I now accept that I must handicap myself in relation to conservatives. When they are talking to me, they are not actually addressing me by any means: they are addressing the 12 year old (the one I used to be). Conservatives worship innocence, but hate adult women, who are defined for them in terms of a dangerous sexuality. They are intent upon turning adult women back into children.
It makes sense that they should panic, believing something nefarious is taking place, when an adult woman introduces a certain amount of irony into a conversation with a conservative misogynist, as if one were to say:
"Hey I'm not a 12-year-old any more. LOOK. I am over here. And just begin to pay attention!"
To the conservative, for whom the twelve year old is all there is, this is like the twelve year old going nuts, going hysterical, showing a mean side. They want the old image back -- the twelve year old who simply listens to what she is told, with measured enthusiasm.
They don't want the twelve year old that is going nuts. They don't even want the 13-year-old. They demand that reality adapt to conform to their terms. It upsets them deeply when they cannot see what they expect to see, or when their hallucinations about the world and who is in it are put to question.
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