What boys could learn from girls...

[lizzypaul]

My brother is a decent kid, and I love him, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s homophobic.

To his credit, he doesn’t want to be a homophobe...he’s a good, progressive boy raised by a progressive mom, living in a progressive area (San Francisco), and he has a lesbian sister (me) that he loves. He’d never beat up or tease a gay kid--he’s

Comments

[ciaraxyerra]

yeah, like dorktastic said, it's an essay. it's a personal essay. have you never read any of the eighty gazillion ahtologies out there in the world that address various aspects of feminism through the medium of the personal essay? that is what your post smacks of, & it is once again intellectual dishonesty for you to keep saying, "if i miscommunicated about this topic, or communicated the wrong angle on this other topic, sorry! my writing didn't convey things properly! it was the writing! the writing was bad!" um...you wrote the writing. it's not like a wayward dog that pissed on someone's shoe. you have control over your writing.

i got the point of your essay. yes, women are strong for surviving everyday in rape culture (although, hi, how many women suffer adverse emotional & mental effects from having to deal with it every single day? your post kind of implied that we're all just bounding along merrily strewing sunshine everywhere, even in the face of prevalent rape culture, which is not really the case...so even that point was maybe a little bit botched). my issue is that there is surely a way to accolade womankind on general for being tough or resilient or still living in the face of rape culture while maintaining some degree of intersectionality with other people who face oppressions & sexual violence...& i do think that your brother cringing away from all gay men, on the basis of their being gay, because of his irrational belief that they will sexually assault him because they Just Can't Get Enough, is a form of sexual violence. his over-reactions help to create an environment where gay men no longer own their own sexualities...just like how rape culture creates an evironment where women (regardless of sexuality) don't own our sexualities. his horror of gay male sex creates a culture of fear & disgust around gay male sexuality & bodies...obviously! there is a link here, & in your rush to make it all about Women Surviving Rape Culture (which is a good thing, don't get me wrong), you're ignoring the link.

if you don't care that you are ignoring the link...fine. whatever. it's not like you are the first person in the feminist community to want to be all about The Wimminz at the expense of some other marginalized group. i wrote all this thinking that maybe you...weren't seeing the link or something. i mean, if you can't handle that, & if you're going to back away waving your hands in front of your face, being all, "it's just a personal story! please, no critiques from the peanut gallery!" then...yeah. don't post it here. save it for your personal LJ, where you can control & curate your readership, where you can feel free to make assumptions about how Everyone Gets What You're Saying, & where statements like, "this is my own personal experience," maybe possibly carry some weight. because i don't think that shit flies here. this isn't a hand-holding goddess womb love circle where we hug it out every evening for getting through another day.

[lizzypaul]

I went back and forth on whether I should respond to this, and I've decided I will. This might be useless, because I feel like we're talking at cross-purposes (you are reading things that I am simply not writing, or I'm doing the same to you, or both), but I'd like to try.

I don't understand why you feel that I'm being intellectually dishonest by saying that I miscommunicated. I'm not "blaming" my writing, I'm taking responsibility for poorly communicating. I completely agree with you. For my brother to believe that gay dudes are sexual monsters out to get him is wrong. I tried to say that in my post. I failed. I should have been clearer, and because I wasn't, I inadvertently offended. I'm responsible for not being clear. I don't see how I've said otherwise.

although, hi, how many women suffer adverse emotional & mental effects from having to deal with it every single day? your post kind of implied that we're all just bounding along merrily strewing sunshine everywhere...

I'm trying very hard not to be upset by this. I understand that you know nothing about me, other than the information I shared in my post. But to say something like that to someone you know to be survivor of childhood sexual abuse and rape is disgusting. I've already shared personal information in what I naively assumed would be a supportive place and got my teeth bashed in, so why don't I go all the way? What I experienced as a child fucked me up. I have PTSD. I've attempted suicide. It is by the skin of my teeth and the grace of God that I no longer self-injure on a regular basis. I'll probably be on anti-anxiety medication for the rest of my life. That's just a fraction of what I've suffered because of this rape culture, and I would be the last person on earth to ever imply that it was all sunshine and roses. I can't help what you infer, but I'm not talking responsibility for the way you twist my words.

if you don't care that you are ignoring the link...fine. whatever. it's not like you are the first person in the feminist community to want to be all about The Wimminz at the expense of some other marginalized group.

And see, this is why I think even responding to you again is pointless. I see the link. I have said over and over again that I see the link. I understand. I agree. You're right! The way my brother and so many other straight dudes feel about gay men is fucked up. It's wrong. The way he speaks about gay men, the way he feels about gay sexuality, it's Not Good. I could write a whole post about that! But that wasn't what I chose to write about. I chose to write about women surviving rape culture. That's it. That doesn't mean I don't agree that homophobia is a Bad Thing. That doesn't mean I don't work offline to educate those around me, including my little brother. It simply means that, today, I decided to write about a specific topic.

i mean, if you can't handle that, & if you're going to back away waving your hands in front of your face, being all, "it's just a personal story! please, no critiques from the peanut gallery!"

