Garth admired Gavin McInnes. Another one-side relationship |
I'm fascinated by her so much because I knew her, we were briefly part of the same social circle and she had an impact on my life, if only to speed up my eventual divorce.
We had much in common but I was blessed by a father who would never imagine sexually abusing his children, and she was cursed with a father who did abuse his children. And that makes a big difference.
I certainly had my share of troubles as a single mother, failed relationships, etc., but Garth seems to have run into especially rough times thanks to her choice of a husband made when she was already in early middle age. Apparently he was an emotionally-controlling scam artist who she claims stole a whole bunch of her money.
After she got away from him, she found a relationship that apparently made her happy, although as she admitted it was rather one-sided. She wrote after he died:
While I have written frequently about the largely one-sided open relationship I had with Axel and the importance of negotiation in a relationship, what I haven’t written about is how easy that “negotiation” was between us. Since I was so in love with him, it was easy to say and believe that whatever made Axel vital and full of enthusiasm for life and love was OK by me. Since variety was the spice of his life, variety it would be.
I made the condition however that pillow talk about yours truly be preempted by the phrase, “buy the book,” but otherwise wholly trusted his judgment as well as awareness of “safe sex”.
We didn’t know that he was going to die of a sexually transmitted disease that had likely been incubating for decades but for which he attributed to his being a first responder to Katrina in terms of the shock to his system and immune system.
After several months of illness he died, in 2015. Garth died of a heart attack a year later.
She had it rough. But she seems to have decided that the real source of all her problems, and the world's problems is feminism.
According to her blog, she did attempt to remain sexually active after her boyfriend died. I don't know if she was successful or not, but the cognitive dissonance is bizarre. She greatly admired hard-core misogynists like Gavin McInnes, who absolute despise women who are not young. Men's Rights Activists believe that women hit "a wall" at around the age of 30 after which we are completely undesirable as sexual partners.
Garth's existence was an affront to the belief-systems of McInnes and his ilk.
How could she not be bothered by this?
I think the answer most likely for her and other women like her who support organized misogyny is to believe they are different from other women, as Garth's blog post I am Not Like Other Women demonstrates.
Not only do I sympathize with many of men’s complaints against women, I can empathize. As a large woman curiously deprived of protection or chivalry as a young girl now fully expected to be self-reliant, strong, and independent because I wasn’t presented with an alternative and who was also a victim of a vindictive spouse (vindictive toward all humanity it would seem but most particularly my phenotype and archetype) and have been intimate with many (many!) male victims of domestic violence and abuse, of course I have empathy with Men’s Human Rights Advocates. In fact, I take it a step further. I am more than willing for my rights and all rights of women to be rolled back just so that I won’t have to be the scapegoat of the next feminist petty dictator or bureaucrat who decides that it is my responsibility to pay for all her personal grievances. I have female ancestors who made history—huge differences in civic life—who did so without even the dubious benefit of “the vote”. I’m eager for a regression to The Stone Age. I’m strong and resourceful. Bring it on!So she joins with insane misogynists like Gavin McInnes against women - for not protecting her well enough from men "as a young girl."
It's a struggle when I read the far-right nuttiness on her blog and Facebook posts, but I can't help but feel bad for her ultimately, ending her life dying of a heart attack that could probably have been prevented by the Obamacare that she despised, seemingly alone and alienated from virtually everyone, with nothing to do but blog and especially post anti-liberal messages on Facebook, which she averaged 20 times a day in the weeks leading up to her death.
My friend Bob remained in touch with her which I find remarkable - Bob - AKA "Reverend Bookburn" has a political outlook exactly the opposite of Garth's and yet they remained friends, if distant ones. I don't know how it's possible to be friendly with someone who stands for everything you spend your life fighting against, even if you've known them since you were young adults.
The levels of self-loathing of a woman who admires a pathological misogynist like Gavin McInnes must be off the map.
RIP Laura Garth.