Bad Feminist

[Phoebe]

[Phoebe]

[Bonefish]

I don't know if most people who were abused become sexual predators themselves, but I think they become abusers. Unable to put their experience into context, they will either become self-abusive, verbally abusive, or maybe emotionally abusive to others. Or maybe they don't become abusive, but they definitely carry the trauma with them, and it will impact their relationships with a large number of people during their life.

But somehow it became a thing about stepping on toes now. By coming forward with the information that I have been sexually assaulted or harassed, I thought maybe it would help, ya know. Like, if someone can assault a six foot, 200 lb dude who can take a punch(or an axehandle), then maybe other people will realize that they were not victimized because they were asking for it, or because they were weak. They were victimized because predators are, exactly that, predators. They attack without warning, after a careful study of their prey, and they strike when you are vulnerable. Some may cultivate a sense of comfort and openness, before using that in your time of need to exploit you. But there's nothing wrong with YOU for being victimized.

But after reading some of the responses out there. Ah. Fuck it. I'm gonna recommend the same thing I practice. Self-medicating with alcohol and drugs, maybe a little bet of self-harm here and there, a liberal dose of self-loathing and depression, and playing chicken with the suicidal ideation. It don't completely take the hurt away, but it damn sure hurts less than coming out of the shell, only to get berated for it. I'll pass on that.

[Phoebe]

Here we have an example of me reading something on the internet that actually causes negative feelings. That is terrible, if you would be berated in even the slightest way for speaking the truth of your life in this way. I get why women want to feel free to speak up and claim their own space to be heard, but this is not one of those situations where men are talking over us and suppressing the message. Rather, it seems quite the opposite: so many women are speaking up and being supported for doing so that maybe it feels safe for men to chime in and let others know they aren't alone.

I don't know where all you did your "me tooing", Bonefish, but if it was somewhere in public, math tells us that at least another person, and probably more than one, saw it and had a similar life truth to tell but is not able to do so. Maybe you helped nudge that person a little closer to being able to get a grip on their history and feel stronger and better. I'm not opposed to all forms of self-medication and self-soothing, but don't do the ones that hurt you. That's crap, you don't need my permission but you also don't have my permission to do it and at least one random person out here will be mad if you do. You have the power now, you get to decide to do things that make you feel good without hurting yourself in the process. Do something you love, do something happy - that is your best revenge against anyone who tried to rob you of those things.

[poorpete]

Oooof, good points, oooof. I'm lucky in some ways to not only have someone to talk to about this and it was ultimately my choice to hold my statement (but really not, since I did post it here, and as much as this feels like a private conversation, it's public). I'll side here with Phoebe. If someone felt that this was the right time to make something public, don't let us web-forum-philosophers stop you. Thanks.

On that note, I'll be honest here, in public, that I had something happen in the last 10 years, that made me feel violated, led to an uncomfortable workplace, and I had bad dreams about. Again, it's relatively minor, and it is something other men have dealt with in locker rooms or elsewhere, and I'd be surprised if most won't find this a big deal. Even I'm downplaying it. But a coworker, "for fun", achem, goosed me (poked, not pinched, if that matters). That's all. His did it for comedy not for pleasure. I told him never to do that again, and I was angry at him, and he wasn't in a position of power, I was 15 years older than him, but still, but I did feel violated.

Evvveryone who I know who said "me too" of which I know what happened to them, dealt with exponentially worse shit, but there you go.

[Mike]

I've been groped twice. Once in college, a very obese, very drunk man at a party in my apartment grabbed my thigh and package in a clumsy attempt to hit on me. Our mutual friend apologized for bringing him in that condition. They left shortly after. The other time,about ten years ago, a group of drunken college girls decided that it would be funny to grope their cab driver (me). The ringleader actually did grab my crotch while the other four from the back seat put hands all over me. It was very brief and then they were gone. Both times, I felt violated and extremely uncomfortable. In neither case did I believe I was in any sort of physical danger. Nor did I experience any lasting trauma five minutes beyond either event.

