Husbands of Joe Exotic and the Importance of Personal Growth

 

I sat through the docu-series Tiger King, you guys, and I wanna talk about it.

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness presents people who are the antithesis of the freedom for which I aim. Get a bunch of deeply hurt children into adulthood and they might devote their lives to the pursuit of control, which of course creates dark drama, then add big cats and poor financial choices, you’ve got Tiger King, so I was reluctant to even click ‘play’.

           

            It’s all Violet’s fault. I forget which side of my head she held the gun to, but she made me watch the series, an act that, for me, was an endurance test, considering the work I’m doing with love and meditation, etc. The true-life “mayhem and madness” of this piece was a lot to take in, okay? All throughout, I couldn’t let go of empathy, which actually is often the case when I watch documentaries involving dark topics and humans. I have to prepare a bit beforehand, silly as that may sound. By now, I’ve come far enough in this spiritual journey to recognize that it’s because I’m a sensitive; not just empathetic but also a clairsentient empath. Intense emotional energy often affects me differently than it does people who don’t open up their intuition. If I don’t go through my near-daily morning routine of energetic protection, a heavy conversation can become very draining or a news story can make someone else’s sadness come pouring out of my eyes, so yeah, I can be affected by just sitting through a documentary that delves into major life decisions made by intense people who still draw from the emotional well of their damaging childhoods.

           

Speaking of which, it sucks that Joe Exotic doesn’t love himself enough to have a healthy love life. It was one thing to hear from Violet (that asshole) that a sparkly redneck zookeeper had a plural marriage and it was another thing to actually get details upon watching, as the man’s view of a romantic connection appears to be intense, unrealistic and stressful. 

See? Sparkly.

 Clearly, Joe has had pain deeply etched into his sense of identity from a very young age, which can have multiple origin factors. For example, his parents may have been under significant stress during his infancy, leading his brain to develop differently as a defense mechanism, possibly saying to itself, “I can’t get enough dopamine from Mom and Dad, so let’s tune out for the sake of my wellbeing”. This is something that Dr. Gabor Maté has talked about. I’ve caught some fascinating interviews he’s given where he discussed stressful infancy causing things like ADHD or addiction. Using Dr. Maté’s theory, one of the reasons for Joe Exotic’s drug abuse and penchant for coffee could be a form of self-medicating to get more dopamine.

In addition to that, some stories from the man’s formative years were featured, revealing a highly homophobic household. The cruel way in which his father rejected him for being gay may have been the first time that it was personally directed at him, but it doesn’t sound to me like the first blow in a general sense. About his dad, some people are not only perfectionists but ones who also have a terribly limiting view of what a Real Man or a Real Woman is and with those rigid beliefs, they can really f*** up a child (*clears throat* Joe’s temper tantrums). Joe Schreibvogel’s childhood taught him to have incorrect, painful beliefs about unconditional love, about his worth and maybe even about the expression and management of emotions. A great many people on this planet have had difficult childhoods and have gone on to not work on those painful childhood beliefs, unaware of their powerful affect, instead developing defense mechanisms (what psychology calls “coping mechanisms) that become personality traits, and one possible repercussion is years of choosing the wrong friends and/or romantic partners, patterns of distrust or being a doormat, living as the abused or abuser. One could become addicted to substances or sex or even stress and low self-esteem. Joe is one of those many people who has gone their entire life not doing a lot of self-discovery work to heal that inner child, so the poor little guy is crying and despising himself and the fifty-something former zoo owner and current prison inmate has proof up on Netflix of venting that insecurity and all of its defense mechanisms into an extremely controlling nature, mood swings and pettiness. Fear and pain can drive decisions, leading him to co-create inauthentic relationships with the much younger guys he favors. That’s what made me uncomfortable with all the polyamorous marriage stuff. Being married and to men? Great! A marriage between three people? I don’t mind at all. But it didn’t seem like either John Finlay or Travis Maldanado really wanted a life with Joe. I have yet to forget the cheesy photos of them all lying against a white background, and I interpreted the young men as wearing practiced blank expressions, ones that might be saying, “I’ve numbed myself for the sake of survival”.

