Victoria Brownworth Profile picture
Sep 29, 2018 28 tweets 15 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Let's talk about sex, #Kavanaugh & Venn diagram overlap of male entitlement.

I've written a lot about sex in various contexts. In the late 80s/early 90s I also gave safe sex workshops back when folks my age were dying 24/7 from #AIDS. My 1st book was on juvenile prostitution.
1/
Most of us know consensual and non-consensual sex differ. The entirety of #Kavanaugh's defense and his defenders' outrage is predicated on the presumption that no teenaged boy knows what consent is.

THEY. KNOW.

Some, like their adult counterparts, don't care.

This is key.
2/
Since #MeToo we've seen egregious serial rapists like #BillCosby and #HarveyWeinstein exposed & attempts made to prosecute them.

But there are "lesser" sexual assaults we've given a lighter hand to: Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Mark Halperin, Louis CK--too many to list.
3/
Those men lost their jobs, yet are all still in their respective lines of work. The women they abused have been ostracized or excommunicated from that same business. The NYT sent Glenn Thrush to rehab like drinking makes men sexually assault women & he came right back to work.
4/
#Kavanaugh isn't Cosby or Weinstein. But he is those other guys. He absolutely did what he's accused of by Ford and Ramirez and maybe other girls who did not/won't come forward.
How we know is that Kavanaugh is a serial liar, deeply entitled and used to getting what he wants.

5/
Not all men who are serial liars sexually assault women. Not all blackout drunks serially assault women.
But the things #Kavanaugh lies about--sex and alcohol and addiction--suggest otherwise.
6/
Much has been made about #Kavanaugh's weird calendars. Here's the thing: He catalogued his drinking on it. Over and over he noted brewskis--code his parents wouldn't recognize. But it was THAT important to him. And it's all over his yearbook. Drunkenness. Sex. Addiction.
7/
#Kavanaugh shifted addictions at some point from alcohol to gambling. $200k debt is a house.His bestie,#MarkJudge, continued to struggle with alcohol and drugs. Wrote two books about it--co-starring Kavanaugh--and built his career and fortune on those tales of teen debauchery.
8/
#Kavanaugh wants us to accept the calendars but not the yearbook nor the eyewitness account of his then best friend, #MarkJudge.

He wants us to believe explanations that are verifiably false: boofing is either anal sex or anal imbibing of alcohol or drugs. Not farting.
9/
#Kavanaugh wants us to believe #DevilsTriangle is a drinking game instead of a game where two guys corner one girl and have sex with her: consensual or non.

WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT KAVANAUGH IS ACCUSED OF.

That Kavanaugh spent years being drunk is recorded BY HIM everywhere.
10/
Drinking was so much a part of #Kavanaugh's teen life, it appears every week on his calendars as an event and in his yearbook. He appears as Bart O'Kavanaugh in #MarkJudge's best-selling memoirs of teenage debauchery.

#ChristineBlaseyFord says he was "stumbling drunk."

11/
#ChristineBlaseyFord details the drunk 17yr olds--SEVENTEEN IS NOT A LEGAL DRINKING AGE ANYWHERE--#Kavanaugh and Judge--shoving her in a room, locking her in and Kavanaugh attempting to rape her while Judge cheered him on.

She was not drunk.
She was terrified.
She screamed.
12/
#Kavanaugh put his hand over #ChristineBlaseyFord's mouth and she feared he "would inadvertently kill" her.

Kill her by accident because he was so drunk.

The #GOP argument and Kavanaugh's own is that yes, this obviously happened to Dr. Blasey Ford, but someone else did it.
14/
#ChristineBlaseyFord is an expert witness, by which I mean she's an expert in the field of psychological trauma & how it impacts the hypothalmus. She knows why this event was indelible for her. She knows why she remembers all the details of the sexual violence but not others.
15/
#Kavanaugh & the #GOP thought Ford wouldn't show up. Or that she would be a liar, or a smug partisan and yelling--all the things Kavanaugh was.

