#CrossedLegsCampaignAgainstDuterte

Sylvia Estrada Claudio

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

#CrossedLegsCampaignAgainstDuterte
I call on all women whose husbands and lovers continue to support Duterte to stop caring for them until they change their vote. Bar them from your beds!

I could barely watch the short video clip of Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, candidate for president of the Philippines, proving yet again that he is a sexist piece of ordure.

Here is my own transcription. 

Ni rape nila ang lahat ng babae…Ang isa nito yung lay minister na Australyana. Problema na ito. Ang Australian (inaudible) sige ng tawag eh. Paglabas, binalot. Tinignan ko yung mukha. Tangina parang si.. mas..parang artista sa Amerika na maganda. Tangina, sayang. (Boisterous laughter.)  Ang pumasok sa isip ko, ni-rape nila, pinagpilahan nila doon. Nagalit ako. Kasi, ni-rape, oo, isa na rin yon. Pero, napakaganda. Dapat ang Mayor muna ang nauna (more laughter and catcalls).”

(They raped all the women. One of them that Australian lay minister. The Australian (inaudible) had been making repeated calls. They took out the body and wrapped it. I looked at her face. Son of a bitch, she was like..more like..like an American movie star. Son of a bitch, what a pity.  [Boisterous laughter.] It came to mind that they raped her, they queued up to rape her. I got mad. Because, rape, yes, that’s one issue. But she was so pretty. The mayor should have gone first.” [More laughter and catcalls.])

A history of sexual offense

This is just the latest and perhaps most intolerable of the mayor’s assaults on women. Even before his campaign began officially, he bragged about his two wives and two mistresses.

At the start of his campaign he kissed women, forcibly on the lips some of them with a french kiss. He even boasts about it: “I haven’t been to a place where I’ve kissed as many girls. Lips to lips, even with tongue, because it’s delicious. Never mind if I lose, as long as I get to kiss all the beautiful women.”

Later he admits to having been charged by a woman with acts of lasciviousness. He rationalizes it, as every sexual harasser does, my minimizing it, “I only pinched her arm.” He then goes on to gloat about it like a true sexual harasser and makes it appear that such wickedness is but natural to a man: “I was also charged with acts of lasciviousness. But you know the woman was really very, very beautiful that if you do not touch her, you will die. I was just saving my life.”

Other videos have surfaced where he admits to acts of voyeurism as a young boy. In the video he also implies that he masturbated after peeping. What makes this even more foul is that the victim was their house help.

Before his egregious remark about rape surfaced, his latest vulgarity was saying he would make leading vice presidential contender Leni Robredo, assistant president, on the grounds that she is beautiful.

Rape culture and denigration of women

What we are dealing with here is a man who believes what all rapists, sexual harassers, peeping toms and male chauvinist malcontents believe: that women are less than human. Women are placed on earth primarily for men’s entertainment. Women are judged mainly on the basis of whether we are sexually appealing to men. 

In Duterte’s misshapen world view, women are judged as to whether we are pleasing to him and his gang of slobbering, leering perverts. I mean, of course, the ones guffawing and catcalling all over his videos. He calls the death of the Australian lay minister a waste, not because a decent human being has lost a future where she could bring hope and joy to others, but because her death has closed his sexual access to someone he finds attractive. And they laugh at this. THEY LAUGH AT IT!  THEY THINK IT IS A JOKE!

In their thinking, women are mere objects of conquest. Objects to be amassed and acquired like money or cars. Like other commodities, women are perks that come with power, whether that power is that of the domineering man over his subservient wife and hapless children, or that of the mayor. They love Duterte, these petty tyrants, because in his world they can  live their fantasies through his tales of female conquests. They will allow the mayor to go first. They will indeed give him the privilege of being rapist-in-chief.

Thus, even a woman named Leni Robredo who is currently whipping his own running mate in the surveys, will get no respect from Duterte for her accomplishments. He won’t take her into his government because of her accomplishments, but because she is pretty. A woman not as pleasing to him would not be deserving no matter what her qualifications. What women are as human beings, our virtues, accomplishments and potentials are nothing to him and his gang of leering lechers.

