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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@VP:
Will the subject of hedgehogs come up at some point?
Sometimes we need a painstaking self-portrait of just this kind of old hardened prelatical sinner to make us remember what the Reformation was about. JMO.
How would it be possible for us to have a conversation without the topic of hedgehogs coming up at some point? There are non-hedgehog conversations?
You confuse me with your strange concepts, Moggie.
@ Moggie
And the nature of a wizard’s staff.
Oh, we’re on that level of Church history expretise :/ Why bother looking so back in history then? New Mass of VC II is even more clear “evidence”! I’m a little supprised you didn’t use dogmas about Mary as an example anyway: they always come up first in this context.
(Care to explain diffirence between church doctrine and discipline/law? No… low effort trolls don’t do that!)
You surely did… self-declared victory always tastes good!
BTW: to satisfy your curiousity: my native language is Slavic one and I didn’t score best grades in my English classes. I humbly admit: I haven’t improved much since then and vocabulary is the easiest aspect of any language anyway :/
Oh, this is an major misunderstanding; by anti-catholic I mean “against Catholicism” not “against Catholics” or “against one priest”. And second one: show me, where did I tell “no, you cannot attack my views”? What you (generally speaking, not author of above quote only) stubbornly interprete as trolling is my openess to have my worldview challenged or even attacked as much as I do.
Pictured: yzek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WZLJpMOxS4
(Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes for like, twenty seconds haha)
Yzek: so if no shift in the church’s position thus far constitutes a genuine doctrinal change surely more such non-changes are possible to align with changing views on LGBTQ and women’s issues.
Was it anti-Catholic bigotry to criticize the church’s acceptance of slavery even the church has changed-but-apparently-not-really in a way that suggests it accepts those criticisms were justified?
@Yutolia re the proposed Boston straight pride rally: so, essentially a regular day in Boston, aka “Straight People Walking.”
Sorry, am typing on my phone & still haven’t tamed the block quote mammoth yet.
Oh, who am I kidding? Haven’t even attempted it yet.
This implication is false, it’s like saying that failing to prove someone’s guilt is proving his innocence. In fact there’s a three-value logic, but ultimately reduced to two values (innocent or guilty) by in dubio pro reo.
It’s clear to me: you just want make ft. Cusick sound as bad as possible by producing false implications.
@ObSidJag – I’m not sure if you’re new or not (I’ve already admitted my shoddy memory) but if you’re new and haven’t had the welcome package offered, I’d be pleased to offer one! 😀
@Rhuu:
Nothing wrong with your memory. Yes, I’m reasonably new, & thank you 4 the Welcome package.
I shall use it wisely by adoring the Furrinati ensconced on their Hard Chairs while burning my Fucking Scented Candles in their presence.
Oops, is my former Catholicism showing? Boy, is my face red.
Oh, slavery, one of my favourite subjects, mantly because it’s more anti-theist or anti-christian. I’m always delighted when I read Bible verses with slave laws, because almost all of them are about protection of slaves! And church “acceptance” is such and un-historical argument that it just makes me cringe. This “acceptance” was much more a “tolerance” with strong notion to abolish it, which was a long process (not quite finished yet…) Thousand years ago slavery in my country was a vital part of economy… and it stopped when country adopted Christianity.
@Rhuu:
Nothing wrong with your memory. Yes, I’m reasonably new, & thank you 4 the Welcome package.
I shall use it wisely by adoring the Furrinati ensconced on their Hard Chairs while burning my Fucking Scented Candles in their presence.
Oops, is my former Catholicism showing? Boy, is my face red.
Edited 2 add:
And is it just me, or is that icon of Christ giving us one heck of a “come hither” glance?
I’ll see myself out.
Dad drat it!
Sorry 4 the double post.
Contintued: trend to limit and ultimately reject slavery is very deeply rooted in Bible, even if Old Testament books. Hard to say the same about same-sex-intercourse to name just one LGBT issue :/
Of course: one can always say that recent trend of less condemning tone of preaching is some sudden “change of doctringe” not just different preaching style to get their attention, similar to what st Paul did when preached in Athens.
@Victorious Parasol
Oh, is it Autumn already? (Meant purely in character.)
The best you could count on is different preaching approach in Francis-style. Something similar to what st. Paul did when he spoke in Athens.
Oh, so it was about protecting the people that you own. So moral! Very convincing! 10/10 execution score!
Regarding the language analysis of yzek’s style, my memory may be failing me, but didn’t we have another troll of that sort a while ago? It might actually be years since, though.
Nope, there’s no rooting of the validity of queer sex in scripture of doctrine.
On the other hand, there are deep roots for incest and pedophilia!
Hmm: y’know what’s interesting though? Consensual queer sex is a good thing, while incest and pedophilia are bad things. Huh.
Presentism in full glory.
Eh, I have no interest in engaging the latest troll or commenting on what seems like utterly pedestrian religious bigotry these days, so I’m going to do a bit of a thread hijack. Specifically, I checked Sinfest again today and it seems that the comic is no longer on the deep end, as it dived straight into the abyss. The current messages seem to be:
• Medication is bad, mmkay? You’re fine as you are.
• Gender don’t real. Binary gender is merely a performance designed to uphold the patriarchy.
• Nonbinary identities were invented to sell… something. I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be some sort of “privileged oppression”, or male beauty products. Possibly both.
The comic now also features a “church of gender” whose symbol is an eight-spoked version of ⚦, which is suggestive of the Warhammer Chaos symbol.
Oh, daughers of Lot story, one of my favourite too, would make George Martin blush! And it’s as much approval of incest as story of Cain is approval of murder 🙂
How strange that women can often find a man appealing, possibly even after seeing him shirtless in public, without becoming angry at him for it or acting like an inappropriate weirdo. Hm.
Nothing wrong with taking note of eye candy (quietly!), then moving on. But if the response is to act like a weirdo, have a meltdown on Twitter, or get angry because something/someone secretly made you feel tingly in your pants… the level of emotional maturity is probably really lacking.
You do realize that Lot encouraged his neighbors to rape his daughters instead of his guests, right? Because of hospitality law. Because the wrong response to people trying to rape someone is to say, “NO! NO FUCKING RAPE WHATSOEVER!”
The super-awesome, morally upstanding way to respond to rape is to yell,
More yzek:
Ah, yes! The defenders of the church always retreat to moral relativism.