hug.

Vent away....
Getnle hugs.

My father-in-law has an impressive repertoire of good ol' boy tales that trigger gnarly flashbacks to the sexual predators my father often attracted as he dragged us from one country town to the next. I do not believe he was ever a sexual predator himself and he does not know enough about me to know where I fit in his McCarthy Era good ol' boy stories. At 80 something I have zero confidence that he is even capable of understanding. It is a place where I use avoidance as my best defense.

The story I was not able to avoid this time was of his 99 year old buddy still searching for manly gratification. In listening to the tale, I heard him declare his granddaughters as too old to serve and...

It has morphed into nasty flashbacks of my own grandfather and nightmarish conjectures of young boys and girls defending themselves against great-great-grandfathers. Not so great!

Simultaneously, the roar is combining with the roar of my middle-aged, eff-bombing son who loved his grandad so dearly and is currently an unmarriageable, and unemployable. My son's eff-bombed perception of women is sounding way too much like my father-in-law's. Just not as politically correct...

Still venting...

Ah. I have run into that a few times. I must say, it irks me no end. Keep on venting. Better out than in....

Striving for acceptance, as always. Be it an oil slicked Texas good ol' boy, an eff-bombing rapper, or a sexual exploitation survivor, we are what we are and we ain't what we ain't.

I have no intolerance except for intolerance, LOL....

I try to accept but sadly, that good old boy thing is a huge pTSD trigger so... I tend to react.

Acceptance is easy to say and so freaking hard to do. Thumbs up to you for fighting the good fight!

The good ol' boy thing doesn't get any sexier with geezerhood. Picturing a 99 year old geezer hustling teenaged angels about made me want to vomit. Takes a very specific kind of man to admire that flavor of manhood. By that age, an 80 year old woman is young enough to be his daughter.

Fortunately my husband understands how triggering the sexism and classicism is for me and is appreciative of the support I give him on negotiating all this and equally tolerant of whatever I need to do to protect myself. Fortunately I was able to keep my mouth shut.

Just as fortunate, I have someplace to get my neurons straight after they've been zapped.

Onward through the fog.

I run into good old boys in my dad's toxic fam---and classist BS from a few in-laws (mys is-in-lw is one of them).... I avoid all of the above with great care. Still hit the occasional random one anyway. The way a few of those SOBs talk, it's enough to make me want to call the police.... *yuk*

Glad you can vent safely and have support. :-)

Rolling cotton growing rednecks into oil smart classicism and young at heart fantasies has made for quite a stew. Best handled as toxic waste. Part of me wants to let the foreclosure happen and gloat over the comedy of watching them make the transition from opulence to a state nursing home.

They gave me a great husband, though. The cousins who stayed true to their country roots are also quite charming.

And in the end, it is not mine to sort.

So sorry you had to deal with such unpleasant people who are so disconnected from reality. Hugs to you. Vent away.

As to older family members being sexually inappropriate predators, my forefathers are like yours. During World War II, for example, rather than fight for his country my grandfather got a sexually transmitted disease at a brothel during basic training. That doesn't distinguish him much, as I'm sure many other soldiers did, too. What makes him unique is that he called my grandmother to come visit him, and then he gave his STD to her. Nice, classy elder statesman.

And incest, and sleeping with the neighbor's wife only to get caught and have to move the family under cover of darkness in the night, and and and.

The last time I saw him he was 95. I picked him up at his nursing home and drove him to be with my family for Thanksgiving dinner. During dinner, as he sat at the head of the table, he announced that he was bored. Would I mind driving him to a stip joint he'd seen along the way?

Like I said, a classy, elder statesman. Like the rest of my family tree. I haven't been able to get through to a single one of them. The only thing I've been able to do has been to let the stupid cycle stop with me. The value of that is something I know you know about even more than me from Alanon. Supportive vibes to you, arfie.

Ha! Mad as I was, I made myself laugh. "Stip joint," I said, instead of "strip joint." A place where people stip their clothes off, you see.

Support to you anyway, arfie, from a peer with Chronically Imperfect Spelling Disorder.

In the art world, "stippling" is to draw things with dots. Matisse was a master of stippling.

Dare we take poetic license and claim that taking a sleezy geezer to a "stip joint" is well spoken: spotty and full of holes?

Thanks for the grin, Muji, however unintended.

Oh, good ones on both counts! Nice Matisse reference and riff there Arfie! Made my morning, LOL.

My redneck fam took the opposite approach, educated I suspect by the survivors of the US Civil War when they came home with various, ahem, "issues"..... Advice passed down for generations on tha tside? "You know where your hand's been, who it's been with, and whether or not it's clean." ... Apparently, no question of clean thoughts, just clean hands!

Makes me wonder. Alas.

As for your in-laws, Arfie, quite right. Not yours to sort, only yours to witness, and that can be stress enough. Big soft purring hugs and a free pass to exercise that avi of yours on a remote tundra full of ptarmagin to chase and the auarora overhead....

"The good ol' boy thing doesn't get any sexier with geezerhood"

It wasn't before either, but through their own glasses. Good vent and thread. I have been that one that was chosen, so not very sympathetic to what you see coming.
Gertie thinks a box of Depends for a x-mas gift to all of them, son too. They will need them.

The son I will and do defend. He is not perfect, but he is perfect for me. Fact is, his clan looks like Little House on the Prairie next to mine. Between us there is balance. On the good days, at least.

Realized today that FIL's story of his young-at-heart friend craving the youthenasia of women 70 years his junior had triggered flashbacks to my grandfather's molestation. If my arithmomania is accurate, my grandfather was about 50 years my senior when he molested me. The sensory flashbacks had me spinning off into imaginings of twice great grandfather crotch. Eating has been tough since the delightful tale... Some awful dreams...

Good news is that my flashback management seems to be working. Worked with the bee hives today and just managed to get a good grub down my gullet.

Thanks for the support. Helps allot.