News Ariana Grande groped at Aretha Franklin's funeral - by a bishop - in front of the cameras. I am disgusted!

[EveHarrington]

And the concept that “your opinion isn’t valid unless you’ve experienced it”? Hard to see that as anything other than arrogance:(

I really don’t care if you think I’m arrogant. I’ve known for quite some time that you do not like me...nor have we ever seen eye to eye, on anything.

I just know that we live in a society where everyone thinks their opinion is extremely important regardless of whether or not they’ve had an experience with what they discuss.

(Thank you, social media!)

It gets to be a tad more than ridiculous.

 

[Sideways]

It gets to be a tad more than ridiculous.

It’s pretty normal actually. I have fairly strong opinions on genocide and slavery - never experienced either of them first hand. Universities are full of people with strong opinions on things they haven’t necessarily experienced first hand. And that’s how it’s been for centuries...

When it comes to discussions about what’s socially acceptable behaviour and what isn’t, I think the broader range of opinions is probably good for the debate.

As for all the hoo-haa about how much I dislike you. I’m a bit over hearing about it @EveHarrington . It’s never been true, and I’m not sure why my disagreeing with you on a subject has you so convinced that I’m running some kind of hate campaign against you. Check your head talk, because all this hate I apparently have for you? Simply isn’t real, and never has been.

 

[blackemerald1]

we live in a society where everyone thinks their opinion is extremely important regardless of

But @EveHarrington - opinions are important. Hey? I'd rather hear lots of opinion's than see lots of stupid behaviour... wouldn't you?

 

[sunshineandmoonshine]

"There are men who..." is different than saying "all men..."

I don't see anyone use the phrase "all men" in this thread in an accusatory way, only in a defensive way.

Flip it for a minute:

"A woman put her fingers around this man's penis........This is totally not OK!"

Someone else chimes in, "yeah man this is effed up, I get it because I've had women do this to me, too! It's so humiliating and needs to stop!"

And the reaction is:
"How dare you generalize! Not all women do this!"

Uhhhh what?

 

[somerandomguy]

I don't see anyone use the phrase "all men" in this thread in an accusatory way, only in a defensive way.

We see it differently, then. When someone writes "Men rape people," I take that at face value. That says "All men rape people" to me. You and others might interpret the same phrase as "Some men rape people," but that's your own interpretation, as it literally doesn't say that.

 

[Muttly]

@sunshineandmoonshine I am a man, so I am speaking from that place at the moment.

I have seen, in this thread, where a statement was taken as all men, where I didn't read it that way at all. So, I do understand where you are coming from. There is defensiveness coming from the men, just like there is defensiveness coming from the women.

To try to explain where the reaction comes from, we need to reword your example. instead of someone chiming in and saying *I've* had women do that, they chime in and say, "Yeah, man, that's is effed up. I get it. Women do this! It's humiliating and needs to stop". While the intent in the rephrasing is the same, the impact is very different. It's a generalization. The person making that statement didn't say "all", but with the generalization it's easy and common to infer.

And that generalization has been happening in this thread. And when you hear that generalization about your gender over and over, it certainly seems like people are talking about the group as a whole. And as it's a source of pain for many men, it's hard to take that statement and think, "they probably don't mean all men." Imagine, if the statement was something like "women like to flirt", I imagine people would be quick to say "not all women".

The fourth comment in this thread was "Are you a man?" Let's do what you did, and flip that on it's side. A man talks about a man being groped in the crotch on camera. Someone replies and says they watched the video and aren't sure that's what happened. And the reply is "Are you a woman" and then goes on to list all the reasons. Do you think other women reading might get defensive.

And I get it. When you are talking about such a painful issue as sexual assault against women it's hard to hear "not all men do that". It seems like an evasion and denial of your experience. I think this issue will keep coming up on this forum, because there is such hurt on both sides. But perhaps we all, men and women, can work at remembering that hurt and not reacting?

And my comments are my own thoughts and directed at everyone in general. No accusations intended towards anyone.

 

[sunshineandmoonshine]

@somerandomguy @Muttly
Hi guys.

Super helpful and interesting.