I chose not to Me Too, because I felt that what I experienced was extremely minor in comparison to others, and if I was going to be a male speaking up and comparing my experiences with everyone else out there, I felt it required more emotional impact on my life. Maybe I made the wrong call.

[Bonefish]

[Phoebe]

[Phoebe]

[Phoebe]

[bralbovsky]

I would love a disaggregated 'me too,' which is to say, "harassed" and/or "assaulted." Break it down explicitly, and maybe add a set of initials afterward, kind of a "You know who you are...and I know who you are...."

Some of this is slippery standards and misunderstanding and just plain rudeness or ignorance. That absolutely needs to be addressed and changed, but I suspect much of it is tinged with regret and susceptible to education. But if crime stats are of any use, they indicate strongly lots of the malicious intent is concentrated, and there needs to be an accounting, if only to put specific people on notice.

[Bonefish]

Some folks my not want to provide even the semblence of hinting that they are revealing an assault. Some of these assaulter are still family, after-all.

I have a cousin, he's a few years older than me. He's homosexual. I have known for a loooooong time, and you probably don't want to ask. Anyway, If I posted initials, that could fire up an absolute shit storm of gossip and side-taking. And it's not going to help me get over what he did to me, and it's not gonna help him maintain cordial relations with a largely conservative family. I don't think me and him have ever sat down and talked about it, and I'm not sure if we ever will. We seem to have grown past it, so you know, maybe it's water under the bridge. Probably still makes it a wrong thing to have happened, I guess.

The young teenager who babysat me? I don't know his name. So, you know, that's probably a non starter.

The two who assaulted me when I was black out drunk at their house? Well, hell, what do you want me to do, really? Am I going to really go and testify that I, a grown man, was violently assaulted and coerced into sex acts while I was black out drunk, and can't remember much of the night other than shame and a deep, very frightening sort of anger welling up? So, what's that going to do? And, again, there's that thing that happens when you know a lot of the same people, and word gets back to someone that you're "talking shit".

Let people decide what they want to say, how much they want to go. For some of them may not be able to safely give much more information than "me too". And for some unhappy few, they can't even say "me too".

[Phoebe]

Amen.

[mimekiller]

Bernie bugged out of the womens convention and good for him, they didn't deserve him.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/19/politics/ ... index.html

[Phoebe]

My husband was gone for a while, apparently part of a systematic campaign on the part of his employers to break me both physically and psychologically. Upon his return I immediately found out that the choice of phrase, "me too", was somewhat ill thought through. I have successfully communicated to the husband that he is not allowed to share his insights with anyone else. He has a gift for things like figuring out why the name people want to name their kids is bad because it will lead to the child being teased for the rest of his life in an obvious way that has somehow eluded the parents up to this point. But then people get offended when you show them the harsh truths.

[mimekiller]

[Phoebe]

It just weaves its way into conversation. I can't say more.

[Phoebe]

via new ability to zap people Emperor-style with electricity. Apparently the development is uneven and gradual, so it's not instant female physical dominance, but eventually a turning of the tables occurs.

The premise of the book is, unlike other feminist visions of female-dominated Utopia, that power corrupts and therefore the same shit, perpetrated by a different sex, would continue.

I say, that's The one thing we really ain't never tried, so how do we know? What's the evidence that power corrupts women when they're able to live on their own terms outside patriarchy? Gaining physical power is obviously an incomplete toolkit for destroying patriarchy, but I'm willing to roll with the premise.

[WillyGilligan]

[Phoebe]

True, but did the power corrupt those women to the extent that they did bad things they wouldn't have been prepared to do before, that we wouldn't want them to do if, say, elected to positions of far greater power, and are we getting a good test considering that we all live in the patriarchy right now? We know history has been full of bloody female leaders, but not to an extent to rival the male leaders. And did they choose that path because they were forced? We've never had a situation where the most powerful leaders were women who mainly had to deal with other women leaders. Women's leadership is very different in some professional settings where they're free to proceed as they choose. Not that it's without flaw, but that makes me wonder.