Sacred Spaces

How do we behave in spaces which we respect? 

In temples, kovils, synagogues and churches, we generally dress in modest and respectful clothing, covering our tattoos, removing our shoes so we do not track the dirt and dust of the outside world, and sometimes even covering our hair. We do not chew gum, we refrain from drinking alcohol or taking mind (or behaviour) altering substances before entering the place, and we conduct ourselves with responsibility and self restraint. 

I was struck by the imagery in the poet recited by Amanda Gorman on Inauguration Day in the U.S. It seemed to me that she was attempting to cleanse and purify the site on Capitol Hill where, a fortnight before, rioters had  violated the sanctity of that building with their deliberately disrespectful behaviour: defacing and daubing the interior of the building with gross bodily substances, smashing its windows and pillaging offices of people who were trying to perform their public duty, as elected representatives and their support staff. 

Of course, the disrespect was meant to show very public contempt for the incoming President and the authority of his Party. But in the process of displaying this, the perpetrators also disrespected the country they claim to love, as proud American patriots. An American flag was used as a weapon. The outgoing President behaved in such a way as to hold in contempt his own country, and the responsibilities he held. 

The interesting thing is that this clear contempt is denied by him and his followers. The prosecutors who are attempting to impeach him a second time - this time, for incitement of violence - have to literally explain to him what he has done wrong. 

Either he is genuinely psychologically incapable of recognizing this wrongdoing, or he and his team will simply not admit it. Freedom of speech is apparently supposed to cover even the right to threaten, abuse, destroy and damage the peace of others, and the places they value and respect. 

On a smaller scale, I recently witnessed a mirroring of these dynamics in a Facebook group I joined, which has a membership of nearly 25,000 people, and is dedicated to celebrating the talent of the beloved actress Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha Stephens in the long running TV show ‘Bewitched’, which aired in the U.S. in the 60s and 70s, and was rerun endlessly in Australia for many years. 

The actress herself died some years ago, and had a long and varied career in her chosen profession. However, it was this show that brought her into everyone’s living rooms. Her beauty, intelligence, comedic timing and dramatic versatility are showcased perfectly in the show, and her legacy is a wonderful one. 

However, a post was recently put up in this group by a man which showed a picture of the actress as the character Samantha, wearing a top which was ‘see through’ and which showed her breasts clearly outlined under the blouse material. 

To the delight of the man posting the picture, comments in their hundreds rapidly started coming in on the thread, complimenting the body parts of the actress, and particularly her breasts, some of the comments crossing the line from admiration to lewdness and verbal drooling. 

There were many women on this group, and the comments of the men were felt by several members to be pornographic and to be objectifying the actress in a disrespectful way. Predictably, a direct request to refrain from such commentary was met with defiance from the men posting. Some said they were merely ‘admiring’ and ‘appreciating’ the actress by lusting after her publicly, and those demanding that they stop were interfering with their right to express their feelings. 

Others said the actress was gorgeous, and the women who ‘complained’ that they should clean up their comments about her were simply jealous that this lady was the focus of their desire and admiration. (The ‘feminists must be ugly’ doctrine, which assumes that all beautiful woman welcome sexual admiration from all men, and are grateful for the recognition). 

Still others said that Elizabeth Montgomery herself clearly liked wearing short skirts and provocative clothing, so lucky for them that she did! No one forced her to. (And indeed, the actress did seem to have a lot of say in her character’s development in the many years she played her part, and presumably that included her choice of costuming.) 

Having been presided over by a former President who publicly revelled in his own objectification of women and his juvenile excitement at grabbing their body parts seems to have empowered this model of virile manhood in the U.S. 

Many people revere actresses for their physical beauty, and indeed elevate them to the stature of goddesses, based on their roles in the movies or TV series they star in.  

Some men in the comments on the post in question said most men commenting in a provocative way were confined to online activity for their expression of their feelings, and so for them the border between pornography and entertainment had been scraped thin by frustration. 

Their rights to express themselves outweighed the responsibilities they had to respect the preferences of others. Like the rioters on Capitol Hill, they were trying to take over the building, and defacing its icons to show - apparently - their right to claim it entirely as their own. 

It seems quite animalistic, doesn’t it? To mark territory by physical expression and a measure of bodily impulse. 

So the Facebook group is now deciding if it is going to be a more generalized group for the celebration of the actress as a whole person, or a group for specifically salivating over her body parts, which would limit it as a source of interest and enjoyment for many of its members. As one person pointed out, that’s what Porn Hub is for. 

One lady commented that a lot of the men seemed to say this actress was their first crush, as her beauty and charm so impacted them. She formed their idea of beauty in women. And their appreciation of her was largely visual, although as they grew up they appreciated her intelligence and acting ability as well. 

I think it’s no accident that the actress herself was a blue eyed blonde with a beautiful face and lovely body shape. Much as the actress in ‘I Dream Of Jeannie’ was, and many of the bombshells and pinups of the 50s and 60s in the United States. The men commenting so lewdly were formed by their white supremacist culture, which is now saturated by pornography and correlated with various forms of misogyny. 

The backlash against feminism can be seen in the reversion to the defiant right to physically grab and verbally assault women, and in the thinking that makes some men feel that women should be available to them at all times, solely for their entertainment. Actresses or models are often equated with sex workers, in this way of thinking. 

The men commenting in a reductive and objectifying way about this actress, like the rioters on Inauguration Day, are clearly wondering what the fuss is about, and I suggest many of them probably also generally wonder why women and girls seem to feel uncomfortable around them. 

Then they wonder why women want to have ‘female only’ spaces or groups. Or why people who also have rights feel offended by their sanctuaries being defiled, or their values disrespected.