I agree. I think MMM is seeing some daylight between what you and I are saying, but I don’t think there is. I’m just focusing on the fact that the fear is irrational; you’re focusing on the fact that emphasis on this fear is both common and harmful.
Much like a skydiver’s chute, there’s a lot to unpack here.
First thing is, I looked up the stats on skydiving deaths. They’re 7 times higher than that: 7 in a million, not 1 in a million. But the main chute has a failure rate of about three in a thousand. It’s the backup chute that brings things down to the incredibly low levels they’re at. If someone objects to the overall low rate, do we need a backup to the backup? What about a backup to the backup to the backup? At what point is the fear unreasonable?
Second thing is, you’re missing the analogy. I might get up in that plane and remember reading about los desaparecidos pushed out of planes by Argentinian death squads, and even though the circumstances are very different and the chances of anything similar happening to me here, I might let my worry about my potentially murderous skydiving instructor ruin the whole experience for me. I mean, it could happen! If that, not a faulty parachute, were my worry, then the analogy would be pretty good.
But most importantly, you say that there are no backup measures to help defend against charges of sexual misconduct. That’s absurd. Of course there are.
Again: nonsense. You’re dealing in this specific hypothetical (and many others similar to it that I’ve seen) with the kind of incident that just doesn’t happen. As for men being CREDIBLY accused of sexual assault yet retaining social power, I’m sure you can think of an example or two if you try real hard.
I encourage you to think about everything else wrong with your analogy as well, though.
OK here’s my take on the whole issue:
For the record, I’m a 42 year old male who has had problems with PTSD and social anxiety for the majority of my life. I’ve also been a victim of sex abuse and assault more than once as a child (which is mostly responsible for the PTSD).
I think any man that has any level of social anxiety has definitely had the same thoughts as the OP. The anxiety basically primes your mind to expect the worse in most social situations. I’ve been in therapy for years and the anxiety and intrusive thoughts still affect my judgement in social situations.
I’ve always been overly cautious around children I don’t know because a lot of people seem have a “punch first” mentality when they think there is even a remote chance their child is been abused.
I think being anxiety prone probably accounts for the majority of men who worry about false accusations. This isn’t meant as an attack, just an explanation.
I’d also like to add that I think a lot of the actual predators who abuse, harass, and attack women (and children and men too) are very good at exploiting the legal framework of “due process” to their advantage in order avoid been held accountable for their actions. This in turn makes victims reluctant about reporting what has happened to them. What’s the solution? I’m not sure there is one.
I’ve coached and refereed youth soccer for the AYSO (Americna Youth Soccer Organization) for the last 14 years and worked with kids from ages 4 to 12, both boys and girls. I am also a single male in his 60’s now, but have coached on and off since my 20’s. Never had a single problem, mostly because I follow the AYSO guidelines for coaches, which in brief:
Never be on the field with the kid/kids by yourself. Always have a parent or two around, or if one player is left waiting after practice, stay near a larger group.
Never invite kids to get in/ride in your car. Only time I didn’t obey this rule was during a thunderstorm at practice–the kids were in the back seats, I was under the back hatch (it was an SUV). No possibility of contact.
Hugs were permitted, but only if the player initiated them and always from the side.
All records with names/addresses/phone/e-mail are destroyed at the end of the season.
This isn’t all the rules, but following them seems logical and prudent and I’ve never had an incident in all my time coaching.
I’d also like to add before anyone asks that I don’t think women should have to refrain from reporting abuse or harassment just because I (or any other man) feels uncomfortable about being falsely accused. Does this mean men who worry about false allegations shouldn’t discuss their anxiety openly? I don’t think so. I think having a full and open dialogue about every aspect of rape culture is vital to solving the problem.
When I’m asked for my thoughts about people’s lives being destroyed by a false accusation because they sat next to a girl in a movie theater, giving my thoughts is actually an answer. I know that seems weird and counterintuitive, but I’m wacky that way.
…the thread title is “a perspective I’ve not heard discussed” for goodness sakes. Perhaps you should re-read the words that you have written. jsgoddess’s comment, while a tad hyperbolic (and there is nothing wrong with that) is not a strawman.
You can say that because you’re a father. If you’re not a father (and, though long married, I’m not a father) you have to be careful.
When I lived elsewhere several years ago, a few friends of mine and I used to go to a local diner for breakfast every few Saturdays. One time, walking back from breakfast, we saw an organized kids football game taking place, which we decided to watch for a while. One of the fathers asked us to leave, presumably because we were suspicious.
