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Poll Sexual abuse survivors: Would you want to know if your therapist is also a sexual abuse survivor?

For sexual abuse survivors: would you want to know if your therapist is a sexual abuse survivor?

  • I am FEMALE and I WOULD want to know

    Votes: 1 4.8%
  • I am FEMALE and I WOULD NOT want to know

    Votes: 8 38.1%
  • I am MALE and I WOULD want to know

    Votes: 2 9.5%
  • I am MALE and I WOULD NOT want to know

    Votes: 2 9.5%
  • I am NONBINARY and I WOULD want to know

    Votes: 1 4.8%
  • I am NONBINARY and WOULD NOT want to know

    Votes: 2 9.5%
  • I honestly do not care

    Votes: 5 23.8%

  • Total voters
    21
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This is sticking with me for some reason. I like to believe that boys and men are socialized to be nurturing. And I hadn’t thought about the connection between worry and nurture. And the thought that men in general aren’t socialized to do those things in Western society… is… uncomfortable… but also illuminating. I still think they are socialized to be protectors. Which leads me to wonder about protecting without nurturing… what that looks like, sounds like, feels like.

Please ignore if this is hijacking the thread.
Well for having spoken with my male friends about it… there is an aspect of protection that is sometimes awfully close to possession, and a lot of self-image that is implicated in doing exterior things to provide for the interior things, but not looking after the interior things themselves. There is a sort of threshold of providence and social and professional competence to reach as to materially provide, and that threshold will serve to define a male image of success.

On the other hand, it’s not something very acknowledged to go past that threshold and be, let’s say, nurturing and caring and washing the dishes and vacuuming the carpets and ironing clothes. It’s not that it’s necessarily bad (albeit I’ve seen many dudes finding it offensive to have to care for these things), but it doesn’t receive as much positive feedback and incentive as having some high paying job.

I know many guys whose character and personality is much more driven towards house things, decoration and emotions, but really do get backlashed by their peers and also women. They feel shame for liking colourful socks, plushy clothes and cakes, and end up doing it almost covertly. This goes as well for the big or casual talks about emotions and crying. Because ah, also, it could be GAY. So not fitting that image can be rather complex, and a real problem. Many motivations to actively avoid being nurturing, and I feel many men have a quick sense of panic when stuff gets emotional not because they cannot understand emotions, but because somewhere, it causes this social cognitive dissonance. And it also gets in the way of self-understanding and personal comfort in life.

At least being a woman in a very sexist society such as in Brazil, being intellectually incompetent by default at least gives a certain freedom of thinking. What I did think or not didn’t matter, as long as I had enough theory of mind to give society what it wanted; you can give a void image without having to actually embody it. The traditional passivity cuts you some mental slack. You don’t have to actively be anything. A man has to be successful. A woman is expected to fail. I’m barely exaggerating. I think it’s visible how the two positions really are problematic.
 
Thank you, RC, for that illumination—I found myself nodding and “ah-hah-ing” throughout.

an aspect of protection that is sometimes awfully close to possession
This was an important ahhh 😯. I do understand. With respect to SRG’s original poll, I wonder if men who worry about their T’s would also feel possessive of them? Actually, now that I think about it… the transference I feel sometimes has a possessive element to it *that I’ve had to work on a lot*. And now that I think about it, jealousy, which I don’t yet see as gendered (but probably displayed differently according to gender socialization) is possessive behavior.

So, while I initially agreed that protection often aligns with possession… I’m not sure they go together automatically, but are rather linked (which I think was your point as you said “an aspect of”) For example, I think that possibly many women link nurturing with possessive behavior (“Look at everything I’ve done for you.”) or withdrawing nurturing to display their possession. I see the connection you made, but I don’t see them as equal, rather associated (sometimes more frequently depending on the culture.)
really do get backlashed
Thank you for reminding me of this real social consequence. I get the sense that this backlash is worse for younger men, especially those who are single and/or childless. I live in a liberal Western US city where men can wear makeup and carry purses as long as they stay out of certain bars. I sense that’s the direction many in society hope to go, and that some are fighting strongly against.
you can give a void image without having to actually embody it. The traditional passivity cuts you some mental slack.
Wow! Thank you for the description, I can totally picture it. When I think of Brazilian culture I think of two kinds of women: hyper sexual young maiden types and tired older crone types. I imagine the mothers to be strong but misguided if they push their daughters to be solely focused on displaying their sexualized bodies. This is my own projection.

I remember when I realized in my own life that girls who display their smarts got the least attention from boys. I remember specifically thinking, “Talk less, act dumb, say you don’t know.” And I had a person I respect tell me that people in general don’t like a know-it-all (I find this to be true) and he taught me how to couch my words so I don’t come across that way. (Now I wonder if he meant to say, “People don’t like a know-it-all woman?”)

Your description of the culture of typical Brazilian men and women sounds similar to Mexican culture but reversed. From what I’ve learned the Mexican men tend to become passive and vacant while the women are expected to work all day (in the home).
A man has to be successful. A woman is expected to fail.
I think this is reversed in Mexican culture. A woman is expected to be successful at child-rearing, cooking, cleaning, and hosting and men are expected to be lazy alcoholics. Girls and women are still sexualized, but I don’t think it’s to the magnitude of Brazilian women—I get the sense Brazilian girls and women are hit the worst with sexualization and I’m not sure why but I have a theory.

Regardless I’m not sure what the expectations are in Western American culture. There are splits according to political ideology and class and race on what is expected of men and women, I think.
 
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