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July 22, 2016 · 7:39 am

The bourgeois hypocrisy

Lira hissed through her teeth—a disappointing, face-contorting habit, I wanted to say but didn’t.  “That’s irrelevant. Men are the ones that buy porn. The consumer is the oppressor.”

I paused, studied her face for a credulous moment, and thought politics, the global order. “Do you own a cell phone?” I asked. I knew she did having watched her scroll through it several times, but she didn’t answer, instead giving me an I’m-thinking-of-your-next-move look. “Ever think about who assembles those things and what wages they make?”

She rolled her eyes, said, “Here we go,” as if knowing my path.

“What would you say if I said that all your electronics purchases are made on the back of unfair labor practices in the developing world; that your cosmetics are made possible because of animal cruelty?”

She gave me a lazy-eyed stare. “Apples and oranges,” she replied.

I paused. “Really? That’s your rebuttal, a tired fruit metaphor?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“It’s not a subject. It’s called context.”

“Context my ass. It’s a specious argument, Dr. Pierce, You’re saying the average consumer has as much culpability as a sex offender. That’s bullshit. No one would buy that argument.”

“Not in this society, maybe, but only because people here are hypocrites. The consumer is the oppressor, you said.”

It’s a shame that talk moves quickly sometimes, because I wanted to patronize her saying ‘specious’, which sounded impressive, like something a law professor would say—maybe that guy from the bar, I considered. Actually, I didn’t want to patronize Lira. I just wanted to argue some more.

–passage from  Venus Looks Down On A Prairie Vole

Maybe it’s the rhetoric of certain politicians currently reminding me of the polity’s gullibility, but I can’t let this go: one of the reasons AB1775 passed so easily through the California legislature was the notion that users of child porn enable child pornographers. Assuming you haven’t read my twenty or so other blog essays on that subject, let me remind that AB1775 is a 2015 law that re-writes the California civil code relating to child abuse reporting, apparently for the first time in 35 years, after the original Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act overlooked the issue of child porn, I guess. The new law allows–no, compels–mental health professionals to report to police clients/patients who view child pornography. Specifically, it mandates reporting with respect to that which depicts the sexual conduct of a minor (as in anyone under the age 18) over an electronic or digital medium. Genius. Now we have to violate confidentiality when teens sext one another.

The other pretext for this law was/is the unsubstantiated claim that such a measure will “crack down on child porn”. In other words, it will crack down on child porn to report to police individuals who, in the context of a psychotherapy session, talk about their child porn use, or e-mail pictures of their junk to their partners. For some this law will lead to humiliating discussions with unctuous adults who will educate about how to respect self and others. Boys will be schooled on how to respect girls’ bodies. Girls will be schooled on how to respect girls’ bodies. Some might criticize the circular nature of decision-makers’ interventions. Decision-makers will blink in confusion because they won’t know what circular reasoning is.

For others (men, basically), the law will lead to their arrests, their job losses, their ostracism from society, the sudden loss of custodial rights with respect to their children; the convenient awarding of full custody to another likely informant, the other parent. In case you think these are good things (and you probably do), one other likely outcome is that such individuals, following the adjudication of their cases, will be mandated into mental health treatment (this is hilarious!) wherein–it is presumed–they will honestly disclose further their history of child porn affinity and commit themselves to healing, trusting fully the confidentiality of the psychotherapeutic space.

This law will have no effect on the sociopaths who produce and distribute child pornography, any more than a generation of arresting pot smokers has won the drug war. People like me won’t be reporting such people to police because…how should I say this…THEY DON’T GO INTO THERAPY, IDIOTS!

For all the politicians who voted for this bill; for the lawyers who wrote it having consulted with maybe two therapists in San Diego County who also believe in things like conversion therapy for gay people; for the right wing politician who fronted (“authored”) the bill, declaring it would “crack down on porn”, scoring cheap points with an illiterate constituency determined to scapegoat society’s sexual miscreants because it doesn’t understand real social issues; and for all of you who enable poverty and economic exploitation in developing economies everyday of your lives with your electronics hoarding, drooling consumerist habits, I have the following message:

YOU ARE ALL…

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July 16, 2016 · 9:42 pm

Sexual Schizoid

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“They say in SAA that you get to define your own bottom line,” offered another man. He licked his chops, tilling the ground of groupspeak as he had an equally dubious claim involving a late teenager (so he said). A hyper-masculine, balding figure, he personified a certain faction of my group: conventionally unattractive, sired in conjugal visits, wired towards the visual; overflowing with discharge, living just this side of incontinence. These guys tend to not open up much: they speak in code, use phrases like “I crossed the line” to briefly reference why they’re in treatment. Then it’s back to the persecution litany: about their hearings, upcoming or past; about the unfairness of courts, probation officers, the unforgiving nature of wives. I think of women and what they think. What do they expect from these men if not porn addiction? Come to think of it, do those women even look at porn? Have they watched the films, studied scores of images? You see, in some respects they have it backwards. Objectification—that’s the right word, isn’t it? That’s what’s happening to women. But hold on. Do they realize how many porn clips don’t even show men’s faces? Often, all you see are these girthy, circumcised peters sticking out between splayed pairs of legs. Talk about objects. In porn, the penis is the star, make no mistake about it. It is center stage, in the camera’s face, and literally in women’s. But at least their participation makes use of eyes.

— A passage from <em>Venus Looks Down On A Prairie Vole

The above passage describes the population of sex offenders that Daniel Pierce treats in his weekly group therapy. They’re a motley (as opposed to diverse) crossection of underdogs, typically unsophisticated, unlike predators who don’t get caught. Initial contacts with these guys are not just haunting, they’re an all-around humiliation, plus descent into a dark cave. Gruff, terse like their fathers and grandfathers were, they answer questions from counselors like they’ve just come from their lawyers’ offices, and are therefore still following the dictum, say as little as possible, which echoes their characters. Besides their illegal behaviors, the non-violent or non-direct contact offenders are socially withdrawn figures more so than anti-social; diffident more so than brutal. They shy away from intimacy, though more so out of bewilderment than contempt. Their relationships are with machines, computers–that which seems less impinging. To the average observer, they might seem like they’re on the spectrum of autistic disorders, and they might seem as self-absorbed or un-empathetic as any Narcissist. But the accent of their fears is less upon rejection as it is upon safety, and to remain safe this need must remain invisible. Difficult patients, they do not crave understanding, but rather a calculated space between themselves and others. It might sound a bit like this:

Therapist: So, what happened? What’s led you to make an appointment?
Client: (staring at therapist with concealed hate, as if the question is stupid) Got arrested. Crossed the line. (shrugs, pauses. The statement is done)
Therapist: I see, what exactly did you do that led to the arrest? (no more open-ended questions for a while, looking to avoid stonewalling)
Client: (ever externalizing) The charge was lewd and lascivious…with a minor…while intoxicated…something like that
* To get an actual narrative one will need a police report. Imagine what the more blunt truisms might sound like…
Client: Got caught with my dick in a hole
Therapist: By hole, you mean a female?
Client: Yup, one of them…

Most of the men I’ve worked with don’t betray thoughts like these, not so much out of shame, rather because they have little incentive to be honest, or to understand their disordered selves. Their situations mirror their fears, resulting in a self fulfilling prophecy: they are under someone’s control. See, sex offender treatment isn’t looking for honesty in its subjects. It’s looking for compliance, and in no other area of mental health treatment is this misguided objective more pronounced. Therefore, if sex offender treatment doesn’t work (an ambiguous conclusion) it’s because the systems that govern the treatment are misinformed, under-educated, and catering to public opinion rather than the recommendations of research. I write as a former provider under the California Sex Offender Management Board (CASOMB), and now operating privately and sometimes working with men who seek treatment BEFORE they get caught…BEFORE they hurt someone.

