PARIS JACKSON SLAMS 'WHITE SUPREMACIST JERKS' IN VMA RALLYING CRY
When Paris Jackson took the stage Sunday (August 27) as the first presenter at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards, she had something important to say before getting to the Best Pop nominees. "I'm seeing a lot of love and light here tonight already," she announced. "A lot of diversity, and a lot of potential power. You know, if we were to all put our voices together, do you realize the difference we would make, if we were all stand up united as one? Our impact, it would be 'uge." Hmm, where have we heard that word before? Jackson's rousing speech was one of several strong political statements at this year's VMAs, including Kendrick Lamar's powerful performance, host Katy Perry's opening sequence, and P!nk's Video Vanguard acceptance speech, among many more. "Let's leave here tonight," Jackson continued, "remembering that we must show these Nazi, white supremacist jerks in Charlottesville and all over the country that as a nation with liberty as our slogan, we have zero tolerance for their violence, their hatred, and their discrimination! We must resist!" The devastating secret is finally out: your partner has been having an affair. You had no idea it was going on and your emotions are in turmoil. ‘How could you do this to me?’ you cry. ‘How could you lie to me like that? What do they have that I don’t?’ Nothing your partner says could ever provide an adequate answer, but these questions are asked over and over again. The discovery that a spouse — male or female — has been having an affair often creates an emotional vortex in which communication is all but impossible. There can be raging jealousy as well as an overwhelming sense of impotence. Sexual betrayal feels like a rejection of all that you are: ‘I was not good enough to keep them faithful.’ ‘It’s like a bereavement for a lot of the couples I see,’ says relationship counsellor and psychosexual therapist Evelyn Cooney. ‘People go through the same stages as they do with grief for the loss of the relationship they thought they had.’ The symptoms of the sexually betrayed can resemble those of post-traumatic stress disorder. Their lives have been blown apart: every assumption they’ve ever made about their partner, the meaning of their relationship and themselves as sexual beings has been shattered. It isn’t just the thought of your other half making love to someone else that hurts. Infidelity raises primal anxieties about being abandoned. The person we trusted to have our best interests at heart threatens our sense of self, place, purpose and security.
