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Rape Lock
Pope's - The Rape of the Lock
Something I Said-Rape Legalized In Maryland
Insight News archives March 07
SIS/Maryland Legalizes Rape
Dwight Hobbes In Minnesota, a man can be sitting at home, minding his own business. Clear across town a woman can pick up the phone, call the cops and claim he threatened her. He will get a knock on the door, the police will come in and haul him off to jail on nothing more than the strength of that complaint. In Minnesota, a man can be co-habitating in his house or apartment with a girlfriend or wife. If they exchange cross words and she's determined enough to have the final say, all she has to do is dial 911, claim she is fearful for her physical safety. The cops will come and drag him out of his own home, lock him up and, when he's released, a restraining order automatically will be in place, barring him from going back to his house or apartment. A non-custodial father can document and demonstrate to a county clerk that his child is being tended to by an unfit mother – let's say raging drunk or rampant junkie – and it is highly unlikely a judge will sign an order granting him even temporary custody until a legal hearing can be set. I'm not making any of this up. Nor are these rare occurrences. And, in fact, it is not unheard for a woman to wrongfully jam a man up and then comment with a smirk, "This is a woman's state." Ain't fair, but it is true. Anyone who ever wondered what moved morons at the state legislature to allow such a sorry state of affairs to be legal, need only look at what recently happened in Maryland. In early February, with the case of Baby v. Maryland, The Court of Special Appeals held that if a woman agrees to get horizontal with a man and, while they're in midst of consummating a carnally acquaintance, she changes her mind, well, it's too late. He does not have to stop. And she is not being raped (just for the record, let's get something straight, this minute – as long as it's still her body, she has a perfect and unalienable right to decide what happens to it, what doesn't happen to it and, for that matter, what stops happening to it). The judicial idiots in Maryland have turned back time to reinstitute the legally sanctioned code of barbaric conduct by which, at one time, all across America, a husband could have sexual intercourse with his wife whenever he felt like it and whether she did or not. They have reverted to a day and age when, in any court in the country, if a girl or woman went alone with a male to his house, apartment or hotel room and was sexually assaulted, she was asking for it. In Minnesota, women finally got so fed up with being subject to abuse – rape, battery – that the political and social backlash prompted such sweeping change that we now have, as I said, "a woman's state". Protection so hell-bent on taking the upper hand away from men that it has placed women's feet on men's necks. Because lobbyist for women's rights will turn this whole state upside down all over again, before they will let a court of appeals or anything else get away with claiming, "Well, once she got him started, she forfeits the autonomy with to tell him to stop." Those black robed blockheads in Maryland. They have just made sure that it will be harder than ever – here, there and elsewhere – for polarized men and women to reach any sort of common ground in respecting one another's rights. And, mark my words; they set the stage for one hell of an upheaval. P.S. They also have established the ground on which, just like in Minnesota, decent men will be hung out to dry because jerks can't get it through their thick skulls that when a woman says, "No" – at whatever point – that is the end of it. Those decent men who find themselves blinded-sided by the arrival of "a woman's state" in Maryland should have no problem figuring out who to thank – those jackasses on the Court of Special Appeals.
About the Author
Twin Cities Daily Planet articles archives at
www.tcdailyplanet.net/profiles/dwight-hobbes. Dwight Hobbes has written for ESSENCE, Reader's Digest, Washington Post, Minneapolis Star Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press, City Pages, Mpls/St. Paul, MN Law & Politics, Pulse of the Twin Cities, Twin Cities Daily Planet, Women & Word, San Diego Union-Tribune and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder (where he contributes the commentary column Something I Said). He's spoken his mind over National Public Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, Blog Talk Radio's UNOBSTRUCTED and KMOJ in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Was regularly featured as guest commentator on NewsNight Minnesota (KTCA-Minneapolis/St. Paul) and Spectator (Minneapolis Television Network). His monthly column "Hobbes In The House" in MN Spokesman Recorder speaks to domestic abuse and rape. His plays are Shelter - produced at Mixed Blood Theatre by Pangea World Theater, Dues - produced by Mixed Blood Theatre, University of Southern Illinois in Point of Revue, selected for Bedlam Theatre's 10-Minute Play Festival and published by Playscripts, Inc. You Can't Always Sometimes Never Tell - produced by Theater Center Philadelphia, Long Island University, reading at The Kennedy Center and published in the anthology CENTER STAGE, In the Midst - produced by Long Island University, starring Samuel E. Wright. Hobbes spoke on the panel "Farewell To August Wilson" at the Guthrie Theater, broadcast on Conversations With Al McFarlane (KFAI, KMOJ). Singer-songwriter Dwight Hobbes recorded the single "Atlanta Children" (BeatBad Records) and gigged 10 years in the Long Island/NYC area, including The Other End, Kenny's Castaways and My Fathers Place. He fronted the Boston blues band Midlight. In Minneapolis, Hobbes opened for David Daniels at First Street Entry, James Curry at Terminal Bar, sat in with Yohannes Tona, Alicia Wiley at Sol Testimony's Soul Jam, The New Congress at Babalu, Willie Murphy at the Viking Bar and Wain McFarlane & Jahz at Lucille's Kitchen. Dwight Hobbes still drops in at the occasional open mic around town. www.myspace.com/dwighthobbesmusic
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Frequently Asked Questions...
Belinda in Alexander Pope's mock epic poem, "Rape of the Lock"?
I am writing a paper on the names of the characters in "Rape of the Lock." I know Belinda was inspried by the real life Arabella Fermor but can not figure out why he chose the name 'Belinda'. Yes, it means 'beautiful' but were there any real Belindas during the late 1600s early 1700s that ma have inspired Pope?
Answer:
Beyond the reference to "beautiful" as a way of complimenting Fermor and the man who snipped her tresses, I don't think you will come up with anything. I note that Belinda's maid is Betty--a generic maid's name--so Belinda might also be the generic name for a belle, as Belinda is called. Of course, "belle" is the French word for "beautiful," so there's a lot of beauty going on here, all by way of compliments, to make Pope's poem more flattering and his efforts at reconciliation the more likely to succeed.
The poem likes to make mocking postures about names--thus the sun is called "Sol," which is, of course the Latin word for it, but "Sol" also sounds like a diminuntive of "Solomon" and therefore mock friendly.