Treatment with them is not about compliance. It is about understanding. Imagine that.

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July 10, 2016 · 6:02 am

Sexual Narcissism

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“I’m in porn.” He’d said it quickly, in a clipped voice, while looking away, like he’d wanted the words off him, shooed away. I gave him a stilled look at which he grinned teasingly, masking unease. “Well, alright. I’m getting into porn, I should say. I’ve been in one clip so far.”

“Uh-huh. What film? What’s its title?” Rick laughed again, and shook his head. I felt like an idiot, stalling with questions to conceal my blushes.

“What film? I don’t know, man. Who cares…what film? Big dicks. It’s called ‘Big dicks’. There. I just gave it a title.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to—”

“Nah, it’s cool. I don’t know why I’m giving attitude, actually. I’ve got a name, if that means anything. Kane—Kane Able. How do you like it?”

“A play on…I suppose.”

“Sure.”

“That’s good,” I lied.

So I asked about plot. About the film with no name: I asked if his clip contained any plot, or acting, or even theme. Surprisingly, Rick, or Kane—was pretty sure I’d not make the shift on this one—said there was. Firefighting, he said, not surprisingly. His part, as in his role, was that of a firefighter who has entered a burning building to rescue a trapped woman, who is feebly crying out (I imagined the acting) until the hero arrives, ready to spare her. The room is very hot, about which the performers comment wittily, and then the room gets hotter, and soon they don’t care so much about the fire and…well, you get the picture.

“Any dialogue?” I asked. Rick looked at me as if I were reading from a book of stupid questions.

“I ad-libbed this one line as I came: ‘fire in the hole, baby’, I said.” This time I said nothing. “I know, don’t tell me,” Rick lamented. “Pretty dumb, huh?”

“Did she say anything, have any lines, ad lib or scripted?”

Rick shook his head, uttered a dismissive noise, like I’d asked whether the props spoke on set. I blew air through my teeth, and thought of Lira.

“That’s typical. It goes to show there just aren’t enough good roles for women these days.”

— a passage from Venus Looks Down On A Prairie Vole

An example of parody in my mischief novel: the name Kane Abel is a play on words, of course, common to porn actors. My favorite from the real world of porn? Peter North. Subtle, right? Anyway, Kane is otherwise Rick, a young man whom Daniel Pierce meets while living at a sober living house, wherein he’s in retreat from a fraught personal and professional life. Rick’s day job is in a seafood restaurant, as a chef. There he causes trouble, disturbing his boss and Daniel’s temp boss, Jimbo, by stirring unrest, harassing female staff, flirting with nubile customers, doing very little cooking, it seems, while strutting his sex like a farmyard stud. Rick likely thinks his place in the service industry has layered meaning. He’s the kind of man who feels entitled to promiscuity, who feels offended, let down by another man’s diffidence, thinking that humankind benefits from the indiscriminate sharing of seed. He’ll try to re-ignite something in Daniel, provoke a libidinal return in the grieving, wilted psychologist. That last line, Daniel’s teasing of a feminist complaint, glides over Rick’s head, not so much because of stupidity, but rather self-absorption.

The role of women. What indeed is the role of women?

**image by Philip Lawson

 

 

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July 3, 2016 · 6:04 am

Have you ever been with…?

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She rolled her head slightly, like she was lining me up in her crosshairs. “You are shitting me”, she began hotly. “I know what you’re saying, but it’s not even the same. Man, I’d like to see you walk in a prostitute’s shoes. Only then would you know how lonely and scary it can be. Tell me you know what it’s like to work knowing your life is at risk: that you could be killed, jumped at any time because you carry cash; jumped in your own home if that’s where you do business; that no one will protect you unless you pay them; that no one would even care what happens to you cuz they think you’re nothing. Tell me you know what it’s like to give up your body everyday, to men who barely think of you as human, knowing that you’re giving away that part of yourself, every night.”

I gazed upwards, studiously contemplating sky and stars, life on Venus and Mars, alien yet pure of love and hate. “Well, I don’t know about the getting killed part. But the rest I can compare with, roughly.”

“Uh-huh?” she scoffed. “So you think you relate to prostitutes. How many have you been with?”

“Wait, I never said I’d been with a prostitute. I mean—”

She laughed back. “Yeah, I bet you haven’t.”

“I haven’t,” I replied adamantly. She relented.

“Alright. I’ll believe that, I guess, but it shows you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Well I’ve listened to quite a few—had them as patients.”

“Uh-huh.” She sat quietly for another few moments, letting her amusement subside. Then her voice turned somber, almost reverent.

“You ever cheat on your wife?”

“No,” I said flatly. She nodded inertly. “You believe me?” I followed up.

“I guess.” I uttered a noise which she took as a rebuke. “What do you want, a medal?”

I paused upon feeling aggrieved. “Sort of,” I replied.

“What?” she asked laughing.

“I should get a medal, actually. Any man who manages to avoid temptation should get a medal.”

“Any man? How about women?”

“Okay, women too, but it’s not the same for them.”

It got better. Soon I was expounding upon all the disadvantages men feel in the realm of sex.

–a passage from Venus Looks Down On A Prairie Vole

So a character poses a question, “have you ever been with a prostitute?” In doing so, the female antagonist is half-shaming the everymale of my story, and half-challenging his social critic credentials. Because he claims to know something. Daniel Pierce, my jaded psychologist, alcoholic widower, has a few thoughts on the subject of prostitution: like the chestnut leftist argument that all occupations in the western world entail prostitution. Therefore he doesn’t wring his hands on behalf of women, especially not women like Lira, who hardly seem like victims. Objectified? As in treated as, or thought of as an object? Sure, he concedes. But so is everyone to one degree or another, he retorts. Has she been subjectified, as in abused, or discarded. Not really, she admits, though she’s had close calls, and felt a constant risk. But she’s also profited considerably from her illicit business, spared herself the financial uphill that many of her same-age peers, male and female, face in today’s world. Above all, like any natural survivor or leader, this alpha prostitute has been nobody’s waif, but rather a cool, even dominant figure in the quasi intimate transactions of her past. In those dark, clammy pairings who has been more vulnerable, more ashamed, more consistently?

