THE WAY THINGS ARE
Yet another famous man is hitting headlines for alleged lewd, predatory behaviour towards women. Russell Brand wowed audiences with his audacious style – not for him the old-fashioned norms of broadcasters never uttering a rude or suggestive word on air. Looking at and listening to him, I was at a loss as to why women found him attractive. Fame is a magnet for some, I found him creepy.
When he was recently accused of sexual misbehaviour, there came the usual answer of his kind, ‘It was consensual!’ (My female fans threw themselves at me!) Some women will comply with the urges of men like him to boast about it, we know the groupie syndrome. To each his own.
Obviously, others do not want their advances and refuse. As in the past, men of his ilk seemingly will not accept a no: I’m a celebrity with a huge fan base, an enormous salary, I’m entitled. And when the harassment becomes public the cry above is from an ego that refuses to let anyone think they pushed their advances on a woman who actually didn’t desire it.
One case he’ll find hard to wriggle out of is the one in which he showed ‘his willie’ to a woman and then joked about it on a radio programme. How, some wondered, did it get by a controller who was supposed to vet content? It appears the person in charge of vetting was Brand’s man. It is, to his loss, on record.
Nowhere in the world will you find a politician suitable for canonisation. Yet a sigh of halleluiah relief from US allies came when Joe Biden became President of America. America now has a seasoned, professional leader under whose term the US economy has surged, unemployment shows healthier figures, wages and childcare have improved and life is on the up for everyday Americans.
Yet, Donald Trump, the former Alpha wolf in the White House, under the honorary title of leader of the free world, had as much experience of the complications of international or homeland politics and the intricacies of leading such a vast country, as a car mechanic would have of piloting a rocket to the moon. But he’s out there once more shouting his absurdities to admiring followers. People to whom he promised a better life and for whom he did practically nothing in real terms, while cutting taxes for the rich, still frantically supporting him for president, pretending the last election was stolen from the great MAGA man even though there is solid evidence to the contrary.
But the sad part for me as a woman who enjoys the company of decent men of all ages as chat companions is that, as with Brand, in spite of the ‘The Don’s’ crude, vulgar reputation, many women still think he’s wonderful and physically attractive. How? Does his past TV stardust still cling? The man looks and sounds weird: that hair, that skin colour, that narcissistic tone of voice set to ‘I’m always right even when I’m wrong, bow down lesser mortals, adore me.’ A man with more court cases around his head than Saturn has floating debris. A showman put in charge of the biggest showhouse on the planet. And while he used it as his personal venue to self-promote and, like a spoiled child given free run in a sweet shop, gorged his oversized power ego and indulged his appetite to control, his lack of experience and realism made cautious international political teeth chatter in apprehension at what he might do on a childish whim.
Power for a good leader is layered with responsibility, reason, measured and curtailed by what the law or constitution of their country deems acceptable. The same applies to a man’s behaviour towards women. But, as with George Orwell’s piggy tale, some heads think they are more equal than others. There are women who find such men alluring, their brute strength in commanding sexual obedience thrilling. A throwback perhaps to our perceived image of primitive males dragging women by the hair to comply. Respect to those with courage to expose them.
