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Emails to my Therapist

Spirituality, Lust, Trump Sex Scandal

This man is making sex look bad.

Among his other sins, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is using a previously-respected political position to tar the reputation of the, at best, sacred and ecstatic act of sex.

Sex and Lust

He is also making lust look bad. I don’t believe lust is bad. It’s desire for sex: it’s a part of how we’re built.

I also don’t believe that a lot of the other office-holders who are so horrified by his predatory talk on the leaked tape — the Trump sex scandal — are horrified by anything but his having said this stuff out loud in such crude terms while also being an adult, a possible presidential candidate, and a passenger in a bus with TV people.

Businessman and gesture topic: a man in a black suit with a tie showing hands gesture on an isolated white background in studio

Don’t We All…?

I do believe that most men and women have harbored a few aggressive sexual thoughts and that boys of Trump’s generation have felt pressure to brag about them, while girls felt pressure to hide them.

Trump has apparently not outgrown the idea that such bragging is cool. He doesn’t seem to know that the idea of acting on such fantasies, without consent, has never been cool.

The Power of Power

He’s likely right that well-known powerful men can get away with more unwelcome grabs and lunges. For one thing, an awkward rejection of such a grab can endanger a job or a business relationship. Going along with an unwanted hug can seem like a comparatively small price.

I have an idea that Billy Bush, the TV personality in the taped conversation with Trump, was to a large degree going along with the conversation — and soliciting a painful-to-watch hug for the guy — in order to keep a guest star happy, to do his job. (I realize I could be wrong about this and simply hoping because of personal bias: Billy Bush seems to me nicer and more attractive.) Ironic, how it turned out, though, since he is now reportedly suspended from his TV host job.

The Buried Impulse

Power makes a difference in another way. A bit of success fuels the power in us, which can be used for both good and/or bad. A psychiatrist once told me his view that we all have in us (the desire for) approximately one rape and one murder. A burst of success — say, the sale of one’s first novel — can raise a fear, conscious or unconscious, of acting on our worst impulses.

While I doubt the sincerity of some of the public horror announced by those whose own political careers are threatened, I’m disturbed and upset by the idea that anyone could now vote for this man.

The Wounded Heart

No doubt somewhere deep inside him is a good and wounded heart, whether he knows it or not. I won’t let myself believe otherwise about anyone.

But that’s not enough. He — the man he is now — is making America and love and lust look bad; he is poised to do far far worse.

Of course I have a candidate that I passionately prefer, but that’s not what I’m writing about just now.

Now I simply pray that you will withhold your vote from Trump.

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Comments

  • Chris Forsyth
    October 10, 2016 at 5:31 pm Reply

    Well put, Peggy. Good job.

    • Peggy Payne
      October 10, 2016 at 5:35 pm Reply

      Thanks, Chris. Always nice to see you here.

  • October 10, 2016 at 5:37 pm Reply

    Peggy, I’d like to excerpt this post on my blog, with a “read more” link to your post. Okay?

    • Peggy Payne
      October 10, 2016 at 5:45 pm Reply

      You bet. That’s always fine, moristotle.

      • October 11, 2016 at 8:38 pm Reply

        I t’s up. Thanks, Peggy! ‘preciate ya!

        • Peggy Payne
          October 11, 2016 at 9:15 pm Reply

          Back atcha, Morris! Thanks.

  • October 10, 2016 at 5:39 pm Reply

    By the way, the timestsmp on my comment appears a few hours off…?

    • Peggy Payne
      October 10, 2016 at 5:45 pm Reply

      Hadn’t noticed that, and fixing it may be one step beyond my technical ambitions.

  • Kenju
    October 10, 2016 at 6:44 pm Reply

    I could not agree more!!

    • Peggy Payne
      October 10, 2016 at 6:55 pm Reply

      Thanks, kenju!

