patron saint of ...

[asakiyume]

In her latest Patreon post, sovay talks about two frustrating films and one id-tastic one. The first of the frustrating ones, which, she reports, in large part "feels like someone drew a line through the set labeled "GOOD TASTE" and everyone kept getting CAD injuries trying not to cross it," reminded me of something hilarious and awful that happened at my church's All Saints Day mass.

For All Saint's Day, the religious ed program always has a few teens pick a saint, dress up as them, and then tell the congregation about them in the first person: "Hi, I'm Saint Peter, and Jesus and I go way back." There are actually interesting female saints out there, but aside from the frequent Mother Teresa (now officially St. Teresa of Calcutta), the girls mainly pick the most revolting examples of simpering victimhood, and this time that meant St. Maria Goretti, who was canonized for fighting off a rapist, getting stabbed, forgiving her attacker, and dying. At age eleven. She's now the patron saint of rape victims, which ... let's not even talk about how emotionally unhealthy that is.

But what made this teen's portrayal of this saint extra ludicrous and sad was that someone--her family? The religious ed instructor? She herself?--had decided that rather than ever say "rape," she'd refer to that act as "taking my virtue." Just so you know, even Catholic websites use the word "rape." Nihil obstat! But instead we got this:

"I was a poor girl growing up in near Rome in the 1890s, and when I was only eleven, the neighbor's son wanted to take my virtue, but I didn't want to let him take my virtue, so he stabbed me. But on my deathbed I forgave him. Now I'm the patron saint of people who've had their virtue taken."

It was that final passive construction that really took the cake. The whole thing made me wonder what year I was in. And it made me want to prescribe a feminist reading course. I know, I know.

Anyway! Go clear your palate by reading Sovay's reviews. They'll cheer you up.

Comments

[amaebi]

Oh, that's so distressing. :(

[asakiyume]

It was a kind of prissy verbal finickiness that said all the wrong things.

[amaebi]

'Zactly. :(

Have you read Kathleen Norris on the virgin martyrs, though? That's more cheering.

[mallorys_camera]

Honestly, the world is crab-walking back into a kind of fundamentalism, fueled on the right by religious nuts and on the left by the politically correct fanatics. It's so awful to watch.

[asakiyume]

It really does seem like a period of moral retrenchment.

[cmcmck]

It does sound totally gross, but then a lot of those child saints are.

[asakiyume]

It wasn't so much the grossness of the saint--although I agree with both things you say--as the pussyfooting refusal to say the word "rape" that got me.

[sartorias]

Oh dear, I can just see the faculty meeting about that one, and trying to find language that wouldn't get the picky helicopter parents hurling lawyers right and left for sullying their children's ears. (Children who, in my experience, tend to be doing end runs around their parents to watch and read what their peers are reading, and just don't tell the parents.)

[asakiyume]

I mean maaaaaaybe there is some homeschooled kid or kids out there in a family that has draconian internet and TV controls whose ears and consciousness have yet to be sullied but EVERY OTHER KID knows very well what rape is. Hell, there's the whole priest abuse scandal!

[minoanmiss]

Word.

[evelyn_b]

Aww, the Catholic Church is ridiculous and terrible, but I have a lot a sympathy for teenage girls who love lurid victim tales but don't want to say "rape" a bunch of times in front of their friends and family and the whole congregation.

[asakiyume]

Okay--well that gives me some insights! I too understand the love of lurid victim tales, and I can understand being a bit shy to go public with them. I can understand both wanting the spotlight on the one hand and being shy when you're in it on the other. But man, the equation of chastity with virtue!

[osprey_archer]

The struggle is real when you're a teenage girl who wants to share your love of lurid victim tales but without, like, being TOO lurid in front of God and everybody.

[asakiyume]

It's one thing to imagine being stabbed to death by a would-be rapist and quite another to say the word "rapist"!

[kore]

........AUGH.

[asakiyume]

But evelyn_b actually shows a subversive side to it. I still hate the whole virtue taken thing, but in the context, given the teen girl, there might have been more going on than I was thinking.

[sovay]

"Now I'm the patron saint of people who've had their virtue taken."

Like someone just lifted it on the subway!

[asakiyume]

If you see virtue lying unattended in a public place, contact an authority figure. It might be a bomb.

[osprey_archer]

OMG.

ETA because I accidentally hit post too soon... I love this, and also, I feel like it's actually weirdly accurate to the way that our culture sometimes views teenage girls: as bombs that might go off.

[asakiyume]

I was going to say that I think men think this just in general about women, but thinking about it some more, I think it's extra true for teenage girls--and it's not just men thinking it, when it comes to the teenage girls: it's older women, too.

[gwynnega]

Oh dear.

[asakiyume]

yeeeaaaahhhhh.....