Talking about “Cat Person”
You may have heard there’s been a lot of internet buzz about a recent New Yorker short story called “Cat Person,” especially among young people. It’s about a 20-year-old college student who meets an “older man” (he turns out to be 34, but the reader doesn’t learn that for quite some time), gets into a back-and-forth texting relationship with him, then goes on a date and sleeps with him that night despite deciding somewhere in the middle of the encounter that she isn’t really all that into him.
That brief summary doesn’t quite to give you the flavor of the story; if you’re interested, take a look. This particular story reminds me of the sort of thing that used to come out of one of my writing group (I had a writing group with some very proficient members). It’s sexually graphic but not unusually so for this day and age, and its main strength is telling the reader a lot about the hesitations and assumptions going on the mind of the female protagonist as she negotiates the “courtship” (if it can be called that), the “date” (if it can be called that), and the sex (it definitely can’t be called “lovemaking”) with this man.
The story has what I consider a cheap ending, a bit of an O.Henry twist (just a tiny bit) and then an abrupt stop that indicates to me that the author didn’t really know what to do with her characters at the end. What interests me more than the story, though, is the enormous amount of internet discussion about it, which you can easily read by Googling and which is taking place at many many venues.
I’ve read quite a bit of the discussion, and no one whose comments I’ve read seems to agree with me on the story. Maybe that’s because I may be twice as old (or three times as old) as most of the people participating in that discussion. But I saw “Cat Person” as a description of today’s hookup culture, in which people who don’t know each other end up in bed together, where women are sometimes the initial sexual aggressors (that was true in the story) and yet don’t know their own minds (also true in the story), and leave themselves open to being very vulnerable in situations they might even perceive as dangerous (and might even be dangerous), if only because they are alone with someone they really don’t know at all.
I increasingly find the world of the young to be a distant country, one that doesn’t seem as though it would be an especially pleasant one in which to reside.
[ADDENDUM: By the way, no cats appear in the story, unlike in this post.]
Here you go…
“Influenced by feminist hysteria–which Obama’s “dear colleague” letter only exacerbated–young women have been taught to conceive of ordinary men as sexual predators. So extreme has the attitude toward men become that now an interest in a woman may in itself be considered a form of sexual harassment. Hence the crazy #MeToo campaign, which daily sees new women coming forward to allege their victimhood, in many cases decades after the fact. It now seems commonly believed that the only criterion for determining sexual harassment was whether the language or act was wanted in advance.
As many people have joked, this really means that a man had better be handsome and charming, for otherwise you are likely to be “unwanted”; or in other words, a criminal for acting on your natural sexual desire.”
New Year’s Resolutions for Leftists
Or as we read in THE HOLY BOOK OF SEINFELD:
JERRY: Elaine, what percentage of people would you say are good looking?
ELAINE: Twenty-five percent.
JERRY: Twenty-five percent, you say? No way! It’s like 4 to 6 percent. It’s a twenty to one shot.
ELAINE: You’re way off.
JERRY: Way off? Have you been to the motor vehicle bureau? It’s like a leper colony down there.
ELAINE: So what you are saying is that 90 to 95 percent of the population is undateable?
JERRY: UNDATEABLE!
ELAINE: Then how are all these people getting together?
JERRY: Alcohol.
(4) Seinfeld Season 7 Episode 114 "The Wink" 95% Undateable – YouTube
The occult, secret hidden knowledge of the ages, have done quite a bit of research into how electro magnetic energy that surrounds the soul, blood, and bones of the human body, when intermixed with the yin yang polarities during sex, creates a different field result and energetic consequence. This spiritual energy is then harnessed to open/close portals, or to conduct other ambassador diplomatic relationships with the spirit world by breaking through the Veil, brute force style.
Aleister Crowley and the Theosophic society are the most recent notable mentions, although this has been going on probably even during Abel and Cain’s days.
Cain did not produce Cannan, and his generations became righteous as a result of the warning of their father. It was in the generations of Enos, the son of Seth, that things started going off track into different groups and factions. That wasn’t because of Genesis Six, since that was a reference to the Watcher elohim, not the sons of Adam.
The ancillary benefits to the Deep State, of obtaining a cat’s paw useful tool like the Leftist alliance as the cannon fodder and front face tanking zombie army, is that they get free porn stars recruited directly from college and probably now high school. They also get more women that are willing to engage in open sexual rituals and practices, thus fueling the supply that is demanded by various cults and orgies. These cults and orgies which might normally be under condemnation of HUMAN law, is now longer under the condemnation due to “free will or what is known as permission”.
In war, women are part of the loot, because raiding enemies and obtaining more breeding units will increase the strength of your tribe in the next generation. This has not changed, even if Americans refused to recognize for decades and centuries that the Leftist alliance had declared war on all of humanity. Pretending not to be at war, while panicking in 2015-2016 and going “nationalism” “America First” “War War War against the Left” isn’t going to do much at this late stage.