Her? Daniel Pierce writes a different script

** rendering by Philip Lawson

 

 

 

 

 

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June 25, 2016 · 8:44 pm

The Trauma Currency, Part Two

(Continued from part one)

Cermak’s intent was to present codependency as a legitimate focus of clinical attention, applicable to a variety of contexts. And so we have the Co-Addict Model, which draws attention to problematic behavior as a function of an underlying, pervasive disorder. While RT adherents may agree with aspects the co-addict corollary, their clinical focus downplays the pathologizing accent. Coping strategies, such as keeping busy with tasks, are instead normalized, cast as affect regulating under exceptional circumstances. Certain behaviors such as indiscriminate sharing of a sex addict’s behavior with friends or family, including children, are discouraged; however, these behaviors are framed as products of social isolation and episodic trauma brought on by an addict’s behavior, not an underlying or even associated pathology. The notable literature that represents this position includes Your Sexually Addicted Spouse (Steffens, Means, 2009), and Facing Heartbreak: Steps to Recovery for Partners of Sex Addicts (Carnes, et al., 2012): the latter, in keeping with recovery tradition, outlines a healing process in stages: a pre-discovery stage, followed by phases of crisis/decision, and repair. In the crisis/decision stage the partner asks, “how did I get here?”, and comes to realizations like, “nothing in this marriage has been real”. Note the emphasis upon present or recent past events, not family of origin, early developmental or even adult developmental material.

The framework of RT appears to contraindicate a neutral therapeutic stance, becoming partner-centric, especially upon discovery of sexual betrayals, because the proposed de-pathologizing shift only applies to partners. There’s nothing in the RT paradigm that contests the assessment of sexual addiction. Indeed, the scope of questions for the revised version of the Sex Addiction Screening Test (or SAST) has widened in recent years, to address not only changes in technology—the broader means of acting out available to sex addicts—but also the impact upon partners of sexual betrayals. Notice, for example, a question on the 1989 version of SAST, “Does your spouse ever worry or complain about your sexual behavior?” (Carnes, 1989), versus a question on the revised 2008 version: “Has your sexual behavior ever created problems for you and your family?” Notice the slant has shifted to query problems identified by the would-be addict, instead of that which is externally identified by a partner whose perspective might be denied by the would-be sex addict, or distorted by a co-addict disorder.

The RT model calls for sex addicts or acting out partners to be identified as perpetrators of trauma, and this term—“perpetrator”—seems close enough to the connotations of “offender” that observers may be surprised that APSATS hasn’t called for the inclusion of more sex addicts on public sex offender registries. In the RT model, partners are validated as victims of a relationship-specific betrayal, and thereafter supported to integrate this experience in a way facilitates a healthy re-emergence in life, comprised of self-care, fellowship with a strong support system, realistic observation of sex addict behavior, but also renewed trust in humankind. The approach suggests that observation of predisposing pathology and validation of traumatic experience are mutually exclusive goals, which may lead to facile, short-term interventions, tailor made for practitioners presenting brief, intensive programs of care. While this may be an appropriate shift in the paradigm with respect to many partners or with all partners of sex addicts in the immediate aftermath of discovery, I wonder about the pathology that will be overlooked in the service of trauma validation, especially amid follow-up treatment episodes wherein identified-patient premises collapse over time.

In cases of sexual betrayal, a therapist working with acting out and non-acting out partners functions as a container for memories and emotions that cry out for expression, or disavowal in the case of those struggling to cope with the past. This Winnicottian task dovetails with reparation efforts—a Kleinian concept before a sex addiction treatment strategy—which hinges upon individuals’ capacity for mourning. Klein (1975) wrote that grievances we harbor towards parents for the wrongs they have committed, and for having denied those wrongs, elicit feelings of hate and desire for revenge. Durham (2000) has argued that the capacity for making reparations in the internal world is the basis on which empathy for others is established. When individuals defensively split, they attach to a narrowly defined narrative: therefore (borrowing the RT Model identifiers) a victim’s anger and hatred is rigidified in the face of a perpetrator’s denial, which represents an evil system built upon a primitive intrapsychic structure. A working through of splitting, into mourning, requires the perpetrator to own his destructiveness so as to experience mourning; then, if the victim is sufficiently open to an awareness of “good enough” qualities in the perpetrator, a re-internalization of that individual as a good object might occur, which in turn enables the victim’s own work of mourning.

Whether or not labels of victim, perpetrator, addict, or codependent are necessary, harmful, or inhibitive of this process seems ambiguous. Assessment and diagnostic nomenclature informs psychiatric intervention; enables the placement of individuals in appropriate levels of care, including hospitals when necessary; generates short and long-term treatment planning goals. Informing patients of their diagnoses gives informed consent to treatment based upon an understanding of conditions that are the focus of clinical attention. At the same time therapists know the stigmatizing risk associated with assessment and diagnostic labels, particularly those whose prescriptive measures are not clearly defined, or subject to a range of treatment alternatives, despite the attempts of some who promote protocols in response to diagnoses. The advisability of informing a patient or client that he or she has a substance dependence, for example, seems predicated on particular factors well understood across professional disciplines, and by the general public: that the problem can be accurately assessed in a short time frame; that prescriptive measures can be readily understood by those potentially receiving services (such as recommendations of abstinence, or attendance at 12-step meetings); that a person may be at grave risk of illness, injury, or even death if immediate intervention does not occur.

Are these factors true with respect to sex addiction, or codependency, or personality disorders? Maybe in some cases, but of the forty five questions on the revised SAST, for example, only one pertains to behaviors that place afflicted individuals in dangerous situations. In my training I learned to refrain from using diagnostic or assessment labels when addressing clients about their problems, unless the applicable term or terms seem critical for intervention, or unless prescriptive measures based upon the nomenclature can be articulated succinctly and concretely. Otherwise, confusion and/or resistance typically follows, with clients left thinly understanding conditions, floundering to make sense of new identities imposed by expert opinion. I often experience this when clients meet with me for the first time, having been diagnosed by a previous practitioner with, say, Narcissist Personality Disorder. They’ve been given an article to read, or a DSM criteria sheet to examine. Afterwards, they exhibit disorientation, manifest with awkward attempts to describe their freshly assigned disorder. When devising a plan, they offer that they need to learn to empathize with others more. Woodenly, they report feeling instructed, and branded, but not understood.

