George Morris on the SS list

[CiegoStar]

@vineyridge

We are at a point in time where, in about sixty years, we are changing human culture that has been almost universal for thousands of years. Fallout is inevitable.

Oh stop. There are many cultures that and are and were sex positive. Maybe amongst New England WASPs there was a lot of sexual repression, but let’s not go overboard with the thousands of years and universal human culture.

[BigMama1]

@vineyridge

The whole world was different for baby boomers and earlier. Initiation into sexual activity was very different. Sex was not flaunted into everyone’s face all the time. Popular music wasn’t about sex, but romantic love; books and movies that were overtly sexual were banned, and only read in hiding. America still believed in a culture of self-reliance, and it was up to the individual to learn to protect him or her self. Growing up was the process of learning to be independent. There were all sorts of more or less accepted behaviors, like “playing doctor”, learning about the physical differences between boys and girls, and sexual behaviors, when older, that didn’t end up with penetration. Boys were completely unprotected in laws on sexual conduct; in fact, boys who were initiated into sex by an older adult were considered lucky. Sometimes this was with prostitutes, and sometimes not. Mental consequences were not considered if there was no physical harm, and, often, without physical harm conduct wasn’t considered worth talking about. All of this changed with the pill for women and the acceptance of homosexuality for men.

Traditionally, males are always been the initiators of activity leading to the sex act, one suspects because of the ever present risk of pregnancy. Women’s sexuality was repressed for the same reason. Out of wedlock children have condemned the woman to ostracism by most cultures throughout history. As as been generally recognized, marriage was not about sex but about property and continuing the male line. Woman was just a womb and a vehicle for satisfying male sexual and financial needs. Any love followed marriage and rarely preceded it. The world was simply different.

We are at a point in time where, in about sixty years, we are changing human culture that has been almost universal for thousands of years. Fallout is inevitable.

And still, at no point in this time period was coercing minors into a sexual relationship considered acceptable.

[ClerkofCourts]

@4LeafCloverFarm

I think part of the issue in discussing the 60’s and 70’s and the culture back then, is that it was different for different people, based on where you grew up, the rung of society you grew up in, and how your extended family were raised (and thus, how they parented/mentored you).

I’m a baby boomer, born in the early 60’s, grew up in a very strict, upper middle class, southern household. You NEVER tattled on anyone - not your sister, not your cousins, and most certainly NOT another adult. You didn’t gossip, and never repeated something you’d heard from someone else - well, at least not in my house. That would have been an hour or three in the punishment chair. So by an early age, I’d been taught to respect all adults, regardless, and to keep my mouth shut.

Right after my 15th birthday we moved to Fairfield County, Connecticut. Our next door neighbors were an older couple - their children were grown and gone from home. They were going on a vacation and called and asked my mom if I could house sit and take care of their two cats. She said yes and relayed to me when I was to go over to their house for instructions for my house-sitting job. I was so excited, as it meant extra money for riding.

When I got there, it was just the husband. Which at the time, I didn’t think much of. He showed me around the house, what lights to turn off/on, what to feed the cats, and that his cats used the toilet, not a kitty litter box (OK, so that was odd, but whatever). Then he lead me up to their bonus room to were he said the cats liked to stay/hide (or so he said), and this whole time he’s talking to me, asking about school and did I like our new house and yada yada. And all of a sudden, I turned around not knowing he was right there, and in an instant he had me in an embrace and forcefully tried to kiss me.

I was shocked, and terribly scared, and fled as fast as I could. When I got home, my mom was out running errands. For 45 minutes I agonized whether or not to tell her. To this day, I wish I’d just stayed silent. But I didn’t - I told her what happened. She said I must have misunderstood or done something to make him do that. They were “nice people” and how dare I make up such a story. She made me call the neighbor and APOLOGIZE for being rude and leaving so abruptly. She made me do the house sitting because “you don’t break a promise to do something”.

I felt so dirty and confused. For YEARS I ran that whole scenario through my head, over and over, trying to figure out what I had done to have that happen to me. And I would shrink and hide every time those neighbors came to our house for a cocktail party or holiday event.

The whole thing was just horrible.

So, while one person’s experience of the 1970’s might have been very different from mine, doesn’t mean mine was any less real or true for me. So when people say that if everyone had just done more speaking up back then, maybe we wouldn’t be here today, Well, I did, and see where it got me? But that’s just my perspective, from my little corner of the universe.