But she was sweet and docile and almost naive in her desire to please the senators. She was unimpeachable. Never argumentative.
16/
#ChristineBlaseyFord
also answered EVERY question. She never disassembled. She never answered questions with "I worked hard. I went to Stanford & Pepperdine & I have FOUR degrees & all my students adore me." In fact she said NOTHING about herself. She was self-deprecating.
17/
#ChristineBlaseyFord
was the antithesis of #-Kavanaugh. She said she was terrified. She cried quietly, almost unnoticeably--no loud blubbering, sniffing, snorting for the cameras. She was embarassed by her own emotion. She tried to contain it, covering her face with her hair.
18/
These were two portraits of a day in the life of two teenagers. #ChristineBlaseyFord explained how this event had impacted her entire life in both small and large ways. She gave professional counterpoint for why that happens in the brain--trauma stays with us. Vividly.

19/
For #Kavanaugh it was just another drunken party he has no memory of. Or claims not to.

It's wholly believable he doesn't remember. Because of being blackout drunk. Ford, an expert, could have explained how that happens, had anyone asked her. No one did.
20/
The facts for anyone who has the will to examine them are obvious: #Kavanaugh lied repeatedly. #ChristineBlaseyFord did not.

Had we been given a recitation of her life as we were Kavanaugh's, we would have a broader picture. And maybe people would care about HER ruined life.
21/
#ChristineBlaseyFord was in front of the cameras with one break for two & a half hours. #Kavanaugh got 4hrs & 4 breaks.

He talked about himself and his accomplishments for 44mins straight.

She never talked about herself. Not even for a minute.

The contrast was shocking.
22/
If you were accused of a crime, wouldn't you want to be vindicated?

Wouldn't you believe an investigation would clear you? Or at least create reasonable doubt?

But there is no real doubt. All #Kavanaugh has are his calendars cataloguing his alcohol addiction & partying.

23/
#Kavanaugh threw out buzz phrases, implied a conspiracy, repeatedly asserted he went to Yale, lied about drinking, lied about sex games, lied about sex, lied about his ABA status, attacked the Democratic senators, especially Klobuchar.

Ford attacked no one, blamed no one.
24/
#Kavanaugh is termperamentally unfit for #SCOTUS. We all saw it. #NeilGorsuch
was challenged repeatedly. He never raised his voice. He was never accused of sexual assault.He attended the same schools at the same time. There's no #DevilsTriangle or drunkenness in his yearbook.
25/
When people show you who they are--and #Kavanaugh showed us on Thursday--believe them.

Don't put them on the #SCOTUS. It's not a present--it's literally one of the highest offices in the country and unelected. Kavanaugh's polls are underwater. The people don't want him.

26/
Res ipsa loquitur.

#Kavanaugh revealed himself as a liar. #ChristineBlaseyFord
revealed him as her attacker.

Whether he recalls it or not, he doesn't have the personal introspection at 53 to question himself, his actions or that time in his life.

That is telling. Alas.
27/
Addendum: #Kavanaugh also lied about the woman, Renate, in his yearbook--the one he and his friends asserted they had all had sex with. She did NOT tell Kavanaugh she knew what he meant. She's quoted in the NYT as being devastated by what was said about her by Kavanaugh.
28/
And #MarkJudge's yearbook quote states that women should be struck often.

This was a culture of treating girls like garbage.

#Kavanaugh may feel differently now, but then he was wholly invested in that culture of using girls.
29/

