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Notes -
Celebs, boundaries and emotional abuse
So two stories have popped up around the same topic recently: how much men have the right to complain about or police their women's public behavior.
First off: recent mother Keke Palmer finally got to go out and enjoy herself, and her outing involved being serenaded by R&B star and notorious hound Usher Raymond. Her "baby daddy" decided to come out and complain that: "A man of the family doesn’t want the wife & mother to his kids to showcase booty cheeks to please others".
Well, that didn't go well. The feminist-aligned internet tore into him and he appeared to have been promptly dumped and, insult to injury, merch clowning him is now being sold
At the same time, "toxic masculinity" has a white representative to balance it out: Jonah Hill is now being attacked for being a misogynistic narcissist. Soon after the birth of his child, his ex decided to post texts showing his demand that she stops sexy photo shoots or overly close relationships with men or hanging out with women from her "wild past"
Hill is also facing a backlash from the DM women for "emotionally abusing" his ex via his boundaries and non-negotiables and his exploiting of "therapyspeak" to sanctify controlling behavior.
In both stories both men are excoriated for hypocrisy because these women behaved this way when they met, and expecting them to change (including after childbirth) is inconsistency.
So, what culture war implications to take from this?
Keke Palmer's boyfriend had a very standard male reaction, regardless of charges of hypocrisy. Making it public that way was unwise, especially since he was the comparative minnow in the status competition. Times have changed. Maybe men like that should reconcile themselves to playing the role of the honorable wife who conveniently never sees any of these shenanigans, for everyone's sake. Of course, that would suggest some more restraint on Palmer's part...
The situation is reversed with Hill. He has the status. Which I suspect is a significant part of the motive to release it now and draw in Deuxmoi-reading women to help win a battle that she couldn't have won in the relationship. As many people asked: why did she put up with his absurd demands (asking her to not post risque surfing photos when he met her through them) for any time whatsoever? Well, because he was Jonah Hill, presumably.
No pretense to even wrestle with why men don't want the mother of their kids publicly on display. Just near-total lack of care.
Obviously the concept creep on abuse continues.
Is the celebrity (and wannabe celebrity) class just going to litigate every relationship online now for fans and political affinity group points...forever? The Hill thing happened a while ago and now it's supposed to be a thing? I suspect part of the push to call some of this "abuse" is precisely that there's a realization that no one should care about messy personal business. I assume the word game is retarding us coming to the conclusion one should in a panopticon: to stop caring. I wonder how long it'll hold.
"Any man who must say, 'I am the king' is no true king"
There is no way to not appear weak when complaining that the mother of your child went clubbing with Usher, the war was already lost when that dude decided to make someone like Keke the mother of his child. This sort of thing can only be enforced through the cultivation of respect, never becoming explicit, otherwise it's like your boss explicitly demanding you call him "sir", or a PhD reminding you to call him "doctor". Just unbelievably cringy and weak. Your gf/wife is just supposed to know, without you telling her, that sending nude photos to other dudes is a big no-no. If she doesn't understand that automatically, there's no fixing her without sacrificing significant amounts of your own authority and generally ruining the relationship.
... no, it's like the manager of a store giving all of the employees a lecture on minimum acceptable behavior - wear the uniform, look clean, speak respectfully to customers, come to work at these hours, you have this many vacation days but have to register them in advance, etc. Which is a good idea when working with people of lower socioeconomic status, and is entirely different from screaming 'I AM THE BOSS! RESPECT ME'
Like, your 'don't say anything' relies on everyone getting those instructions from somewhere else, the knowledge has to come from somewhere. And how do you know your new gf absorbed the same implicit social expectations that you did, 60 year post sexual revolution? Your post feels like - "everyone implicitly understands [specific centrist claims about sexual morality], not following them is a sign of disrespect". But there's a ton of disagreement about sexual morality!
(note this is a narrow disagreement and i'm not signaling anything about my opinion on OP)
I think this is why I’m kinda with these guys even if they’re a bit unhinged in delivery. There are and should be behavior expectations of your spouse as a spouse. They are not just roommates living together, they are husband and wife. And this implies a few things that should be a given: sexual exclusivity, emotional exclusivity, not displaying secondary sex characteristics n front of members of the opposite sex, and not frequenting places that are commonly used to meet potential mates. It’s bad form to say it the way Jonah Hill or Usher did, but I can’t wrap my head around people seeing sexism around the very simple concept that marriage means something that Friends-with-benefits doesn’t.
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I mean, the relationship ended up ruined.
I wonder if he had any inkling that he was burning his bridges and the pressure to disavow certain forms of behavior publicly, even if it potentially wrecked a relationship with a higher status woman, was simply too great.
He probably just got emotional and overestimated his position though.
Or it was over and he was laying down a marker for the next relationship?
Sounds plausible.
The humiliation was too much and he wants to break up, might as well cast a parting thot-patrolling shot and burn the ships behind him.
After all, he’s already been banging her and knocked her up with a kid; he may have lost the most recent battle, but won the war. And now he can take advantage of fame and female mate-choice copying to move onto the next girl(s).
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