Sexual harassment and generation of idiots

Idiots relate the opposite way humans ought to relate, and Albert Einstein once wondered if the crave for artificial intelligence would not make humans turn to generation of idiots. After pondering on how a particular race conducted themselves – not the black race as he was not in their sphere then – feared the day such race will take over the world. That was over l00 years ago and that particular race was in disarray and was not relating effectively within and without its sphere. It was like a spiral harassment society; that is, from a spin-like movement and in a “tao” form – endless pathway – you harass anyone out of the sphere your capacity allows you to control and those who cannot find a way turn a “fly” into the ears of any bull around; so the bull turns an uncontrolled harasser as the fly keep on humming in its ear; so also the libido problem of men that has turned some of them bulls in their restless mood and calls for sympathy, not total condemnation.

A bull is an idiot and it is pushed by what is inside its ear to cause damages just like a harasser is pushed by what is in-between the legs that needed to be tamed in sympathy not condemnation as it is caused by either the environment or factors beyond his knowledge. Like I read from MJO Mustapha’s “fall of the family” that laboratory rats remain resolutely heterosexual until disturbed by bright lights, loud noises and extreme overcrowding. Such factors play in human beings but are avoided by their feelings; so, they cannot be idiots; they should find a way to avoid it.

Among humans, interactions, relationships, dialogues and government come to reduce such interferences that could lead to humans turning to idiots. Human relations are better evaluated in a heterosexual set-up so as to control latent or dormant excessive behaviour waiting for opportuned time to express itself like Sigmund Freud mentioned in his study of self, ego and superego or suppressed traits that explode as conflagration in the future.

Sexual Harassment is both from male and female victims’ perspectives making them idiots or even the society they live in as society of idiots. Basically, when someone is acting as a locoparent – not as someone said, observing a fiduciary duty – there should not be sexual negotiation whether hetero, homo or lesbi, till that locoparent status is terminated or vacated. All the sexualities, if untamed, get to bullish harassment.

Lesbianism could even be worst in bullish attitude than heterosexual and I witnessed that in Barbados on the 27th of October 2006 when two ladies hijacked a bus, not expected of them to enter by their status, just to rape a fine looking plump girl and the bus conductor, a man, connived with them.

Again, when I was a school boy in Cote d’Ivoire, the matrilineal bent of the people made the then President to care much about females and he built exclusive palatial school for them in Yamoussoukro for better upbringing of women leaders and I remember a Nigerian family by name Sbeiro whose girls went to that school free of charge, just by merit of passing the entrance examination. After some years of operation some of the girls couldn’t stand the seclusion; and sexual harassment by girls against girls or boys became the order of the day to a point surgery was to be carried out in two of the girls who suffered banana lock-in in their private part as they couldn’t find a quick partner to have it with. On that, the president quickly built another palatial school for boys close to them to encourage relationship of both sexes. Seclusion is even more dangerous for a person with weak family background than early mix-up interaction. Some Nigerian schools still have such seclusion and it makes for easy prey of the girls or the boys, as they are quickly taken by insurgents without either female cry or male resistance.

Reading Onikepo Braithwaite who stated that her son said that it happens also abroad but mostly unreported, a lady professor, now a university pro-chancellor in UK, Susan Bassnet says that during their school days their parents taught them how to smartly ward off sexual harassment without making it a noisy issue. To Susan, it has always been there and needs mutual understanding to tame it; it is not supposed to be issue of “U.S.” and “them.”

The truth is that men and women are wired differently on how they sense the risk in their sexual predating exercise. It is just that Monica is the name that comes up in the two examples I feel like giving but it is not always “Monica”. A former most powerful president admitted that he took a risk on his own Monica but that it was consensual and that he limited his risk to cunninglingus whereas the Monica, in question, was just having fun, twisting around the most powerful president. For the Nigerian Monica the disturbing language was “marks for 5 rounds of sex.” And it goes to say what motivation and risk mean for the two sexes – the “1 – can” motivation, and the valueless risk of consenting or not consenting. In the two cases, the women remain intellectually stronger than the men; and, so, who says the woman is a weaker sex.

I have overheard Chimamanda say that Adam ought to be blamed for not taking the responsibility of saying “NO” to Eve who made the suggestion of them eating the forbidden fruit. Chimamanda was insinuating that all started when Adam’s weakness was not able to make him say “NO” to Eve. In effect, she was trying to prove that Eve was stronger than Adam, and one expected the world to think along that line and understand that when a woman decides to go on a rampage, the man is helpless as his brain fails to connect in evaluating the great risk but gets fixated in seeing “his woman” of the moment respect and succumb to him.

In effect, it should not be that of lecturer – student activities because the Igbos say “no matter how a dog sees the joy of cracking a bone, if you tie such a bone on its neck, the idiocy in the dog will fly away and it knows that such bone is not meant for cracking”; dog does not eat a bone tied to its neck.

Even when men and women must interact, it must be devoid of idiocy. An 86 year old man, still kicking, tells me that the basic rule is that man must be allowed to be seeing women, even at far distance; and that women should be allowed to hear men talk; as both derive joy in it respectively, and that the touching aspect should be what must be negotiated. A good proof of it is that a deaf woman is harsher than a blind woman and a blind man is harsher than a deaf man. The 86 year-man said it is the norm for men to derive joy in seeing women and it is the joy of woman to be talked to in sweat manner.

The Americans would say, the easiest way to negotiate is for the man to ask to “dock or moor” and expect a response from the woman or stay away; that is, “you have the sea, would you allow me to dock.” There is no need for harassment as God created them man and woman and that they should live in harmony and that even in disagreement, love should prevail. On campus, it should be more of locoparent relationship and the predators whether lecturers, men or women should observe the sanctity of the milieu – knowledge production ground, not idiocy production ground.
Ariole is a Professor of French and Francophone
Studies, University of Lagos.