts. I’ve been in similar situations at dinners or in meetings, although my profession is not so totally skewed to absence of women, and it is often easier to sit and stew or try to laugh it off than to speak up firmly, with dignity, and deal with the absence of support. I stuck out some pretty rough professional hazing, but it did have consequences to my mental and physical health, so sometimes I wonder if it would have been better to pull up stakes and move on.
Erin,
Well done for printing those emails and letting him know that you’ve done so. Make sure you’ve printed them with all their headers so there’s no mistaking he did it (although you seem like a smart cookie so I’m sure you’ve done just that).
Based on my own experiences in a similar situation, I wouldn’t pin too many hopes on the exit interview. In all likelihood, they won’t care at all. They will probably have a don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-in-the-ass attitude about anything you bring up at that point.
I’m for the above posters who’ve suggested you stay, and fight the good fight. I’m also for the person who put tacks in her boss’s chair.
Covert operations I say! Think of all the things you could do to this guy on the sly. Things he could never proove. Spray adhesive mysteriously placed on his phone. Post It Notes with clever things surreptitiously stuck to his back. Crickets from the pet store let loose in his desk drawers.
Ah, the catharsis!
It took my boss days to find out his office reeked of the dead because someone had taped a hot dog under his desk, behind the drawer. That was so fun to watch.
Oh sure, tacks on the seat and similar acts are fun. Sure. On your way out the door. I think Erin Enterprises sounds great. I think the term small business was invented for women.
Whatever it is you do, you can be your own business at it. Contact the small businesses association and community college in your area. They will have libraries and courses to access on how to market, make a business plan, do your own books, incorporate or not.
I work from home. The only strictures on me are that I must have one hanger full of presentable clothing and polished shoes to wear into the offices if I am called. It happens about six times a year; and that I make business calls during the day. Other than that, I can work if and when I choose. No-one cares how I get it done, as long as I get it done on deadline.
I wear what I want, eat when i want, work when I want, run out to do errands, call my private research team (several librarians whose good graces I have cultivated,) have my pay deposited into my account directly, and deduct every damn breath I take.
Tonight, I will be meeting some others in my field for dinner. We each get own cheque. We will talk about work briefly, compare notes, check up on who is doing what. It will be completely deductible.
Tomorrow, Sunday, I have decided to work so I can wander around a botanical garden on Monday, the free admission day.
I remember people like these guys. I knew a number of them in college. I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know that they are desperately, desperately afraid of women. I could explain but it’s sort of a complicated thing. A quick sum up is: The idea that women might judge or evaluate them terrifies the hell out of them. On some unconscious level, they must believe that women are inhumanly powerful because it’s hard to explain the level of anxiety they have otherwise. They are constantly beating back that nightmare with this pathological need to dehumanize women. Everything they do is about that–the slurs, the humor, the drinking, the promiscuity. If a woman is nothing and no one, the fact she might have a thought about you is impossible. But of course they are aware that women do have thoughts, or they would not be so terrorized. The reason they are often drunk and usually seem on the verge of losing their minds is because being so psychologically fragmented and afraid is actually a lot of work.
That’s the oddest thing at the root of this bit of the patriarchy–the intense terror of women that fuels it. The patriarchy has a lot of dimensions. I’m not saying that fear of women is the whole reason for it–just that explains a lot about this aspect.
This reminds me of and incident with a job I tried to get once when I was younger. I was trying to get a job as tour guide. Guide trainees had to go out with a tour group on five different buses. It was an overnight trip. That night the old and new tour guides went to the bar and had some drinks. We all had nice chit chat for a few hours I talked to one guy about travelling as both he and I had lived in London. Then it was time to go to sleep he walked with me back to a room I was sharing with another girl tour guide. At the door he suddenly thought I was going to invite him in,(and not just invite him in as he made plain. I did not even invite him to walk with me. I, being the prude, was quite shocked and taken aback. I simply said no and closed the door on his face.
Next, day we got on our buses, I was on the bus with the head tour guides husband as my trainer, suddenly she, mid day took me off the bus. Why? Because that pig had said to all and sundry that I slept with him. She obviously thought I could not be trusted around her husband. One guy that did not believe this sad rumour, looked really em brassed, as I was put on his bus. Of course no one told me out right what the guy was saying, but I guessed when we got back later to the depot and the head tour guide said, “you three have done really well†when there were four of us standing there, and she was not looking at me. It still makes me sick and angry when I think of it. I absolutely can not stomach the particularly disgusting American variety of patriarchy which requires women to look like a sexbot and at the same time punishes them for not being virginal. It is not such a big deal but at the time I was already depressed and it really sent me in to a deep depression to the point where I could not go out and look for a job. Great that I am older and wiser, and not so sweet. Now maybe I would rip his face off.