However, I am very thankful that my trainers, instructors, and coaches in the horse world over the past 50 years never put me in the position of this neighbor. My heart just breaks for all theses children, in sports programs, or not, that are groomed, assaulted, trafficked, and lied to by adults. Its a despicable business, period - no matter who the perpetrator is.

I’m so sorry, that’s unimaginable. Thank you for sharing, I feel like this is emerge perspective so many of his younger supporters are missing.

[ClerkofCourts]

@Impractical Horsewoman

@snaffle635 That’s such an interesting point, because I always assumed that if George Morris fell afoul of changing standards, it would have been because of his bullying coaching, not anything sexual. Combined with the fact that any jokes I personally heard about his romantic life were always in the context of men who were of age (i.e., stuff like, “I bet he has a hot, twentysomething Brazilian boyfriend”), I never thought anything like this was in his past. Which makes me wonder if the appearance of candor in his autobiography was a case of hiding in plain sight.

my thoughts exactly, especially given how rushed (aka poorly written) that book was. I feel the timing was less than coincidental.

[LaurieB]

@Dressurfrau

https://www.jennyrsusser.com/we-are-missing-the-point-here/?fbclid=IwAR22vI9d21UKpn0lbzPe8ueKTGQsEZ-K4bb6EZe1GcVq99ay8qfQ0M5aB70

Wow, well done, Jenny R. Susser.

[HLMom]

@vineyridge

The whole world was different for baby boomers and earlier. Initiation into sexual activity was very different. Sex was not flaunted into everyone’s face all the time. Popular music wasn’t about sex, but romantic love; books and movies that were overtly sexual were banned, and only read in hiding. America still believed in a culture of self-reliance, and it was up to the individual to learn to protect him or her self. Growing up was the process of learning to be independent. There were all sorts of more or less accepted behaviors, like “playing doctor”, learning about the physical differences between boys and girls, and sexual behaviors, when older, that didn’t end up with penetration. Boys were completely unprotected in laws on sexual conduct; in fact, boys who were initiated into sex by an older adult were considered lucky. Sometimes this was with prostitutes, and sometimes not. Mental consequences were not considered if there was no physical harm, and, often, without physical harm conduct wasn’t considered worth talking about. All of this changed with the pill for women and the acceptance of homosexuality for men.

There is no doubt things were very different. I’m not some expert on historical sexual mores, but I can offer two anecdotes from my own life that young people today may scarcely believe (I’m 54 and grew up in New England–yes, in a Waspy family).

1. “Periods” could never be mentioned. There were euphemisms your mom would use if it had to be mentioned for some reason, but it could not be talked about or revealed to anyone else in any circumstances. --I love that young women today talk so much more freely about it, but I still can’t do so myself.

2. When I was in high school (around 1981), we had a 40-ish year old math teacher who began a romantic relationship with a student. As soon as she graduated, she moved into his house with him. It was talked about–but not from the perspective of whether he sexually abused her; it was more tut-tutting about how it was rather unseemly and they were living together without being married. There were no professional repercussions for the teacher, and he continued to teach there until his retirement.

It was a time of tremendous upheaval and in some ways conflict between the traditional “marriage model” of sexuality and the concepts of free love, living together, divorcing and coupling to “find your bliss,” etc. It was very destabilizing for many, especially for women who had bought into what they thought were lifetime marriages where they would be financially supported in exchange for taking care of home and hearth. I suspect the age of losing virginity also plummeted, though I don’t have statistics on that.

All of that said, I can’t speak what the norms were in the (underground) gay community or in the top echelon celebrity horse show world. Hopefully there has always been a recognition that adults should not be engaging in sexual relationships with young teens.

But I do laugh a little when younger people dismiss the idea of how different times were. You can scarcely imagine!

[Standard_Bread]

@vineyridge

And, let’s face it, physically, the need for sexual release is very different for men and women.

Your repressed, Victorianesque mores aren’t even a cultural universal in the United States. Take your shitty anthropology somewhere else.

[Tiramit]

@vineyridge

The whole world was different for baby boomers and earlier. Initiation into sexual activity was very different. (my trim) … books and movies that were overtly sexual were banned, and only read in hiding. (my trim) … Mental consequences were not considered if there was no physical harm, and, often, without physical harm conduct wasn’t considered worth talking about.

(my trim) …

And, let’s face it, physically, the need for sexual release is very different for men and women.

We are at a point in time where, in about sixty years, we are changing human culture that has been almost universal for thousands of years. Fallout is inevitable.

