We have an object problem in this country. The best evidence of this I can offer you is that this country has elected a man who boasted he could simply grab any woman “by the pussy,” a man who has been found liable for the rape of E. Jean Carroll (and I know the apologists will cry out now, asserting that if I have to use any term, I should use the watered-down legal term “sexual assault,” overlooking, conveniently, that the fact our legal system offers such milquetoast terms for rape actually supports my thesis) and who has been accused of rape (née: sexual assault) by an Andre the Giant-sized handful of other women. A man whose supporters spend less of their breath denying these claims as they do explaining them away, evidence that we all, even those who don’t want to, instinctively believe each and every one of the claims (as we should). A man who himself refutes these claims by insisting those women “are not his type,” as if “ugly” women (by his standards) do not deserve love or attention or respect; and, perhaps far more disturbing, that it would be perfectly fine if he raped attractive women (for is that not, he implies, what attractive women are for?).

And we have elected this man not once, but twice. 

The next best evidence (or maybe not the next best, but certainly the most timely) I can offer is his list of Cabinet nominees. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the following individuals for your consideration:

• Matt Gaetz, a serial pedophile, for U.S. Attorney General.

• Peter Hegseth, accused of rape, for Secretary of Defense

• Robert F. Kennedy, a serial adulterer, for head of Health and Human Services

NB: I could add the nomination of Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education, who knowingly sat idle while rampant child molestation was occurring in the WWF helmed by her and her equally creepy husband, but in the interests of keeping this issue as clear as possible, I’ll save that for a different day, a different discussion. Perhaps one involving one of Trump’s most vocal Congressional cheerleaders, Jim Jordan of the great state of Ohio, who has a similar proclivity for doing nothing while young boys are getting raped.

There are plenty of less concerning but still legitimate reasons why each of Trump’s nominees should be non-starters: Hegseth has repeatedly and vocally questioned whether women have the “stuff” to participate in combat (Mr. Hegseth, Joan of Arc would like a word with you); Kennedy is an unhinged conspiracy theorist who wants, among other things, to remove fluoride from our drinking water (because healthy teeth are for suckers; I mean, in their heyday, the British had an empire upon which the sun never set, am I right?); and Gaetz is, in addition to his penchant for fucking 17-year-old children, an unrepentant, insufferable asshole. (and I know many apologists will cry out now, asserting that if I have to use any term, I should use the watered-down term “underaged women,” overlooking, conveniently, the fact that women (and men, Ms. McMahon and Mr. Jordan; but again, don’t want to muddy these waters) who are underaged are by definition children. To additionally point out that their preference for the label “underaged women” actually supports my thesis seems to be piling on, running up the score, and I wish here to be nothing if not gracious).

But despite these clear and present deficits, it is their collective and individual disregard for the humanity of women that should be our collective line in the sand. But the silence of public outcry clearly indicates it is not. Hence, the opening line of this essay: We have an object problem in this country.

To say that the problem lies in this current political moment, though, is, I think, naive and dangerous. To condense this issue into one bloated, Cheeto-skinned geriatric white man and his shallow power-hungry minions fails to grasp the extent of the problem. No, this current political moment is not the issue; this current political moment is a manifestation of the issue. The issue is deeply cultural:

• As men, we have been bombarded with celebrated images and definitions of toxic masculinity, from John Wayne to JFK to Joe Rogan. 

• As men, we have been indoctrinated by an endless stream of teen comedies, from Porky’s to The Last American Virgin to American Pie, teaching us that the most horrible, most effete, most un-American calamity that can befall young men is to graduate high school without getting laid. 

• As men, we view as an essential right-of-passage the surreptitious discovery (and careful, repeated study) of our father’s porn stash.

And before the apologists take issue yet again, let me assert the follow pre-emptive points: 

1) I am aware there are exceptions to the teen comedy statement above, ones that offer a less objectified depiction of girls, and that make the high-school quest about something other than getting one’s dick wet (see: Napoleon Dynamite). My point is simply that they are slightly less rare than Bigfoot.

2) I am not anti-porn. Not by any stretch. But to me, porn is like atomic energy, the ukulele, or kale: when in the right hands, used with proper perspective and proportion they can have a legitimate purpose. But the saturation of pornography and overt sexuality our culture wallows in and superimposes on women should be an undeniable concern. I just looked at today’s Yahoo News page. On it, there are countless headlines declaring what some actress or female celebrity was wearing (for example: Penelope Cruz Titillates in String Bikini in Riveria. (With, of course, photographic evidence)); although I tried real hard, I could not find a headline calling our attention to Brad Pitt’s Speedo package on a Monte Carlo beach. This unquestioned gender-demarcation cannot but be detrimental to our collective cultural health.

3) it is not just the Matt Gaetz’s and the Donald Trump’s of the world who get caught up in this. I have a very good friend, one of the best human beings I know, who, after my divorce celebrated that I could now take advantage of my position as a single college professor to “tap into” some eighteen-year-olds and seemed genuinely concerned by my disinclination to do so. And I do not mean to imply by that last sentence some moral superiority on this issue. I can recall with much retrospective shame all the craft and ingenuity I used in high school and college to get women naked and pliable. This is not about people; it is about how we as a culture have decided to form people.

Which brings me yet again to the opening line of this essay: We have an object problem in this country. I have given this essay the title “Object Permeance.” The term refers to a vital developmental stage of an infant, a time when they can process and understand the permanence of an object. That a toy, for example, still there even if covered by a blanket; that a mother still exists after she leaves a room; that a sister is still in the world if she lives in a different state, a different country. In order to grow up healthy and secure, it is necessary for an individual to understand this.

But since its inception, American has crafted a different, much more insidious and dysfunctional, way to understand the term. Colored by our unquestioned cultural imagery—and  the predictable political reflection of that imagery this past election has called into crystal-clear focus—the term can be understood as referring to people—our mothers, our daughters, our sisters, our wives, our friends—who have been permanently codified into objects (and the apologists will, of course, hold to the most narrow confines of those terms, self-servingly telling themselves “not their mothers, not their daughters and wives and sisters and friends, forgetting, or more likely, conveniently overlooking, that the entire country—the entire planet, actually. But again, I don’t want to muddy these waters, so I’ll save that argument for a discussion of the incoming administration’s proposed immigration policies—is made up of our mothers and daughters and wives and sisters and friends. In order to grow up healthy and secure, it is necessary for a country to understand this). 

I am hopeful that a day of reckoning is coming. And before all the Dude-Bros get up in arms, panicky and defensive, I do not mean, nor do I expect (for they have always understood they are our mothers and daughters and wives and sisters and friends) any reckoning akin to St. John’s in the Book of Revelation. No, it is a different day I expect and anticipate. On any sideview mirror on any car you will find the promise that “objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” But if we do not understand what objects are (or more to the point, what they are not), do not understand how they came to be objects, we will never understand where they truly are. They are not, in fact, closer than they appear; they are already here.

And they would like a word with us.