Saturday, April 25, 2015

The Disappointment of a Nation

Yes Foxy, it has the swears.

*As is literally ALWAYS the case in my swear riddled blog, all views herein represent MY VIEW ONLY. 

As much as I have super enjoyed the... what are we up to now 72 hours? Free pass for hurling abuse at the Prime Minister of New Zealand. The time has come for me to take a serious look at what feelings I have about the situation; because as much as I have with joy flung mud, this IS a serious situation. Even if Dear Leader hasn't figured that out yet.

To condense the story as much as possible, for the tribes of darkest Africa that haven't already heard about it - The Prime Minister of New Zealand, The Honourable (*snerk*) Mr John Key, has for months been harassing a young lady in a cafe he frequents in Auckland. He has been pulling her hair. No, actually I'm not fucking kidding. He has been pulling her hair like a ten year old school yard bully. An act that any child can tell you is a douche move. But not, apparently, a grown man with the responsibility for the well being of an entire country. Fucknozzle.
Now, for all that the young lady says that she thinks he initially meant well... actually I don't give a fuck, not a single fuck. He's an adult human being, he should have known better and the fact that he put insufficient thought into his actions is NOT BETTER. We are not talking about a miscommunication here, because there is no point at which she should have had to say "please don't pull on my hair" because it is literally THAT FUCKING OBVIOUS. This not something that you do to someone you barely know, this is not something you do without being 100% certain the other person wants you to. Unless you are a fucking idiot. Or an entirely thoughtless twat. Or something worse, that I'm not going to go into because I don't think it's constructive to raise that spectre in this situation. I don't think he's criminally fucked up on that level, but I do suspect he might have a *thing* for hair - and you know what, that is JUST FINE, I have all kinds of *things*. The trick is, not exposing them in inappropriate places. I don't walk up to soldiers on the street and tell them I likes me a man in uniform. Because that is FUCKING CREEPY. Seriously. STRANGER DANGER. 

The story has raised all kinds of discussions over all kinds of features of the situation; Let's start with was it sexual harassment? Let me ask you this, if you are playing with your partners hair, what do you mean by it? I guess the point I'm making here is that under normal circumstances, touching someones hair is a fairly intimate thing. You wouldn't normally touch the hair of someone you were not pretty familiar with - well I wouldn't, maybe you would, but if you would then I'd find it creepy. If the touch can reasonably be defined as intimate then it can reasonably be defined as sexual harassment when it is unwanted. 

Guys the moral of this story is not that women are too uptight about these things. The moral of this story is FUCKING GET CONSENT FIRST. 

Should John Key be charged with sexual harassment? Or perhaps even sexual assault since he was literally asked to stop and didn't? THAT IS UP TO THE VICTIM. I'm actually pretty pissy at McCready for taking it on himself to file a complaint, it's not his place to do so, he is literally compounding one case of power imbalance with another. 

Which moves us on to the power imbalance... which some people would have shouldn't have been an issue, for various reasons. Look alright if some random in a suit walks into my (imaginary) cafe and is an arsehat to my staff, I'm going to step in and stop them, throw them out if necessary. Make them apologise, properly. If some douchemonkey is being a sack full of crap to ME they'll get 2 warning shots over the bows, then they'll be lucky if there isn't blood.  BUT and this is, I have to say, a fairly monstrously huge but, a but of EPIC proportions. We aren't talking about some random in a suit. We are talking about New Zealands head of government, even I might struggle to tell him to get his fucking paws off me. No I wouldn't, but I am hardly your average person. Dad raised me to know absolutely my value in the world and he priced me pretty damn high. Kings ain't got nothing on me, I'm a GOD baby. The Reptile Overlord wouldn't stand a chance. Any way, enough of my fucking enormous ego. For mere mortals standing up to one's head of government, not an easy thing, especially not when you are ALSO in the position of being a service person employed to serve him as a customer. Tad awkward saying "get your greasy mitts off me sunshine" in these circumstances. Add to that the not small factor that most women are raised to NOT VOICE COMPLAINTS in these circumstances (again, thank you Father mine, I am not so hobbled) and it's no fucking wonder it took her a significant time to say something. And did he stop after she said something? The hell he did. Self absorbed bastard didn't even listen to his WIFE on this one. If I was his wife (excuse I have to go throw up for a minute) I'd have slapped the fucker. Hard. I mean to her surely it looked like her husband was HITTING ON another woman. He might, and I hesitate to grant this, MIGHT have got away with the first one. But I'd have nailed him to the floor on the second. The power imbalance here was ENORMOUS. It's hard to imagine a bigger one without dragging one of the Princes into it and I find it difficult to believe that they have not had better training. 

The arrogance of it all. I mean really, who amongst mere mortals can honestly say they would be willing to walk into their local shops, find a service person they were vaguely familiar with and behave like this? If you can I suggest you get help. 

Let's get this out on the table - I have serious issues with social boundaries, between thinking that many of them are stupid social constructs that I don't actually want to follow, and not actually noticing when I'm approaching lines I have been known to suck at understanding the why of what's going on around me. But I know how to recognise social cues like oh say someone not liking the way I'm fucking touching them. And unless I'm fairly drunk I'm unlikely to do anything monstrously weird - I don't get drunk around people I'm not familiar with, people who know how to tell me to fucking quit it. 
So either Dear Leader sucks at social cues, in which case he shouldn't have risked doing something like that in a public place. Or, he didn't give a crap what she thought about his behaviour, in which case we should hang the fucker out to dry as an entirely inappropriate personality type to be running this country. Or the thing I'm not bringing up, because it's really not likely. Look I hate the guy, and he creeps me the fuck out, but I've never suspected him of worse than being vaguely creepy. And a cunt. 

Basically the situation here is more serious than the Scaly One is giving it credit for. This could do him real damage if he doesn't face up to it properly. Sorry chuckles but a couple of bottles of wine and a vague 'sorry I didn't realise you were upset' is not the same as a proper apology. Being sorry means actually understanding what you did wrong, and being SORRY for it. And since at this point he has also become a PUBLIC embarrassment there's going to have to be an apology to the nation too. Soz 'bout it. Actually I'm really not. The people of this once fabulous nation have been owed an apology for his fuckery for a long time. He and his lackey government have wrecked this countries international image, while destroying our natural beauty. He won't apologise for that, or even acknowledge that it's been fucked it up. Maybe he'll have no choice but to apologise for this colossal embarrassment. But if he won't apologise to us, he'd better at least front up and apologise properly to the young lady he has harmed. Because she most of all deserves to know that he has actually learned his lesson. 

Peace. Out.

2 comments:

  1. Social /cues/ dear. Social queues are a different beast entirely :p
    <3 rant.

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    1. This is exactly why I need you peoples... I banged this out in about 90 minutes, I'm surprised it isn't riddled with errors. Cheers! <3

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