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Dom Violence Reality check?

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However, I have also found that men like that often don't mind being treated as commodities themselves, so at least their attitudes are consistent.
This is really well put. It’s this mentality of "counting what’s worth", do they have that job, are they beautiful (different according to each kind of standards), do they have money, this and that… To put it shortly, do they project a very quantitative (and narrow) sense of power (that can be very real, but narrow). Women do engage in this too, I don’t think it’s necessarily a gendered thing. The manifestations are codified as gendered. A woman should be this, a man should be that… Both genders having gendered expectations towards each other, yada yada, all this circus hurts my brain… But the insecurities and aggressive impulses behind aren’t. And actually, when I see a guy making that kind of unpleasant show, it’s often quite evident he’s doing it for a certain image he has for himself… and I feel more awkward to be in the middle of the way of such a confusion rather than irritated. Depending on my mood, I guess. And I can sense how as girls we’re trained to compete between each other instead of just teaming up and f*cking relax, hopefully this seems to ease out with age.

Upside if this is "normal" then at least it is irrespective of me.
Ah, I don’t find it normal. I find this situation unbearable because it strips people of authenticity. Rehearsed roles, micro assertions of power as check-ins for personal comfort. Don’t know if I’m being clear here, or if I understood your sentence right?

The other day it was almost funny I am in a cerebral conversation then suddenly he brutally redirects and I am essentially having to consider the guy's crotch. yeesh.
This made me smile. It grates me but it is genuinely funny at the same time. This ding dong contrast. Seen so many times!

Maybe there is hope for the younger set.
I think there is. Perhaps not everywhere in the same way. I don’t know if it’s already transformative because I think it will take centuries to undo such ingrained habits, but I can see that they’re having the conversation and girl’s voices come up more and more often, sometimes in this strange mix of self commodification with actual true empowerment, still bothered by the Weak Point: the actual relationship(s) with your partner(s). Because you might say what you want, it’s when the dynamics start to play that the real complications appear. And in this it’s going to take time to change because it belongs to the intimate spheres, that are already difficult to manage in themselves. DV, to take that example, occurs in queer couples and / or young couples as well, perhaps not in the form of what is defined as domestic terror that is what people think about when spoken about DV, because that one is massively gendered, even if there are a significant amount of cases of battered men.

But my point here is that I sense that as a society it’s not even gendered relationships that we aren’t seeing right, it’s relationships in general that we aren’t seeing right. So much pressure in reproducing whatever our parents and dominant culture taught us, categories such as friend/lover/boyfriend/husband/ex and all rather codified that cut the complexities and particularisms of specific relationships (I’m not speaking here of unbalanced relationships where one has a certain entitlement but not the other, but just of some places that are actually comfortable and beneficial, yet not well seen by most), and distance people from each other when there was no reason to, but also get people closer to each other than what they would have liked to. I don’t know. I’m sensing I’m being convoluted here.

What is positive in younger generations is that it seems, for what I see at least, that they’re more eager to express their views and learn to feel things and respond to it and consider it as important, not something you keep for yourself.

The men were genuinely surprised at how upsetting it was to women. The sad thing is, a lot of them sad they probably wouldn't change their behavior. They seemed to equate the behavior with manhood and didn't want to lose that.
Yep… I’ve heard similar podcasts. Also that they didn’t realise that what they do once in a while actually happens regularly to women. They don’t measure the effect of the fatigue. Being bluntly hit on by a harmless guy who gracefully admits his plan didn’t work out once can be funny, being hit on with that sense of I’m giving attention to you so you do better do to me otherwise you’re a bitch, bitch, is less, and this happening regularly, profoundly off-putting. Add actual sexual harrassment, previous horror shows with DV or knowledge of it and sexual assault, and you have a society that is clearly hostile to the fact of being a woman. And, in fact, this society is brutally hostile to men too. I don’t see many places as a guy where you can turn to when you’re feeling miserable and wanting to cry. Even some jerky woman with interpret that as weakness and turn away. How we landed in such a lose-lose combination hurts my brain.
 
Also that they didn’t realise that what they do once in a while actually happens regularly to women. They don’t measure the effect of the fatigue.
I watched a show about this due to the conversation and the guys made many comments about why it wasn't bad because it happened to them. You know, once. LOL

Another incident today another relentless hornet buzzing me incessantly. I ran out of patience today so I guess I'll find out if that shuts it down at all.

Today was the first time I considered quitting but I have a right to be there. I am new so assume with time it will run its course. It is unfortunate despite my age I have to put on a persona to keep folks at a distance.

I understood your sentence right?

Normal only in the sense of "common". I don't consider any of this relating as healthy. I have spent time in other places in the world where there is less "relational aggression".

My point is I think it is achievable ..... ?

Naively,

Whirlwind
 
I think sometimes we have to dare to be naïve. All people I've seen saying "oh you're naïve" to someone were doing it as go justify unjustifiable things.

Another incident today another relentless hornet buzzing me incessantly. I ran out of patience today so I guess I'll find out if that shuts it down at all.
Ugh. Courage. Sometimes biting the ass of the dog works, with time you'll see. Is there anyone you can refer to in that type of problem?