At the time I was a naval officer, one neighbour was an RCMP officer, another was a retired army officer, and the other was a federal civil servant.
This pair of questions set against each other is key, because the answer to both questions is “yes.” This sort of scenario comes up a lot, in which men respond to credible allegations of awful, disgusting sexual assaults by coming up with fantasy scenarios where they could be falsely accused. For folks who are wanting the credible allegations to be finally focused on, discussion of these fantasies is frustration.
Imagine if public vaccination were far more of an uphill battle than it is, and I, with my needle phobia, opened a thread about what if the needle were infected because a nurse didn’t sterilize it properly and I got an antibiotic-resistant infection from my vaccination. Now imagine that similarly unreasonable fears were being raised constantly.
I have a needle phobia. It’s unreasonable, and it’s my problem.
You’ve got some anxiety about sitting next to girls. I’m not denying you have that anxiety, but it’s unreasonable, and IMO you and other dudes with that anxiety would best approach it as a low-level phobia to manage, not as a contribution to discourse around sexual assault.
They asked you to stop watching their kids playing football? On a scale of “shot you a dirty look” to “slaughtered your family, burned down your home, and salted the earth on which you walked,” where would you put that offense, exactly? Because remember, the OP is talking about having his life ruined.
Are you seriously offering jobs as civil servants and military officers as evidence that you guys were NOT the sort to commit sexual assault? Because I’m sure you weren’t, but your jobs don’t exactly exclude you from the assault pool.
How on earth is this scenario leading you to concur with him? You were not accused of assault. You didn’t have your life ruined. All that happened is you were denied the pleasure of watching children play a game. You have to be careful? Of what, of having a dad ask you to leave?
Being a parent has nothing to do with it. Were none of the guys you were with dads? How could the dad who made you leave know whether you were a dad?
Look, I get that sometimes someone, in an overabundance of caution, may give you a hairy eyeball. And if the discussion were about that–“I fear someone might shoot me a dirty look at some point”–it’d be both realistic and truly mundane, because everyone catches a dirty look from time to time. But this discussion is about having lives ruined.
Well firstly, we experienced an actual response, unlike the OP. And, secondly, I don’t think he was worried about littering. Also, with 20 or 30 people as one group at a public park, a bunch of whom were adults, I don’t think that my “posse” was much of a threat, but we clearly were seen as one.
If you’re going to criticize others for hyperbole, I have to ask: do you literally think there is a direct path from a six year old saying, “Daddy, the guy next to me is a creep!” and your life being totally destroyed?
Because that thinking makes about much sense as saying, “If a high school student gets into a fight, they will be on welfare for the rest of their lives; because they can’t get into college with a stain on their record, no college means no future, etc.”
And let’s also remember that Donald Trump has what, like 20 credible accusers and half of the country doesn’t care at all.
The only part that’s about me is the part where I’m sick of men being afraid of a rare hypothetical situation related to women and children feeling safe enough to speak out about their extremely common and unhypothetical sexual harassment and assault.
It is an instinctual response of oppressor classes: to become fearful and expect attack, when the oppressed class just wants the same rights and freedoms previously arrogated to the oppressor class.
Paranoia may manifest on an individual level but when it is supported by the others of the same class, it takes on solidity and feels more and more “real” to them. I see quite a bit of that here.
One poster here referenced Donald Trump, another one seems think to all men constitute an oppressor class.
I think it’s very disingenuous. Most men in this country don’t have unlimited access to funds to pay a team
of lawyers to get them off. Mounting a legal defense costs a lot of time, money, and mental resolve. Defending a criminal case will
probably put most people into bankruptcy. Having lived in or near poverty my entire life, dealing with the legal system is
something I try to avoid at all costs. Does that make me overly anxious or paranoid in certain situations? Yes.
Is this anyone’s problem but my own? Probably not.
I don’t feel a kinship with men like Trump or Weinstein. They are the type of people who have no problem exploiting anyone
who is beneath them regardless of whether they are male or female. The oppressors of the world will exploit anyone they
perceive as weaker than them.
You experienced a response. So what? It was an adult being mildly rude to you. I don’t care that you weren’t much of a threat, or that they mistakenly wanted you to leave for some reason (I’ll stipulate that they were mistaken, that you didn’t leave out something from the story like y’all smelled like pot, or were cussing up a storm, or something).
Again, the OP is suggesting that his life could be ruined. Your story is about a mild bit of rudeness. They’re not in the same, pardon the expression, ballpark.