- [Minton Sparks] Welcome to Ear To the Common Ground.

Here we celebrate the power of music and food to bring Americans together.

Filmed from an historic barn on Cash Lane in Music City, each episode features one musical artist and a diverse gathering of eight of their fans.

Everyone brings a dish to the table and they talk about one of the issues of the day, face to face with compassion, replacing contempt as they keep their hearts, ears, and minds attuned to the common ground.

Hi, I'm Minton Sparks and these are eight of my fans, Ace, Theeda, Dugan, Bel, Nicholas, Amy, Danna, and Marlos.

Tonight we're focusing on sexual politics and Me Too.

Let's celebrate America's greatest diversity, diversity of thought, and shine a light on some common ground.

- (indistinct) ♪ wheels around and takes order from a couple ♪ ♪ of sheer ingrates ♪ (acoustic guitar music) ♪ Do you want those scattered, smothered, ♪ ♪ and covered hun ♪ - Wow, so we all here together right now, huh?

- Yeah, I'm just gonna jump in.

I know a lot of people tend to put it only on men.

I know it's a controversial statement, but as someone who has unfortunately been assaulted by both men and women, it is not only a male subject.

I believe it's not only male, I just believe it's people, bad people who just don't know their boundaries, don't understand other people's boundaries, and just either have 'em been raised right or had something innate in them to think it's okay to go around and touch other people and ignore other people's boundaries.

- As many women as I talk to, I'm blown back in how many of 'em have experienced sexual abuse, sexual harassment, it's super prevalent, Then there's this other side where guys have been pressed, like you were saying.

- Yeah.

- Myself, I feel like I'm one of 'em and on both sides.

For instance in... Like I said, I went to LA for the first time last week and I remember being there having a great time and group of people walked up and this dude just kept grabbing my arm and I'm kind of like, "What's up right now?"

But it's interesting how it always...

It feels like the message is different when it applies to me in some sense.

And I got another friend, and he was talking to a lady the other day and he told her, he said, "I feel like I've been raped by a woman before."

She discounted it.

Was like, "Oh, no, that's not possible."

She asked him, "You couldn't move?

And he was like, "Wow."

That's interesting that she would say those same things that in some way a woman's attacker would say or somebody that doesn't believe a woman.

"You couldn't move?

You couldn't get 'em off?"

So I thought that's an interesting perspective.

- For years I worked as a crisis counselor with victims of crime, so that includes rape and domestic violence.

So in those situations, there's always that element of power and control, 'cause it's never really about the sex.

It's not about the sex, it's about exerting power over people.

It's about having the ability to have access to somebody and exercise that, and that's what it's about.

So no, it doesn't have anything to do with anybody's gender, but there is that element of power.

- You just are going to have to accept certain behavior that comes along with the job.

And definitely a lot of aggression involves sometimes, well, that's just boys being boys or whatever, or you're being treated as less than, or you're good for a girl.

And I think those kinds of attitudes really tend to steamroll certain behaviors and create an environment that makes it more acceptable.

I do like that there are younger women in this field, in this town that are more empowered to say, no.

More empowered to say, this is the respect that I am expecting to earn and deserve.

And, no, I don't have to work under that condition.

This is a very toxic environment, no.

You're not allowed to touch me.

You are not allowed to say disparaging things about my sex or my clothing or my appearance in any manner.

I'm glad the conversation is happening and that attitudes are changing and that it's making people think about things that in the past they probably would've brushed aside.

With you raising young sons, I mean, how does that conversation come up?

I mean, I know with my youngest godchild who very much was about to graduate in the heat of the Me Too movement kind of coming up about.

He was like, "Well, I'm afraid to talk to a girl.

I'm afraid to look at a girl."

And I'm like, "Well, how are you talking to 'em and how are you looking at them?"

(laughs) That would make you worried, I mean.

- It's interesting to think about because I don't want my boys to grow up in a world where there are a simple look nowadays, you give somebody an up and down or you send out a vibe.

I don't want them to be scared or lose that confidence to do that.