Except that’s not true. There have been periods of debauchery in history that could give our modern era a run for its sexual money. Roman orgies? French courtiers? The roaring 20s?

I’m pretty sure F. Scott Fitzgerald mentioned sex, extra-marital affairs, and unwed mothers a time or two. The Great Gatsby was required reading in schools. Speaking of the 20s, those flappers weren’t walking around braless to prove chastity.

I don’t have the time to look up more minor with adult examples, but off the top of my head:

Tess of the D’Urbervilles was published in 1891. Rape of a young girl by a man in power and her subsequent ruin afterward. Her anguish and sense of loss is well covered in the pages. Considered a classic, it was required reading for me back in my junior high days, which is within our timeframe.

Lolita was published in 1955. The story centers around the wrongs of a teenager having a sexual relationship with an adult man. He says she’s his daughter to avoid criminal suspicions while out in public. Spoiler: she accuses him at the end of the book. The movie came out in wide distribution 1962.

Yes there were some parents who were afraid to act back in the 60s and 70s, but I dare say those same people exist today and will exist in the future. These are people who weighed the situation and decided it wasn’t in their best interest or too hard to act once they found out. This was after they couldn’t or didn’t take the time to make sure their kids were protected. We could call those people cowards or willfully negligent and probably be accurate.

But please, let’s stop with the argument that “it was a different time when people didn’t know about or believe that bad stuff could happen.” The laws protecting minors existed for a reason and were put in place well before the 1960s or 70s. Everyone knew the law. I was taught the law when I was a child in the 70s. I was taught about bad people.

The reason people do something today is because people started doing something.

[RainWeasley]

@Standard Bread

Your repressed, Victorianesque mores aren’t even a cultural universal in the United States. Take your shitty anthropology somewhere else.

I mean…it’s not false…

[vineyridge]

@Standard Bread

Your repressed, Victorianesque mores aren’t even a cultural universal in the United States. Take your shitty anthropology somewhere else.

Are you telling me that women suffer physical pain if denied orgasm?
Repressing desire is one thing; actual physical suffering is another.

[Ghazzu]

@wanderlust

There are plenty of good trainers that have not molested children and have not been abusive to horses or humans over the course of decades. GM has destroyed the lives of the people he abused. They are dead or in jail or convicted felons with kiddie porn problems.

I don’t know how supporting George Morris or attending a clinic in the future could even be a question.

Regarding support of Morris, his position on the h/j pinnacle, as well as the ongoing discussion about restraint of trade, I am reminded of the case of Gene LaCroix.

It was during the height of the Arabian horse investment bubble, and he was set down by then AHSA for a period of time.

Any road, you had to admire the man’s chutzpah. He appealed the suspension to the courts on the basis that he was the pre-eminent trainer of Arabs in the US, and his clients would be “irreparably damaged” by his suspension.

As you might guess, court didn’t buy it.

I’m sure there are people capable of coaching minors who also have no history of abuse.

[ladyj79]

Yes, women can and do orgasm in their sleep.

I feel badly for any woman who hasn’t.

[Ghazzu]

@vineyridge

Are you telling me that women suffer physical pain if denied orgasm or that they have involuntary orgasms in their sleep?
Repressing desire is one thing; actual physical suffering is another.

Are you telling me that you believe that men suffer?

[541hunter]

@ladyj79

Yes, women can and do orgasm in their sleep.

I feel badly for any woman who hasn’t.

lol I literally had the same thought when I read that comment…

Also I’m not really sure what physical discomfort related to arousal has to do with sexual abuse? Like is the argument here that if you’re suffering discomfort because you’re turned on by a 13 year old (or really, any person unwilling to engage with you sexually) then it’s ok to release that discomfort by coercing or forcing them into sex?

If so, that’s a really weird argument.

[Standard_Bread]

@vineyridge

Are you telling me that women suffer physical pain if denied orgasm or that they have involuntary orgasms in their sleep?
Repressing desire is one thing; actual physical suffering is another.

Yes, women do indeed suffer the same kinds of pain. You can read all about it here: https://www.medicaldaily.com/blue-balls-sex-388506

[alicen]

@Tiramit

The laws protecting minors existed for a reason and were put in place well before the 1960s or 70s. Everyone knew the law.

Which is why the expression “jail bait” existed.

[skydy]

@specifiedcupcake

To be fair, it might been seen as a bit weird we’ve all written 80 something pages of debate.