I am wondering why young women are not being taught better how to deal with all this crap that is being thrown at them. So many times, women’s stories are about incidents of mistreatment and harrasment at school and work, and that they did not know how to speak out or are convinced it was thier own fault anyway (I’m not talking about physical assaults or serious physical danger here).
It’s then years later when they work out what’s going on. Isn’t anybody explaining all this stuff to their daughters, or is the relentless force of patriachal lies beaming into peopl’s homes all too much to counter ?
Against my better judgment, I went to Tucker Max’s website and read a lot of the content. Man, is that guy one sorry sack of shit. All his “adventures” end up with him shitting (literally) all over himself, pissing himself, or vomiting. He’s lost a number of jobs and is basically unemployable. He blacks out and passes out from drinking regularly, gets kicked out of every place he goes and is told never to return, etc. Yes, he’s absolutely horrible to women, but he’s also a raging asshole to his own gender as well. I read enough of him to glimpse the pathetic self-hatred behind his misogyny. He says that he’s living his life the way he wants, exactly as he wants, but his self-deception is obvious to anyone who reads more than three of his stories. He’s not free and he’s certainly not doing what he wants. He’s a slave to his alcoholism and his inability to act like a human being when he starts drinking. He puts in plently of mea culpas about what an asshole he is as if to suggest how unrepentant he is, but it seems to me that his self-awareness about how horrible he really is and the knowledge of the crap he’s pulled is what keeps him drinking, and drinking and drinking.
I also read the defense of his ouevre of work on The Huffington Post in which he claims that he’s not a misogynist; his work is merely the reassertion of a masculinity long suppressed by feminism. Having read content on his website prior to reading his defense of it, I had to ask myself who he thinks he’s kidding. How is shitting all over yourself in public at the Embassy Suites Hotel asserting your manliness? Babies and toddlers shit themselves in public and regularly vomit on themselves and other people, not healty adult men. Does he honestly believe that alcoholism and being unemployable are manly virtues? What does he think is particularly masculine about it? As I pointed out earlier, he asserts again and again that he does what he wants to do, consequences be damned, but if that’s true, why would he go to all the trouble to post an elaborate defense of himself and his conduct? If he wants to assert his manliness, fine, but he should then act like a man and not a child, or at least examine why he equates wantonly self-destructive behavior with masculinity.
Because I was curious, I also went to Amazon.com and read the reviews of his book, the vast majority of which were positive. Despite the positive reviews, about 50% of the reviewers said that while they enjoyed the book, they found him reprehensible and were glad they weren’t him. The scariest reviews were from readers who look up to Tuckerk Max as some sort of role model and want to emulate him, and the readers who expressed sentiments along those lines seemed a little dim-witted to me, which makes sense since they’re oblivious to the fact that the person they want to emulate is a complete mess and deeply unhappy. Sorry Tucker Max fans. Happy well-adjusted people just plain don’t act like that.
A lot of the amazon.com readers said his stories seem exagerrated and just don’t quite ring true. While I certainly agree with that, I believe his whole “look at clever, smart, irresistible and hilarious and how great my crazy life is” rings false.
Applying logic to the ravings of the mentally ill (alcoholism is a mental illness) is quite futile.
This dude is riding the “Mel Express” and I’m licking my chops for the karma-gram that is surely in the works.
Schadenfruede is a beautiful thing.
I’d also like to thank whomever posted this Emma Goldman gem a bit ago:
“Her development, her freedom, her independence, must come from and through herself. First, by asserting herself as a personality, and not as a sex commodity. Second, by refusing the right of anyone over her body; by refusing to bear children, unless she wants them, by refusing to be a servant to God, the State, society, the husband, the family, etc., by making her life simpler, but deeper and richer. That is, by trying to learn the meaning and substance of life in all its complexities; by freeing herself from the fear of public opinion and public condemnation.â€
This is a quite a process with many “twists” and turns. Thankfully, I was able to at least set myself on the path at a young age with a sense of quest. Thank gods for my ability to read. And sometimes we find our “center” by knowing our “edges”.
