Thanks for your response.
Regards,
Shodan
This. The anonymity offered by the internet (and social media specifically) has horrible consequences, but it also gives people the courage/freedom to talk about stuff that we just don’t normally talk about FTF.
I’ve heard a couple groping/assault stories from women in my life (exes, friends), but I know that they’re just the tip of the iceberg. It’s not something I’ve talked about with my mom or sister, for instance, and I probably never will.
Hell, I’ve never shared my one groping experience (I’m a guy) or the couple of creeps that tried to get me into their car or whatever. And if I do, it’s much more likely to be with strangers under a pseudonym.
It’s less than ideal - we shouldn’t let discomfort keep us from talking about this - but the kind of anonymous sharing seen in this thread is much better than nothing, if only because it raises awareness.
I told my husband about my incidents (I have since remembered a third, when I was in junior high) and he immediately went into Knight in Shining Armor mode, “Who, What, Where was I?”
I told him it was highly likely that his sisters and daughter have been groped. I’m trying to understand why guys feel it necessary to engage in locker room talk. My husband was in the Navy, serving on a submarine, and he says it’s even worse with a bunch of guys cooped up for six months in a metal tube. Is it some sort of release for sexual frustrations? Just because you trash talk doesn’t mean you’d ever do it?
According to this article — How Trump's Locker-Room Talk Maintains the Patriarchy -- Science of Us
What is going on is that men are bonding with other men by making themselves vulnerable by saying things in private that would be unacceptable in public.
And part of this bonding process is to get together and denigrate women, make them the enemy, to preserve a wall of male dominance when they are back outside the locker room.
Here’s a great article about harassment of women.
It gives three recent Australian examples of assaults against women.
It then details another interaction on public transport, where a man demanded high-fives (what?) from three women. Another observer took a photo of this man in an attempt to call out and “name and shame” him for this behaviour. Various MRA groups have taken on this man’s cause, making up defenses for him (“he’s being friendly! he’s disabled! he’s autistic!” – none of which are true) and harrassing the observer, by, what else, sending her dick pics.
The author concludes:
This doesn’t make sense to me. The article is suggesting, that even in this day and age, men have to denigrate women in order to feel superior and dominant? That locker room banter is a display of vulnerablity? That men can only bond with men by waving their penises about?
I guess I mustn’t worry my pretty little ahead about it, then.
Some men, yes. It infuriates me when men or women excuse such behavior with “that’s just what guys do” because no. The men I choose to allow into my life do not do that. And there are a host of other men who are bothered by it but hesitant to speak up. The ones don’t that interpret silence as agreement and complicity. IMO that’s the part we’ve got to change. People need to learn to speak up.
Change “men” to “some men in some settings” and I think it … I was going to say it “makes more sense,” but that’s not right. “Seems more familiar?”
Lemme try to put it another way: some (many? Most?) social groups have an impulse to define their boundaries. One of the ways they do that is language. A group of friends might have inside jokes. Or nicknames. Various ethnic/sexual minorities have slang/dialect. And so on. Outsiders won’t get it, and that makes the bond among insiders all the stronger.
So macho men (or whatever we want to call them) have their own language/behavior that defines the insider/outsider boundary. Women (and non-macho men) won’t get it, will reject it, and that’s kind of the point.
As - “in this day and age,” like you said - this talk becomes less acceptable among outsiders, the boundary-defining power of insider language becomes all the more powerful.
That doesn’t make the content of the insider talk/behavior any less harmful - in other words, it’s absolutely worth worrying about! But the article is trying to give a sociological explanation for why something so wrong seems right and natural to a few.
I hope that made sense?
Sorry… The ones who DO that interpret silence as complicity. Is it possible to edit posts in Tapatalk?
Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
But the sociological explanation should not mean it’s excusable behavior.
I did mean “some,” not all. I certainly did not mean to brush all males with the same brush. Takes a deep breath My men are not like this Society is starting to come around
I hear ya! At some level, explaining bad behavior is equivalent to providing an excuse for it. That’s 100% true.
I talk to a lot of young criminals, and there’s always a tension between “Oh, NOW see why you thought you had to do that” and “Oh my god, how could you do that?!”
