Oh What a Wicked Web We Weave

I'm still Spit Balling about the relationship between Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra. This is the fourth post in a row on the subject and this one is more like a jumping off point about other things than really an attempt to say something about them.

Frank Sinatra died in 1998. There's absolutely no hope of getting both sides of the story even if this were a court case and not a blog post.

I was born in 1965. Mia Farrow was seventeen in 1962. My previous posts speculate she got involved with him as a teenager, possibly at age seventeen. She stopped being a teenager before I was BORN.

So I have absolutely no "firsthand knowledge" of any of this, not even "I remember hearing something in the news at the time, though I can't find verification of that now." which is sometimes the case when I blog.

I have a previous post on this site called Telling Men No. The point I am trying to make there is that if you are a woman who desires real agency and power, you should not make up excuses for your decision to not sleep with a man.

Telling him "I can't" because (excuse) amounts to telling him you don't really take responsibility for your choices and actions.

Saying "I can't because I'm married." implies you would if your marriage ended. If that's not actually the reason and you get divorced and he asks you again and you have a new excuse, well now he knows you are full of shit and he shouldn't believe anything you say.

So if the answer is just no because I say no and you don't find a way to own that, most powerful men will never respect you or take you seriously.

Married or not, you actually could sleep with him if you wanted to. Affairs happen all the time. Saying "I can't" means you don't own your own decisions.

So, in my spit balling, I'm speculating that Frank Sinatra got involved with Mia Farrow when she was seventeen and then made her a big star by divorcing her for supposedly choosing her career over obedience to him in the early days of the women's lib movement where that would make her a hot commodity.

And I will further speculate that this happened because she told him she hoped to be a big star and he ran with that suggestion and used it to do what he wanted.

She was probably imagining he was hitting on her because she was an actress and he had previously dated big name actresses, like Marilyn Monroe. So she's probably thinking this is the way to snag him: tell him she has ambition.

And then she tried to tell him "Well, I would be willing to be the little wifey for you because you are so awesome and I love you so much!" And then he turned a deaf ear to it: "No, sugar, we have plans to MAKE you a STAR and we aren't going to waste all the work I've put into it!"

It fits very much with Mafia tropes of "Make them an offer they can't refuse." or the concept that "A demon requires an invitation to enter your home."

Never mind her actual goals or hopes of marrying well or whatever, having SAID "I want to be a big STAR!" well, he was going to hold her to it, come hell or high water, and nothing else she said was going to get her out of it.

I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to reply to or handle certain things. I'm honest to a fault, but also try to be diplomatic and respectful if at all possible and I generally agree with the idea that People who believe in the brutal truth value brutality over truth.

I had a very articulate husband, yet we had terrible communication problems, and I have spent a lot of time contemplating ideas like you need to say what you mean and mean what you say.

When dealing with powerful men, if you don't really mean "I want to be a big star!", you shouldn't say it. Especially not if it's a bullshit manipulative tactic trying to impress him.

He may be in a position to give you what you said you want. And he may have reasons of his own for wanting to do that. And you have just given him license to run with it and blame you while expecting you to be grateful he did that to your life.

If you are dealing with powerful people, you really need to try hard to not make polite noises. If you don't really mean it, keep your lip zipped until you have something to say you are willing to stand by.