That had something to do with the fragility of the fleshly body in the immediate aftermath of resurrection. A very special case. In modern times, I think we tend to think of a woman saying "Don't touch me." But Howie Mandel wrote a book called "Don't Touch Me":
He was writing about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Maybe you remember pre-"2001" Keir Dullea as David in "David and Lisa" with his mentally disordered fear of touching:
"You touched me! You want to kill me! Touch can kill!... You coarse, clumsy, stupid FOOL!"
The truth is that we all have a right to sovereignty over our own bodies. It's not just something for women to demand from men. It's something we are all entitled to as human beings. We are now encountering the defense of female integrity embodied in the rather muddled campus policy known as "Yes means yes," but it applies to men too. Women care about our bodily integrity, but too many of us believe that our sexual favors are so universally desirable that a "yes" from a man can be presumed, that a woman can impose upon a man. But that's wrong.
And now, today, we see this story of the President of the United States, Barack Obama, making the kind of assumption that is more typical of the female — the assumption that the person he chooses to touch must necessarily want to be touched. Obama is caught in a relationship with a man who postures as the woman's boyfriend and says to the President: "Don't touch my girlfriend." The President proceeds to grasp at his own dignity by demonstrating to that man that he most certainly can touch that woman, but what of the woman, that woman possessed by two men? It was her choice whether to be touched by the President, and her choice whether to be owned by the man who said to the President "Don't touch my girlfriend," and yet both men assumed ownership over her autonomy — the boyfriend because he had a past with her and the President because, like too many woman, he thought of himself as so universally desirable that a "yes" from any woman can be presumed.
In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper? My heart breaks to see how she saw her best hope in coming to the aid of both men, both men who, within seconds, claim sovereignty over the territory of her body. What history lies behind this instinct to protect these 2 men, these 2 exemplars of male power — the boyfriend and the President of the United States? Cooper didn't even want to stand next to the President: "I was like, 'do I have to stand there? I don't really want to stand there.'" And after the incident in which Cooper defended her boyfriend and acceded to the Commander-in-Chief's command "You're gonna kiss me," Ms. Cooper reached out to the President's wife: "I wanna meet Michelle... Hopefully she doesn't think anything about me, but I really want to meet her."
"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth," Jesus said.
Posts
92 comments:
I know you think you're good, and you care, and it's for my own good, and you have the right...
but... don't touch me, ObamaCare.
Sometimes I start to find this blog predictable, and then Ann writes something like this.
Me 'at's off to the Duchess.
That sound you hear is Ayaan Hirsi Ali playing sad dirges on an exceedingly tiny violin.
Ezra Klein: "men need to feel a cold spike of fear when they begin a sexual encounter."
Awesome. Great. I am so looking forward to the cooties generation. If it's not stupid feminists, it's ebola.
Stop the touching. Just stop it right now.
Historians in the 22nd century--assuming we learn to breed without touching--will call this decade the Ought Nots.
You mean "Blessed are the cheese-makers."
My favorite recent tweet by Ruth Buzzi:
"Sweet dreams are made of cheese.
Who am I to diss a Brie...?"
Respect neither starts nor stops at the surface of the skin.
Respect also involves more than just the hindbrain reactions to territorial defense and transgression. It's also a matter of ethics and morals and deserves full treatment within the intellectual sphere as well.
I've resisted watching the video, and I've resisted this story because the whole thing (on the surface) seems tailor-made to reinforce whatever biases that each tribe in our greater society is trying to fan into flaming knee-jerk indignation. Personally I've had enough of that.
I see your point, Althouse. I feel for the bit players in this little morality play too. I think the best thing we can do though is just let it go and confront the problem in an arena that doesn't have so much bullshit to wade through in it.
Althouse said…
In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper?
I'm going to go with a yes on this.
It's not a heaping on black people thing, Althouse also found Bush's Angela massage inappropriate.
"In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper?"
In the entire history of the world?
How about Monica Lewinsky?
Her name is in the news.
More seriously, off the top of my head, how about concubines? Japanese comfort women in WWII? I say this because I recently read the book Nanking: "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chan.
I can think of a dozen examples where women were subordinated to a far worse and harsh degree than this.
In my mind, the phrase will always be linked to Space Ghost's pal Brak.
"In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper?"
Again, let's look at what Althouse is claiming here.
In the entire recorded history of human beings, NO OTHER WOMAN was as uniquely subordinated at Ms. Cooper was today.
No other woman. Anywhere. Women raped, abused, mistreated, discarded, used.
None of them - not one - was subordinated as uniquely as Cooper was today.
Sorry, but that is just a absolutely historically illiterate claim. It is so lacking in any understanding of history as to be written by a child.