Still, I think there’s value in understanding root causes - helps lay groundwork for a better future. And I think the NY Mag article was focused on understanding, not justifying, this stuff.
(And yes, society is starting to come around - too slowly, but the direction is positive, I’d say.)
I thought of one that I didn’t even recognize as sexual assault at the time. I was 17, dating a 27 year old guy (it was a rough, confusing year.) We made out, it was fun. I met his family, they were nice. We were hanging out at his house and he starts pressuring me for sex. I told him straight up that I had just escaped a sexual abuse situation and I was not going to have sex with him. ‘‘Well if you have sex with me then you can heal from your past.’’
No, no and no.
He responded by reaching out, taking my hand, and… putting it on his penis.
I left. I did not see him again.
I invite you to re-read what I wrote and what you wrote in response:
Having re-read them, I now invite you to point out which of my words said that their expression is any of my business, or that it “costs me” something, or, more generally, I invite you to explain in what specific way what you wrote has any relevance to what I wrote.
You’re not entitled to a response from me but since this is a written medium I’ll be polite enough to tell you to consider your demand ignored.
My bold.
I have no idea what this is about, but just sayin’.
Yes, I see he used one word and I used a different one.
Shall we continue discussing the consent and sexual assault conversation that’s being had here and on a national level?
Yes, two different words.
By all means, you are welcome as the flowers in May to keep posting in the thread I launched. It’s a touchy topic and this whole election is making people cranky. I’m trying to keep my wits about me and not always succeeding.
I didn’t speak up when I was young because I was told not to, there would be consequences. I don’t think that changes at any point in your life - you’ll face consequences if you report someone, from scrutiny and disbelief to far worse.
I haven’t spoken up IRL since except for one godawful conversation with my parents when I was already an adult, and in counseling sessions years ago. So IRL that’s a lot of people over a long time who have known nothing about it, including a husband…which does sound a little weird now that I’m typing it out, but it is what it is.
That is a valid discrepancy to point out. She’s reading something into what Bricker wrote that he didn’t say or in any way imply, that the majority of other posters wouldn’t interpret the way she did.
If there is any relevant male perspective on this subject, which I question since the thread is titled “Women: …” but nevertheless has been welcomed by you the OP and other participants, it isn’t going to be heard if our words are misconstrued and then argued against as though we said something that we didn’t.
The fact is that 1 out of 5 or so of all women will be sexually assaulted and that is staggering. More than half of them will be under the age of 30 and more than half will be victims of someone that they know very well. Another large portion by someone they know at least peripherally.
The odds of any one random woman being in danger of sexual assault by any one random, unknown male who nods politely in passing aren’t 1 in 5 - they are so low as to be practically irrelevant to the discussion.
There’s more than one conversation going here. The very real, very serious problem women face with regard to sexual assault, and another slant on the subject that rationalizes having a suspicion of any unknown male. The latter is not supported by reality. If it’s what someone needs to get through the day more power to them but it shouldn’t be considered necessary or even valid for everyone.
Most women I’ve discussed this with tend to rely on a ‘spidey sense’ that they are wise enough to listen to when something seems off. But that sense isn’t usually triggered by everyday normal interactions like a smile and a nod in passing, or whatever. It’s relied on in moments when they are actually vulnerable and they are dealing with someone who in some way gives them reason, even if inarticulable at the moment, to be concerned.
My cousin was raped by a stranger at gun point when she was 14 or so, so that would be around the year 1980. My uncle forbid them to go to the police.
I come from a very screwed up family and despite them all being outwardly devoted Mormons, there was a lot of sexual abuse and other problems. Another uncle molested one of my cousins from the above family and she didn’t report it for years, for obvious reasons. It didn’t come out until her father passed away.
My father molested my sisters and they have expressed their disappointment in my mother’s reaction. Thinking back at it now that I’m a father, I have absolutely no fucking idea why my mother would allow my father to remain in the house. If someone were to harm my children, there would be terrible consequences to pay, even if – or especially if – it were their mother. (Who would never harm them, so I’m perfectly safe in this hypothetical.)