America’s generations, and by extension much of humanity’s generations, are already corrupt and thus at an End. This was done once before, in the days of Noah, due to Genesis Six and 1st Enoch.
http://www.khouse.org/articles/1996/44/
For people that never delved into nor were interested in Patriarchal History, here’s the digest. This message was changed or removed after Solomon’s Temple, the First Temple, and the Second Temple were destroyed by foolish human inconsistency: or in this case the consistent degeneration of the Will and Virtues.
Hebrew English
Adam Man
Seth Appointed
Enosh Mortal
Kenan Sorrow;
Mahalalel The Blessed God
Jared Shall come down
Enoch Teaching
Methuselah His death shall bring
Lamech The Despairing
Noah Rest, or comfort.
So far, there is a strong correlation amongst numerous text that claims that Man was Appointed Mortality, rather than merely Fell *like Americans falling to Leftist cons* due to a Deception. That means this was part of the plan or a fail safe was enacted for it at least.
“For your hands are defiled with blood, And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken falsehood, Your tongue mutters wickedness… Their works are works of iniquity, and an act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, And they hasten to shed innocent blood; Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; Devastation and destruction are in their highways. They do not know the way of peace… They have made their paths crooked; Whoever treads on them does not know peace… We hope for light, but behold, darkness; For brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope along the wall like blind men, We grope like those who have no eyes; We stumble at midday as in twilight, Among those who are vigorous we are like dead men… We hope for justice, but there is none, For salvation, but it is far from us.
Whether Isaiah was talking about his visions or something else was going on, is immaterial. Humanity hasn’t changed. Americans are no different from the Founding Father’s generations, which are no different from the Boomers or the WW2 generation. The cycle changes, but the melody stays the same. Humanity has yet to break free of this cycle of fate. After all, Isaiah might as well be talking about America in the 21st century or some other Western nation.
Light=Order, Darkness=Chaos. In some metaphysics, light is justice or light can be independent of justice.
The whole point of Hussein and the Leftist zombie fodder is to create Kaos, so that they can bring down the System, so that the Deep State replaces it with the Novus Order. It doesn’t matter in the strategic end game, the long term, whether the Left wins or loses, lives or dies. So long as they take the Rest of you along for the ride, the mission is Accomplished beyond all doubt and human mortal interference. It matters not whether ye be Pharisee or Sadducee, both are erroneous.
The ultimate con is to cheat you of 1000 years of existence, for merely a few moments of physical pleasure and decades of mortal slavery. How is that a good deal, but it gets better! Cheat someone out of eternal life, and 1000 years will be like 1 penny… almost worth zero.
Humans lose hope, having lived for a mere 70-120 years. They will settle for the FBI plea deal, instead of resisting it out to the end. They will even accept the Leftist alliance’s Lucifer inspired Alinsky, rather than “lose” in their panicked inception mode of thinking. Humans are condemned by their own stupidity when they glorify themselves above the celestial and the elohim: they honestly believe in their self arrogance and self righteously that they are smarter and wiser than entities that have progressively improved themselves with no stop for 6000+ years. That is far beyond a 100 year old wise man or woman, looking down on a know it all 12 year old. It is not merely an Order of difference in scale. It’s the difference between a Type 1 and a Type 3 civilization, not the difference between America and Canada.
I increasingly find the world of the young to be a distant country, one that doesn’t seem as though it would be an especially pleasant one in which to reside.
The evil of the Left corrupts all. So long as people pay attention to the MSM and Hollywood, they will lose, even as if they believe themselves to be the Victors. There is always another Boss to fight after the Final Boss.
Ymar: “After all, Isaiah might as well be talking about America in the 21st century or some other Western nation.”
I thought that was somewhat the point of his prophecies: they could be applied to the contemporary Israelite situation, the Millennial End Times of the Second Coming, and everything in between, because human nature doesn’t change and History Rhymes.
I am currently reading through Isaiah (hit the Messianic chapters just coincidentally this past week), and it occurred to me that everyone is living in the End Times for themselves and their generation.
So, uh, Happy New Year everybody?!?
The land of the young, a very distant country, was created by you and me. I saw it begin in college (class of 1963) and kept my head down. It was the radicals who stood up and agitated for what they believed in; we did not.
We sat on our butts when we should have been doing much, much more. We took care of our own kids, but not the milieu in which they were immersed every day. Why are we now surprised?
As ye sow, so shall ye also reap.
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Try that one on, since it probably fits, regardless of your theism or lack thereof.
Norm Geras, an honest, thoughtful, yet still socialist blogger, used to interview bloggers (linked here & there), and ask: “is there any belief or position you used to have that you no longer have?”
I used to believe, like most Libertarians, in “responsible promiscuity”.
