I noticed last night on Smackdown that at the end of the James Ellsworth/AJ Styles comedy match, Dean Ambrose was pointing menacingly at his package as a threat to AJ Styles. You can see it at the end of the clip in this here tweet:
THAT'S RIGHT! @realellsworth has DEFEATED the @WWE World Champion @AJStylesOrg on #SDLive! @TheDeanAmbrose pic.twitter.com/46GCT7Mziv
— WWE (@WWE) October 12, 2016
Their feud has been focused on the exchange of low blows, ever since AJ landed on the top rope square on his Jesus Zipper, as he described it later on Talking Smack. And here Dean was last night again, weeks later now, continuing hilariously to work the angle of the junk. Has there ever been a low blow angle blown up into a full on junk feud? This may be unprecedented, I thought.
And then I thought, I’M SO GLAD FOR IT. Because it’s the perfect antidote to all the pussy grabbing I’ve had to think about in the past week. Don’t get me wrong, I feel privileged to be living through a period of history in which there is a genuine pussy riot going on in my very own country. I think this entire election is a raging nightmare in every way, but I’m actually quite glad this came out the way it did. Because suddenly millions of women raised their hands and said, “Oh yeah, I’ve had my pussy grabbed like that. IT’S NOT JUST LOCKER ROOM TALK.” I myself have experienced the hard grope random stranger pussy grab that Donald Trump described, twice. Once on the street at age 13, once in a bar at age 23. And you know what? Never before did I consider these incidents sexual assaults. I just considered them the price I had to pay for being an adventurous woman who was anything other than prim and proper. Because CLEARLY I could have prevented both men from going for it had I not sent the wrong message. That’s a thought I internalized so deeply, so many years ago that I’m only just now examining it. But OF COURSE I was sexually assaulted, twice. It was a long time ago, I brushed it off both times, I don’t consider myself a victim, and I don’t need a tissue. But I’m completely exhilarated by the fact that I don’t have to think of it as my own fault anymore. And you know what else? NOW THERE IS A CODIFIED NAME FOR US TO CALL IT NEXT TIME IT HAPPENS.
But goddamn, am I sick of thinking so much about pussy grabbing already. I’m ready to move on, and just save “pussy grabber” in my arsenal of metaphors to taunt the men in my life with when they’re getting out of line. So the Dean Ambrose/AJ Styles low blow feud is suddenly an odd sort of feminist gratification for me, an escape into irony, a balancing of the scales. It removes genital abuse from the realm of victimhood and allows it the narrative of revenge, which in my humble opinion is preferable, at least in concept, to just absorbing the grope and moving on with your life. Going after anybody’s junk like this is not sexual, it’s a ruthless power play, and the shock we see on a wrestler’s face when he takes a low blow mirrors the shock a woman has to stifle when the uninvited pussy grab is upon her. So let these dude brawlers tell a story of consensual genital cruelty to offset stories like mine and so many other women, who were ambushed by the pussy grab and saw no way to confront the assholes who did it. Thank you, Dean and AJ, for putting your dicks on the line for my catharsis in October of 2016. I hope history remembers you for it.
Recent Comments