Watching comics like Burr, and also Dave Chappelle (who presents Louis C.K. as the victim of a 'masturbation incident') I sense a lot of fear out there. Fear of consequences, fear of collateral damage. Why is it that when innocent civilians are killed in wars men shrug it off as collateral, but god forbid Aziz Ansari should get busted on social media. Oh, the horror!
Men who are overeager to champion our cause sometimes turn out to be acting out of fear as well. Take Stormy Daniels' lawyer, who had been owning the talk show circuit for months - the women of The View looked like they were about to have t-shirts made - when accusations of domestic violence surfaced, and he disappeared, never to be heard from again. Pity for Daniels; I think she was rather enjoying the legitimate spotlight she found on shows like Colbert's. I found her witty, entertaining, and so goddamn real; a vaccine to the falseness that is the United States president. As a woman who has made her name and her money not only by meeting men head on at their most vulnerable moments, but by turning the tables on the act that is perhaps the archetype of male dominance, she was truly the only person in the world who has ever proved capable of taking on Trump's despicable mouth (sorry, that's a disgusting image). I must also admit that I rather adored the idea of an impertinent, no-nonsense porn-star taking down that misogynist douchebag, when the head of the FBI, the entire democratic party, and countless others have failed. Reality could have taken a heroic bite out of the implausible nightmareland in which we live these days. In the end the universe decided to take a turn towards the ironic, and Daniels lost her mighty steed in the #metoo trenches.
Another woman, albeit a fictional one, who learned to use sex to her advantage is the Game of Thrones character Daenerys Targaryen. Breaker of chains, as she came to call herself, she broke her own chains first after being sold into the world's oldest form of bondage: forced marriage, from which marital rape duly follows. A matriarch with much the same job experience as Stormy Daniels taught Daenerys how to tame her man with the sexual act, and her ability to do this was the beginning of her rise. Later she walked into the fire and emerged a mother, one fully aware of, even astonished by, her own power. And then she did something women almost never do: She embraced it. This is what eventually allowed her to take to the air, to soar far above any form of oppression.But first, there had to be anger. Why? Because that's how things are achieved. And, as analogies go, you can't get much more spot on than fire-breathing beast for anger.
Men try to tell Daenerys what to do with her dragons. They are out of control, they tell her, keep them locked up. She locks them in a dungeon, where - no surprise - they get angrier. The truth is she fears them, too. And this is understandable. We are all taught to fear anger, but only women are taught to fear their own anger. To keep it bottled up, to be gentle and merciful at all times.
In reality, it is men who have always feared women's anger. I don't know why, though I could venture a few guesses having to do with childhood and mothers. But oppression is its own mirror; we need only to know that a beast is being caged in order to perceive the fear of the man who caged it. Fear of the unknown may well play a part, too. Men don't know our minds, and they know they don't know; we could be up to anything for all they can fathom.
Finally, the mother learns to love her dragons. Riding them, she ascends far above the reach of men. All men, that is, but for the one she loves. This man proves to be the death of her dreams and, before he kills her, he kills everything that has made her unstoppable.
Because one has to wonder why, if he doesn't want the throne, does John Snow have to tell his sisters he is the true heir? In a genderless world it would have been hers anyway, and she is far more deserving of it. The idea that he could just lightly step in, onto the throne, thereby hijacking the grand prize for all of Daenerys' years of struggle and labor, her difficult choices, her liberation of slaves, her defeat of death itself, her sacrifice of two children... Well, the writers of the show have received a lot of criticism for the supposedly un-feminist genocidal turn her character took, but they should be lauded a hundred times over for narrating such a powerful, timeless universal truth.
The first thought I had while watching Daenarys destroy a whole city from astride her dragon was, 'Well, that's just what a woman has to do if she wants men to see her as worthy.' The cinematic beauty with which she swoops back and again, pointing her fire with laser precision at the men in the boats and behind the anti-aircraft arrows who want her gone from the world, is awe-inspiring. Then, as we wait for the bells to toll the message of surrender we wonder, does she know what she is about to do? Does Daenerys then consciously choose to ignite a city? Or is the fit of rage brought on unexpectedly by the thought that it could all end in naught? Does she pave the streets of the city with fire to teach John Snow a lesson in fear?
I have been angry enough to burn everything down - hell, my starting point these days is a slow smolder - but love has always stopped me from running all the way with it. Or perhaps I am wrong, and it is fear that stops me. I wonder, though, if Daenerys had been allowed to live, whether the anger would ever have left her. Perhaps the beast had spent itself in this last glorious exertion. Perhaps the dragon would have laid down to rest.
When she learns John Snow is the true heir to the throne, Daenarys begs him not to tell anyone. He refuses to keep it from his family. She asks him again, asks him to do it for his love for her. When he still refuses she says: "Let it be fear then."
Let it be fear, then.
