Virgins, Wives and Cattle. The real reason why Pat Buchanan doesn’t mind Trump’s abuses

1.

The religious right is not deserting Trump in droves, even after a tape surfaced where he is bragging about his abusive sexual exploits.

On the contrary, it appears that the likes of Pat Buchanan are dismissing the content of the tape as nontoxic, ‘macho talk’. The point is that from their position they are absolutely correct — Trump’s attitude towards women is in fact consistent with the society of Bible-thumping conservatives.

If you are surprised, you misunderstand what the religious right is about.

2.

Modern world’s sensibilities, by and large, are making steady progress toward a model where your gender, your tribe, your sexual choices, do not matter to define your role in society.

And nothing is more alarming for religious conservatives.

The holy pages they are thumping on Sundays, describe a tribal society where livestock and virgins are the subject of conquest and trade. Why would anyone be surprised if the perspective of women and cattle is of marginal importance?

Granted, the Bible is long and occasionally obscure; it’s not difficult to pick passages here and there and offer them as proof of palatability for 21st Century sensibilities. This helps keeping their discourse somewhat mainstream.

But, if anything, one would have to be surprised about this modern cherry-picking, rather than by the attitude actually consistent with the evident overall spirit of their Book.

Outside this cherry-picking, the society in the Bible is frankly one where men do whatever pleases them to women, without giving any consideration to women’s opinion on the matter. It’s a society where every time some form of “women’s rights” is invoked, it’s intended as the protection of someone’s property — typically the protected owner is the father before marriage, and the husband after marriage.

It’s embarrassingly significant that the only argument some of these religious folks seem to find convincing is stuff like What if it was your wife or daughter? As a father and husband, I can’t accept that.

Well, I guess they are right, if you are following the book that states: You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.

But if you are a half-decently modern human being, it shouldn’t really matter if it you are a father or a husband, and you shouldn’t need to imagine your daughter or wife in the role of the victim, in order to find abuse repellant in itself.

If fact, you should not make any distinction between sexual and non-sexual abuse, or between male or female human beings. Abuse is simply bad because the point of view of another conscious-being matters — that’s it.

If you are saying that your personal fun is to stick fingers in the nostrils of very big male-bodybuilders, and if you think that’s OK because “when you are a star they let you do it”, that’s abusive behavior too. The kick you are getting might or might not be sexual, but who cares. What I care about, is if the big bodybuilders like or not to have their nostrils fingered, and in case they don’t, if they accept it just because they are not in a position to protest the abuse.

Anything else is really beside the point. At best, it’s just condescending to treat female human beings as “daughters and wives”. At worst, it implicitly condones abuses as long as they are not touching the precious possessions of the patriarch.

3.

What about the “locker room banter” thing?

You know, there are no females in the male locker room — that’s the assumption behind the expression.

It’s supposed to be the equivalent of the “girls’ night out” or something. It’s true that both genders may use language that is more sexually explicit than usual, in such situations.

Well, so what? I don’t care if you say “pussy” when you are with your friends, no more that I care about my girlfriend gingerly rating penis sizes when she’s out for a drink with girlfriends. We all do such things, and it’s fun.

But the point is — as far as I know, when she’s out for a drink, my girlfriend does not brag about beating up elderly people, or crushing puppies in their sleep, or stealing money from the homeless. I bet she can do all such things and possibly get away with it, if she wants to, because elderly, puppies and homeless are weak, and my girlfriend is stronger. But if she brags about such abuses, because “they let you do it when you are young, strong and when you don’t live in the street”, then I know she’s not fit for office — and I also know it’s time to look for a different girlfriend.

Excusing abusive talk as “locker room banter” implies that what’s wrong about is that it’s about sex. If you use this excuse, it means that you really don’t see the point. That’s like a kid caught planning to burn the house naked, and crying “But I wasn’t serious about being naked!”.

Let’s keep sex-talk out of this please. Sex is good, and saying ‘pussy’ or ‘cock’ is fine, in the right context. What is not good, is treating other human beings like cattle. Unfortunately, if Pat Buchanan’s sacred book teaches him to treat half of the human beings as cattle, it’s no wonder that he’s OK when that happens.

If you are playing by the Book, you can be seriously concerned only if you imagine that the cattle are yours. As a husband and father, that’s your wives, your daughters, your cattle.