It’s wrong, tho; not really possible. I was lucky to find that out while still young enough to have a great family.
The hookup culture is bad for both men AND women, not just women (as more feminists are finding out).
The end of the story is only as “cheap” as the whole idea of a hookup. I want you, I need you … to satisfy me … or else you’re a whore.
It’s a powerful, true-feeling, tragic story. Thanks for the link. Not in my usual politics.
Your reference to Libertarians, Tom G, brings to mind their multitudinous “victimless crimes” which are therefore not crimes at all in their book.
Of course all crimes have victims.
Both parties are victims of loveless intimacy in the matter at hand. Is the high point of life the discharge of stored, self-secreted seminal fluid?
Frog,
It’s not that “victimless crimes” are without consequence – it’s that police shouldn’t pull their guns out to solve a problem that hurts only the person involved.
As the Good Book says “All things are lawful, but not all things edify.”
Can’t say that I’m a better person for having read the story. I found it a bit depressing. A young girl craving attention for the most part. A bit harsh on the guy, but then I guess at the end you figure he deserves it. Things that people say via text (or email or internet posts) that they wouldn’t say in person.
vanderleun Says:
December 30th, 2017 at 4:05 pm
…New Year’s Resolutions for Leftists
* *
That link led me on to more at Takimag (very addicting) and the commentary at this post, which I agree might be looming in the future (History is a Cyclical thing, after all).
http://takimag.com/article/sex_death_and_secrets_in_dc_steve_sailer/page_2#axzz52nOBlcpN
Kevin Lafayette DrEvil – a day ago
Actually, what I think it will lead to, is companies starting to strictly adhere to “male only” hiring practices, as female employees get terminated.
Think about it. If you do not allow any females in the building, how can anyone in the building ever be accused by any woman?
That is the logical end point of all this in my mind. Body cameras on all the men, archival footage of every man going back their entire life, men following Pence’s lead and never meeting with a woman privately under any circumstance. Men refusing to work or do business where they will have contact with any female.
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Kevin Lafayette DrEvil – a day ago
In fact, I can see chaperoned dating making a comeback. Men now need witnesses to every interaction with a female. Archive those texts/tweets/pics. ALWAYS have at least one witness present. Always be filming and recording so that it is NEVER he said/she said. etc. etc. etc.
When you said you hadn’t encountered anyone commenting online who saw the story the way you had, as an indictment of hook-up culture, I remembered that I *had* read about that story online a day or two ago and the interpretation was very much in line with your views. I had to do a search of my online history because I couldn’t remember where I’d found it, LOL. Here it is:
http://www.nationalreview DOT com/article/454624/pervasive-culture-sex-drunkeness-regret
Article by Kyle Smith, December 13, 2017
Tim T:
Who would you have the cops shoot other than “only the person involved” ?
I read “Cat Person” (using the link) thru three times: once yesterday, twice today; I found it a chore/bore. I disliked it even more the second time; the third time I put that section of my brain away, looking desperately for any shred of literary value; I found none. I tried to relate it to my experiences coming back to NY after the service while I was doing my post-grad in the late ’60s.
I thought of all the girls I dated; I never found anyone like this.
While I could never understand a woman’s thought processes (I still can’t after 45 years of marriage: my wife’s or my daughters’) and ‘though the author discusses them (to some degree: figuratively or literarily), I find them so shallow as to be either completely unbelievable or more the musings of a five year old.
She comes across as never having fulfilled one human need, not one; she’s never fulfilled one single pleasure.
The pleasure of a shared meal; sitting across the table from someone and sharing the day’s doings while savoring a good meal.
The pleasure of bodily contact: clothed. The need to be hugged; to feel the pleasure of someone else’s torso against yours: non-sexual.
The pleasure to be held while sitting in someone’s lap: conversely the need/pleasure of holding someone while they sit in your lap.
I pity her; all the moreso if the character has been drawn from the author’s experiences.
Frog,
I think you’re conflating two different situations. I know this was a big stumbling block for me before I had to admit the libertarian viewpoint was more accurate (at the time) than my own.
Situation 1:
If a person A is attempting to murder person B, then (circumstances permitting, rules of engagement followed, collateral damage kept to a minimum) the police should shoot person A. Any gun-toting libertarian can tell you that. (And I believe libertarians have more gun-toting credentials than conservatives)
Situation 2:
Person A is all by themselves. Nobody else is in any danger, risk of harm, or potential to lose property. Person A commits a social or religious taboo, like promiscuous sex. Police should not shoot person A.
Libertarianism isn’t about endorsing people’s behavior, or liking it, it’s about recognizing that the law is a sacred thing, ultimately enforced by violence, and that a correct law doesn’t adhere to opinions, but to facts and rights. If you aren’t violating someone else’s rights, the law has no right to use violent measures to stop you.