With epidemic sexual assault by powerful political men and the widespread use of artificial intelligence to confuse voters, it especially hurts when the alleged perpetrators are from your own community. You don’t have to be Jewish to be appalled when gay Jewish state Senator Scott Weiner questions the citizenship and mocks the accent of his naturalized American immigrant opponent, Supervisor Connie Chan. You don’t have to be gay to be saddened when gay Jewish café owner and former District 8 Supervisor candidate Manny Yekutiel was accused of sexual assault.
It was astonishing for Jews and gentiles alike that Jewish Mayor Daniel Lurie would endorse Yekutiel after a credible allegation of sexual assault. You don’t have to be a man or a woman or LGBTQI to be horrified that the gay Jewish President of the Board of Supervisors Rafael Mandelman seems to feel that gay men do not believe in consent in the same way as women.
How can Jews and gay men do these things when they are living in a world that increasingly targets them, using sophisticated technology? Doesn’t Weiner know that Jews are being held responsible for the mythical theory that we are conspiring to replace white Americans with non-white immigrants such as Chan? Doesn’t Yekutiel recognize that Jews are seen as being cunning sexual predators? Or that Lurie, a millionaire businessman, is validating the belief that Jews only are interested in their own money and power? What if it has nothing to do with being Jewish or gay?
Mandelman’s suggestion that consent is different for gay men than for women may be key to answering all those questions. Take out the word “gay” and one is left considering if consent for sex is different for men than it is for women.
Sadly, Mandelman is right. I believe it is different, as we live in a society where being a cis-gendered woman or transwoman or a drag queen or a sissy implies consent. Like the stereotype of the “loud and pushy Jew” it isn’t about being a Jew, it’s about being a man.
Though I am not a woman or a gay man, I too have seen how slickly and quickly men can perpetrate sexual violence. At my tenth high school reunion, I noticed how the previously awkward looking boys had grown up. When a Jewish male classmate approached me drunkenly to admire my outfit (an electric blue dress), I was at first bemused. Then he said “I’m gonna see if these are real” and thrust his hand down my dress to grope me. I froze and convinced myself to chuckle that he found my look convincing.
It wasn’t until I read about Yekutiel’s alleged behavior that I realized: He was aroused because he was expressing dominance by humiliating me in public as though I was a woman. I also thought that perhaps because he was disinhibited and really gay. Regardless, I am haunted by the fact that if he was doing this surrounded by multiple witnesses what does he do behind closed doors? It also didn’t feel like assault because he was smiling and because he is, like me and Manny Yekutiel, a white Jew.
Scott Weiner’s cyberbullying also appears to be obsessed by his opponent saying “no”. Weiner’s campaign and his funders are stuffing San Francisco mailboxes with flyers and booklets to show Connie Chan saying “No” to Weiner’s policies. A van was parked on a major street with a fake mailbox and a large sign asserted that they had to live in their vehicle because Chan hates housing. (The owner of that van, Conor Johnston, does not, to our knowledge, live in his vehicle.) To her credit, Chan has not responded by saying that Weiner hates poor people or women or Asian Americans.
When asked at a debate about his chatbot cyberbullying, Weiner apologized to Chan but did not acknowledge that putting humiliating words in the mouth of a naturalized Asian American citizen has risked the safety of many of San Franciscans, while Trump’s secret police are sending immigrants to concentration camps and bragging about being held liable for sexual assault. Weiner claims to oppose those policies while taking money from the billionaire AI industry.
Yekutiel is not entitled to anyone’s body, and though he has denied the allegations, he has said that perhaps he drank too much, and he was going to end his campaign and “work on himself.” It seems unlikely that he will face any charges, as he hosted the district attorney in his café after being credibly accused of sexual assault and never lost his endorsement from the Police Officer’s Association.
Mandelman is termed out of office in San Francisco and hopes to be elected as a state representative. I would like to tell him face-to-face that telling gay men that they can expect to be assaulted for going to a party is truly disturbing, but I am not going into any space with him alone.
I wish my gay Jewish nurse colleague was still alive to go with me. His name is Lloyd Sonley and I worked with him on the AIDS ward at San Francisco General Hospital. He was a leather queen and a BDSM enthusiast and an exemplar of non-toxic masculinity. He very sweetly offered to show me his dungeon and only giggled when I politely declined. Sonley could have taught Yekutiel and Mandelman and Weiner how to play safely. He would not take kindly to fuzzy lines of consent.
Mandelman, Lurie and Weiner should be censured for their words and actions that have endangered many more people than Connie Chan and the three men who alleged sexual assault. I think they should be required to listen to anybody who would like to tell them how it feels to be deep-faked, mocked, and sexually harassed.
These powerful men seem to feel that they should be believed, not survivors. They believe they are entitled to our bodies and our votes. This is not about policy differences; it is about hatred fueled by AI and billionaires. Their actions may be nothing personal for them. It’s very personal for the rest of us.
Sasha is a retired registered nurse who was the first boy elected as homecoming princess at Montgomery Blair High School in 1977. Sasha worked at the AIDS ward at San Francisco I-will-never-call-it-Zuckerberg General Hospital.