And I think it's become the... That generation, they're 17 and 18, they're more likely to text or to not communicate verbally.

And I just hope that they don't lose that confidence and that ability to talk to a girl or give a girl a little, give a girl a vibe that they're interested in and instead of sliding into their DMs.

(Audience laughs) It's what the kids do.

- Yeah, I think there's a...

I will say to that, I personally think there's a line.

So I think there's a very stark line between somebody who is going after a woman respectfully or after somebody respectfully and saying, "Hey, I think you're cute.

I like you."

Things like that.

Bordering onto immediately sending a certain picture or a certain...

I think it's all in the intention, all in the tone personally, how it comes across.

And 'cause there's been times when I was single, I would respect, I'd go up to a woman and say, "Hey, I don't know if you're gay, but I think you're really pretty."

And they look at me and be like, "Oh, I'm not, but thanks."

And it's that type of thing, and we move on.

It's not weird.

But I think the line is when the person says no, or when the person says, or they start showing disinterest, and the pursuer continues to go.

I think that is the line personally.

- I think that is definitely the line, and I couldn't agree more.

And it's in so many cases, and not just this, but a few bad apples can spoil a bunch of few creeps that don't lack the social skills to take the non-verbal cues.

So much of communication is non-verbal.

And if you get those non-verbal cues, or if you're not sharp enough to pick up on 'em and you push the line.

And that's where it becomes uncomfortable.

- [Audience] So (indistinct).

- In my instance, I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and I didn't have boundaries because I didn't know how to set them.

So when the Me Too movement started gaining traction, we saw a lot of people bringing their stories out.

And I was one of those people who had had left it in for 20 years.

So in those situations where someone would have showed interest in me, I would immediately freak out no matter who it was because I didn't know where to put the boundary.

And so the Me Too movement, for me, has brought some empowerment in learning that I'm not by myself.

I think social media is another thing.

When you were talking about what changed social media, there were so many people who, in the Me Too movement, put things on social media.

"This is my story, this is my abuser, this is where I've been."

And regardless of how long ago it was, they were coming out with those things.

But I think about what you're talking about, like showing disinterest, it would've sent me into fight or flight if someone would've said, "Hey, I really think you're cute."

I would've been gone, running for the hills.

And I didn't know how to set those boundaries.

So even if I ran for the hills, I still had people that crossed those boundaries.

And it's hard to determine- - [Dugan] Absolutely.

- ... where things are.

- And I think if you take someone with different experiences, or a person that grew up in a small town and went to a hometown school, or maybe they were homeschooled and just completely sheltered, and then they go and they're working with somebody who grew up in a metropolitan area in a totally different background, it's hard to put the same workplace expectations on those two people.

And that's why I think, Sam, this is a good thing we're doing here tonight, just to kind of create some conversation and to talk about it.

And it might take a while.

It might take a generation or two to get things to where they need to be.

But I think that it's unfair to place the same expectation on everybody without the same experiences and the same education.

- Well, I tell my nephews and the young men that I have in my life, "If it's not an enthusiastic and affirmative yes, then it's a no."

- And on the flip side of that, I am working very hard to teach my daughters how to say no and mean it and how to...

I felt very silenced for a lot of years because I didn't have the ability or the opportunity to set those boundaries and to say no.

So I'm very adamant that my girls know this is it.

- High school kids, some of 'em I think are smarter than we are or smarter than we were at that age.

But then others don't have the boundaries, they haven't been taught the boundaries like you are talking about, and they just don't know when to quit.

And so they get a little bit of that taste and they can't stop, and so they take it too far.

- Well, I think there's very much a exposure to something doesn't necessarily make you aware or mature in relation to that subject material.

And I think sometimes with even middle school kids, they're starting way younger now with a lot of things.

And just because they have access to it doesn't mean necessarily that they know what to do with that access or how to process it emotionally or- - [Audience] Developing.

- ... physically or spiritual or whatever.

- And with their brain development, they don't have the capability.

And I think that that's important to remember and recognize that you can expose somebody to something, but that doesn't mean that they have the ability to process it in the parts of their brain that they need to process it in.