And thanks, Twisty, for a fab forum. Not to mention that latest Rotel pic. Much as I love your signature pic, this is the one that should really be the header, imo.
Priceless on so many levels.
ozma:
“That’s the oddest thing at the root of this bit of the patriarchy–the intense terror of women that fuels it. The patriarchy has a lot of dimensions. I’m not saying that fear of women is the whole reason for it–just that explains a lot about this aspect.”
It is precisely the whole reason for it.
Justtesting
Everyone has to come to it themselves. This, like anything else cannot be taught. it must be learned.
It’s interesting reading how others try to figure this out.
Like:
“A quick sum up is: The idea that women might judge or evaluate them terrifies the hell out of them.” - ozma
“I read enough of him to glimpse the pathetic self-hatred behind his misogyny.” - Keeshond
—
I have no doubt that he turned his hatred of self into hatred of women.
While I agree with that - part of the thing about the Tucker guy that is so disturbing is he and men like him are able to capitalize on their misogyny. Because it is so acceptable and/or desirable for so many people.
And the other thing about it is - it seems to me that the Tucker guy (and men like him) want women to hate them (and perhaps all men). That’s what I end up thinking. Why do they want women to hate them? I guess so that he is not alone in his hate. :shrug:
And the women on the blog that someone mentioned - who go along with all this. I don’t get them at all. More self-hate, I guess. :(
My exboyfriend started out like TuckerMax.
He was ‘proud of being an asshole,’ told girls they were ugly if they made him mad, talked about ‘fat girls’ in disgust, drank excessively and picked up excessively drunk girls. And he had a big thing about making sure he was manly as all hell. What I’m trying to say is that TuckerMax could’ve practically given birth to him.
Anyway, my exboyfriend ended up raping me. Not only that, he ended up being a serial rapist.
I don’t expect anything less from men like this. People usually call them misogynists, but they much, much more than that. They’re sociopaths who lack feelings and cannot empathize with human emotion and therefore have no conscience. Misogyny and sociopathy isn’t a good combination. I’m pretty sure that it gives you a ~80% chance of being a rapist or wifebeater.
So I don’t think I’m jumping the gun or being hysterical when I say that I’m nearly positive that TuckerMax is a rapist.
Meret — In partial answer to your question, perhaps because if women hate them, then they are have separated and distinguished themselves even more from Things Female. It is desirable according to the Patriarchy for a man to be as unlike women as possible.
OTOH if women generally like a man, it must follow that women’s values are to some degree his values, and that he is, as a consequence, less fully masculine, more like a woman, and that is the worst thing a man can be, according to the patriarchy.
Justtesting: When I read Pony’s “answer to you I just HAD to jump in to refute. Children of color are taught about racism and ways to deal with it from earliest childhood on. Girls are not even warned as to what to expect, much less how to deal. It comes as a complete surprise. The misogyny directed as us and ways to deal with it are also something that can and *should* be taught to girls throughout childhood. Of course, all the preparation in the world cannot prepare one for ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING that might be thrown one’s way, be it by way of misogyny *or* racism, but at the very least, being prepared for it gives the girl child, and later the woman, the comfort and security of knowing that the adults in their lives at least cared enough to *try* to prepare them for it and that those adults do not approve of the behavior or support those who engage in it.
Hmm interesting comment. People of colour probably know that the ‘ism’ is coming from others. I doubt children of colour face racism against their own race, from within their family that is not of mixed race.
What does it do to girl children to tell them to be wary of and possibly resent and hate men?
I just don’t think you can draw too much of an analogy there Branjor.
Hi. First time poster long time lurker. I was so moved by Branjor’s post I had to chime in (but sans ellipses, of course.)
Branjor, Pony may not agree with your analogy, but that aside, I think you make a fabulous point. We should be teaching our daughters this. I have a 12 year old daughter I would love to teach how to deal with these things. What do you suggest? Anyone?
I have spent time talking to her about certain injustices and iniquities, but I hadn’t before considered talking about behaviors and how to deal with them.
I should add that i think I would rather take a proactive approach, and try to teach against isms of all kinds. If most parents are not already doing that, most schools are. Why doesn’t it get through? I think the answer partly lies with capitalism, which may be just another word for patriarchy. It is my understanding that the major media conglomerates which publish children’s books and magazines, cartoons and tv programs aimed at kids, are also heavily invested in pornography. And as I keep yelling this week, one of the oft cited online encylopedias ncreasingly consulted and cited by the general public was founded on money from it’s owner pushing porn.
