I think one’s reaction in this situation is also going to be based on past experience with similar situations that escalated into worse things, or a lifetime of dealing with it.
I can relate to being anxious about certain nightmare scenarios, for sure. That one I’ve actually lived through myself, though the situation was reversed - I was the victim and my reputation was destroyed for telling the truth. It’s horrible to have no control over others’ perception of you or the truth. Particularly if it happens young, it fundamentally alters your view of human nature. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
In the case of hypotheticals, I try to apply a little statistical analysis. As a woman, it appears my lifetime probability of getting raped is somewhere between 10% and 20%, depending on how you define rape, and I also know that most rapes happen by a trusted friend or family member. So despite the generally high level of risk, the probability of any given stranger raping me is quite low. There are other factors that decrease my risk, like the fact that I never leave the house, but let’s pretend I’m normal for a second.
Based on those statistics, it doesn’t make sense to me to completely change my whole life around or be limited in what I do. I would rather just live my life. Everybody has to conduct their own cost-benefit analysis. But I don’t want to live my life in fear of men – or anyone, really. I’d rather expose myself to greater risk in the interest of making human connections. That’s just my thing. I would never say anything like, ‘‘I just can’t interact with men anymore because I have to protect myself.’’ I guess some people would say that. But I don’t see it as constructive or helpful. Seems like it would be alienating and offputting to men.
What worries me is that the fear that men have of being falsely accused of sexual molestation is going to reinforce the already existing culture we have of not believing women or taking their claims seriously. The reason you’re seeing so many accusations of sexual assault is because sexual assault is really common, not because false accusations are out of control. Any time you, MMM, hear an allegation of sexual assault, it seems like your fear of being in some hypothetical nightmare scenario will impact how you treat the victim and the allegations. That’s my greatest fear. That men’s fears of remote hypotheticals will ultimately drive thousands of sexual assault victims back underground.
I wish it didn’t seem like such an adversarial and defensive calculation. It makes it look like we’re on opposite sides in an attempt to protect our own self-interest, yet I don’t want to live in a world where alleged perpetrators lives are ruined based on a mere accusation any more than I want to live in a world where victim’s lives are ruined based on a mere accusation. I very much doubt you want that either. I want to live in a world with less hand-wringing and villainizing and more concrete and pragmatic action to end sexual assault. Yet given the rarity of false accusations relative to the commonality of sexual assault, it often feels like men’s fears regarding these issues are elevated above women’s.
The ManCub™ was born in 1990. The FemBot™ in December of 1991. As a freelancer married to a public school teacher, I was the one taking the kids to the park during the week. Without fail. It was extremely rare for there to be another Dad at the playground with their kid(s).
Plenty of odd looks. Now and then a conversation which invariably involved the phrase, " Helping out today, huh? "
Not a single event of a mother threatening me or calling the police, whose station was less than a 90 second drive from the entrance to the park. On the rare moments where there would be an unpleasant event, both kids’ parents took an interest, talked to their kid and sent them back out to play more.
That was 27 years ago. Now? I am not sure as the only Dad in the playground I would have been permitted to remain in the park at all.
One of my closest friends was a full-time caretaker of his two young children, now that he’s on the way to divorce he still has full days caring for them. His biggest complaint at the park is other adults trying to play with his children. I’m not sure why that bothers him, but he messages (from boredom, I assume) every time he takes the kids to the park and ‘‘someone is treating me like I’m a creepy perv’’ has never come up.
Yet there is no doubt we live in a hyper-paranoid society these days. I’ve heard of mothers getting into trouble with CPS for letting their ten-year-old go to the park two blocks away and other weird anecdotal horror stories. I started staying home alone when I was seven years old, so it’s tough to wrap my head around. We live in a society in which crime is lower than it has been in decades and yet people seem more fearful than ever.
Nor will I. But that’s easy for me to say now. I wonder how things will go when I take my grandson to the park alone.
Like my kids, he’s not white. So there was that whole " Hmmmm… whose kid IS this? " vibe in the lilywhite town where I lived. Nowadays, I would hope that the racial angle would be trumped by the creepy angle, so I’d be seen as a creepy old man with an Asian toddler in my care, instead of a kidnapper.
That’s why the response you posted, one that includes some empathy for the irrational fear and understanding of where it comes from, rather than mocking and attacking it, while still placing the relative risks in context, is most useful. Dismissing irrational fear out of hand OTOH is more likely to result in some having less than rational responses.