  • October 10, 2016 at 9:24 pm Reply

    Good post, Peggy. We all have a darker side that raely sees the light of day, and I want to keep that part of under control. dr bob

    • Peggy Payne
      October 10, 2016 at 9:27 pm Reply

      Yep, me too, Bob. Thanks.

  • Lee Grohse
    October 11, 2016 at 10:23 am Reply

    Nicely said. I , for one, think our dark side is under-appreciated and under-nourished. Many of us don’t let ourselves get familiar enough with it to develop a proper “lion tamer” relationship with it. But I see Trump’s problem (as if there were just one!) a bit differently. His murder/rape/pillage part is not what we are seeing. I think we’re seeing a really unpleasant mix of childish disinhibition of routine impulses paired with the power/bully/entitlement part. This is no “dark side” bursting through. It lacks conviction, drive and animal force. To me everything about him looks like a lonely, spoiled, neglected/pampered, unsocialized, angry little boy in a toy store snatching toys, name calling, threatening, kicking shins, and screaming “I’m rich!” Perhaps that is why he exudes none of that powerful sexual magnetism that is inherent in real lust. To me this taps into the disgust I feel with the whole money/power thing that puts people somewhat at his mercy. And of course the fear involved in giving control of our country to that grown up, and therefore dangerous , brat in the toy store. But, I see very little genuine lust here, so I think the reputation of sex/lust will be little damaged.

    • Peggy Payne
      October 11, 2016 at 3:23 pm Reply

      Lee, I always enjoy and admire your thoughtful comments. I agree that Trump is showing none of the animal charisma that can attract us to people behaving badly. But I think some of his behavior is widely considered lust, whether it really is or not.

      My statement about his giving lust a bad name is a trifle hyperbolic. He doesn’t have that kind of power.

      Years ago I read an excellent book by Doris Lessing on each of us developing a lion tamer relationship with our own streak of evil. I’m pretty sure it was Prisons We Choose To Live Inside. Lessing thinks self-management of one’s dark side ought to be taught in school, since eradicating it is pretty much hopeless. At the same time, I tend to think that the murder/rape/pillage impulse is simply energy, as morally neutral as any fuel, but pushing out through the wrong filter.

      Thanks again, Lee. I’ve enjoyed rethinking this.

      • Lee Grohse
        October 11, 2016 at 4:03 pm Reply

        Yes, I knew you were speaking somewhat tongue in cheek about his being able to give sex a bad name! I I think I use the word lust to describe only the intense, focused desire while I am sure it it not limited to that. To clear our minds of the Donald and replace him with lovely thoughts of lust, here is the first of Adrienne Rich’s ” Two Song”–my absolutely favorite poem about lust. And from a woman’s point of view:

        Sex, as they harshly call it,
        I fell into this morning
        at ten o’clock, a drizzling hour
        of traffic and wet newspapers.
        I thought of him who yesterday
        clearly didn’t
        turn me to a hot field
        ready for plowing,
        and longing for that young man
        pierced me to the roots
        bathing every vein, etc.
        All day he appears to me
        touchingly desirable,
        a prize one could wreck one’s peace for.
        I’d call it love if love
        didn’t take so many years
        but lust too is a jewel
        a sweet flower and what
        pure happiness to know
        all our high-toned questions
        breed in a lively animal.

        • Peggy Payne
          October 11, 2016 at 5:17 pm Reply

          I knew you weren’t taking me too literally, Lee, but had to say it anyway. Thanks for the poem — I’d never read it. I love lust too is a jewel
          a sweet flower and what
          pure happiness to know
          all our high-toned questions
          breed in a lively animal.

  • Robert Braxton
    October 11, 2016 at 8:38 pm Reply

    Want you to know that I am paying attention and I do agree (giving sex and lust a bad name). My own reponse (and word play) to what is already happening in public – the Wrath of Gropes – and Remember (we will) in November.

    • Peggy Payne
      October 11, 2016 at 9:16 pm Reply

      Pretty clever, Bob!

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