This is often true with individuals who are told they have a sex addiction, or a codependency problem, and while many can wrap their minds around the concept of sex addiction, the assessment still bears much explanation and holding of emotion. As for codependency: from an object relations point of view, that umbrella term represents a whole multitude of dynamic relational configurations, replete with intersecting projections and introjections. So no wonder partners of sex addicts are flummoxed and invalidated by the term, regardless of what betrayals they have felt. Aren’t many or even most shocked to hear that they may have enabled another’s addiction? Won’t many be confused to hear they may have contributed to another’s disorder by an overly close, or conversely, a distant involvement? Doesn’t it jolt the senses, the unconscious, one’s entire being, to hear that one might have a sex addiction, and that an important aspect of that concept is its impact upon intimate partners? Ultimately, what seems important is to hold the idea of a complex problem, brought to light by acting out behaviors, but not reducible to those habits, necessarily. Might it not render the divide between rival models of treatment moot to consider that our clients deserve to not be hamstrung by labels, or denied what is useful in our nomenclature? Rather, they should feel held by our open minds and fuller understanding.

 

 REFERENCES

 American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA. American Psychiatric Publishing.

 Bergner, R. & Bridges, A. (2002). The significance of heavy pornography involvement for romantic partners: research and clinical implications. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 28, 193-206.

Black, Claudia (2009). Deceived. Hazelden. Center City, Minnesota.

Carnes, P. (1989) Contrary to Love. Hazelden.

Carnes, S., Lee, M. A., Rodriguez, A. D. (2012) Facing Heartbreak: Steps to Recovery for Partners of Sex Addicts. Gentle Path Press.

Cermak, T. (1986). Diagnosing and treating codependence. Minneapolis, MN: Johnson institute

David J Ley (2012, September) “Abusing the Term Trauma”. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/abusing-the-term-trauma/

Durham, M.S. (2000) The Therapist’s Encounters with Revenge and Forgiveness. In “Psychological Repair: the intersubjective dialogue of remorse and forgiveness in the aftermath of gross human rights violations”. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Volume 63. Number 6. December 2015

Glass, S. (2003) Not just friends: Protect you relationship from infidelity and heal the trauma of betrayal. New York, NY. The Free Press.

Klein, M. (1975) Love, Guilt and Reparation and Other Works, 1921-1945. London: The Free Press, 2002.

Steffens, B. A., & Rennie, R. L. (2006) The traumatic nature of disclosure for the wives of sexual addicts. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 13, 247-267.

Steffens, B. A., & Means, M. (2009) Your Sexually Addicted Spouse: How Partners Can Cope and Heal. New Horizon Press.

 

 

 

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June 19, 2016 · 3:34 am

The Trauma Currency, Part One

 

“You didn’t get here overnight,” writes Claudia Black in her 2009 book, Deceived. It’s a solemn lesson, aimed at co-addicts, partners of sex and porn addicts—women, mostly—who are raised in households impacted by addictions of various kinds. Their childhood histories are “training grounds” for adult dysfunctional relationships, wherein such individuals engage in so-called co-addict behaviors: tolerating hurtful behavior, avoiding conflict, taking care of others, accommodating. Black describes a woman named Katy, a “perfect candidate for partnering with an addict”, who becomes compulsive in busy behaviors, attending to her children, her job, avoiding seeing and feeling, the anticipated rejection and abandonment by her sex-addicted husband (Black, 2009, P.85-86).

Profiles like the one above seem conducive to interventions that draw attention to patterns of dysfunctional behavior; patterns that implicitly predate the discovery of addictive behaviors by sexually addicted partners—this is according to adherents of the co-addict model, which is based upon the Al-anon 12-step recovery program. Treatment based upon this model prescribes self-examination for partners of sex addicts: examination of and responsibility-taking for repetitively destructive or self-defeating behaviors; examination of trauma repetitions, reenactments of familial scripts with the unconscious hope of creating new drafts in later life. The idea recalls certain 12-step slogans, such as the supposedly Einsteinian definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. This too is a derivative notion, echoing Freud’s concept of repetition compulsion, first published in 1914 at the outset of the First World War. The concept of trauma has gradually merged into the lexicon of psychology since then, reaching into or underlying our understanding of several mental health disorders, including addictions.

However, some practitioners and researchers might disagree upon the premises of partners of sex addiction treatment, and therefore differ significantly in therapeutic approach. In “From Victimhood to Victorhood” (published in the March/April issue of The Therapist), Alex Katehakis writes that a “major shift has occurred in treating partners of sex addicts”. The shift she describes is towards the Relational Trauma (RT) Model, in which practitioners emphasize that partners’ relational bonds are destroyed by betrayal, as precipitated by the discovery of sexual acting out—not a historical and ongoing pattern of destructive or self-defeating behavior by non-acting out partners. In the RT approach, practitioners eschew the implication that partners contribute significantly to an addiction by an elaborate, conscious or unconscious pattern of enabling. Such suggestions are misplaced and hurtful, if sometimes accurate, assert the proponents of the RT Model, while their interventions are by contrast comforting and affirming, emphasizing the depth of betrayal by a perpetrating partner. The champions of this position are The Association for Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists (or APSATS). Their members, as well as those of the hegemonic Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT) network refer to “sex addiction induced trauma” as a specified subset of a PTSD-like condition.

PTSD-like because while discovery of sex addiction has been deemed a life altering event and has even been demonstrated to be a traumatic event for partners, according to numerous researchers (Bergner & Bridges, 2002; Glass, 2003; Steffens, 2006), each stops short of applying the PTSD diagnosis, suggesting that many or most partners of sex addicts do not meet full criteria for the condition. A resulting controversy seems partly attributable to conflicting language in the DSM-V. Psychologist David J Ley argues that typical partners of sex addicts do not meet criteria of section C of PTSD code F43.10, “persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the traumatic event(s)”, by pointing out that these partners often demonstrate “obsessive, ruminating fixation on the details of their partners’ betrayals and actions”. He states that the essential features of sex addiction—sexual betrayal, infidelity, lying—do not constitute trauma for partners, however repetitive these behaviors may be, and that describing them as such does disservice to those who need services relating to life threatening events. With respect to the diagnostic question, I observe that language in section E of code F43.10 indicates that “marked alterations in arousal and reactivity associated with the traumatic event(s)” do meet criteria for the diagnosis of PTSD. This includes hypervigilance, which would likely describe the partners Ley discusses in his writing. Perhaps at odds with the criteria of section C, this language of section E suggests that a more concrete understanding of “avoidance of distressing memories”, versus hypervigilance, is called for; or that alternating or interwoven patterns of avoidance and hypervigilance merit further discussion as features of partners’ clinical presentations.