"How about Monica Lewinsky?"
Nope. She initiated the contact, was not caught between two men, and cared nothing for the President's wife.
"The truth is that we all have a right to sovereignty over our own bodies. It's not just something for women to demand from men. It's something we are all entitled to as human beings."
Yes, but feminists don't consider men to be human beings.
but it applies to men too
Running a breast into a man's arm is a tactful say to say you're interested. It can be taken up or declined without hassle.
To stay on topic...Brak sounds like Barack.
Integrity is from not touch in Latin.
It takes two to tango.
Somebody invaded Hillary's space in a debate. I forget who.
She has offshore touch rights.
Cooper had the power or freedom to turn Obama down. She could have said, "Thank you but I'd rather not." Or just put her hand out to shake.
Obama, the most powerful man in the world, couldn't have done anything.
If Cooper had to subordinate to anything she did so freely. She was not coerced into acting out of fear of harm or force being used against her. To be sure there was lots of social pressure; the cameras, the president, the attention. But that is far different than coercion.
This is so unlike the many women in world history who had no choice.
The professor has not claimed that the subordination was the most extreme, only unique. And that might certainly be true but twould be difficult to prove.
My body and my mind have a power sharing arrangement. No sovereignty there.
Althouse said…
In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper?
In the history of the world, has there ever been a sentence as uniquely hyperbolic as this one?
"In the history of the world, has there ever been a sentence as uniquely hyperbolic as this one?"
I'm trying to think of one but I can't.
My Lewinsky example was, dare I say, a bit tongue in cheek.
Puckish.
The situation is an imbalance of power between boyfriend and president.
The president's point is to put the boyfriend in his place. Sort of a president ISIS raping the women.
The girl's problem isn't to retain her integrity but to rescue the boyfriend's position.
The troll is strong with this one.
Would have been awesome if the woman publicly slapped Obama.
Kevin,
What a friend we have in Cheeses.
Ezra Klein: "men need to feel a cold spike of fear when they begin a sexual encounter."
These data would certainly do it for Howie Mandel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaginal_flora#Vaginal_microbiota
and
http://www.personal.psu.edu/afr3/blogs/siowfa12/2012/11/use-mascara-watch-out-for-eyelash-mites.html
I can think of some of the interns that JFK slept with that were in a far worse position of subordination than Cooper was.
Were they unique?
One of JFK's mistresses, Mimi Alford, told the story of JFK telling (ordering?) her to give JFK's aide David Powers oral sex while they all swam in the White House pool. She did while JFK watched.
Powers, according to Alford, lectured the president, "You shouldn't have made her do that."
JFK laughed and said, "I shouldn't have."
There's your subordination by presidents, Althouse.
This is what happens when you try a rhetorical flourish, Althouse.
People want to hear what they want to hear and want to react to what they want to react to.
"In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper?"
Helen of Troy?
Nope. She initiated the contact, was not caught between two men, and cared nothing for the President's wife.
I'm telling ya, chicks dig Clinton.
The unsavory aftermath of Helen's whoring around, to cite Anne Carson on the Trojan War.
"Chicks dig Clinton". Maybe brain dead, idiot Democrat women do, but no true self-respecting woman "digs" him.
Fawning over a man who has treated so many women so poorly is truly disgusting. It is why I have so little regard for Hilary. What a weak person she is for going along with his disgusting behavior for so long.
Cheese
Integrity of the game violated.
See also moving the goalposts. This happens in feminism.
Uniquely, in this case, Obama's attempt at subordination was intentionally displayed publicly and thought to be "charming" by many -- many who continue to be blind to their own condescending attitudes and conflicted principles.
A similar subordination would have to involve some king and some commoner. The commoner shouts out "don't touch her." The king does what he wants.
So what about in The Tale of two Cities where the husband tries to deny his wife to the aristocrat?
There was this custom called "droit de seignour" whereby the aristocrat could grab any woman. In Dickin's story the peasant tries to stop the aristocrat and the aristocrat uses various laws to drive the husband to death and then seizes the woman.
And also wasn't the President doing something that a guy in the Ivy League schools would be prosecuted for? Did he ask? at each point? I think not.
Isn't it sexual assault if you don't ask? War on Women anyone? Or is the President above the law?
In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper?
The French have a name for it.
Droit du seigneur
Cooper seems to be more upset - subordinated if you insist - with her boyfriend than with Obama.
But I'll repeat: her subordination, if we have to use that very loaded phrase, was on her own terms. She could have stuck her hand out to shake Obama's hand. Nothing would have happened. She would not have been forced to do anything against her will.
