Here we are, back to the subject that kick-started the 30
Days of De-objectification series.
I find myself with more questions than answers.
Why do these girls think it’s okay to treat these men (or
anybody) like sex objects?
How are they so completely lacking in empathy?
Have they never seen anyone grow old?
Has no-one in their life ever been critically ill?
Have they never had to watch anyone die?
If someone were talking about their grandfather the way they
talk about these older musicians, would they really be okay with that?
Their attitudes are, frankly, sociopathic.
It’s not about them finding people much older than
themselves attractive.
I’ve found many men who were significantly older than I was
attractive.
My very first crush was Robin as portrayed by Burt Ward. I
was six years old.
I didn’t see Star Trek in its first run, as I was born the
same year that it was. I saw it in reruns at age ten and was smitten with
Leonard Nimoy. I also thought that George Takei and Walter Koenig were cute.
In my early teens, I had a crush on Shaun Cassidy. However,
I also found Gregory Peck very attractive, and he was old enough to be my
grandfather.
My father loved big band and swing music, and I found the
likes of Frank Sinatra, Stan Kenton, and Glenn Miller quite appealing in the
looks department. Duke Ellington was suave. Nat King Cole had a kind, handsome
face. Cab Calloway was cool.
It isn’t that I have a problem with the girls in question
finding older musicians attractive.
I simply find the gross sexual objectification of these
musicians incredibly disrespectful and the entitled insistence of these young
women that they should be allowed to treat people any way they want without their
behavior being questioned appalling.
I would never have said of the men I mentioned finding attractive
“I want him to cum on my face and stick his dick up my ass.” I would have found
it incredibly disrespectful to say such a thing. I would have been embarrassed
to say such a thing.
I realize that I have had more exposure than most to the
harsh realities of aging bodies, terminal illness, and dementia. I worked in
long-term care for approximately 25 years. I would kill myself if I were ever
diagnosed with dementia. Of all the ways to go, dementia is the absolute worst.
One loses not only their physical abilities but their cognitive functions. Such
a fate would be intolerable, and I won’t put myself or my son through it.
I had a stoic attitude about my work until I learned that
Malcolm Young had been diagnosed with dementia. After that point, I kept seeing
his face on my patients. Knowing what was going to happen to him made me feel
sick. As well, my own father had died in 2010 after many years of physical and
cognitive decline. When I went to work, it was as if I was detached from my
body, floating a little above it, because I couldn’t bear to be present.
I thought about the fact that Malcolm had a granddaughter
whom he would end up forgetting. I thought about how much his daughter loved
him and how he ended up becoming her child in a way as his cognition declined.
There are pictures of them together with her watching him. I know what she was
thinking because it was what I was thinking about my father. I knew I would
lose him, and I wanted to remember him.
On a physical level, I know what dementia does to the brain.
I have seen people die of cancer.
At one point when I was still a nurse’s aide, I worked with
a patient who was a World War II air force veteran. He had a picture of himself
in his uniform on his bedside table. He had been a very handsome man in his
youth. When I was helping care for him, he had skin cancer which had eaten a
hole in his cheek as well as metastasizing to his major organs. The cancerous
area caused him a lot of pain and had to be cleaned several times a day. I
remember one night when I came in to empty his catheter bag. He thought I was
there to clean the wound, and he said “oh, please, Honey, do we have to do
this? I don’t think I can stand it.”
I reassured him that I was only there to empty the catheter
bag and told him that I’d ask the nurse if he could have something for pain.
This is the reality of terminal illness.
As we age, we become more vulnerable to the possibility that
major parts of us will malfunction in critical ways. Telomeres shorten. Cells
become more prone to mutation. Overall, we become more fragile.
When I see videos or old pictures of favorite musicians who
have died, I feel as if I am looking through a telescope at some world light
years away, which has, in fact, been destroyed. I want to save them, but I can’t.
I really can’t understand how someone can look at thirty,
forty, even fifty-year-old pictures of these people and say, “I think I’ll
write something crude about this aged or dead person now.” Because that’s not
disrespectful and totally fucked up at all.
You can think (insert name of older or dead musician) is
attractive all you want. There’s nothing wrong with finding someone attractive.
When you erase that person’s entire being and see only fodder for your
masturbation fantasy? That isn’t cute. It’s nasty.
I think that sums the matter up concisely.
Your porny posts about vulnerable aging people and those who
have passed on aren’t sexy and edgy. They’re gross and disrespectful. Think
about how the hell you’d feel if someone was talking about your grandfather
that way and cut your nasty bullshit the fuck out.
