What a week, huh? I joined the twitterverse. Which says so much about how I feel when I am on it, but there you go.
Greek! Another big thing this week. I really do like Greek, ya know, not the usable kind, but the kind that can makes you seem supercilious. Kinda like the word supercilious does.
What else have I done this week...Oh yeah, I took my Sexual Misconduct prevention course. The kids one was seriously creepy. The adult one was, well, they showed a bad movie from the early 90s. Also some of the comments from the students were pretty alarming, and those comments came mostly from women. The question is how bad does a choice have to get before it is no longer a choice? For instance, we looked at instances in the bible where sexual misconduct happened. I know, take your pick, right? We looked at David and Bathsheba, and Joseph and Potiphars wife.
Here is my take on the David and Bathsheba. Bathsheba is taken from her house by David's servants for one reason and one reason only. He had all the power, she had no power at all. The observation is often made, "well, we don't really know if she was a willing participant or not" and it is often assumed that she was totally into David, and practically seduced him. But lets look at the facts: she was in her own home bathing. David sees her, and instead of sending a messenger to tell her to close her drapes, he gets all hot and bothered and sends two messengers to get her so he can have sex with her.
Now before I go on, I would like to make a point. Let's say a woman is about to be raped and she knows that if she fights back she will be hurt or killed, so she doesn't fight her attacker. We would still call that rape. Well this is exactly what Bathsheba does. She is faced with the choice of saying no to the king and suffering the consequences, or going along with it and hoping for the best. David raped Bathsheba, there I said it. Nobody wants to hear that because on the whole we like David, we don't want him to do something so atrocious. But remember, Nathan doesn't accuse Bathsheba along with David. Bathsheba is the lamb who the rich man slaughtered. An unwilling sacrifice to David's lust, as it were.
Anyway, the point is, many people in the class did not seem to understand that. Furthermore it is really easy to excuse the bad behavior of someone you love and look up to, like a priest. The instinct is to put the blame elsewhere, on the other person. But it is the person with the power who should bear the blame, because with that power comes so much responsibility, and I find it a little disconcerting that people who are about to step into those roles don't really understand that.
I'm not saying that everyone in the classroom was living in the 60's. Most people were reasonable. But the few that weren't were pretty shocking.
Our double standards are pretty amazing. The behavior we allow in people we admire, celebrities, priests; these behaviors would never be tolerated in Joe Shmo.