I'm sure the pressure of the situation - the president, the press, the TV - intimidated her to a degree. She didn't want to be rude.
But being of good cheer is not subordinating to anything.
As to Obama's behavior: well, one can make the case that he was arrogant.
But that is different than saying that Ms. Cooper's subordination was unique to world history.
This is way over the top analysis of a small incident.
"In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper?
I'm going to go with a yes on this."
I think a yes is appropriate.
Maybe she "deserved it ?"
A show always ahead of its time.
So let me get this straight: Obama forced his physical attentions on this woman (hope I don't upset Ebola MC here), but she was victimized by both men.
Aia Cooper is inspiring lots of Alice Cooper earworms. The '70's are coming back. I can't stop them.
Lyrics for Don't Touch Me By Lorrie Morgan
Your hand is like a torch each time you touch me
That look in your eye pulls me apart
Don't open the door to heaven if I can't come in
Don't touch me, if you don't love me, sweetheart
Your kiss is like a drink when I'm thirsty
And I'm thirsty for you with all my heart
Don't love me, then act as though we've never kissed
Don't touch me, if you don't love me sweetheart
Don't give me something that you might take away
To have you, then lose you wouldn't be smart on my part
Did The Onion take over Althouse today? Is this post for real? Is it silly season at Meadehouse? Can't you focus on more relevant events?
Like Renée Zellwegger's face?
"Is it silly season at Meadehouse?"
An early Halloween and Althouse is going out disguised as Amanda Marcotte? And Meade is disguised as Margaret Dumont.
But taking her to task for this nonsense is condescending I guess.
Don't write silly things and we won't be so condescending.
It's nonsense on stilts.
The boyfriend clearly embarrassed his girlfriend and Obama. But what was telling is that Obama, a professional politician, seemed rattled by it and failed to mount a witty comeback. He spent a bunch of time acting like a pussy and then gave her a kiss anyway.
What he could have done is said, "I promise to control myself", or "what should I do if she throws herself at me"? or "I promise to kiss you first." etc.
Breaking news, sorry it's off topic, but I just heard that Ben Bradlee passed away at 93
Althouse said…
In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper?"
Anne Boleyn?
Althouse, with the inclusion of Jesus, gives away the game of trolling her conservative republican readers, hard! Seems the blogress took the commentariat's rebuke of Hillary2016! personally.
The truth is that we all have a right to sovereignty over our own bodies. It's not just something for women to demand from men. It's something we are all entitled to as human beings.
You mean I don't have to die? Yay!
Just what did you guys pick up on your last trip to Colorado?
Many years ago, I was standing in line to check baggage at the main airport in San Francisco. There was an airline employee on the front side of the counter picking who was next because there were many apparent non-English speakers who kept trying to jump the line. The guy waved somebody forward out of turn and the person whose turn it really was tried to get his attention by touching his elbow. The airline guy went into a full five minute hissy fit about “Don't touch me!” He yelled at everybody in line because they wouldn't stay in line, they had too much luggage, and they couldn't speak English, but mostly, “Don't you dare touch me!”
That was my introduction to San Francisco.
"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth," Jesus said.
"Jesus is said to have said", you mean.
The last time I can remember as overwrought a reaction to a good-natured contact between a man and a woman was when someone said that the iconic photo of a sailor kissing a nurse on V-J Day was a sexual assault. Lighten up! Obama only kissed the girl. He's f*cked the country.
What about the Oregon masseuse who claimed Al Gore attacked her like a 'crazed sex poodle?'
Being touched by God and by the people who love us is the true goal of the life span that we are born to live.
God formed Adam from clay but He had to put his mouth on Adams's mouth to breath Life into the clay to create man. That is the spirit (breath) of God in men that seeks to reconnect to its source.
He touched me.
tradtionalguy-
It sends chills up my spine when I think that God breathed life into world as well as into Adam. Genesis 1:2 says "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."
The Hebrew for "Spirit of God" is "Ruach Elohim", which can also be translated as "breath of God."
"In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper?"
Well, on the college campuses of Northern Iraq, the Muslims keep women in chains and sell them into sexual slavery. After they kill their male relatives, of course. Did Obama kill any of her relatives?
The headline was, "I've been raped thirty times today, and it's not even lunchtime." At least they aren't drunken frat boys.
Compare the responses between what Obama did and what Tristan Thompson of the Cavaliers did during a pre-game interview this week.
Well, on the college campuses of Northern Iraq, the Muslims keep women in chains and sell them into sexual slavery
After we liberated them. That sucks.
Micro-feminism?
Nemo me impune lacessit.
