Let's talk about pussy, shall we?
I mean, why not? Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump has, after all, brought that word to the forefront of recent conversation in the most vulgar of ways.
But maybe, at long last, I have something for which to thank him.
Trump bragged in that now-infamous 2005 tape about how his status enabled him to force himself on women. He said, "When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything... Grab them by the pussy."
This, my friends, is a degree of honesty we rarely hear from perpetrators of sexual assault.
And when you talk about forcing yourself on another human being -- grabbing their pussy or whatever genitalia they may happen to possess -- you are talking not about sex, but about assault.
Sure, there's the question of whether Trump, a man whose greatest consistency seems to be a pattern of lying and denying, was telling the truth, or whether this was another instance of bragging on the part of someone so insecure, he actually brought the size of his, um, hands into a Presidential debate.
Yet, in the context of Trump's overall attitude toward and treatment of women, there seems to be little doubt. Alarmingly enough, too many of his supporters were willing for far too long to shrug Trump's misogyny off as a boys-will-be-boys sort of thing.
Now his own words have proven him to be not "just" one of a dying breed of horny old men with a sense of entitlement, but an actual predator.
As Tim Kaine said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday morning, "If you take that tape as Donald accurately describing his actions, then yeah, it is a pattern of assaultive behavior."
This is not only conduct unbecoming a potential President of the United States of America, it is downright criminal.
Our society has been painfully slow to acknowledge sexual assault as the serious and pervasive matter it is. But check out the hashtag #notokay on Twitter, and you'll get a sense of how many women have been subject to sexual assault.
(Full disclosure: I myself am a survivor of sexual abuse and rape, so yes, this particular Trump story strikes a personal chord.)
Temple Taggart, a woman who was a 21-year-old beauty pageant contestant when Donald Trump kissed her on the lips without invitation, said that hearing Trump brag about his sexual aggression, "made me feel a lot better."
I get it.
For the women he's forced himself on, there's a validation in Trump's jocular admissions. Too often, the pain of having one's boundaries violated is compounded by an assortment of worries and uncertainties: Did I somehow invite that action? Does it even matter? Will anyone believe me?
These are the concerns of women in a society that reduces us to our sexual worth or various body parts.
Time and again, Donald Trump has demeaned women in ways we feel all too keenly. He has made it clear that, to him, we are either sex objects or nothing at all.
Pigs.
Fat.
Ugly.
Pussy, there for the grabbing.
But we are something more -- something small and inconsequential individually, but powerful together.
We are mothers.
Sisters.
Wives.
Voters.
Strong, resilient women who've had more than enough of being reduced to our bits and pieces.
Because you see, with truly strong, evolved men at our sides, we are moving forward into a better world.
We are raising daughters who understand that they are so much more than "pussy."
And we are raising sons who understand that respected, empowered women bring more pleasure and fulfillment to life than victims or objects ever can.
So thank you, Donald Trump, for making clear who you are so blatantly, even those members of your own party who defended your racism and xenophobia are now jumping ship in the face of this shitstorm. I don't know what happened in your privileged life to render you so hateful and impotent, but I no longer care. While I once found you oddly pitiable, a dinosaur ignorant of his own impending extinction, I feel nothing for anyone who treats women as you have.
This election day, #pussygrabsback -- because there's a place for sexual predators, and it's sure as hell not the Oval Office.