- And they have no life experience and context to put it into.

- Right, yeah.

- So yeah.

- [Audience] There's a very disturbing trend.

- There is a lot of predatory behavior- - There is, absolutely.

- ... online that we just... And it happens with adults too.

I mean, really.

- Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's absolutely insane.

I mean, it's crazy.

And it's one of the best quotes I've heard overall and just keeps going through my head is, there are a ton of people who are ready to...

Thank you.

Who are ready to say, "Oh, I know someone who's been assaulted.

I know someone who's been in this situation."

But not many of those people would be willing to admit if their friend was someone who's doing that.

So it's concerning because it's one of those things where it's like, I believe that if I heard my friend had done something or that type of thing, I'd immediately sit down and be like, "Wait a minute, what happened?

What are the boundaries?

What's going on?

And so very few people are willing to admit, oh, my friend assaulted this girl.

It's more of, oh my gosh, my friend has been assaulted.

And it's, for some reason, easier for somebody to say that or identify with that than admitting abuse.

- So yeah, there's a whole issue or difficulty withholding people accountable in our society.

- I spent time with the boys.

I'm straight white man.

I have never with my friends discussed sexually assaulting women like that.

No.

- [Audience] No.

- And I would not hang out with man that would do that.

My friends do not talk about that.

Do we talk about how we are attracted to women?

Yes.

Do we talk about the specific things that we might be attracted to them for?

- [Audience] Yes.

- Absolutely, never.

Do we support each other or have a braggadocious tone about advances that are unwelcome, ridiculous.

'Cause I have what I have to say about that.

- One of the things though that I want to circle back to that Ace brought up earlier, here's the situation though.

If you have any group of women together, one in four of those women statistically has experienced sexual assault.

And I can tell you just from my perspective, including two others that have spoken, three of us at this table have that I know of.

- And if not outright sexual assault, then at least you.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So if one in four women you know has had some kind of unwelcome physical contact on up to a full on sexual assault situation, that means some of the guys or women you know have perpetrated these actions onto other people.

And I think it's a really hard situation to unwrap and to process even as an adult.

We're talking about children, but I mean, it's a hard thing for me to process.

- And then there are so many people who are accused of the crimes and you look back in their history and they were also abused, and that is a very common.

- [Audience] Absolutely.

- That happens- - [Audience] Absolutely.

- ... most of the time.

So, I mean, what can we do as a society to stop these cycles?

Where people are victimized, then they turn around and become the victimizers, yeah.

- [Bel] When I think... Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

- I was just gonna say hopefully, the Me Too movement provides that room for people to speak up and about their experience, whether or not their abuser receives repercussions.

Hopefully, the victim can address it and feel empowered to speak up about their experience, to stop that cycle because then you're eliminating a potential person that could be replicating.

- I think the Me Too movement was great for empowering people who felt silenced.

- [Audience] Absolutely.

- There's a lot of fear attached to being a survivor of any kind of assault, whether it's sexual assault or physical assault or a survivor of anything.

There's a level of fear of what will this bring to me and the criticism.

Well, it takes a lot to process.

- It takes a lot to process.

- [Audience] Yeah, absolutely.

- You obviously went through something that was absolutely horrible and I just can't comprehend it.

But in the workplace, if it's something a little more subtle or someone gives someone a look, then I feel bad for the guy who's making 80 grand a year trying to support a family of four and he's loses his job over giving someone a look.

And unfortunately, that is kind of the bad news about the movement.

- I agree.

And I think that things can...

I mean there is always gonna be that element of somebody pushing too far on the opposite end of that, taking things and making it more extreme or having a story that's not legitimate.

- Having a story is not legitimate, or a lot of times there might be some intent that's malicious or maybe they had too much, they don't remember it, right?

They had too much to drink or it's just malicious.

They have a vendetta for a... A lot of times in a workplace there's competition for promotion or competition for the pats on the back and that sort of thing.

So I think sometimes there's some malicious intent when someone gets accused and maybe they didn't do it and they lose their job.