            If you’re gonna commit, have it be a mutual decision with plenty of awareness, consent, and confidence. Marriage should not be entrapment. (I failed to find a clip of a joke that comedian Maria Bamford has in her 2017 stand-up special, Old Baby, where she says that she and her husband will LARP as their mothers, and as her own mom, she says, “My husband Joel, I’m a kept woman…Sometimes I feel like I wear a diamond solitaire necklace like a yoke.”)

Thing is, Joe’s been under the delusion that a white-knuckled grip on his spouses John and Travis was the way he showed true, deep love. Not wanting either of the other two men to leave his property, even to visit family, is simply an act of locking down bliss, as if these relationships are not to be chosen each day by partners but as if he’s saying, “Look at the ring you’re wearing. You already chose me, motherf***er, no going back, stay put” and I doubt he can imagine functioning any other way.

             

I didn’t binge-watch this show, by the way. I took a break between episodes four and five, during which I spent at least two days meditating and taking long walks. Because the series is a colorful distraction from the very different drama of self-quarantine during a pandemic, thoughts about the show would pop up in my head fairly often, and every time, I didn’t focus on the juicy stuff, but on the ways in which a controlling, overconfident person can help someone else to cloud their own judgment. Bhagavan Antle doesit. Carole Baskin does it. Joe Exotic does it. Those three are not only lovers of big cats, but among other humans, they themselves are predators. Barbara Fisher wrote about that in the Iowa Informer in ’17 with her piece titled, “How to Make An Extremist”. She’s a former employee of Bhagavan Antle and I really appreciated her point of view, so I’ve attached a link to her commentary here.

             

About Joe Exotic’s plural marriage, I’m proud of John Finlay for having moved on. He now gets to live a life that suits him instead of staying on the restricting compound of G.W. Zoo. In his own words, he was a month out of high school when he met Joe, and I figure he may have been struggling with pain of his own that contributed to his drug abuse and to not just sleeping with but partnering up with a much older man. John may have wanted escapism, but he could also have needed to realize that his love, platonic and not, has value. Some people grow up believing that their feelings and opinions don't matter as much as everyone else’s.

So here is a teenager who’s lacking money and some career options and Joe Exotic is pouring out all these compliments, quickly coming to sincerely believe that he’s in love with this young man despite John’s lack of confidence. To help create permanence, Joe wants to be a walking ATM that, in exchange, may or may not want a young man's PIN number, but is definitely buying their sex, loyalty and affection with stuff and drugs and again, tigers. This went on for eleven years. I’m glad John gained something important from that era. To quote him, “I learned how big my heart was”, which is a major lesson he can carry into the rest of his life. This statement, along with the fact that he liked having one of his hunting guns painted in pink camouflage, endeared him to me.

            John spent years of his life in a strange, very unhealthy situation, but he eventually made the decision to leave, and although I hold each of us humans accountable for our actions, past and present, I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said that I was proud of him for ending that phase. If one day, somebody abruptly changes their ways, seemingly without warning (though there actually tend to be plenty of signs), leaving behind a job, a relationship, a home – no matter how messy or public it may be, it could be best for all involved, making it the end of an incompatible combination that’s fraught with issues, as was the case for Finlay and the creep that is Exotic/Schreibvogel/Maldonado-Passage.

