my careless contagion

Recently, I was sad to hear of the suicide death of Daisy Coleman, who was featured in the Netflix documentary Audrie & Daisy (2016). Audrie Pott killed herself in 2012, so both the girls are now dead. I recall watching the film and some themes stuck with me, which I will discuss. These girls were sexually assaulted, then victim-blamed and further traumatized by their communities after the fact. If you want to know the whole story, you can watch the documentary or read more online. The death of Daisy effectively ends this story, but it also brings up a lot of questions.  Audrie Pott Sexual assault is as old as the world. It's the image of a caveman bonking a girl on the head and dragging her back to his cave. We see it in King David's family (actually, his family was rife with sexual sins of all sorts), where Amnon raped his half-sister Tamar. The characteristic rapist progression is obsession followed by consummation, followed by disgust. We saw the same thing pl...

*** Spoiler alert. ***  Netflix's series You is a journey into the mind of a self-proclaimed "good guy," as in the last good guy in New York, who happens to be a serial killer. He's not just a serial killer, though; he's a guy who has convinced himself he's killing to protect those he loves. He never wants to kill. But he has to. Because he's really just a good guy who is forced into some bad situations, right?  It's hard not to see this as another brick in the wall of the narrative that there are no good guys, a theme that has been running in popular media for a few years now, highlighted most recently by the MeToo and TimesUp movements, movements I wholeheartedly agree are past due. Without getting into the irony that MeToo's great push came out of heathen Hollywood, a town long given over to vices such as giving sex for work (prostitution), let's take a look at how You fits into things.   Let me say first that I agree with the MeTo...