Sorry/ Not Sorry Review: Why Does Louis C.K Think It’s O.K. To Masturbate In Public? #100DaysofSummer

By notoriouslysinglegirl, July 29, 2024

On dating is an act of bravery: We’re the number one threat to women, globally and historically, we’re the number one cause of injury and mayhem.

– Louis C.K.

“Watch the Louis C.K. documentary, I’m in it.”

My friend Abby Schachner had just gotten off stage after doing a comedy set at the hotel Zoso in Palm Springs. We’ve been friends since 2010. We met at a writing retreat in 29 Palms. I remember Abby telling me the Louis C.K story many years ago which left me dumbfounded. And then when I read the N.Y Times article in 2017, I just couldn’t understand how and why a grown man would masterbate in public in front of female comedians he had just performed with.

Sorry/ Not Sorry opens up with Abby at her home getting ready to leave. You see her dog Giant. Her former cat “Abby.” Abby’s magnificent art is all over the walls in her townehome. She grabs her notebooks. She grabs her coffee. She’s out the door. Typical Abby.

As, the documentary starts, we hear Louis C.K. say “men are the most dangerous things that has happened to women.” I find his statement odd. And I think to myself, “what kind of Jedi mind trick is this guy trying to pull?”

I’ve never liked Louis C.K.. I’ve always found his comedy “boring” and “average.” Personally, I found him un relatable. And now I think he’s a disgusting pig who has some deep seeded trauma that’s taken the form of an ugly demon.

In the documentary, we hear several female comedians tell their version of the “Louis C.K. masturbation story.” Sometimes he took of all his clothes. Sometimes he would masturbate in a public place. And sometimes he even did it over the phone.

Dave Chapelle decided to make a joke about Abby’s story on his comedy show. She was the one on the other side of a phone call when Louis C.K. decided to “jerk off.” At least Abby got an email apology from Louis and she was able to confront him in person bringing him into a form of consciousness.

What’s Really Going On With This Guy?

The documentarians did a brilliant job telling this bizarre story. I loved how they captured most of the female comedians in their sanctuaries, their homes which reflects so much about their characters: uber creative, intelligent, and ultra feminine.

Maybe Louis C.K. found these women intimidating. Maybe they provoked something in his psyche turning on his “anima” the inner feminine side of a man. The anima can be seen as both complex and the personal side of the archetypal image of a woman in the psyche of a man.

In the blog FrithLuton.com Jungian Dream analysis, the author states that the anima is an unconscious factor incarnated anew in every male child and is responsible for the mechanism of projection.

Masturbation is normal. As a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner for the last 20 years, I educate parents that if your 2-4 year old is touching his penis or their vagina, it’s normal. However, it’s not normal to masturbate in public, at school or in front of grandma. I mean, it’s even a test question on the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner exam: tell the parents masturbation is “normal.”

It’s not “normal” for a grown man to masturbate in public in front of his female colleagues. And I can only wonder if at the age of 2-4, when Louis C.K discovered his penis and started to masturbate, his mother must have taken out a red shoe and smacked his penis leaving a trauma imprint in his brain. That can explain his unconscious trigger of masturbating in front of his female comedian colleagues. Louis’s ego is disconnected from his persona rendering him unconscious. In a sense he’s a “automaton” a robot being run on a subconscious program.

In the book Anger, Madness and the Daimonic , Stephen Diamond explains that a repressed fear of trauma can turn into a “daimon,” a sort of unconscious possession that tends to take over a person like demon. And perhaps that’s what’s going on with Louis, he’s possessed by his own trauma constantly trying to resolve itself rendering him in a chronic “freeze” state in his subconscious mind.

Many of the female comedians interviewed stated that when Louis proceeded to masturbate in front of them, they were rendered in a state of shock. This can also be called “fawn” in the fight or flight paradigm. And perhaps that’s what Louis’s brain is trying to do, synch up to these females brains so that he can somehow resolve his inner trauma bringing him into “consciousness.” It’s an interesting theory.

A huge problem that I had with the documentary was with all the male comedians and few female comedians “normalizing” Louis’s behavior and putting down the women for speaking out. Perhaps these comedians didn’t know any better or just don’t care. They only seemed to care about their own egos and their next gig. Typical Hollywood.

Louis C.K The Propaganda Machine

The comments, left mostly by men, on the Sorry/ Not Sorry trailer were disturbing. They were hailing Louis C.K as a “hero,” and of course blaming the “women.” In my perspective, Louis C.K. Is not a hero, but much more like Stalin spewing his unconscious trauma propaganda to the masses of young men who follow him and pay for his content. Like a master hypnotist or a cult leader, Louis daimon is programming the minds of young men who consume his content.

We don’t need more Louis C.K’s in the world. We don’t need more men psychologically stunted in adolescence and running around unconsciously projecting their traumas onto women. We don’t need more automatons. We do need men who are conscious, and aware of their triggers and traumas. Men who can be great conscious leaders, husbands and fathers .