Sometimes I ask myself why I care so much. I don’t even live in the US anymore, but used to compete with USEF… I’ve heard people whisper about loads of people in the horse world and some other sports, and wondered why no one ever took a stand or said anything outside of tongue wagging to other peons. But also having had a predator in my own family (protected by a load of the family and their work for the police)… this sort of thing really touches a nerve.

The difference, as I see it, is that we are having a discussion.

I’m sure their intentions are good, but I thought that a video mixing Barisone’s legal issues (of which they know no more than is reported in the press) with a disorganized explanation of Safe Sport , a little odd.

I think it’s a good thing that you, and so many people, care. This discussion is long overdue, though I feel bad that it is opening old wounds for so many.

[Coreene]

@anon6003733

Apologies for another long ramble but I’d like to touch on a bit of a perplexing subject and that is the question of the parents.

Many of the stories here have to varying degrees described the parental lack of involvement and protection regarding abusive events that took place with their kids, in some cases actively dismissing them. I can only speak for my own parents and the middle class era that they raised their family in, the 60s and 70s, and not for the purpose of finding excuses, but to try to understand the psyche of that time.

They are both deceased now but in so many ways I remember my parents as loving, worldly, knowledgeable people. My siblings and I were raised in a household with lively interesting dinner conversations and encouragement to explore life to the fullest.

But I also recall them abiding by some suffocating societal constraints that frustrated me to no end. As an example, I remember my Mom telling me once to wait (turning into weeks!) to bring a new friend home ‘from that newly arrived, slightly more well off family up the street…’ until the new couch they’d been saving for was in place in our house.

As I grew older my mother began confiding in me (I can still smell the cigarettes, sitting on the back porch with her as she chain smoked) about an incident with my brother. She swore me to secrecy of course.

For a couple of years when the family was younger and before buying their own home, my parents had rented a house on a farm and had commuted to work from there. This was a large, old, established farm family, well respected in the community, with extended members throughout the area and several sons of their own.

One day my brother, 7 or 8 at the time had come home sobbing and had finally broken down to my mother and father about some ongoing incidents of a sexual nature with the older teenage farm boys. Horrified, my parents simply said this … stay away from those boys. That was it. No more discussion, other than the later divulgement to me on the back porch. No confronting the important farm family, no police, no scene, no counselling for my brother, just a quick notice given that they would be leaving at the end of the lease.

In the following years we kids all went about our lives and my brother grew into a wonderful, amazing, but troubled human being. After my Mom and Dad’s passing, and after a lifetime of fighting drug and alcohol abuse, he heartbreakingly took his own life.

My parents were both decorated WW2 veterans. My father was part of the armada that stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-day. They both went on to lead successful adventurous lives. But neither could find the will or the courage to break through the steely walls of society’s expectations at that time and stand up for my brother. They instead fell into line and followed the unwritten rules of the day, to ‘hush’ about sexual abuse, to sweep it under the rug.

My mother agonized for years (to me only) about the horrific events of my brother’s childhood, and the only strange solace she seemed to take was that she believed he didn’t remember them. But because it was never discussed in our family that part of the story will remain an unknown.

With regards to the equine industry, to those who are not abusers but think this is all overblown, that it will die down, that life is about to get a little bumpy and then go back to normal, let me tell you there’s a reckoning coming. The truth will out in the end.

Time to step up, get behind the survivors and land on the right side of history.

I am so sorry. Bless you for sharing this.

[Pennywell_Bay]

[quote] And, let’s face it, physically, the need for sexual release is very different for men and women. [end quote]

I kind of want to keep this pinned for my reference of just when I think we have made great strides in understanding sex, gender etc ( along with a post on the dressage thread that states the victim was know to push buttons and the gun was pink so a straight man like the shooter would never own a gun with pink on it so the WHOLE thing is verrryyy suspicous) Full disclosure- I called someone a moron who said that. :uhoh: #banPennywell

[Denali6298]

[QUOTE=Pennywell Bay;n10452510]

And, let’s face it, physically, the need for sexual release is very different for men and women. [end quote]

I kind of want to keep this pinned for my reference of just when I think we have made great strides in understanding sex, gender etc ( along with a post on the dressage thread that states the victim was know to push buttons and the gun was pink so a straight man like the shooter would never own a gun with pink on it so the WHOLE thing is verrryyy suspicous) Full disclosure- I called someone a moron who said that. :uhoh: #banPennywell

I support your moron comment and oh my god vineyridge you need to get out more.