I saw the encounter on television. It looked like good natured kidding, but, as Althouse points out, there were dark currents beneath the surface. It seems inappropriate for the guy to tell the President not to touch his girl friend. The President's response, that the guy wasn't showing sufficient respect and then in making it a point to hug the girl, didn't seem especially lofty or worthy of a world historical figure.....The President was charming and genial, but there were lots of not very nice things going on in the mock jousting.
garage: "After we liberated them. That sucks."
There's that "we" again. Talk about delusions of grandeur.
Must be the after effects of all that Friday Night heroism.
The truth is that we all have a right to sovereignty over our own bodies.
Careful, you're sounding like a libertarian. We're among the few people who actually believe that.
Most people have a parade of caveats to it -- drugs, prostitution, diet, health care, etc.
Politicians have always been allowed to kiss babies against their will. The age just keeps moving up.
You mean I don't have to die?
Well, out of all the humans who ever lived, only 93% have died so far. :)
Don't give in to peer pressure!
Who says "Don't touch me"? Most famously: Jesus. He said it — "Noli me tangere" — to Mary Magdalene, in a scene depicted many times in art:
He would have said it in Aramaic, not Latin.
But excellent pretentious fail.
The concept of Personal Space diminishes in relation to Society's reach. The ever-present hand is now always on your shoulder.
Man, that "please prove you're not a robot" is gonna be tough on Crack.
Talk about robotic!!!
You try to go vote, and some guy treats you like a friggin' dolphin.
King David, Bathsheba, and Uriah the Hittite.
"In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper?"
Hahahahaha.
Women that live in the US are so sheltered and ridiculous. If you got to spend a week living like the women in Afghanistan you might stop acting like this.
After a while we noticed they were covering their women's faces when we got to a compound. Earlier on when we saw a woman with bruises on their face it went as you would guess.
Eventually you will get your wish and you will neuter your protectors. You may regret that.
garage mahal said...
Well, on the college campuses of Northern Iraq, the Muslims keep women in chains and sell them into sexual slavery
"After we liberated them. That sucks."
We don't think you are part of the "we" that actually liberated them. In fact we think you undermined our efforts. And when you got the chance you threw them back to the animals we were fighting.
Oh and "we" hate you and all the other douche's that participated in those efforts.
Jesus spoke Latin to a first-century Semite whore? Whoa. He must have slipped her a little Holy Spirit first, so she'd grok it.
Saint Croix said...
Ezra Klein: "men need to feel a cold spike of fear when they begin a sexual encounter."
Dude if it comes down to that even Viagra won't help. Pretty soon it will be all over but the crying. I'm glad I'm getting old if that is the future. Thank God I had my share when I was young. At least I have my memories whereas poor Ezra will only have wishes (although being the prog jerk that he is maybe its divine retribution that he be sexless for life).
AReasonableMan said...
Althouse said…
In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper?
In the history of the world, has there ever been a sentence as uniquely hyperbolic as this one?
10/21/14, 6:47 PM"
God help me but for once you make sense. Truly this whole thing is making an ant hill out of a mole hill. I can't believe that someone would be so classless as to disrespect a president of the United States in such a setting and as anyone who has ever bothered to read any of my comments here knows my feelings about president whatshisname so for me that said a lot about this clown and his girlfriend.
"men need to feel a cold spike of fear when they begin a sexual encounter."
The fear the beta is talking about is not fear of the women or her family but of the State.
It always comes down to the State with these progs.
Re: childbirth as punishment
In Genesis 2, Eve responds (paraphrase), "With the help of God, I have brought forth a man."
Kinda off for a wicked judgmental Father figure.
Go figure...?
Wicked matriarchs are just as bad as patriarchs...
You cannot spell tactile without L-I-E.
I like the anti-robot thingy. I hope it cuts down on thread spamming.
The Tubes have the final word!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ilOARbJT_M
Jesus spoke Latin to a first-century Semite whore? Whoa. He must have slipped her a little Holy Spirit first, so she'd grok it.
Actually, it isn't clear that she was a prostitute, and esp. after she became one of His more devoted followers. That mostly comes from the sacred traditions that to some extent separate Roman and maybe Orthodox from Protestant. On the flip side, the Gospel of Mary claims that Jesus and Mary Magdalen were an item, formally or common law married, and from that, it follows that this claim that she was a prostitute was a part of males, and esp the males in the Roman church, taking complete control over Christianity, putting women in a subordinate position. Calling her a prostitute allowed history to arguably delegitimize that she was the closest to Jesus.
