Angels and Assholes #18

THE TROUBLE WITH A-HOLES:

I was at a writers’ conference last weekend in Grand Marais and was in a group critiquing a memoir, “Mirrorings” by Lucy Grealey. She had had to have a tumor removed from the side of her face, leaving her terribly disfigured. One of the crosses she had had to bear, she had written, were sexual comments from guys. Squinting, I asked what would instigate a sexual comment regarding a disfiguration? The women in the group looked at each other and one said: “You have a nice body, so if we put a bag over your head…”

I almost screamed “What!?” I don’t know a guy, at least one who is a friend of mine, who would say anything like that, much less to a disfigured woman. The women all smiled, bitter smiles I could tell, and said: “Where have you been?

“Not fair,” I protested. The problem with a-holes is that they can give an entire group a bad name…in this case ‘men.’ Such as on a much grander scale what Moslems, the peace-loving Moslems, will have to suffer because of the a-holes in Paris.

Wouldn’t it be great if a guy who says something like that has to wear a scarlet “A”—this time for “A-hole -- on his chest so that women would not confuse him with my friends… and most men?