Ley’s position is interesting in so far as it challenges the premise of the RT model, the sex addiction-induced trauma assertion. While the assignment of trauma to sex addiction may be debatable, it might lead us to consider what life altering events are brought on for partners by other addictions. Alcoholics and gambling addicts also engage in patterns of deception and blaming alongside their destructive behaviors, yet we do not hear of “alcoholism induced trauma” or “gambling addiction induced trauma” as it might pertain to partners or families of drinkers and gamblers. With respect to sex addiction, I’d suggest that it is not so much the presentation of PTSD-like symptoms that warrants a specialized assessment label, or the pervasiveness of deception, or even the ongoing denial of partners’ assertions that sex addicts often exhibit. Rather, I think it’s the nature of the behavior, the context of the lies and deflections—sex—that hurts so deeply. After all, what is harder for our clients to talk about than problems relating to sex? What elicits shame, triggers vulnerability, rage, more than this traditionally-cited root of psychoneurosis?

At least trauma has been codified into psychiatric nomenclature. The same can not be said of sex addiction and codependency, neither of which is delineated within the DSM-V, still. While proponents of RT and co-addict models appear to accept the existence and clinical relevance of sex addiction, or Hypersexual Disorder (as it was proposed to DSM-V committees), they differ with respect to codependency. Proposal for inclusion of a Codependent Personality Disorder was originally made by Timmen L. Cermak in 1986. The diagnostic criteria for the condition then included such statements as “continued investment of self-esteem in the ability to control oneself and others”, “assumption of responsibility for meeting others’ needs to the exclusion of one’s own”, “enmeshment in relationships with personality disordered, chemically dependent, or impulsive individuals”. Cermak’s proposal also included a category which outlined other symptoms, including “excessive reliance on denial’, and “hypervigilance”, which should sound familiar, as the language of the DSM-V criteria for PTSD appears to echo this juxtaposition of ideas/symptoms.

REFERENCES

 American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA. American Psychiatric Publishing.

Bergner, R. & Bridges, A. (2002). The significance of heavy pornography involvement for romantic partners: research and clinical implications. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 28, 193-206.

Black, Claudia (2009). Deceived. Hazelden. Center City, Minnesota.

Carnes, P. (1989) Contrary to Love. Hazelden.

Carnes, S., Lee, M. A., Rodriguez, A. D. (2012) Facing Heartbreak: Steps to Recovery for Partners of Sex Addicts. Gentle Path Press.

Cermak, T. (1986). Diagnosing and treating codependence. Minneapolis, MN: Johnson institute

David J Ley (2012, September) “Abusing the Term Trauma”. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/abusing-the-term-trauma/

Durham, M.S. (2000) The Therapist’s Encounters with Revenge and Forgiveness. In “Psychological Repair: the intersubjective dialogue of remorse and forgiveness in the aftermath of gross human rights violations”. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Volume 63. Number 6. December 2015

Glass, S. (2003) Not just friends: Protect you relationship from infidelity and heal the trauma of betrayal. New York, NY. The Free Press.

Klein, M. (1975) Love, Guilt and Reparation and Other Works, 1921-1945. London: The Free Press, 2002.

Steffens, B. A., & Rennie, R. L. (2006) The traumatic nature of disclosure for the wives of sexual addicts. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 13, 247-267.

Steffens, B. A., & Means, M. (2009) Your Sexually Addicted Spouse: How Partners Can Cope and Heal. New Horizon Press.

 

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June 12, 2016 · 4:35 am

The Opportunity

 

Eric and Daniel had been working together for years, although technically it wasn’t a partnership. Daniel worked for Eric. It was largely agreeable: Eric gave Daniel status, a decent if underwhelming salary; modest benefits, an annual retirement contribution, plus regular flattery in collegial circles, patronizing the younger man’s erudition and clinical skills. Their arrangement was quite satisfactory, despite Eric’s reservations about Daniel’s lack of ambition; Daniel’s suspicion that his long-time employer took him for granted.

Matters changed when trouble emerged over some psychoeducational workshops, the scheduling of which was thrown into disarray because the junior staff Eric had originally slated for the six-month job had just quit, complaining of being underpaid and overworked. Poised to leave for a vacation in Cabo, Eric was scrambling, knowing the workshops were not Daniel’s thing but desperate to avoid a financial hit should he scrap his plans.

“Why don’t you do them?” Daniel asked, treading a line of impertinence as Eric floated the opportunity. Eric stared upwards at the ceiling of his office—a habit Daniel interpreted as a sign of annoyance, perhaps impending panic.

“I could do that,” Eric replied, tugging at his straggly beard, which Daniel interpreted as meaning, fuck that. “I’m going away next week of course, so I couldn’t do the first two weeks.” Daniel frowned. He thought Eric’s trip to Cabo was one week, not two. They always seemed to miscommunicate on such things.

“I guess I could take the first class,” Daniel said, swallowing hard upon this reluctant compromise. Eric brightened, sensing a swift end to this noisome dilemma. “That’ll help out, I think,” Daniel added, insinuating something else.

“You could have the whole job if you wanted. It’s right there. I could just leave it to you, and I think you’d be great for it.”

Daniel noted the way in which Eric spun the workshops as a gift, a job right up his alley, as if Eric had planned them with him in mind all along. He shuffled uneasily, half-plotting a methodical counter.

“Yeah, I don’t know. You say it’s on a Saturday, which is an off day for me, plus a Monday, when I already have other responsibilities.”

“You could change the workshop times if you want. Not the first week or two, but maybe in September—”

“That’s a lot of re-scheduling, Eric. Plus the students for the course wouldn’t appreciate the changes, I’m sure.”

“Well, you could just say that these things happen. Changes occur in life. I’d support you if anyone made a complaint, say it’s on me.”

Daniel paused. “Except that wouldn’t be true, would it? They’d know that changes were the accommodation of my schedule, since I’d be doing the teaching.”

Eric gazed upwards again, his arms fluttering then settling upon his head, pulling back hair. “Hmm, I don’t think so,” he tried to dismiss. He didn’t care for derailing, logical arguments, details. They intrude upon airy principles, the good things that can and should happen if only people had energy, guts, and desire.

“Plus, what about the cost?” Daniel persisted. “At what I assume is my current rate, I’d make a few extra hundred dollars a week, but that would be offset by my losses, because I’d have to cancel my Monday activities.”

“You’d maybe have to re-schedule, I guess. You could use this office if you want, for those other appointments. I’d waive the sublet cost.” At this point Daniel was biting his lip, wanting to say something biting; something about sales tactics. His thoughts turned to late-night cramming: a soldierly effort to rescue Eric’s initiative, his investment, while he sunned himself on a Cabo beach. Daniel pulled out his phone, clicked on its calculator feature.

“Let me just see here. So we’re talking about an extra three classes, over two nights. That’s…let’s see…about four hundred dollars, before taxes. Then defray the cost of losing at least three, maybe four client hours on a Monday.”

“Well, the class is only an hour and a half, so that’s only two hours, right?”

