Power

Some people I know--mostly male--remember a massive repertoire of jokes. Not me. The few I remember almost always have memorable contexts--for instance, "a guy stole into a theater with a goose hidden in his pants." That's the set up. The joke is a rip and a little graphic, but I remember it because my uncle, an old Calvinist preacher, told it and laughed uproariously. That was shocking.

But another I remember has no context whatsoever. I don't know who said it or when. It's very "male," and probably not funny at all, if you're a woman: Woman goes in the ditch somewhere, flags down a guy in a big truck, and asks the guy to pull her out. "Wow," he tells her, "third time this week I pulled a pregnant woman out."

"But I'm not pregnant," she says.

"You're not out of the ditch," he tells her. That's the punch line.

It's embarrassing to tell it now. But it's one of just a few jokes I can remember, and one of even fewer whose context--who told it and when?--has no documentation at all. 

It's a joke about rape. Maybe it doesn't have to be. Not all casual sex is unwelcome, after all. Throughout history, women have occasionally propositioned. But the humor in that guy-in-the-pickup joke has its roots in rape. She owes him, after all, and he's not asking for money.

Ha-ha. 

It would be nice to think my memory holds on to that joke because my conscience won't let me forget it's evil. I remember it because I wish I didn't, if that makes sense. I remember it because I remember thinking--way back when I heard it--that it wasn't funny, but that, in the company of men, I laughed anyway. I wish I could exonerate myself by claiming that guilt makes me pure. 

It would be nice if I could say that, but I won't try. I remember it, in great part, I'm sure, because once upon a time I thought it was funny, probably edgy too, but, back then, funny--and, decidedly, because I'm male.

That old joke comes back to me now with good reason. Rumors have it that investigative reporters are on the track of countless other male legislators who've put their hands where they were unwanted. What even men, "good-old-boys," can't help recognize is that men are getting pretty much what they deserve these days. The mighty have fallen, and there'll be more, many more--hopefully, many more.

Last week, The New York Times Book Review featured the story of the editor of the Paris Review, Loren Stein, who resigned his position for his boorishness, for creating an office where sexual advances were not uncommon, a toxic environment. “The way I behaved was hurtful, degrading and infuriating to a degree that I have only begun to understand," he said.

That he was guilty is beyond doubt, but in Tablet this week, Wesley Yang, who claims he knew Stein, tries to apply some brakes to a rage that promises write even more headlines. He says that we all need to remind ourselves that "sex is an intractable conundrum rather than a solvable problem." It's a mystery, a coordination of spirits and persons that requires some intricate orchestration. While what's happening needed to happen, and while men like Stein needed to fall right smack on their faces, if we believe we'll ever escape the mysteries of human sexuality, we are underestimating our own messy humanity. 

Yang ends that essay quite boldly with a Jeremiad aimed at feminists but applicable anywhere. "Nobody is so dangerous, to themselves and others," he says, "as a person or collectivity that wields power without acknowledging it."

Nothing in that sentence means to exonerate the mighty who've already fallen. He doesn't mean to call off the dogs or rebuild reputations, only to insist that power corrupts, and absolute power. . .well, you know.

Just strikes me that what Mr. Yang says is pure Niebuhr and unadulterated Calvin, as well as, well, biblical. 

And it's not a joke.