Bruno

Discussion (2) ¬

1. 
   ronald

   September 30, 2017 at 2:24 pm | #

   “displeased”? Okay, I get that that’d be because she’d have gone with the somebody at least in part because she was drunk, but there’d have been at least a chance she’d have gone with someone she’d have gone with when she was sober.

   Or if nothing else, it might have been a really pretty bedroom. ;-)

   “Nowadays” (and it may also have been the case “back then” although, alas, surely not taken as seriously), a woman who consents while drunk has the option of claiming (to be fair, quite truthfully) that she didn’t give INFORMED consent and thus the guy (or for that matter, woman) took advantage of her (unless he or she was drunk too, I suppose) and…well, then things get all Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. I for whatever reason don’t think Bruno would ever do that, though. Logically, this would hold true for guys too, but I imagine that such cases come up much less often, and probably more in guy-went-home-with-guy cases (particularly if Guy #1 is utterly emphatic that he’s so completely NOT gay (and we all know what THAT supposedly means…) than guy-went-home-with-woman cases. Life’s just an obscene tapestry, isn’t it? Fortunately, I’ve never been propositioned in my life and I’ve RESOLVED to never get drunk ever* (my father was an alcoholic and I don’t want to find out that I am too) so it’s not a scenario I’m likely to encounter. ;-)

   It’s odd (not all the way on topic) how as near as I can tell the vast majority of random men that Bruno encounters seem to be drunks or jerks or both. Is Seattle known for that? Do most of the nice guys just stay home? ;-)

   ===

   *I don’t doubt that someone will now proceed to tell me that getting drunk is an important part of life, that there’s something WRONG with me (like I’m a, what was the term used a while back, oh, right, “zoo animal”) for never getting drunk. And that’s fine.
2. 
   Peter Rogan

   September 30, 2017 at 7:01 pm | #

   Actually, I was thinking how this is a victory for Bruno’s better nature, or at least her self-esteem’s self-preservation reflex. She didn’t try to stuff a random body or two into the hole in her soul. Which, at least in this instance, leaves her no worse than before, without a fresh source of self-loathing or another awkward ’social’ connection to deal with, typically gracelessly.

   If she can build on this, she might be able to take parties as opportunities to just be herself, not a straggler of a lost army making her way through an unmarked minefield of uncertain size. It at least would be a departure from her recurrent cycles of despair, self-despite, self-harm, and maudlin self-reassessment leading to a new bout of shy vulnerability that paves the way for more embarrassment and depression.

   In this her experience with stripping, as a conscious descent to self-abasement, actually helps, because she could hold it at arm’s length and ponder her place in the odd emotional and financial transaction that is sexual self-exploitation. The nearly-equally quixotic decision to leave stripping helps as well, when it could have been another excuse to bottom out.

   Surviving another alcohol-fueled desent to self-obliteration thus leaves Bruno unharmed, and perhaps indicates that she doesn’t need to be wasted for whatever purpose. Another step, however small, to self-stabilization. Which is a greater victory than it may appear. Maybe Bruno can leave alcohol as a social lubricant, not a means to self-adnegation. At least it is to be hoped.

   Apropos of nothing, my parents saw to it that I and my brother learned to drink responsibly at a shockingly young age. This has kept me from the modern American rituals of bingeing and purging that seems to be a constant in how Americans deal with alcohol, and sex, and most of their politics. For this I thank them.