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More from @VABVOX

Oct 9, 2018
I don't think men really understand how different it is to be a woman out in the world and how quickly things can turn dangerous.
When I was living in New Orleans, I was walking home from work one night. It was fall--dark early & foggy.
A man came out of the fog toward me.
1/
He said hi, I said hi.
As he started to pass me, he asked me if I had the time.
I looked at my watch, looked up, he had a gun pointed at me.
He hit me so fast I wasn't able to steel myself.
I fell to the ground.
He said, "I could rape you right now, but I don't have time."
2/
He wanted my money.
I had the grocery money for the entire house (I lived with 3 other people) in my purse.
He took it and disappeared into the fog.
The whole thing was maybe ten minutes, start to finish.
I was shaking so hard I could hardly get up.
My head was bleeding.
3/
Read 20 tweets
Oct 4, 2018
The majority of the working class in America is women and POC.
And white men as a group haven't voted majority Democrat since 1964--they stopped after LBJ signed the the #VRA.
Flip the narrative and start listening to the ACTUAL working class--the rest of us.
Stop centering white men for everything.
Stop claiming only white men can save us from the damage white men did to us.
Women are the working class--my investigation here:

damemagazine.com/2018/04/12/wom…
.@matthewstoller is very worried about white men, but it's really women of all races who are facing the worst effects of economic and social stresses.
My investigation here:
damemagazine.com/2018/05/10/why…
Read 5 tweets
Oct 2, 2018
The relentlessness of passing over superb women with strong credentials & election histories in favor of whatever man is a headline at a moment is exhausting.

Two months ago it was Avenatti. Now it's O'Rourke.

Bypassing the majority of Americans--women--is a national disgrace.
O'Rourke is fine. He is not, Harris, Gillibrand or Klobuchar.

▪Gillibrand is Congress' leader on women's rights & sexual assault victims.
▪Harris set NN2018 on fire with her speeches reclaiming identity politics.
▪ Klobuchar highlighted #Kavanaugh's unfitness for SCOTUS.
Americans MUST stop looking past women to find some man, any man to supplant them.

It took THIRTY YEARS of incredibly hard work for @HillaryClinton to get to run for POTUS. The rules for women are so different. No one sees a woman give a single speech and says "president!"
Read 16 tweets
Oct 1, 2018
I lived in NOLA right after college.
I drank most every day, as did everyone I knew.
We were all in the domestic Peace Corps, all in our early 20s, all hardworking activists with stressful work.
We drank too much at Mardi Gras, New Year's.
It's absurd to claim #Kavanaugh didn't.
Those of us who've had alcoholics in our lives--like Klobuchar--tend to be careful about alcohol because we've been damaged by the drunks in our lives. I'm a control freak, so never liked being drunk, but lots of my friends did. What IS true, is most 20somethings drink to excess.
This new tack from the #GOP to dismiss #Kavanaugh's alcoholic drinking--& I am not saying he was/is an alcoholic, but he certainly drank like one--is just wrong. It undermines their own credibility and ignores reality: statistically the vast majority of teens/20s get drunk OFTEN.
Read 6 tweets
Sep 27, 2018
I gotta tell you, folks, I have been so sick for the past 2wks, I have really been scared.

Sept 22 House GOP passed their new cuts to Social Security Medicaid and Medicare out of committee. $1.2T in cuts.

That's the safety net.

I've always hoped I could fall there. No more.
I had to call my bestie today to have her come up and stay with me while The Wife is teaching.

Even with the oxygen, hard to breathe.

I had to cancel interviews for tomorrow, a radio appearance for Friday.

Chronic illness like #cancer is incapacitating at times.
We need to do better for sick and #disabled Americans.

It is so hard to work and be sick.

Never getting better sick.
Read 4 tweets
Sep 23, 2018
FFS. @onthemedia just aired a long exchange of @JHockenberry's editor explaining JH couldn't really do damage to the women he sexually harassed since he's in a wheelchair!

Using #disability to excuse sexual harassment FOR WHICH JH WAS FIRED is outrageous. I'll explain why.
1/
First, like @JHockenberry, I am also paralyzed and in a wheelchair. And myriad studies have shown women who are #disabled are more likely to be sexually harassed and assaulted than non-disabled women. There is, in fact, also, an entire porn culture around women in wheelchairs.
2/
There is also a long, extended discourse about how #disabled men deserve/need sexual releases. (There is no such discourse about disabled women.) Hockenberry's editor claimed, while laughing, "he can't exactly leap up & grab someone."

Ugh.
3/
Read 14 tweets

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