“Yes, but there’s the commute. The class is downtown, isn’t it? A half hour in the opposite direction of my office. So traveling there and back precludes at least two other hours.”

“Okay, I can see that,” Eric replied levelly. He scratched his chin thoughtfully, thinking of his next move, and noting, as ever, that Daniel was not a dull-witted prey. “I’d be willing to increase your fee, depending on the enrollment.”

“Meaning, I’d be responsible for how many students enroll?”

“Well no, the information is on the website. However, if you wanted to do a talk somewhere, or promote the class, that might bring in more students, make you more visible in the community.”

“Would you subsidize that?”

Eric chuckled. “You’d have to be responsible for your own self promotion, of course.”

Daniel gazed into his own head, not wanting to meet Eric’s eyes while he felt a rising ire. “But it’s not self-promotion, is it? It’s a job that someone else doesn’t want to do that you’re offering to me at the eleventh hour.”

Instantly, Daniel felt the stillness of the room, the silence except for the hollow pop of his stomach. Eric’s face clouded over. He stretched as if purging a demon and his gaze circled about Daniel’s frame, as if its center would burn him. Finally, he shrugged and said, “Hmm. I think it’s an opportunity. Anyway, I’m still covering your benefits, even though the premiums are going up.” His voice lowered, as it tended to upon muttered non sequiturs, “…there’s an extra couple of hundred there…for me, but if you don’t want it then…”

“It? Meaning, the opportunity you’re offering?”

“Yes. The opportunity,” Eric stated flatly, his voice suddenly clear, even loud.

“Doesn’t sound like a good deal for me, to be honest.” Daniel shook his ahead, now affecting a forlorn rather than affronted stance; his ire at once subsided into something unclear. For reasons further unclear, he found it hard mustering or rather sustaining anger towards his senior colleague, a man whose intangible gifts and intentions were due a thorough, scrutinizing inventory.

Eric nodded softly while maintaining his steely gaze aimed into Daniel’s head. His look was at once genial and menacing, containing a search for weakness, a patient wait for surrender. Expectation. After another silent gap he stretched his body again and yawned, releasing droplets of a permanently-managed tension. When he sat forward he looked aged, self-pitying. A previously concealed layer of flab now hung off his face as he glanced sideways, looking about his office, the floor: stray items, of books, files, documents–things he wanted others to deal with. He looked up, gave Daniel a bitter-looking smile, and spoke languidly, with near whimsy.

“Well, I may have to hire someone else, I guess. There’s a guy who I met at a meeting who may be interested, says he’s looking for some hours.”

A guy at a meeting? Daniel thought fleetingly. That sounds feeble, he judged, only to then parlay his disdain into a challenge.

“Is that a threat?”

Eric returned a surprised look, his eyes widened yet tired. Finally, he started to flail. “It’s not a threat, but I don’t know what you want me to say. I have an investment, a commitment I’ve made. I need to follow through or else we’ll take a significant loss, which affects everyone here. I need help on this thing. If you don’t want this opportunity, or others I may have in mind, I have to look elsewhere. As for the future, I don’t know. If I find someone who appears energetic and willing, then I may need to make a decision.”

Daniel gritted his teeth, and stifled a gulp. “On my future employment, you mean?” The two men stared at each other. It—what Daniel did—had never been called employment before.

“It’s not my intention to go there. Is this…I don’t know. Are you saying you want to leave?” Eric asked, turning it around.

Daniel didn’t answer at first. He got up, collected his jacket, his notebook, his thoughts, which now swirled upon peripheral and then center stage ideas. History. He tends not leave like this, he realized. That’s what others do, or did. He tends not to notice change until it’s upon him. Relationships: they don’t end.

“I don’t know,” he replied, matching Eric’s nonplussed air. “I’ll talk to you later. Maybe it’ll be different then.” He turned his back, stepped out onto a hallway leading to a waiting area, there to see one of Eric’s regular clients, a man who nods amiably at Daniel but otherwise says nothing whenever they pass each other. The man was the only point of normalcy as Daniel walked past. The room looked darker like it was closing in on him, while the light from outside shone through a doorway carelessly left open.

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June 5, 2016 · 5:24 am

Venus and AB1775

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In August 2014, the California legislature passed bill AB1775, a law that redefines sexual exploitation for the purpose of mandated reporting guidelines. For the first time since the codification of child abuse reporting law in the early 1980s, the consuming of a product (such as the accessing or downloading of illegal pornography) must be reported by mental health professionals and other mandated reporters to authorities. For many in the field of mental health, this bill constitutes a threat to therapist-patient confidentiality, a bedrock principle in the treatment of mental health disorders. The bill was written by child advocacy groups in coordination with California police departments, and was promoted as “cracking down on child porn and child abuse” by assembly woman Melissa Melendez, though it was written by lawyers for the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, whose 30,000 deep membership mostly learned of the bill just weeks prior to its passing.

This controversial law serves as a real life backdrop to my novel, Venus Looks Down On A Prairie Vole, a first person narrative about an alcoholic, widowed psychologist named Daniel Pierce who takes an impromptu hiatus from his practice, only to be stalked by a former prostitute and lawyer who wants information about and his intervention with a recent patient of his whom she says has perpetrated a child molestation. Pierce resists intervening or giving information, citing patient-therapist privilege, though he is intrigued by the woman’s ardent appeal, for professional and personal reasons: attracted to her, he is nonetheless unmoved by her insistence that he break the confidentiality of his patient as he finds her pretexts grounded more in prejudice than in substance. Aware of his patient’s substance abuse, predilection for prostitutes, and compulsive use of pornography, he doesn’t dismiss the possibility that a crime against a child has occurred, but he resists reporting information that will likely prejudice police, a criminal or family court, or a jury. Unknowingly dodging subpoenas, Pierce retreats to a sober living house to examine his grief, his conscience; even his role in society. However, in the small world of 12-step recovery, he meets the patient who is the object of so much fear and suspicion. The impromptu hiatus becomes an impromptu therapy between two men, neither of whom is a shining example of mental health.

The novel is a dramatic expression of social concern: about the role of the psychotherapist in society, which is a subset of society’s broader desire for heroes, sometimes at the expense of reason; about the need for privacy such that effective mental health treatment can transpire; about the relationship between pornography and sexual abuse; about the influence of feminism upon sexual mores, the process of family courts. As a psychotherapist who works with self-proclaimed sex addicts, state-identified sex offenders, I observe a degree of cynicism on all sides: within the minds of the offenders, or addicts, but also within the schemes of their critics and persecutors. In one sense, it’s no surprise that Daniel Pierce is a burn-out case. His personal drama illustrates what has previously fascinated readers of Irvin Yalom’s novels, or viewers of the HBO drama, In Treatment: that mental health professionals are also flawed, and vulnerable to addictions, if not anti-social behaviors. I think this unknown facet of the mental health professional intrigues members the public. As my protagonist states, they want “in the room” of psychotherapy, to find out what’s being said and done.