Priority one. Victims, often but not always women, of sexual abuse and harassment and abuse, must be able to feel they are in a culture and an environment in which they can safely come forward with their concerns without fear of retribution or negative consequence. We are long way from achieving that goal.
Priority two. Well maybe it should be one? The culture makes it clear that such behaviors are likely to be called out and are not tolerated. Honestly I think this overlaps some with the general principle of onlooker responsibility, which is attempted to be taught in early grades in relation to bullying in general. When others look the other way the abuser is validated.
Priority three. And know that accomplishing the other two bigger issue items is more difficult without this one. Don’t just dismiss the fears of others even if they are irrational. Maintain some degree of giving an accused some benefit of the doubt.
Specific to child molestation - not sure which is less rational: being afraid of an unknown male sitting on the park bench while you are there supervising your child; or being afraid of being falsely accused by an unknown child in a movie theater or another public location.
I think this is one of the most…saddening…things about the current environment. Zeitgeist. Whatever. Watching young kids play at the playground is an exercise in small moments of delight. When I watched my son or daughter interact with other children, most of whom were strangers to them, I was privy to the expansion of their world. I was able to see them learn to negotiate. Play. Invite. Accept. Deal with hurt feelings in minor matters. And so much more. An awful lot of the joyous moments of parenthood. Anyone who has loved their own kids or other kids in their life know the happiness felt at these moments.
What really gets me is that my nephew wants to be a teacher for younger children and he’s afraid he’ll be discriminated against just because he’s male.
My sister’s worried that since my nephew is extremely naive he’ll end up in some misunderstanding.
What’s also tragic, in a time where so many children are raised in single parent households, is how many children may not experience a positive male influence at all in their lives until they leave their first school.
I’m male so I have some sense of the difficulty boys can experience in a total matriarchy. In fact I’ve seen many boys told ‘to behave’ when behave is what is normal for girls, where running around, being mischievous and expending all that energy is effectively considered bad behaviour.
Hmm. So I wonder what we can do to change the culture of fear and paranoia. I guess women would have to lead the charge on this one, since we arguably have the most power in school/child-friendly scenarios.
I don’t have kids yet, but my best attempt as an individual would be making an effort to actively engage male parents more in school and other child-friendly activities, to normalize male parental involvement or even strong relationships between men and kids. Even though I’m shy, it would mean talking to men I see on the playground and making them feel more welcome.
Relationships between men and kids are hugely important at the DV shelter where I work. Their only male role models tend to be abusive ones. We’ve gotta have guys there showing them a different way to be a man. up_the_junction is right, there are some things women can’t do for boys.
To follow up on my earlier posts about how anxious I get in certain situations, I must say watching the video of Daniel Shaver being shot to death by the police does absolutely nothing to calm those fears. It makes a lot of the claims that false allegations aren’t something people shouldn’t worry about or are irrational seem ridiculuous. To some segments of the population, any interaction with the police is something that needs to be avoided at all costs. If you are poor or a minority, the police often make certain assumptions about you and they have no problem using violence to get their way with little or no provacation.
Here is something to consider. The statistical probability of a black man getting killed by police is pretty low. The reason we are so outraged and concerned about these incidents is because they represent the most egregious extreme of the pervasive problem of police harassment and brutality. They are the tip of a very large iceberg. With false accusations, there’s not really an iceberg.
Believe me, I relate to anxiety and I’m sorry you’re suffering. I once went through a months-long bout of night terror that I would be burned alive. I’d be so deep into the fear I’d envision my eyeballs melting and all sorts of horrible things. It felt so real and probable despite its relative rarity that I wanted to die just to avoid the possibility. I think about burning alive every time I see a fire, but I still cook my food and roast marshmallows and try to enjoy life. I feel similar fear around being tortured, or operated on without anasthesia - all rare, but real things that happen. Statistics really help and comfort me in these cases.
My fears, by the way, are probably symptoms of PTSD. Once you’ve felt complete helplessness to avoid harm in some contexts, your brain invents all sorts of new contexts that could hurt you. I got that PTSD from physical danger but also from the emotional hell of abuse disclosure when I was 17. It’s horrible when nobody believes you and you’re telling the truth. Believe me when I say I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
But - and this is key - I survived. People survive all kinds of terrible shit. We rebuild our lives, find meaning in it, and carry on. Hell, people even survive being burned alive. You are stronger than you think.