Funnily enough 2 days ago I received, I kid you not, a text message telling me he saw saw me in a seminar at uni (I'm in leave of absence since the beginning of the pandemic and now that I've joined by zoom, my webcam is BLURRED, how come this man has seen me anywhere 🤣) and found me "very v beautiful". Finding my name and my number. Going to discuss this with the uni authority but I assume that in workplaces it's way much tricky. I think this is also one of the reasons I'm more comfortable with freelancer positions. Bad experiences too when working in collective environments.
 
this thread is nearly a month old so i apologize if this is unwelcome. and i do hope that this situation has sorted itself out for you but unfortunately concerns like this are proportional to our society. it often feels like there is no escape.

however you are certainly not alone in this. sometimes i think to myself do men actually have thoughts about things other than sex? and then i'm like, oh yeah. i'm a man. sometimes i think about computers. or music. or a flower i saw. or if a friend is doing okay. so that means other men have the same thoughts too. they're people just like me. and my husband is a man. (and he's not so good of a liar that i don't know what he's thinking about pretty much always.)

and i've known good, decent men over the years even if i'm intimidated by them. (i'm always drawn to people i'm intimidated by which we'll analyze at another time 🙄) i am married and i wear a wedding ring and i still get hit on constantly. people expect me to cheat on my husband because i'm a man and i'm gay. that means i just want sex and it's super easy to walk into a bathroom and f*ck anyone i see.

i think the idea that men are just evil rapist pedophile monsters who can't control themselves and only fail to commit crimes on a regular basis because they'll get caught and thrown into prison and raped themselves-it's a lie told to us by patriarchy as a method of excusing terrible behavior. it is not real. and as a man who has been abused by other men i really internalized that narrative. both about other men as well as myself.

and it has the very distinct benefit of dehumanizing men as well this is just how men behave. well i'm male and i've ~*had thoughts*~ so i must be evil as well. except i'm not, because i'm not four and i understand what is and isn't appropriate to say in public. just because i feel a certain way does not entitle me to a person i may find attractive. it does not mean that i need to fling all that in their direction with zero notice.

in our society women are frequently derided as irrational, silly hysterical harpies who have nothing of value to say. so we chalk it up to "just being a man." so they'll shut up. and it is a side effect of patriarchy that men resist. there's no rape culture. men aren't evil. well that's true and false. there is rape culture because we don't hold men accountable for their behavior. because men are not evil by default and do have the capacity to act like a f*cking person.

it is odd that this post popped up today as i've really been mulling this over all day and obviously felt the need to blab.
 
This is a hard thread and I admit I didn’t read it all. It’s like saying what’s wrong with life and the answer is everything. Everyone has a complaint and men shouldn’t act the way they do, but neither should women. Nobody is entirely right or wrong. People are bad but most aren’t evil. It’s a good thing, because bad is enough to deal with.
 
In the last month or so

several were in break area I just met them and as I was walking back by they were commenting about my appearance loudly as it could be heard down the hallway and they were peering around the corner to get looks at me.
Another guy I barely know his name came up to me to "tell me something" and that his fiancé is jealous and he said she has to "get her game on" because I am around now and then commented she was upset and she should be as he'd be interested if they weren't planning to get married. I think he took a picture of me as it was something about how she saw me.
Walking by me then saying loudly "WOW"
Commenting that "if they weren't married....." in random conversation and pointedly to me.

Stuff like that. Then what really made me set back was I randomly encountered someone I knew professionally from the old days. Smart one back in the day, great career and simply put we chatted and then agreed to catch up over meal (public place) and he is much older than me. Seemed fine and I thought maybe he wouldn't mind being a reference for me as well. I could use that as I have been "out of it" for so long I don't have contacts, references etc. Anyway literally barely into the meal which was not romantic, fluorescent lights and plastic tables - I don't need to justify anything the fact is we knew each other professionally and peripherally at best a long time ago. There was nothing between us then and he could be my father. Barely into eating he dropped the bomb of "always been in love with me/ can we have sex".

It was laughable if I wasn't so pissed, I felt it was an utter insult and just a pathetic play for sex.

I am not young. I just don't get it, none of this to me is flirty cute like after you have known someone for awhile so to speak. Or if they were interested in my situation they can't just ask me? The answer will be no but I wouldn't get upset if someone genuinely asked - they don't know so that's ok. Make sense?

I am not flirty with anyone because I don't want that in my life. But now I'm feeling uncomfortable just trying to interact in general. Should I go back to wearing a fake wedding ring - even if that would work. I did that in my professional younger days. I don't have to justify myself but I mean, I'm in jeans and a flannel shirt at these places, and I am mechanically inclined so I'm usually have oil on me as I'm helping fix something.

These exchanges just feel cheap to me and like that is how men see me as a cheap object to be abused and/or used.

With this said the rest of my life is stable and nice, this is too I like the clubs it is fun and some of these jerks I looked forward to learning from as they have unique skills. I just thought at my age folks had more tact? Is this just how it is?

Thanks for your time,

W
I really relate to this, I can't tell if it's in "your head/my head" or not, and I don't know your past... but I also get that feeling... I smile and I tend to be nice to people when I meet them but for a while now I have the feeling that I can't do so because I give the wrong impression to men... some people call me flirty, when I don't feel I flirt at all... it's like I feel "all eyes on me" with a sexual tension that I do not desire... I started hiding my body more and more and I don't feel comfortable with nothing mildly sexy... I'm not trying to make this about me but it feels "good" seeing I'm not the only one having this type of feelings
I wich we could trade more thoughts about it and understand if like you said this could be an unconscious imprint of the past or what exactly could it be
 
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