Sprinkled within this heavy drama is an equally heavy dose of satire. While excoriating the state’s intrusion upon mine and others’ professional space, I also poke fun at a few segments of society: at the subcultures of pornography and 12-step recovery in particular. Meanwhile, my text lampoons the social engineering that occurs in advertising, via the themes of TV commercials; the products that line the shelves of retail. I write with mischief about contemporary issues that subtly divide men and women, teasing feminists and paternalists alike. This commentary is intended as comic provocation, but is not comic relief or gratuitous soapboxing. These themes are the subtext of my protagonist’s alienation.

The result is a melancholic, if sometimes flippant (some say arrogant) story that is typical of my style. I’ve written four novels prior to this one, but despite better reviews for previous efforts, I think this novel my best. I like repeated themes, inside jokes, and metaphor that stirs the imagination of the reader. I like anti-heroes, difficult people who are not easy to understand, because real people are not easy to understand. Venus Looks Down On A Prairie is an obscure title, no doubt—but no more so than Catcher In The Rye or even Fifty Shades Of Grey—and its meaning should not elude an attentive, curious reader, whom I intend to engage in the deepest possible way.

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May 26, 2016 · 7:30 am

Who Are You?

The Who Perform at Oracle Arena. in Oakland, CA on May 19, 2016.

The Who Perform at Oracle Arena. in Oakland, CA on May 19, 2016.

** This blog from 2016 is likely my most popular, for reasons that shouldn’t surprise–the nice picture. Still, the story behind it is worth reading, if I may say so myself. It was poignant enough to include in an amended from in my 2019 book, The Psychology of Tommy: How a Rock Icon Reveals the Mind, now available through Amazon. But for now, from three years ago:

To my surprise, “Who Are You” was the first song of The Who’s set at the Oakland Arena last Thursday night. I was taken aback. Having attended several of their concerts over the years, and observed numerous set-lists from different eras of their remarkable fifty-year history, I had expected the familiar choppy chords of “I Can’t Explain”, or maybe “Substitute”—two mid-sixties gems to warm up the crowd. “Who Are You”, with its thoughtful narrative, reflecting the bands mature, late seventies outlook, seemed misplaced as the opening number; a reminder of a once concert-climaxing provocation. According to legend, the lyric recounts the story of a lost night on the town by its writer, Pete Townshend. He wakes up in a Soho doorway, a policeman knows his name. He says “you” (Townshend) can go home (in lieu of being incarcerated), if he can get up and walk away. The Who of this late seventies period were addled, about to lose Keith Moon, and struggling to keep up appearances as dignified, veteran rockers competing with up-and-comers, the emerging punk rock tsunami. The song reflects upon aging, being jaded with fame; feeling broken and undeserving of love. Its refrain poses a question—Who Are You?—that seems a cousin of “Listening To You” from Tommy, written several years earlier, only this time the creator/performer is not so much celebrating the feedback of listeners as much as he is staring back, at once bewildered and knowing, appealing for answers amid spiritual crisis.

Last Thursday, the fierce, youthful eyes of The Who’s original line-up—Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, Keith Moon—gazed out at the arena audience from a giant screen montage of the band’s storied career. Their eyes could see for miles, as their first American hit proclaimed in 1967. Their four distinctive, rock-prototype personalities seemed to look out over time, holding in their minds the dreams and expectations of their audience. With druidic presence, they performed a brutal yet playful music that set them apart from others of their era. Yet despite their bravado and bonhomie, they were ever more frail than we, the audience, knew or could tolerate. Waywardness, collapse, and mortality were always close at hand with The Who. As early as forty years ago, just a decade into a career they once thought wouldn’t last a year, there was already a casualty list, and a mooted retirement just around the corner. At that tired, apparently mid-career stage they seemed to check their purpose, looking to the crowd, to people like me, asking, what the fuck do you want? In 2016, time is truly running out, finally. “Who Are You”, a now relatively callow musing of a thirty something, might as well be an opening number, however relevant it may still be. Half the original band is gone. The remaining Who or Two are in their seventies. There are no new albums, rock operas or not, on the horizon. No more hits. Now it’s about playing for a legacy, and manifesting old rhetoric about caring, having a social conscience: hence a robust, charitable infrastructure, especially for its teen cancer trust; The Who’s heartfelt commitment to serving the age-group they once observed so astutely.

I arrived at the arena last Thursday in a bad mood. I’d had a tough week. I was tired, also feeling jaded, and my once fanciful belief that rock and roll can save the day was waning. The Who came onstage sometime after 8:30 in the evening and played for two hours. Another surprise was the lack of encore, but in terms of song selection, the performance, there will have been few complaints. As The Who’s ensemble band (Daltrey and Townshend, plus about a half a dozen others) left the stage and the lights came on, fans started trudging towards the exits, still feeling the concert high. I moved against the stream of traffic, towards the stage, where a cabal of security guards presided. I’d decided upon this action just as Townshend launched into “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, The Who’s traditional set-closer, and despite the surprises, my cue that the show was nearly over. You see, the concert wasn’t even the highlight of the evening. That was still to come, or so I thought. Three months earlier, six months since I’d sent a final draft of my Tommy paper to The Who’s management office in London, I received an e-mail from Pete Townshend’s personal assistant, saying he wanted to meet me. I’ve been alternately giddy and dissociative ever since, and that’s when I let myself think about it.

At eleven o’clock the moment arrived. Stoic security men directed me to the back of the arena, where the private room indicated on my pass was. This was the green room, or NIC room, whatever that stands for. Anyway, taking my wife’s hand, we moved with the crowd, exited the main floor, only to find ourselves in front of more security people, now herding most out the back passage while a few fans stood off to the side. This was the privileged group of visitors: special guest, VIPs. There was about two dozen of us shepherded down a second hallway to a pair of rooms, one inhabited by the band as a whole, the other—this ‘NIC’ room, off to the side—designated for Pete Townshend’s guests. Inside, the pleasant personal assistant named Nicola, with whom I’d exchanged e-mails earlier, welcomed my wife and I, gestured to a table of wine glasses, a fridge containing sodas, and invited us plus the ten or so other guests to relax, wait a few minutes, and Pete would soon be with us.