My advice, if this is a real fear for you, is research it. Find out as much as you can about it. Figure out your statistical odds. Read accounts of people who experienced it. See the ways that they coped with it. One of the biggest things that helped me with my burning alive thing was following the Facebook account of a young Florida officer who had been nearly burned to death. His father posted every day, every painful second, from the 911 call to several months later when his son was finally released from the hospital. It was horrible, but it made me realize “shit, people survive this.” The officer went home determined to advocate for burn victims.
I’m just glad I now live in rural area where I don’t have to interact with people often. It’s a lot easy to control the situations I’m in and I just can’t imagine
having to live in the city. Having to deal with the constant traffic and congestion of people of city life would drive me up the wall. I’d probably be completely agoraphobic
and not go out in public at all.
PTSD isn’t fun to deal with. Sometimes the only way to get better is to remove yourself entirely from the environment wear the trauma happened so you aren’t
surrounded by constant reminders of it. I’m actually doing better now than I have years.
I’m glad you’re doing better. It sounds like you have a lot of anxiety about this and many other things. I also get nervous around crowds. I hope you’re getting the help you need. Anxiety is terrible to live with, but very treatable.
And another thing. Just because some fears are not rational doesn’t mean that they aren’t understandable. It doesn’t mean you’re stupid or bad for having the fear. We can’t really control what we’re afraid of, only how we choose to cope.
I had the privilege of meeting the cutest 9 year old girl on the planet at the pet store the other day. Her parents and I had a short exchange. I told them how cute and polite their daughter was. I’m almost sure they didn’t think I was a predator, but I do get the impression that they thought I was a lonely guy… They’d be right. But they DID seem nice and grateful of the praise. All of a sudden, this thread popped in my mind and I always believe in ‘keeping it short’ anyways, so I told them to have happy holidays, paid for my pooper-scooper and left.
Men do especially have to be careful around children… It’s sad but a fact of life.
Important detail: a predator probably wouldn’t try to engage the parents in conversation. A predator would probably engage the child alone with no witnesses.
I don’t know. I do know that I have heard third graders make false allegations of a sexual nature against other third graders, and that’s hard as hell to deal with: I neither want to downplay a very serious misdeed, nor to incorrectly smear a kid who was innocent. I do know that preschool kids have been coached into making false allegations. I do know that I’ve dealt with kids who’ve suffered sexual abuse and who have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. I do know that there have been kids who I specifically make sure that every interaction with them is well witnessed, because their grasp on what’s true is deeply flawed.
A shame I only just saw this thread, as I actually had something similar to the OP happen to me just last week, and I think it shows how easily a guy might find himself accused without doing anything:
I was with a holiday tour group, and within the group was a couple, and their 6 year old daughter.
On one of the days I was eating lunch with my girlfriend, and the little girl, who at this point I was not even aware existed, stood beside where I was sitting, and just starts laughing. She starts making faces at me, including sticking out her tongue, so after ignoring her for about a minute, I stick my tongue back out at her and this makes her really burst into hysterics.
So then the remaining days of the trip this little girl is constantly coming back and doing things like that, like just running up to me and trying to tickle me. It’s really a difficult situation for me, because I don’t want to act mean to a child, but it’s not acceptable in our society for a man to interact too much with a stranger’s child.
Luckily I was with my gf and she saw I didn’t do anything to encourage the child (apart from token, belated reciprocation as I mentioned), and the parents acknowledged that too.
The last day of the trip I go to use the restroom and…I hear the girl’s footsteps as she’d followed me in :eek:
Luckily her mom immediately runs in too and grabs her, but you think about it, and with just a slight change of circumstances I could have been in big trouble: if her mom had not seen her run in, or if I were already using the urinal before realizing the girl was there.
That said, I haven’t read all the pages of this discussion. If anyone is suggesting that this kind of mix-up could be responsible for guys being falsely convicted, I doubt it.
And if I were a celebrity, the mere accusation of something like this would be extremely damaging, but as a mere peon, I think extreme embarrassment would be the extent of it.
Although people do go to jail for crimes they didn’t commit, the system does give all the advantages to the accused and that’s not going to change because it’s enshrined in our Constitution.
I was just reading a thing where Alysa Milano was chastising Matt Damon for suggesting that a patt on the butt is not equivalent to rape, and that there is a spectrum when it comes to assault. His comments make perfect sense to me. I’m concerned we’re going to be taking all the risk and flirting out of human relations to the point where people are afraid to do ANYTHING that could potentially be misinterpreted. A wink for example is a far cry from sexual assault.
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