By David Futrelle
There are a lot of guys out there who not-so-secretly resent women for having bodies that get them all hot and bothered.
Warren Farrell, the intellectual grandfather of the Men’s Rights movement, famously warned men to beware of the “cleavage power” and the “miniskirt power” of young women. Incels and MGTOWs today rail against women “torturing” them by wearing skin-tight yoga pants. Hell, last week I wrote about one horny Redditor who blamed women for tempting men by showing their arms in public.
So what about in insidious threat of shoulders, which in addition to being “the laterally projecting part of the human body formed of the bones and joints with their covering tissue by which the arm is connected with the trunk” are also sometimes nice to look at?
Enter Father Kevin M. Cusick. On Sunday, the priest and former military chaplain caused a bit of a stir on Twitter after he suggested that women shouldn’t show their bare shoulders in church lest the sight of such a tempting bit of skin cause the men and boys to suddenly start feeling a bit funny in their pants.
Naturally, more than a few Twitterers took issue with Cusik’s stance. And so he doubled down, and doubled down again, launching into a full-on meltdown that lasted until this morning.
But he topped even those tweets with his final comment on the subject, in which he compared himself, and the treatment he’d gotten from critics on Twitter, to Jesus getting nailed to the cross. No, really.
As it turns out, Cusick’s not just worried about sexy lady shoulders; he’s also worried that women’s bare feet could give priests boners. Several years ago, you see, the Pope said it was ok to include women and girls in Holy Thursday foot-washing rituals. But Cusick worried that foot-washing priests might get turned on by “cute” lady feet.
That last tweet about washing men’s feet seems just a little bit ironic when one starts poking around a little more in Cusick’s Twitter history.
Because, as it turns out, shoulders and feet aren’t his main obsessions. For every tweet he’s written about the dangers of improperly exposed female flesh, there are dozens (hundreds?) of tweet about the evils of gay men and their dirty doings — both in the Catholic Church and in the world at large. (He has much less to say about lesbians.)
In Cusick’s mind, the Church doesn’t have a pedophile problem; it’s got a “homosexual problem.”
Not only is this “homosexual network” intent on sexually abusing boys; it’s also, in Cusick’s mind, “perverting” the Church’s teachings in order to promote the mortal sin of sodomy.
Apparently the only way to ward off this “homosexualist” menace is with the magic of Latin.
He’s a bit obsessed with the whole sodomy thing.
He also has some, well, interesting views on “so-called ‘trans'” folks. Here’s his reaction to a news story about a trans woman teacher.
And here’s his, well, novel theory about the nature of transness.
Needless to say, he won’t be celebrating Pride month.
But Cusick isn’t just obsessed with sex. His Twitter history is a virtual smorgasbord of unhinged takes on almost every hotbutton social issue. He thinks abortion leads to “bloodthirsty mobs on the streets.”
He regularly links to alarming “news” articles on the alleged evils of migrant Muslim “invaders,” including at least one article from rabid far-right Islamaphobe Pam Geller. His own opinions on the subject are only slightly less rabid than hers:
Needless to say, Cusick also hates feminism, especially when it involves young boys being taught that women’s suffrage was a good thing.
But the strangest thing I found in Cusick’s Twitter history? He’s apparently afraid of being enslaved — by Beto O’Rourke.
It’s a weird and more than slightly unhinged reaction to a young man standing on a car spouting vaguely lefty political platitudes. But, hey, anything to get Cusick’s mind off of sodomy, I guess.
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Citation needed.
[Emphasis mine]
Citation desperately needed, given that we have ample evidence to the contrary.
What on earth makes you think that? Self-identified “Nice Guys” tend to be giant, entitled assholes. You know, just like you.
Giant entitled assholes aren’t exactly a good fit here.
You know, just like you.
Sounds like he’s one of those wingnutty VCII-rejecting priests. Search deep enough in his feed and you’ll probably find “The Jews ARE TOO responsible for killing Christ!” tweets. Why doesn’t the Catholic church expel these off-the-reservation priests? Or at least move them to another parish like they do all the child molesters.
Because that would be acknowledging that they made a mistake. And that would be far, far worse than perpetuating that mistake.
I seem that to you because sexual abuse victims are sooo often used as mouth-shutting argument which appears every time when something about the Church is discussed apparently everything what’s said must be followed by deep, sincere expression of sorrow and apology.
This Carthage must be destroyed. Sex abuse must be stopped and abusive priests punished.
May we discuss what clothes are appropriate on Mass now?
@yzek
How do you justify the fact that you’re supporting a massive pedophile ring that masquerades as a church?
Hey, I’m not the only Catholic here, let them speak too!
To be clear, I was reffering only to the Catholic Church.
