Yes, too many thoughts.
Your post really stood out as showing that someone was reading what I said and not just reacting and there are many things I wanted to get to.
I don't really want to provoke people further, I did this for a reason and I would like to move beyond it. But I do have thoughts on your post and on the questions you have asked.
so...
@richard_Grey_Area - lets move away from your desire to instruct others, for a moment. Lets make this about you. I am curious. You gave a list of motivations for writing your OP, and some jumped out to me - so, here are some questions...?
Ok, context!
I recently discovered that someone close to me had been sexually abused by a man. This upsets me greatly because of how much I care for this person and also because of the degree to which I have been critical of his behaviour and attitudes. He is a man who seems to feel some kind of "need to prove his masculinity" this often involves being really creepy and inconsiderate to women.
I spoke to him about this after learning about what he went through and although I can not condone the way he is with women, I find if at once fascinating and very upsetting to see how he feels insecure about his masculinity.
Interactions with other male ptsd sufferers offline have suggested this as a trend to me, granted, this is a small sample size, but I have observed this "need to show that you're a man" in every male ptsd sufferer and in myself as well earlier on.
For this reason I came to the conclusion that a man needs to confront others about how society portrays "masculinity" the glorification of aggression and physical violence (my problem) and glorification of aggressive sexual behaviour is damaging to men as well as women.
Many women have told me how they don't feel safe around men, how even friends they know and trust for years still sometimes trigger that "potential rapist" alert. These are women who have not suffered any trauma and those who have.
This upsets me greatly and I blame the kind of attitude which many men have. The "need" to somehow defend their masculinity or something and to "prove they are men" - this often involves treating women like <human hole products>.
My very controversial strategy was to use shame (Ok, not the best approach with people suffering from ptsd!) to encourage men to distance themselves from the "you owe me sex" attitude I have observed. I wanted to encourage a "that's not me!" response.
Because society does, I am afraid, teach us that an opportunity forced is better than an opportunity lost, that your "manliness" can somehow be taken away if you don't fight for it.
And this is part of a bigger non-gender specific problem I have observed in society where this archaic notion of "you're not someone unless you're with someone" is still distressingly prevalent.
And yes, if is very crude, yes, it is offensive the way I phrased it, but I maintain that the physical relationship between a man and a woman goes in one of 3 ways
1) they have sex when she wants to (in my personal experience, this has included times she she wants to and he [me] doesn't but I am not discussing this here)
2) they don't have sex
3) sex when he wants to and she doesn't counts in my book at least as "he rapes her" - yes, there are examples of sexual coercion which don't involve the threat of physical violence, but I would not be proud to say I have used these. To me, regardless of relationship status, a man getting a woman who doesn't want to have sex with him to want to is ok; but getting her to have sex with him when she does not want to is really blurring the line with rape.
I am not offended that you should ask if English is in fact my first language, it actually is, but I speak a form of English perhaps slightly different to the one you speak. I don't think our disagreement can be resolved to a case of mistranslation. As for the case of limited sample size, that is something I am aware of, I was interested to see if any women would react to what I said and disagree with it. At least one did and I found that a huge relief!
About my own struggle, I was a victim of childhood sexual abuse from a woman.
I went through a lot of physical violence and this was physical violence which manifested itself in a sexual way.
The result of this is that... Oh god, there are many results of this!
but the bit I struggle with is that I feel threatened and afraid when women women show an interest in me. I feel no physical pleasure during sex and have gone through panic attacks, nausea etc...
Yes, I struggled to feel that I was a man, and it was made worse when I tried to share my experience with people and was told to "stop being such a pussy" and that men always want sex in all situations. Even then, I wondered to what degree this anger directed at me was because I was "betraying men" by harming their precious "big manly" image. I would like the image of what "a man" is to change.
I have contributed to many women's trauma in my life and I have hated myself for this, even now I struggle to forgive myself for my careless words and actions. For not thinking of how others felt. I have upset so many people intentionally in my life and often felt nothing much of the time, but those stupid accidents really made me hate myself.
I have never contributed to any women's trauma by coercing her into having sex with me, I have never done this by flirting with her to the point of harassment when I could see that she was becoming uncomfortable. I've made women feel unsafe, worried, I've offended them and scared them, I've creeped the hell out of them, but I have never taken things too far in that way.
Even so, there have been women who assumed that because of the shape of my pants, I would do these things.
This is upsetting and hurtful to me as well.
I want to change this, I want to change the way men are seen, even if it means that I end up being hated by men, I want to try to make some kind of differnce.