Don’t cite Wikipedia, my friends.
wildandfree,
I’m no feminist scholar, nor do I play one on TV. This is all from personal observation focusing on one example and things floating around in my head. And it’s not exactly coherent, but I hope that other posters could help me out on this train of thought?
At twelve some patriarchal attitudes are already in place, I think. Like ‘if a boy teases you, it’s because he likes you.’ I think few girls ever hear ‘a boy is teasing you because he’s a lousy jerk!’
An attitude that I feel is especially prevalent in schooling years is ‘boys will be boys,’ which is used to excuse any rough behavior, teasing, and harassment. When the generation gets older, it’s a phrase used to defend rapists for God’s sake. I think teaching young girls to stand up for people who are down when we have greater ability to protect them would help. I remember when I was a little girl, boys would pull on long hair until it hurt and snap bra straps and whatnot and no other girls (or teachers, even!) helped them out. If girls were taught to call out boys for obnoxious, harassing behavior, I think it could possibly help against victim blaming in a way, because they would be taught to focus on the person hurting someone, not the person being hurt. It would mean that boys aren’t just being boys, they’re doing something WRONG.
Sorry, that was kind of a big rambly mess. How we could instill feminist values in girls something I’ve been thinking about lately and I’m still trying to pull it together into an actual coherent thought.
But I do agree that we must teach girls how to deal with these things. Waking up one day being fourteen and all of a sudden realizing that 40 year old men have been catcalling you for the past year and being sure there’s nothing you can do to stop them is not fun. Realizing in high school that your male colleaugues make rape jokes all the damn time and knowing all the names you’ll be called if you call them out on it is pretty shitty, too. I wish someone had told me what to do, or how to at least handle my own inner struggles against the patriarchy (like body image).
Howcome racism is generally recognized as being a bad thing, while sexism is not?
Oh, right. That’s why.
It could help if mother’s taught their boys some things too. The men out there who dont agree with the kind of behaviour I described could say something. Silence is as good as agreement. The boy bonding culture makes it all possible.
As for my mother, a few years after this incident that I did not tell her about at the time received an advert in the mail from them, (they had my name on file I guess) She told me that she had some mail for me from them and then I told her the story. SHe wrote them an angry letter saying she would never ever go on one of their tours or recommend it to friends due to the lousy despicable way her daughter was treated. ANd knowing my family this grudge will last a couple generations …at least. Maybe if I was dumber, I would not have realised what had happened. I only deduced it from everyone’s behaviour. As it was I was taken by surprise that talking to someone would make them think that I was, as we say here– gaging for it. Or, that if I had choosen to sleep him YUK… that that would be anyone’s business but mine and his. But obviously that guy could have been a good mate of this TuckerMAx character, an older brother perhaps? Beside which American holier than thou culture was running wild in that tour company. Shortly after that incident, I move to Sweden.
http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/magazine/la-tm-gonewild32aug06,0,5620406.story?page=1&track=mostviewed-homepage
Roget’s doesn’t have enough synonyms for vile to adequately describe this waste of skin.
Dlunch, I’ve had remarkably similar incidents involving delusional males who wouldn’t let a little thing like me refusing their advances deter them from dragging my name through the mud. In one particularly nasty case, a married co-worker regaled people with graphic details of our completely fictitious trysts. Not only would I never be intimate with a married man, but the thought of being with this one, even if he were single, was repulsive. This went on for months until a female co-worker finally mustered up the nerve to ask if it was true. I had no inkling of it because, funnily enough, the co-workers who had no qualms about discussing my putative sexual behavior among themselves felt it was inappropriate to raise the issue with me directly. Needless to say, I was appalled and humiliatated. I confronted the lout directly and consulted HR. They told me since it was a rumor situation that I needed to obtain affadavits from people he’d made the statements to. In other words, forget it.
What’s even more disheartening is that this guy did this all the time and the fake stories would get back to his wife, who believed them. Like your tourguide wife, she would take it out on the hapless woman by making threating phone calls etc. She even went as far as to throw a drink at a woman at a holiday party. I really felt sorry for her. Obviously, she found it more comforting to think that her husband was cheating on her with multip