And that's something that I worry about with my boys, is they kind of enter the workplace and knowing how to conduct themselves.

- I had become aware of that, of what kind of energy am I putting out?

Even if it's not necessarily, my energy is not saying, oh, I wanna sleep with you right now, but if we're in a social setting, I had to become more aware of not so much what I'm saying, but how I'm moving, how I'm doing things.

Because it can be perceived as, are they coming onto me right now?

And I'm like, "No, I'm just really wanting to have a conversation right now."

But I'm the type of person I might wear silk shirts with the shirt open, you know what I mean?

So like real Miami vice vibe, I don't know.

(Audience laughs) It might be something real.

I grew up on the Gulf Coast.

- One thing that is important to tell our kids and your boys and you're girls, there's nothing that you could do that you could come and tell me and is it gonna make me not love you?

I don't care what it is, I don't care how bad it is, you're my kid, and I may freak out for just a few minutes.

But we'll get through it together.

- You nailed at it.

It really is incredibly important for children to be able to be comfortable to ask those questions and have those conversations.

And it's of the utmost importance.

And I say that because I didn't expect to say this, but I did not have that relationship with my parents.

And I had a man make an aggressive pass at me as a teenager in a young men's gym that's across the country and it's... Yeah, I didn't tell anyone for a long time.

I told my friends as a joke eventually and I really didn't address it for a long time.

And it... Yeah, so you saying that I think, I can't stress it enough.

I mean, I really wish I had that.

- Well, it's another way to break that cycle, like you were talking about earlier.

If you wanted to stop with you, then tell your kids.

It's okay to talk about that stuff.

- Well, not only talking about that as a kid, like we mentioned office place, you have to not be afraid that you're... We need an environment where we can go and say, this happened to me and I don't like this, I want that to stop.

And it carries through, you're scared as a kid and you don't tell people or you don't feel that you have that open relationship.

That can happen in the workplace as well.

- [Audience] It does, it does (indistinct).

- 'Cause I remember just about every workplace I've worked at that had more than five people there, everybody knew, don't be alone in the office.

And we all knew who he was.

But we couldn't say anything, we just were expected to navigate around that.

And also when I was in college, we know what teacher, what professor don't go, don't go have that meeting with him in the office by himself 'cause he's- - It's pretty interesting I've had- - ... he's a creep.

- ... kind of a weird almost opposite situation where it was like, again, I work in a bar.

So everybody's going there to have vacation, everybody's having fun, all that type of stuff.

They don't realize it's a daily job.

Not saying that's an excuse, but one of those things where I happen to have a regular customer who would come up to me, try and kiss me on the mouth, trying all of this stuff.

Yeah, it can get pretty bad.

I mean, the hours are pretty late too.

So it's like everybody always comes in already hammered and it's like...

So that's kinda my work environment.

So I'm already on the defense a little bit.

That being said, I had a situation where this customer kept coming up to me, making advances on me, saying all these awful things.

And so finally, I went up to my manager and I was like, "Hey, man, we need to have a conversation."

And I basically said, "Look..." 'Cause a lot of people in that environment, they're all women, they're all female bartenders.

And unfortunately in that, that's kind of like, "Oh, yeah, he's creepy."

If you put up with it, you get more tips or... And they don't mean that in discounting my story, they mean that and they're so used to it.

- Because that's the environment you work in, yeah.

(audience chattering) ...just becomes struggle with it.

- And so it's pretty sad 'cause I'd go to some of my coworkers and they'd kind of be like, "Oh, well, have you talked to him?"

And I'm like, "Yeah, I have."

And luckily for me, if they saw me in that circumstance, they'd kind of go over and talk to him or try and pull me away or try and help as much as they can.

So finally I went to my manager and I said, "Hey man, I know this is a norm around here."

I said, "I know this is kind of a norm in the bar industry, not necessarily the place I work at but..." And he looked at me and he goes...

He and the female manager both looked at me and they said, "No, it's not."

I said, "What do you mean?"

They said, "It's not supposed to be."

