MEN WHO GROPE

By the time we are done outing “men who grope”, there will be hardly any men left standing. Since ALL the women I know have been sexually harassed or assaulted at least once in their lifetime, odds are the majority of men have been guilty at some point in their lives of some degree of such behavior. 

I refer to unwelcome, crude, physical and verbal advances, not aggressive, often violent sexual harassment, assault and rape, and the vile, habitually predatory behavior that targets children. Men have felt empowered to grope and kiss (and worse) women for millennia. An overwhelming majority of these astonishingly frequent “gropes” have been shrugged off not only by the perpetrators, but even, surprisingly, by the women themselves. 

Women rarely speak up. They know from extensive experience their claims will automatically and blithely be discounted by variations of the “You liar! It never happened!” or the “You slut! You know you wanted it!” themes. Also, often clouded by underlying guilt there can be vague recollections of flirtatious drunkenness, even kissing. Maybe they DID find him attractive, well, until he started acting like an animal! Then it was ecccchhh… STOP! Get OFF of me! Flirting, even kissing, does NOT automatically mean ”Okay! Go ahead! Go for it!”

The majority of “relatively casual” sexual assaults are generously fueled by alcohol and/or drugs. People drink, flirt, become increasingly inebriated, then men, emboldened by sex and porn saturated societal mores, and believing themselves entitled to immediate gratification, proceed to grab, grope, and kiss women (or other men, for that matter) without consent. Many “nice” men have made unwarranted sexual advances to someone unwilling. The genuinely nice ones know how and when to stop, freely admit their error, and can sincerely apologize.

I believe it’s imperative we differentiate between inherently “good” guys who can readily admit to acting creepily, who are genuinely repentant, and those vile sociopathic creatures who habitually sexually assault others, deny culpability, publicly call out their victims as liars, and attempt to destroy them via vicious trolling and lawsuits.  As essential as it is for women (and victimized men) to speak out, for the multitude of “Me Too” stories to be told and heard, we should also strive to avoid a shit show of unwarranted accusations and overblown reactions.

His Legacy of Love, Compassion, and Kindness

As Alzheimers stealthily ravaged my dad’s mind, Sergeant George Nicholas Mamary’s WW II experiences, permanently etched in his mind, stubbornly resisted erasure. For decades, dad regaled captivated audiences with stories of the war.

Although plagued by my own faulty memory and remembering little detail of his adventures, I still clearly recall how deeply impacted he had been by his experiences. I loved how animated and entertaining he’d become recounting his tales. I truly wish I had the foresight to record him and his stories, the poems he memorized, his jokes, and more then anything, singing all his favorite songs. 

Brave and dedicated, dad joined the Army in 1942 and was sent overseas early 1943. According to a news clipping Lt. George Mamary “was within seven minutes of being first to set foot on the continent of Europe” during the invasion of Italy. He was awarded a Bronze Star in November 1943 for his heroic performance as a forward artillery observer in Italy. Despite his observation post, the frequent target of direct shelling he refused to quit, he maintained his position and directed accurate artillery fire on the enemy.

Dad returned from the war and commenced living life wearing rose colored glasses and an optimistic smile. Kind, funny and forgiving, he never had anything negative to say about anyone, even the manipulative and nefarious. He made everyone laugh. He never looked down on, or judged anyone, and would always greet everyone with genuine pleasantness. It was astonishing. 

It’s not much of a stretch to recognize the ties between dad’s penchant for avoiding conflict at all costs and neatly suppressed and forgotten, yet inevitable, war related post traumatic stress. Conspicuously missing from dad’s dramatic and heroic stores were any account of blood, death, and despair. Mom always said that dad was only truly “alive” during the war. We all knew that the experience clearly defined his life. 

In a society that defines success by one’s financial portfolio my gentle and generous dad was a testament to the fallacy of that definition. He lived a simple life. Nothing made him happier then a hotdog right off the grill. He valued and nurtured customer relations in the family’s sleepwear business his father and uncle built from the ground up. He loved shmoozing and charming his buyers, and struggled with the tedium of paperwork. As his cherished buyers began outsourcing and manufacturing Mamary nightgown knockoffs overseas he watched helplessly as the family business shrunk and ultimately shuttered leaving nothing to show after years of dedication. 

Old fashioned and resistant to change, it simply was not in his DNA to read the tea leaves predicting the enormous, inevitable shift in the global manufacturing paradigm. Still, dad never complained. If he was suffering, or disappointed, you’d never know it. I didn’t understand. When angry, confused and indignant anytime someone had “done me wrong” I could bitch and moan for days. Dad’s advice was always simply to tell me to “smile”.

Unlike others with dementia, as his life shrunk to a wheelchair and ultimately a hospital bed, he remained sweet and uncomplaining. Until the bitter end, he continued to entertain us with his war stories, the inherent, unspoken pain and suffering remaining conspicuously absent. The one difference was that, before the story’s finale, he’d pause, hesitant, and loop back and begin at the beginning, over and over again.

Right before he died, dad’s eyes became very luminous. He lay there, unable to move, eat, speak, his eyes vast pools of light. He was already somewhere beyond. His eyes illuminated the small drab room, they shone, glorious windows into heaven. He was always, clearly, an angel. He left us, not with any monetary inheritance, but with an enormous legacy of love, compassion and kindness, not only to my brothers and myself, but to every living being he encountered.