In whole or Roman Catholic only, to be even more clear?
But why? Because a priest got criticised? By that token, Cusick is clearly anti-catholic himself because he criticised another priest’s tweet and disrespected Vaticanum II.
And Cusick had one chance to refer to the dress code in his tweet and we wouldn’t be here. Instead, he burdened women with “protecting men’s purity”, something that directly contradicts Jesus’s prescription what men should do if they can’t help ogling women. 😉
Sounds pretty anti-catholic to me, too
…for compying with Catholic doctrine? Yes, why not?
@sarah_kay_gee:
We should somehow create a parish on the moon and send them there. Clipperton Island is not inhabited either but it’s still too close.
This is not a catholic-school of bible interpretation; but you may want to ask fellow protestants who have problems with impure thoughts, how many of them have blinded themselves.
We Catholics interpret Biblie in whole and always together with whole Church teachings, whose Bible is most important *part*.
So, please read a few verses *before* the “oogling” part starting from Mathew 18:6 and ask yourself: who Cusick tries to protect *more*: men or women?
@Yzek: Doctrine has changed repeatedly throughout the history of the Catholic church. Was everyone advocating a position that the church opposed but not adopts anti-Catholic?
Sheesh – more issues than a newsstand this one.
Oops. That should saw ‘now adopts’ rather than ‘not adopts’.
Oh, I know about those “changes” which were not really changes, but for church-history-impaired when something appears in writting of pope Anon X and popes Anons I, II, III … IX did not mention it, then Anon X somehow “changed” Church doctrine… No, I don’t have enough time to argue with that kind of fallacy.
But when you narrow down specifically to dressing in church: the moment someone says “It doesn’t matter how someone is dressed on mass” contradicts Church teaching which historically started with St. Paul at least.
@ neremanth
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I should know never to trust the press; I used to work for them! And it is of course a cliche that any story you have personal knowledge of will be reported incorrectly.
But the underlying point remains; I’m a firm believer that, if you do something that makes someone take their own life, you’re as responsible as if you did the killing yourself.
(OT to the topic at hand, but)
@ sarah_kay_gee
Umm… ‘Off-the-reservation’ might not be the expression you want to use, here.
Should Saying Someone Is ‘Off The Reservation’ Be Off-Limits?
(From the article)
It goes more in-depth, and talks about different reactions to it from different people, but probably a good expression to just stop using.
Re: yzek – you said you were an incel in the other thread, by including yourself in their group. Don’t take us to task for believing what you wrote. That is literally all we know about you.
I would say that this priest is caught up in some hella toxic masculinity, and that maybe he should keep his boner updates to himself. We get it, you like shoulders, and probably feet. No one cares about how that makes your boner feel.
Father Cusick, I’m absolutely and 100% certain Jesus would find you utterly detestable. He’d forgive you, of course, because that was his thing, but he wouldn’t enjoy it.
Pick any of Cusick’s displayed tweets on the topic. Or, if that’s too much work for you, how about this one?
@yzek: The whole ‘the church has never changed its position on slavery’ argument doesn’t even convince most Catholic theologians.
And if you accept the claim that its position has not changed surely you could accept that a ‘clarification’ on the church’s position on LGBTQ issues that on the surface appears to be a change but isn’t really is also possible.
Yzek,
We’re you under the impression that we approve of protestant clergy who obsess over modest clothing? Because, no. We do not.
We disapprove of anything that tries to blame women’s bodies for men’s behavior. Because that’s rape culture.
If men are sexualizing shoulders, that’s on them. Not that there’s anything wrong with finding a shoulder sexy, but there is something wrong with deciding that the possessor of the sexy shoulder should be shamed and controlled for it.
OT:
Apparently there is a straight pride parade planned in Boston. Ick!!!
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemcneal/straight-pride-parade-claim-controversy-boston
Such a broad definition of rape culture must include Catholic doctrine or even wider: biblical teaching about “stumbles”. Q.E.D
I’m proud of my Church who teaches BOTH men and women to control their urges and encourages BOTH men and women to not put other “little ones” in danger of sin by thought.
If that’s “rape culture” for you: so be it.
yzek – what does “little ones” mean? It is not clear. Are you talking about children?
Also, you sure seem stuck on this whole dress code thing. What do you have to say about the rest of this priest’s ranting?
How do you feel about him comparing himself to Jesus on the cross about his ratio-ing??? That seems a little blasphemous, to me.
We disapprove of anything that tries to blame women’s bodies for men’s behavior. Because that’s rape culture.
HOW IS THAT DEFINITION BROAD??? It literally describes one thing?
I’m beginning to think you aren’t here in good faith…
(LOLOLOLOL of course you aren’t)