Men's IssuesI don't feel welcome anywhere as a gay man

submitted by [deleted] from self.LGBDropTheT

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[–][deleted] 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I'm not in any LGB discords so I can't say for certainty what the other person was feeling, but I'll try to provide some insight. I'm also not a radical feminist as I don't subscribe completely to their beliefs, but my own beliefs are radfem aligned in many ways.

As someone who got extremely angry at a friend who said this same thing to me while I was venting about a male stalker, I don't think you should've been attacked, but I do want to try to explain the response you got. I'll just copy and paste my comments from Ovarit here, as there's a thread going on with a similar premise:

When I say 'I hate men' I don't hate them simply for being male. I hate them when they turn a blind eye to their friends making sexist jokes. I hate them when they say getting catcalled isn't a big deal. I hate them when they blame us for being raped based on alcohol consumption or wardrobe choices. I hate them for refusing to even attempt to understand why we hate them.

"if being male makes them being bad regardless of what they do... why would they try to be better?"

This is what I mean by missing the nuance. Of course I don't speak for every woman, but I do not think being male is what makes them bad. It's the misogyny, the violence, the lack of empathy, the subtle sexism of talking over women, infantilizing women, etc that makes them bad. For me personally, in addition to all of that, most of all it is the refusal to be better when shown their crimes that makes them bad, and makes me hate them the most.

Men who would rather hate women and close their minds to feminism because they have wrongly internalized 'I hate men's misogyny and violence' as 'I hate men for being male' are missing the point. Men are not hated for things they can't help (like being male). They are hated for things they can help, but refuse to do anything about.

When I say 'I hate men' the most that happens is that a man might get his feelings hurt. Whereas when violent men say 'I hate women' we get Elliot Rodger, Ted Bundy, Chris Chan, girls trapped in menstrual huts, female genital mutilation, rape, the sex trade, selective abortion of female fetuses, etc.

When I was venting about how I had to tiptoe around that stalker's feelings, lest he try and come find me because we live in the same city, I was reminded of every single time I've had to push my own feelings aside to preserve a man's ego because he could potentially hurt me if he takes a rejection the wrong way. I was reminded of how every time I have been followed or catcalled while on public transportation or while out for a walk, it has been a man doing the pursuing. So to then hear, 'not all men are like that', it's annoying. Of course I fucking KNOW not all men are that way. But the fact that not all rectangles are squares (not all men are bad), does not negate the fact that all squares are rectangles (the majority of sexual harassment and violent crime is perpetrated by men). It is ONLY men who harass me. Women do not sexually harass me. Women do not catcall me. The good men in the world do not cancel out the fact that the staggering, overwhelming majority of violent and sexual crimes are committed by men. Moreover, the good ones rarely call out the shitty behavior of other men. They just shrug and say they're sorry things are the way they are while doing nothing to change things.

Again, you shouldn't have been attacked. But you were not attacked for just 'being male'. If 'men are trash' or similar sentiments don't apply to you then ignore it and move past it. You are one of the good ones. Help your male peers be better men.

[–]fuck_reddit 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Men get angry at these statements because you act as if it’s rare for men to see rape as wrong. But for every rapist in the US, there are multiple (largely male) police officers that hunt him down, male attorneys that prosecute and defend the accused per the constitution, a 50% male jury that convicts, a male judge that sentences, and an exclusively male force that keeps them imprisoned. For every rapist, there are dozens of men working full time to catch and punish them because all the men that aren’t rapists already know rape is horrible, that’s why we don’t do it.

[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Things must be different where you're from, because in the majority of rape and sexual harassment cases that happen where I live the rhetoric is 'but he's such a good athlete! This will ruin his shot at college! She was drunk and out alone at night!' and he gets a slap on the wrist as punishment, maybe.

Edit: the Blizzard sexual harassment case is a textbook example of this kind of thing. Blizzard is being sued and the employees who engaged in it were fired, but consider how long this had been going on beforehand, and how bad things had to get for it to make the news. Meaning this kind of thing is encouraged. Will these men serve more than a few years in prison for what they've done? Will the have to pay the victims and their families some form of compensation? Is anything going to come out of this societally besides people saying 'wow that's fucked up' and forgetting about it? I highly doubt it. Same with Bill Cosby. He was sentenced to a decade in prison and got out after 2 years. He admitted to drugging his victims in order to assault them. But he gets out on good behavior or some other technicality. Because fuck the victims I guess.

edit 2: https://www.insider.com/cosby-got-more-time-than-most-accused-of-sexual-assault-2021-7

If you think, as a society, people are frothing at the mouth making sure rapists and abusers get what they deserve, you live on another planet or are severely deluded.

[–]fuck_reddit 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I dont know where you’re from, because where I’m from, an accusation is enough to ruin a man’s life and initiate a soviet-style inquiry in which no evidence is necessary, one cannot confront one’s accusers, and no jury is ever consulted.

In my personal life, I have had friends confide in me about sexual harassment and I have supported them unconditionally. However, neither of us are personally involved in the cases you brought up. Therefore, we must take a more conservative and impartial stance and weigh evidence impartially and consider the rights of the accused party to defend themselves. A boy crying “wolf” is not evidence of a wolf.

Also we literally just had a governor resign over sexual assault. His party did try and cover for him, but the Democrat Party and left-leaning media is not society.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

ccusation is enough to ruin a man’s life and initiate a soviet-style inquiry in which no evidence is necessary, one cannot confront one’s accusers, and no jury is ever consulted.

I have seen this happen. And it's very unfortunate. What I see more often though, is the other extreme where there is evidence abound and the culprit gets a slap on the wrist. I live in the south, so maybe that's why.