Rose, a few days ago…

By Rosalie Tirella

I’ve hesitated to write about all the politicians up for election (locally and nationally) who’ve been accused of sexually assaulting women. Groping them, coming out of nowhere and touching their vaginas, attempts at strangulation, posting photos of genitalia on State House computer screens.

Has there ever been a sicker crop of political candidates? Yes! Of course there has been! But today we’ve got the Internet, social media, smart phone cameras that also video- and audio-record …these technological marvels can catch, record for posterity and disseminate every punch, every push, every cry…every sick pic.

This behavior is sick – but it happens ALL THE TIME. By angry powerless men AND happy, powerful, rich, connected, politically ambitious men. Many love their wives. Bill Clinton, Donald Trump; and closer to home with allegations of assault, sexual creepiness: State rep candidates Moses Dixon, John Fresolo…Democrats, Republicans, and every political party in between, the pervs are everywhere. Make no mistake: their behavior IS criminal.

I can also write about this issue, like all women, from a personal perspective: having bad experiences with men who thought nothing of hurting me – they felt they were just being “guys.” Taking advantage of their God-given right – after all, I’m just a girl. Like all the girls. Like all the girls that all the creeps treat like shit because they feel ENTITLED. Because they are desensitized.

Former  U.S. Prez Bill Clinton, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary’s hubby, was a big pig – probably as big a pig, if not bigger! – than the guy vying to be prez today – Donald Trump. The women, all disgusted and feeling violated, have spoken. We know all the Bill trauma, let’s focus on this presidential election!: Trump has gone up to female strangers and kissed them, touched their vaginas, pressed for sex, pressed for affairs – private parts, private feelings, a woman’s body/soul – her personal space, physical special stuff!

Years ago, when I lived in the ol’ hippie commune I mentioned a few columns ago (a very good experience over all!) I had a guy at the farm-commune come up from behind me and touch my pussy just like Donald Trump did to his victim! It’s 30 years later and I still remember and think about the incident – it still UPSETS AND ANGERS ME. I was in our big walk-in refrigerator in the farm house putting eggs in cartons, I think. I was all alone, bending over – maybe the refrigerator door was ajar. Well, from out of nowhere Randy comes from behind and just tickles my pussy, from behind – through my blue jeans. I jerked up, startled. Creeped out. He just smiled and left the refrigerator. I never told anyone at the farm. Randy was a respected farm hand, a nice guy according to everyone, well liked by all. Where was I, a 19 year old girl, to go with this? My feelings? I kept the encounter to myself – and kept away from Randy the entire time I lived on the commune.

Trump thinks casual pussy touching is ok: he says it is mere LOCKER ROOM shenanigans – joking around! A boy bein’ a boy! Like towel snappin’! Being free.

Wrong, Donald! Listen to all the women who have been creeped out by your behavior over the decades! LISTEN to them.

Yet tons and tons of men DO shit like this all the time and don’t get that it’s wrong, criminal.  They pooh pooh the behavior. Parents/families, school, sports teams, churches, society have all validated this behavior; it’s the guys’ privilege, their prerogative – just funnin’. Even flirtin’.  After all, they’re so cute, handsome, funny, smart, rich …

Or … they’re so sad, lonely, needy … You fill in your own adjective. Excuses for hurting and shaming women must not be tolerated. Men must be re-educated!

FOR HIS LOCKER ROOM STATEMENT ALONE DONALD TRUMP SHOULD NOT BE VOTED PRESIDENT IN 2016. America needs to be in 2016: AWARE. SENSITIVE. EQUALITY LOVING. These times do not call for Trump. They never did.

Now to state rep candidate Moses Dixon: We were gonna endorse Dixon, but I tend to believe what his girlfriend at the time said about him: He hit her and tried to choke her; she feared him; she feared for her safety; she got herself a lawyer. We women do not do all this stuff – painful, so painful going public with such intimate chaos/hurt – to make things up, to play games with guys.

I think Moses’s Republican opponent is pointless, that Dixon would serve the district in better and smarter fashion than she has, a lightweight of an incumbent if ever there was one. The district NEEDS a strong progressive Democrat! But I CANNOT AND WILL NOT ENDORSE AN ABUSER. Even a politically progressive one. And what does “progressive” mean, if your personal life is so “regressive”?

Once again state rep candidate John Fresolo: an excellent, effective former state rep who really got and advocated for my district: the Kelley Square grime, crime and shootings scene. The Union Hill drug houses, inner-city poverty, job losses, kids struggling to find their futures, old people afraid to live in their houses with all the crime swirling around their homes, their old haunts. And Fresolo delivered the bacon, the goods for the district! For years! He was well liked, considered to be hard working, a true and loyal friend. Heck! His mom lived on Jefferson Street – 7 minutes away from me. Fresolo came up the real Worcester blue collar nitty gritty way, and he represented a district that reflected his roots!

But then out came his genitalia!!!…photos of which were posted, I am praying, accidentally, on every computer in every nook and cranny of our beloved, gold domed, stately State House. Always the claims about Fresolo’s treatment of women dogging Fresolo. Not good. Then finally this, on a personal note, which makes me not wanna endorse him: About a year ago he and I were gonna go out for coffee, maybe a mini-date breakfast kinda thing. I was lookin’, maybe he was, too. Well, within a few hours of making the breakfast date, John was asking me to text him naked pictures of myself!!!! God! It was all so fast – and weird …and gross. I declined – and then canceled our breakfast.

Clearly, Fresolo has issues with women – issues that can – and have –  imploded his political career.  Too bad – I still think, if elected, he’d do better for the district than incumbent Dan Donahue, a pleasant guy who may just be too sweet and entitled to really get passionate about our issues. And we have all the big city ones right here, folks! A true challenge – that Fresolo would have been up to.

When does the personal become the political?

For me, it’s when the dicks abuse dick power.