They're like, "No.

Like absolutely not."

I had to tell him his name, all of that stuff.

And so he was like, "Next time I see him, I'm gonna have a conversation with him."

So from then on out the guy, I mean, I don't know what my manager said.

I don't know what fear he instilled in him, but basically from then on out, the guy will come up to me and say, "Can I have a side hug?"

And I'd say either yeah or nah, that's it.

It was the weirdest, most bizarre, which I'm super grateful for my management.

I'm super grateful for the people who I work with, worked for.

'Cause in that instance...

But it did take me a long time to go to my manager.

I dealt with it for a long time because it's sitting there going, all right, have I done everything I can do, am I doing something wrong?

All those questions.

And so I think instilling, if your gut says something or if you're feeling these feelings, tell somebody.

- [Audience] Hi.

- [Dugan] Hello.

- [Audience] Hi.

- Wow.

- Wow, welcome.

- It's chocolate.

Who doesn't love chocolate?

- All right, all right, all right.

- Come on in here (indistinct).

- I'm gonna put a tiny piece right here.

- (indistinct).

- Oh man, you missed a good one too.

- And then I'm gonna pass it.

- [Audience] It was a good one, yeah.

Oh, gosh.

Yes.

- [Audience] Does that work for you?

(Audience chattering and laughing) Okay, that looks good now.

You can just, yeah.

And then we'll just pass it around.

I think that's what we're doing.

- [Audience] All right.

- So I've been back in the gym for the past two months.

Pretty hardcore.

How much is this meal gonna set me back?

(Audience laughs) I'm gonna have to work five months now to get where I am, but it's worth it though, chocolate cake, chicken and dumplings thing, come on now.

- Yeah.

- I can't complain.

- Did you make this?

- I made it in a way.

(audience laughs) Yeah, I made it in a way.

I downloaded the recipe and then...

It's gluten-free, right?

'Cause somebody needed gluten-free.

- Me, I'm the lame one, yes.

- Okay, so if it's a little lame it's the (indistinct).

- [Audience] Blame me, no (laughs).

- Actually very good.

Okay, very good.

Good job.

♪ Let's say poor old Daryl ♪ ♪ bitties (cackling) ♪ ♪ over crackling Coca-Colas.

♪ ♪ Linda has let herself go.

♪ ♪ They pecked, pecked popcorn from a Tupperware bowl ♪ ♪ in cackle.

♪ (cackling) ♪ She's big as a broad side of a barn.

♪ ♪ And he ain't but that big around.

♪ (acoustic guitar music) (audience laughs) ♪ She won't wear a girdle.

♪ ♪ She can't keep house.

♪ ♪ All those filthy cats she keeps, ♪ ♪ somebody ought to call the law.

♪ ♪ Well, my voice, Sam, saw our soldering car parts ♪ ♪ into sculptures in night sky.

♪ ♪ And there Daryl is over there ♪ ♪ breaking his back on the graveyard shift.

♪ ♪ Oh, she'd be the death of Daryl, mark my word.

♪ (acoustic guitar music) ♪ Choose over the song Leaders House, ♪ ♪ get this, bumping uglies to some Chet Atkins records.

♪ ♪ That's just gossip.

♪ ♪ Owen touched the wicked woman with the Jesus sanction ♪ ♪ 10-foot pole.

♪ ♪ Wipe the dust on your feet girls.

♪ (acoustic guitar music) ♪ Linda has let herself go.

♪ ♪ This (cackling) curses chicken.

♪ ♪ Only fertilized Linda's leaving Lord ♪ ♪ and they liked to have a fit.

♪ ♪ The night she hiked her skirt ♪ ♪ and Linda had a two-bit dumb (cackling) town.

♪ ♪ The mother, grace of God.

♪ ♪ Linda let her self go.

♪ ♪ She let herself go.

♪ ♪ Let herself go, all right?

♪ ♪ Go Linda.

♪ ♪ Go, go, go.

♪ ♪ (audience clapping and cheering) Thank you.

(acoustic guitar music)