See, this I don't get. I understood before posting that there was a chance people would criticize. I listened to what you and others had to say, I thought about it, and then I responded, trying to clarify my thought process and position. In some cases, I agreed with the criticism and apologized for any inadvertent offense. In others, I tried to explain my perspective in the hopes of finding common ground. And, yes, there are some places where I flat-out disagree. Okay, it's a big internet, and there are a lot of different worldviews. I don't see how that's defensive.

Honestly, I'm surprised by the vitriol of your response. I don't know what I've said that would make you so angry and sarcastic, considering that, for the most part, I agree with your position re: gay men, if not your concept of what I should write in my post, and I've tried to remain respectful while responding. Again, I apologize for offending. It wasn't my intent.

[ciaraxyerra]

dorktastic once again hit the nail on the head in clarifying my "intellctual dishonesty" remark. i felt that you were being intellectually dishonest by blaming "bad writing" or your inability to communicate effectively rather than accepting responsibility for the underlying political problems in your post. i understand that you feel that homophobia is wrong. i got that from your original post, loud & clear. i understand that you are not defending your brother's viewpoints or attempting to justify them. i just don't think you are actually listening. i'm not concerned that your post was homophobic, or that you were defending your brother. i'm happy that you see the link between the psycho-sexual violence inflicted on women in rape culture & the psycho-sexual violence inflicted on gay men by homophobia.

i don't really care what your "intentions" were. i am concerned with the consequences of what you wrote here. the road to hell is paved with good intentions, right? basically, you came into this community, spewed a bunch of personal shit about your brother & his fucked up homophobia (by the by, i have faith that you are also totally horrified by his eroticizing of lesbians, right? because that is EFFED, especially in the face of how he feels so fucking entitled to call gay sex between men "gross," like anyone gives a fuck what he--or you--thinks of their sex acts), & then turned around to make it all about the Woman Class & how we are Strong, hear us Roar. this isn't a women's studies 101 class. i'm just really not interested in feeling warm & fuzzy about my badass womanhood while a whole class of other people is being ignored.

& before we go through the rigamarole again...i KNOW that you weren't writing about The Plight of the Gay Man Who Is Feared By My Brother. but...maybe you should have. or maybe you should have throught about it for a second. it seems like a serious oversight to pour all this energy into a post that is predicated on being like, "here's this effed thing my brother thinks, & although his belief is irrational, it made me reflect on the rational fears that we women face everyday! womb power!...what? gay men? what about them? that wasn't my point!"

also, i don't know if you are new here or what, but this community does not allow tone policing. so don't give me any guff about being "angry & sarcastic". especially because i was actually chillin' like a villain when i wrote that last post. your willful obtuseness is starting to piss me off NOW, but i was feeling fairly indifferent before. i really just replied because this whole post read like some ridiculous essay by jessica valenti, what with the reclaiming of "acting like a pussy" & everything. i felt like you were "going for something," writing-wise, & i just wanted to let you know that there were some holes in the way you leapt from situation A to realization B. i went to creative writing school & for my work now, i read a LOT of poersonal essays. i can spot a rhetorical over-reach at 100 yards, & this post is a textbook example. i just thought you'd want to know, but the more you posted, the more i saw that maybe we are also in different places politically. i think intersectionality is important, & i try to keep my lip zipped when i think i've had a profound insight until i've run it through the intersectionality filter a time or two. you seem to be more interested in how Sisterhood is Powerful at the moment. whatevs, man. it's a fundamental difference, but i'll let it slide for now if you just really stop to consider:

- your intentions are irrelevant. the consequences are what matters.
- apologizing for offending is not the same as really considering the implications of the offensive thing you may have said & learning.
- we don't police tone here we don't police tone here we don't police tone here.
- you don't need to justify your mental health to me.
- if you don't want me to think you're saying that tough ladies are made of rainbows, maybe you shouldn't write facile crap like, "I’m in awe of us girls. We wake up every morning and go out into the world, even knowing how vulnerable we are, the odds that are stacked against us. And, for the most part, we don’t let it interfere with our lives."

[lonelytrees]

Um.... I think the ACTUAL subject of her essay was about her brother's homophobia - not how strong women are for getting by. I get that she went on a tangent about that and prolly shoulda avoided it (I skipped through most of the statistics etc) but some people have a harder time organizing their thoughts... I don't think the sarcasm really helps and in fact - is prolly going to push her away from really getting it.

[drooling_ferret]

But a slightly condescending aside a bit lower down the thread will throw open the floodgates cognition?

[ciaraxyerra]

uh...reading comprehension not your strong suit, eh? in the OP's own words: "I chose to write about women surviving rape culture. That's it." so according to the OP, this is actually NOT about her brother's homophobia. & if you just skipped over the "tangent" about women being strong, you missed the point of the her post. i wish i could have!