So if I flip it for myself and think of your example, or imagine it on another forum, another topic, "women xyzabc..." what's interesting is I totally feel that as "all women"!

Even though when I say "Men xyzabc..." I don't MEAN "all men"..... Not at all!

Words matter so much. I'm going to be better about choosing to qualify my statements with words like "some", or whatever other specific meaning I actually intend.

As for the "are you a man" question, I'll stay Switzerland on that, it's not my beef.

 

[Sideways]

When someone writes "Men rape people," I take that at face value. That says "All men rape people" to me.

Is there a way that this can be phrased so that it doesn’t evoke this issue?

Violence against women, and particularly sexual violence against women, as one particularly prominent form of violence that exists in society, seems to be a topic that warrants debate. So, finding a way to have that conversation, without the issue of all men construing it as a personal attack, seems to be important. It’s not to say that other forms of violence don’t exist, or aren’t worth addressing. But it does acknowledge that sexual violence against women is particularly commonplace.
This seems like a similar issue to me. It’s not intended to be an attack on all men when people discuss secual violence against women. Yet, it gets interpreted that way, and the net result is it shuts down an important conversation. (Note: there is a small part of the community that does try and argue all men are rapists - there seems to be no rational credibility to that IMO. But I do acknowledge that group does exist, and it seems fair that men would takd offence at that).

So, how do we have this conversation without that occurring?

 

[somerandomguy]

Is there a way that this can be phrased so that it doesn’t evoke this issue?

I think it's pretty easy - just acknowledge that most sexual violence against women is committed by a FEW men, and be precise - instead of saying "Men commit sexual violence against women," say "Some men commit sexual violence against women." Adding that single word could make a huge difference.

And I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't add that if you aren't talking about sexual violence specifically against women, it's really a bummer when male survivors get erased from the conversation.

 

[Justmehere]

We see it differently, then. When someone writes "Men rape people," I take that at face value. That says "All men rape people" to me.

This makes sense to read it his way and the clarifyer of “some” does make a huge difference.

I’m not sure why there ya so much focus on gender? Does anyone really really think either gender is devoid of perps? Some men rape women, some women rape men. And so on.

I think it’s important to also keep in mind, 1 in 6 men have been victims of sexual abuse or assault. It’s far more likely for a man to be a victim of sexual abuse than a perp. But it’s not being said, “men are victims.”

How Often Do Women Rape Men? - The Atlantic

Neither of the binary genders (or any other gender for that matter) can claim *all* people identifying as that gender are perps or victims.

 

[somerandomguy]

It’s far more likely for a man to be a victim of sexual abuse than a perp.

This is a HUGE point. And the reason both men and women think of men almost exclusively as perps rather than as victims is because, in my view as both a man and a student of human behavior, most men would rather be seen as perps than as victims.

Counterintuitive? Hell yes. But picture the stereotypical "man's man," the type of man that almost all of us men were taught to emulate as boys. This is an aggressive man, a competitive man, a man who fights and goes to war and hurts other people and gets hurt and never cries. If that guy is your baseline definition of manhood, there's absolutely no room for victimhood in that paradigm. And that guy is way closer to being a perp than a victim, so many men are fine with being seen as a perp as long as that means they aren't seen as a victim.

Yes, it's very harmful to men to think of themselves this way and to be thought of this way. Yes, it makes everything worse for individual men, the people around them, and society in general. But no, it is not the fault of individual men for thinking this way - most guys just do what they were taught and don't think too much about it until they have to. To fix this, we have to change the message about what masculinity is, not the men.

Incidentally, this is why the term "toxic masculinity" is such a blaming, shaming term. It's not the fault of these guys that they're just doing what they've been taught. In fact, for most men there are serious consequences for NOT following the "man script." It's the message that's toxic, not masculinity itself, and definitely not men.

/soapbox

 

[shimmerz]

there's absolutely no room for victimhood in that paradigm.

Which is more likely (imo) to turn male victims into perps because according to society, it is much more manly to turn rage outward. Whereas with women, society frowns upon women who turn rage outward. They tend to turn it more inwards if they follow societal gender stereotyping.

I think there are a web of issues that are dictated from a gender/society perspective that affect the way victims respond after being victimized.