He appeared without fanfare, his back to me at first, his balding egg-shaped head unmistakable. Looking around at the assembly, gauging the energy, the quiet mood, I knew immediately that this meeting would not match my fantasy: it would last a minute, if that; it would feature a few words, platitudes about a great show (and it was), the years of pleasure and obsession stretching behind me—and a hand shake. The first people Pete spoke to seemed like music biz folk: those who worked on the road crew during the 1989 tour, or something like that. I felt out of place, being about as close to the music biz as an out of tune yodeler. He approached, looking weary, of course, and softly took my hand, saying ‘hi’ in a whisper. His personal assistant introduced us, as he didn’t know who I was. Who are you? I thought he might ask, and then ask it again, with attitude. In some ways it made sense, his torpor. He’d just finished a two-hour show, had given his all, as ever—the whole swinging arms, power chord all. He was, as my dad would say, knackered, and ten times more than myself, was not in the mood. Or, he wasn’t in the mood to talk about my paper, or Tommy, as he has done actually, repeatedly, for almost fifty years. But he asked to meet me, I can’t help thinking, also repeatedly. After a nice photo opportunity, a signature on my paper, a warm ‘good luck with that’, he turned and walked, ready to greet the next lucky fan. Have you ever met a celebrity, an idol—dreamed of such a moment, anticipated the moment as reality approached—and then experienced the aftermath: the point when you realize the moment is over?

I’m not sour. I’m not jaded. I have moods. I’m mildly disappointed, but I know what I’ve achieved and what I haven’t. I know who I am. I’m still hopeful. I still hope Pete reads my paper, because I don’t think he has. If you read this blog, I hope it moves you to buy my paper, give it a read. You might learn something about psychology, music, culture, rock and roll and what it, The Who, yourself, mean to people.

*Photo by William Snyder

 

Graeme Daniels, MFT

 

 

 

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May 8, 2016 · 9:47 pm

Poking ideology, ladies first

 

 

Whenever I consider a critique of a social group, an organization, or an ideology, I try to pause and think about where I am vulnerable; about who or what my sacred cows are, and whether I can take needling comments from the lesser knowing on the sidelines. I’m not a religious or especially political person (I think), so I don’t get my feathers ruffled when viewing debates. I am only thinly amused by scoffing comic journalists, and I sigh at the familiar rhetoric, bemoan all I don’t know or can’t know. As for miscellaneous activism, well, the AB1775 thing was about the only cause I researched well enough and thus felt qualified to comment on.

In most matters I prefer the observer’s role, plus the ethos of the neutral, hence my affinity for psychoanalytic thought, my periodic disdain for reductionist thinking in psychotherapy, as expressed elsewhere in this blog. Activism is an adjunct of psychotherapy for some. With a particular cause in mind, many enter grad schools wanting to “work with ___” because their lives have been touched by whatever their bone of contention is. That wasn’t me and it still isn’t. Mine is an ideology influenced more and more by the unknown, so the stance of the neutral radiates through Venus Looks Down On A Prairie Vole, my mischief novel about a jaded psychologist/neutral (or neutered) male, Daniel Pierce, who is stalked by a former prostitute and thereafter challenged to assume the activist role. Lira is a law student who likely saved money from her night job to earn an education and a better life for herself. She is an empowered woman looking back, looking to help the less fortunate, the not-yet-survived sisters on the streets, plus the odd John or two who needs redemption, whether they want it or not. Her ideology, which is a broader, not goal-specific construct, is likely feminist, though she doesn’t indicate this in such specific terms.

It’s difficult tackling an ideology because ideologies are multi-faceted and evolving. They defy simplification, require and deserve considerable thought and reading, so I’m skeptical of labels from those who identify with an ideology without putting in study time; from those who oppose an ideology based upon a similarly stereotyping process. If you haven’t combed through The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, or “Beyond The Pleasure Principle” by Freud, or read anything by either Cordelia Fine or Melanie Klein, then stop with the broad-brush dismissals. So when Kirkus remarks in their review that Daniel Pierce is anti-feminist, I have to take issue because I don’t satirize feminism in my novel, but rather some of its derivative rhetoric that is co-opted by common opportunists, and which informs a modern narrative. Besides, I have to wonder what ruffled the feathers of my reviewer because he or she didn’t get specific. It’s certainly true that my narrator issues a few sideways jibes aimed at popular trends: at women’s seeming double standards in the dating arena; at the goading of men that happens in advertising: the suggestion that men should take drugs to enhance sexual performance, whether to serve ego, the pleasure of a wanting partner, or both; the way media increasingly presents women as sexual aggressors, men as on the run, clutching fearfully at their pants, acting like fools; the way musical/lyrical clichés are deemed misogynist if depicting women in supplicant roles—romantic or millennially winning if men are.

Daniel Pierce is traditionalist in some ways, but is neither an anti-feminist nor a misogynist. He’s monogamist, partly because of love, otherwise by constitution. Sexually, he’s played it safe in life while keeping at arm’s length the influence of promiscuous men, so he’s wary of Rick, the would-be porn star who buddies up to Daniel, liking his quiet non-conformism. Rick is aware that Daniel is not a player, but scarcely registers the psychologist’s critique of reckless sex. Daniel could give or take guys like Rick, knowing them to be endangered, but he’s more concerned for his own psychological kind: the sexually diffident or undersexed; the workaholic, drab men who sacrifice decades to the man and then die of heart attacks. If pushed he’d point out that if women want the same pay or workplace opportunities as these men, they may need to do more of the work his masculine forebears did: the blue collar or dangerous jobs that still comprise well over ninety percent of workplace injuries. Let us not forget that the harbinger of feminism, the suffragette movement, more or less suspended itself to support men in their most dangerous traditional role, that of soldier. Subsequently, World War I slaughtered nearly half of the European male population of that era, which is not women’s fault, but what did they do? Time moved on: women organized and confronted the alcohol industry with temperance movements, industrialists about child labor; they rightly won voting rights, the right to own property, etcetera, while never having to register for the draft, and few women over the years complained about that.

When pushed by Lira to co-sign her assessment of Derek Metcalf as a child molester, Daniel pushes back, supposing that the child in question (Derek’s five year old son) may be a pawn in a protracted custody dispute, latterly mired in manufactured charges, coached and inconsistent reports from the son about alleged behaviors, the adjudication of which is meant to leverage a favorable custody outcome for the mother. While Daniel’s familial background is thinly sketched in Venus, I suggest towards the end that his father was not a Prairie Vole (a monogamist), and that Daniel’s mother, a figure on whom he once doted, left his father at some point in Daniel’s childhood. On the one hand, I accept Clarion’s critique that my title, Venus Looks Down On A Prairie, may be too obscure, or confused, for the average reader. I’d intended to give clues in the text, but otherwise leave room for you to wonder. Well, I guess I’ll supply an answer, whether you wonder or not. Daniel is looked down upon by women (or would be so), not because he’s a philanderer and therefore commonly misogynist (he’s not), and certainly not because he was a devoted husband, but rather because he isn’t a hero. He simply refuses to split in that traditional way. His refrain, I don’t do anything, is partly a complaint, partly a muted boast, and he defies a traditionalist male role that lingers in our society, whether feminists want this or not.

 

 

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