Any other form of masculinity is inconceivable to these rotting reprobates. Perhaps they are aware of what failures they would really be if they lost the unfair advantage they have over women in an equal society. Duterte’s gang is so threatened by men, like presidential candidate Mar Roxas, who will not take the stances of an oversexed miscreant, that they rejoice when Duterte calls him “bayot” (gay). Gay men threaten these knuckleheads because they cannot conceive that “real” men would not want to enjoy the sexual dominion they have over women. 

Men who can treat women with respect, who do not take aggression against women (and the enemy) as a virtue, are so inconceivable to these debauched duds. They cling to the delusion that only they are the real men. Because they can kill, because they can rape, because they can sexually harass, because they can bash gay people.

Certainly Duterte cares not about women’s feelings. Not the pain of the househelp he victimized as a young boy, the woman who charged him with acts of lasciviousness, his wife who has been psychologically abused by his repeated infidelities, his second wife and mistresses who put up with his unbridled lechery.

He cares not for the pain of the family of that Australian lay minister so he mocks her dead body. He cares not that such tasteless jokes are felt deeply by every rape survivor who sees that disgusting video. (Believe me,  I know. Rape survivors who are my counselees or friends are in pain because of this.)

What kind of honesty?

His supporters claim that when he makes these coarse remarks that he is at least honest and transparent. They have mistaken the virtue of honesty for the process of transparency. They have mistaken openness for decency. We want transparency so we may find out what a candidate is like. What his values are, his platforms, whether his mistakes are understandable and forgivable. Many times indeed, evil hides in the dark and silent places. But just because a man is open about his crimes and his lewdness does not make him worthy.

Thank you for the transparency, Mayor Duterte, now we know you are a shameless satyr.

What is proven by this unabashed celebration of his sexual incontinence is that Duterte is incapable of guilt or remorse. He has in fact refused to apologize for his calumny. Of his cruel and crass statement he says there is no need to apologize because it was “talagang (really) called for.”

This is insensitivity one would expect of a person who has only one head and it is in his pants. This sense of impunity when putting down women, is worrisome. Little wonder he also brags about his capacity to kill people.

No sex for the lewd

I suspect that many of Duterte’s supporters are those who believe as well in this macho rape culture. Sure, there are decent men and women who support him. But I don’t think there are enough of these to drive his popularity. His campaign is bringing out the worst in men. This is a classic political trick. Many demagogues have ridden into the office on a wave of aggression which they themselves have evoked.

Ah, but Duterte has gone too far. Not all men are victims of machismo. Many are appalled by the culture of rape and violence that they know victimizes their loved ones because it victimizes every decent person. Many, many more women understand that Duterte’s putrid ideas about women are a direct threat to their safety.

It is time that we bring Duterte and his salacious henchmen to heel. As of this writing I know of several efforts that are being planned by various women’s groups.

But individual women can contribute at once  by resorting to a classic technique that has been used against violent machismo since antiquity to the present.

It is time we deny Duterte and any of his supporters sex. Yes, I mean it. People like Duterte live on the sexual privilege given to men by a decaying and immoral patriarchy. And while patriarchy has deluded, cajoled and forced women into giving sexual services to those who look down of us, it can never completely take away our power to refuse.

I am unsure as to whether the women who give their sexual services to Duterte can deny him. It is obvious that for whatever reasons, they choose to be with him despite his obviously repulsive character.  But his supporters are far more vulnerable.

I call on all women whose husbands and lovers continue to support this man to stop caring for them until they change their vote. Stop cleaning their rooms, ironing their clothes, cooking their meals. Most of all, bar them from your beds. I call on all sex workers to refuse sex to men who support Duterte.

We owe it to ourselves, our sons and our daughters to stop this degenerate candidate now. We owe it to to all women, children and men who have suffered violence because of the kind of sexual culture Rodrigo Duterte revels in. – Rappler.com

 

 

 

 

 

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