           

            I kept thinking about Travis. It was in episode two where I picked up on the past tense with which John had spoken, so I didn’t have to concern myself with whether or not he had chosen to escape. That left the very tall, dark-haired kid with the ill-advised mustache. Travis started working at G.W. Zoo at age 19 and had so much of life ahead, he could reach out and grab quite a lot of it with those construction loader hands. He may have been drawn not just to Joe Exotic’s truly awesome, powerful animals, but to having an unusual, fun experience directed by someone bossy who appeared to be a self-made success. From a materialistic standpoint, I get why Travis went along with Joe’s desires, because the thought of being given pretty much any item you could want is tempting, and Travis was short-sighted, going so far as to become legally married to his oppressor/enabler, which was an unpleasant complication that I hoped wouldn’t lead to a messy divorce down the line when the relationship inevitably ended, but regardless, here was a young troublemaker who wasn’t gonna stay on the property forever; this s**t with Joe was just a phase, albeit one in which Travis was deeply unhappy in bizarrely confining circumstances. If the viewer thinks about a possible future, Travis at the very least had the time and the potential to, in any particular order, move away from the park, perhaps leave Oklahoma altogether, go be a young, straight skank with a lot of other people and someday get clean – or at least away from harder drugs like meth – choosing a life that didn’t cage him up similarly to the zoo animals, wearing a ring on his left hand for someone who wouldn’t listen. Remember when it was revealed that he would inappropriately toy with guns, f***ing pointing them at staff members? Not only was he obviously ignorant about gun safety, but Travis would not have behaved that way without the combo of drugs and stewing in unhappiness about multiple things because he wasn’t allowed to properly vent to his sugar daddy, wasn’t allowed to have a life, and could only be distracted by weed and cigarettes for so long.

After a little time off, I saw the episode titled, “Make America Exotic Again” and it was bothersome. It talked frankly about the inauthenticity of Joe Exotic’s relationships with his husbands and stating that in September 2017, Travis had accidentally killed himself, that poor baby. How terrible. He now didn’t have the possibilities ahead that I’d imagined, and he left behind family. I hated that his mother had to be in pain the likes of which I can’t imagine.

The night after, when I wanted to meditate for about an hour before bed, I specifically thought about both him and his mother. I got out my Tarot cards and asked his soul some questions. I mean, for one thing, I wanted to complain directly about the mustache. I’m not kidding! I hate that thing in all its stages. He explained to me that, as is the case with a lot of awful facial hair choices made by young men, he saw it as a rite of passage. Still gross, dude. Anyway. Enough about my bias opinion.

Typically, after death, whatever anger, addiction, mental illness or physical issues we suffered in our human bodies now becomes part of the old story. So if he wanted to, Travis’ soul could tell someone here on Earth, “Oh, that was in my old place,” the good-looking temporary housing in which he made some poor choices followed by a big mistake that ended his life prematurely, but the electromagnetic blob we call a soul gets to learn from it all and move on, loving himself, even feeling utter compassion for Joe, the latter of which I only know he felt because through the cards, he said so.

            Since his death four years ago, the beautiful, confident, wise energetic being formerly known as Travis has embarked on other plans. In fact, right now, he’s here in the States again, a baby being protected through this COVID-19 pandemic. As weird as the concept of reincarnation can be for those of us who didn’t grow up with it, I personally have an easier time with grief and processing the passing of even people I never knew, like Travis or victims of Coronavirus and many others, if I keep in mind that after leaving the body, it’s still not over. People can go home to love, indescribably deep, unconditional love in the realm of collective consciousness, where they can reassess, hang out, move on to other lessons, whatever they need. Travis is free now to check in on the loved ones he tragically left behind, like his mom, who was featured a bit in the series, and I asked him if he would help me send her Reiki. When I spent a little while focusing on her, I felt very warm the entire time, which is not the sensation I normally get, so it was interesting feeling someone work through me. Performing Reiki includes serving as a conduit for energy, after all.

                        Learning about the other side has contributed tremendously to my revelations about the fact that self-discovery and behaving like that self under different circumstances can be one of the bravest and most difficult things we do. I admire the guts it takes for a person to break free from the toxicity they’ve co-created, whether that person is John Finlay or Barbara Fisher or me. As strange or unhealthy or embarrassing as the past may be, it’s more important that we’re not those people anymore. We’ve been growing and I love that.