The Predator's Smile

While I grew up with a television centric family, I’ve gradually stopped watching it, and for about the last 15-20 years I’ve only kept a peripheral eye on it. I love cartoons, and good movies, but I just can’t sit still for them anymore. It’s not like I have to be moving, moving, but I just get bored sitting there, staring, and find myself picking up a book. I used to do that when I was a kid, and into my 20’s too. If the television was on, the volume was low, and it was background noise while I read, or played a pc game, or did something else. I’ve always been bad about remembering when a show was on, even the ones I like, and so I tend to miss a lot of pop culture. I always shrugged it off, and figured that as long as I watched the news, I was ok. I might have missed some references, but I didn’t miss them.

However, for about 5 years I have avoided watching news videos—whether live or on YouTube/Twitter/etc. I’ve judiciously read the news, avoiding photographs of the VIPs in the political arena, and absolutely no live-feeds from Washington.

This made it difficult at times to keep up with things, I admit—especially for a politics junkie like myself. But I have a decent rotation of news sites that I read, including, but not limited to The Atlantic, the Washington Post, Mother Jones, Wonkette and many more. Several of them, I subscribe to, putting my money into journalism that I feel that I can trust. Push notifications on my phone have been a life-saver! I’ve also relied on citizens and journalists who posts Twitter vids… those people are heroes, let me tell you!

It’s such a simple reason, too, but one that has rippled across my life, and my mental health care. I have a hard time looking at Donald Trump’s face. The news stories, flattering, or objective, all show him with that incessant smirk, a smug, almost mugging for the camera face. A real smile for FatAssMcTrumpleFuck*, that’s far from a real smile—never mind that there aren’t any teeth sowing. It’s the smile of a predator, a plastic smile that tries to hide truth, but showcases it so quickly if you know what to look for.

It’s the smile my ex had plastered on his face for much of the time we were together. The smile that meant he was angry, or upset, or he was showing me how in charge of everything he was. It was the smile that led to him bursting into song, (to The Doors tune, Light my Fire) “I just want to set my wife on fiiiiire!” and then look around at our gathered friends, waiting for his applause while we all gazed at him utterly appalled. It took me a solid 5 seconds to process what I’d heard, my brain literally stopping in an effort to understand what I had just witnessed.

Thankfully my friends were immediate in their condemnation, and he was dressed down accordingly. But that smirk, that grin, that “look at me, I’m amazing!” face. Yeah, FAMTF* and Jason have the same smile… and I bet a lot of other predators do, too.**

It took me quite awhile to figure out why photos of FAMTF bothered me so much. I knew he triggered something deep and almost feral in me. Beneath the skin-crawling, the hackles raised, the gorge rising (all literally things that FAMTF causes in me), there was something that made my Fight/Flee/Freeze reflex to turn on. I wanted to lash out, and cut that smile from his face, to slash and slash until it stopped. And I couldn’t figure out why. It was a little appalling to be frank, as I tend not to have such vivid responses to people, even creepy fuckers like him.

Usually when I’m on the defensive because of the smile and body language of a man (and it’s 99% of the time a man or male-presenting person) I feel more like I’m loosening up my muscles to fight, or to defend myself, as opposed to wanting to puke on their shoes, and chop them up. I don’t go on the offense like that, so it was always a little disorienting.

But I listened to my guts, and trusted my intuition. Something there was a problem, and so I didn’t watch the news where he would be—and for fuck’s sake he was always on there. I didn’t watch the State of the Union addresses, nor any other speeches. I haven’t seen a Presidential election debate since the first one between Hillary Clinton, and FAMFT. I couldn’t watch any more, after seeing him trying to lord over her in his high heels—she’s like 4 feet tall, FFS… and knowing that he’d try to make fun of Joe Biden’s stutter, or Gish Gallop, I just couldn’t watch.

Which I have to tell you, kinda sucks, as I love that kind of thing.

But I knew I had to protect myself.

I tried to find a couple photos to show the different predatory smiles that I’ve seen in my life—but Google Images just wasn’t very helpful. Probably because the photos of these faces weren’t labelled as such.

Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” FAMFT showed us who he was years ago—like back in the 1980’s. But people didn’t believe him. They thought (rightly) that he was a glory-hound, and obsessed with the spotlight; they thought (wrongly) that he didn’t mean anything he said. His fans and supporters are saying out loud the things they’ve whispered amongst themselves for years—you know the words that they claim they can’t say, because “political correctness is out of control, and we’re being censored”. The “cancel culture” will get me rubbish. But he gave them permission to say it aloud, and be proud of their hatred, ignorance, stupidity and bigotry. To be happy and thrilled, and amused, by the abuse of disabled people, LGBTQIA+ persons, women, and people of colour. To celebrate that cruelty. That’s who he told us he was—and we didn’t believe him.

Well, some of us didn’t believe him, or thought he “might not be that bad, because he’s stupid, and flattery gets him every time.” My favourite thing was, “well, he got elected, but he won’t actually govern, because it’s boring, so the career bureaucrats will do the work, and he’ll get the credit”. Sure, until he realised he was on the leash, and actually got to work fucking shut up.

No, he told us who he was, and what he was, the first time that he let that smile slip for a photo.

I don’t know how every women’s hackles weren’t raised right then. Why they weren’t lashing out at the man who was going to hurt them—because that’s who and what he is. But some supported him. I still don’t get it.

But then, my ex has a wife who loves him, knows he’s a rapist, and is still with him. He can be charming, I’m sure, as all predators can be.

We used to, as a species, listen to our intuition. When we were alarmed about something in another person, we listened to that. It bothers me a lot that women are taught to disregard that feeling, and here we are, with predatory men feasting on our hearts, beating our bodies, and stealing from us. Where these predators gain election seats, (FAMFT isn’t the only predator, have you seen Madison something or other from Missouri? You know, the pretty one who should be doing gay porn, but is in the House. The rapist. You know the one I mean. And Josh Hawley, another one—he supports rapists, though, I’m not sure he is one). There are many, so very many, and women don’t pay attention to that little voice that screams for them to run, or fight.

FAMFT is a predator. Every thing about him screams that fact.

He isn’t a new kind of creep. Or some rapist we’ve never encountered before. He’s your every day, garden variety, entitled, golden boy, rapist and predator. Nothing special—but nothing to pretend we can’t see.

Too many people pretended not to see him for who he was. Just like people pretend not to see my ex the way he was then (and I imagine the way he is now). It’s easier to pretend they’re normal and fine, then you don’t have to do anything. And as long as he’s not preying on me, right?

That’s the issue though—because sooner or later, he will prey on you. You, me, everyone in his general vicinity and everywhere he can reach.

Beware the predator’s smile. And believe him when he shows you who he is.

 

 

*I know that motherfucker loves to see his name in print, and I’m pretty sure his people troll Google for his mentions, so I’d rather call him something other than his name. Besides, I think my nickname for him is perfection <3

**This action was near the end of our official relationship, and I was already half out the door. We moved to Michigan shortly thereafter, and he left me a few months after that. I think this was his way of announcing that we were done, but I don’t know if he knew it at the time.