If that were true, this passage would have a slightly different meaning. Instead of a random woman being told not to touch him in the way that women are privileged to do (and men not), but rather the more intimate touching of those closest to him. And, indeed, not being immersed in the Sacred Traditions of the Roman Church, long before I had ever heard of the Gospel of Mary, I had read this passage to mean more than the denial of every day female/male touching, but rather, that her attempted touch was somehow more personal.
As for the Latin, if you click on the link, you'll get some background. The Latin phrase is standard for referring to the artwork. Note that I also said that Jesus said "Don't touch me." The fact that we're talking about translations is obvious. I didn't put it in Latin to be "pretentious" as one commenter said, but because of the standardization in Latin of that particular phrase.
That had something to do with the fragility of the fleshly body in the immediate aftermath of resurrection.
Really?
Fortunately, personal revelations like this don't count for much.
Albuquerque has adopted the same voting machines shown in Chicago on the video, and I hate them. Not the machines, but the booths where we fill them in, which make it easy for the person next to you or behind you to see just who and what you are voting for.
In Albuquerque it is probably not so important, at least in my area, but in Rio Arriba County, or Chicago, or Philly - you bet!
"Really?"
At the link, you'll see the speculation about why Jesus says "Don't touch me":
Jesus' wounds were still sore so he did not like being touched
Kraft proposes that the prohibition was because it was against ritual to touch a dead body
Chrysostom and Theophylact argue that Jesus was asking that more respect be shown to him. This theory is sometimes linked to the notion that while it was not appropriate for a woman to touch Jesus it was fine for a man like Thomas.
C. Spicq sees the resurrected Jesus as the equivalent of one of the Jewish high priests who should not be sullied by physical contact
Kastner, who believes Christ returned in the nude, believes the prohibition was so that Mary would not be tempted by Jesus' body
Mary should not touch Jesus because she should not need physical proof of the resurrection but should trust in her faith.
Bultman sees the phrase as an indirect way of saying that the resurrected Jesus was not at this point tangible.
According to Moule Jesus' intervention is not a prohibition on being touched, but rather an assurance that the touching is not needed for he had not yet returned to the Father and was still firmly here on Earth. His use of the present tense is said to mean that he should not be touched just at this moment, but could be touched in future.
Some link it with the next verse stating that they should be read as one to say "don't touch me instead go tell my disciples of the news"
In John Calvin's commentary he argues that Jesus did not forbid simple touching, but rather that Jesus had no problems until the women began to cling to him as though they were trying to hold him in the corporeal world at which point Jesus told them to let go. Some translations thus use touch for the seemingly permitted actions in Mark and cling for the action Jesus chides Mary for in this verse.
Barrett mentions the possibility that between this verse and John 20:22 Jesus fully ascends to heaven.
I chose my version.
And there is the case in Arizona, where a man arrived at the polling place with a sheaf of filled in ballots under his arm and just proceeded to stuff them into a machine.
Of course, this was strictly against procedure, but it was allowed to happen, even over a poll watcher's protests.
Obama was demanding subordination, insisting on it. He was angry, not amused. Head down, unsmiling, monotone monologue. That anger was directed at Boyfriend, for daring to interact with the POTUS in a way that smacked of equality. Then he used the woman as a prop to assert an appearance of dominance. For Obama it was all completely impersonal. Mike and Aia were stick figures in a little moment of Obamaishness.
I have less sympathy for Aia than you do Althouse, maybe because I don't see or feel this from a female perspective. Obama calls her man a "fool." Perhaps she feels overpowered and can't disagree, but she immediately agrees. Is her agreement instinctive subordination or an expression of her true feeling? It felt like the latter.
And then there's the idiot giggly interviewer, who seems not to see anything but the celebrity of it all. Why not ask Mike how it felt to be called a fool by the President, and have his woman agree? Fools have feelings too.
Anyway, nice post. It's great when you ring out issues that nearly everyone else glosses over.
Clever reading of the "incident" that was full of mockery by both the boyfriend and the President, whose head was down because he was filling out the ballots and concentrating on that, but still it was a gesture of power man over women, but hardly uniquely subordinated as many have pointed out-- but this rings well for a conservative.
I'm saying "uniquely subordinated" because the subordination occurred on camera, with her standing next to the President of the United States and with her boyfriend somehow bizarrely getting the idea that he could be cheeky toward the President and make a reference to this woman's sexuality and the 2 men's competing claims to her. What a scene! That has NEVER happened before.
"In the history of the world, has there ever been a woman as uniquely subordinated as Aia Cooper?"
Has Althouse ever heard of this guy named Ted Kennedy? He used to be a US Senator.
Leaving a woman to drown just off a lonely road in a submerged car is a bit more harsh, at least in my opinion, than joking with a man and woman in public.
Oh, wait, Teddy was a DEM. Never mind.
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