Don't Be That Guy.
I keep thinking about the discussions that have come up in the comments to my post about sex-positivism and performative sexuality and the concept of bystander consent, and I keep thinking about all the subtle little cues and clues I personally use to separate Okay from Skeevy when people approach me. Talking in the comments there made me realize
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Women talking about sexual abuse? I'm female, but my experience of that has, for a variety of reasons, been remarkably limited. I'm going to learn a lot more (and be in a much better place to help friends in the future should it be needed) if I listen to what people have experienced first, before talking. And if I insist that my experience is the norm (which I know damn well it isn't), I should not blame them in the slightest for tossing me from the conversation until they're done with that part.
Part of not being That Guy is, at core, recognising that not all conversations are about me and my needs.
That sometimes people are going to want to talk about those things in ways that don't make sense for me, or where I don't share a particular experience, or that I'm missing some piece of the situation. Or, just, plain - we're different people, we have different interests, and different takes. Talking about that is great - but sometimes, talking with people about a specific topic from a specific perspective/shared experience is also very good, necessary, desireable, or just plain is what happens.
If I'm in shared space, or someone else's space, I talk about some stuff differently.
For example: you've known me for ages. I talk about my own religious stuff extensively in appropriate spaces, and it's a major focus of my time and energy. But it'd be rude and assumptive and privileged in a number of ways to bring that into someone else's journal or a different conversation without making sure it'll be appropriate and helpful. So I ask if it's possibly relevant, and see if the current conversation is okay with going there in more depth.
In counterpoint, if I feel like I want to have a related conversation, there are ways to do that without derailing - the idea below, about "I'd like to talk about X, as well. Are you all right with including that right here and now, or should it wait?" has worked well for me in the past.
(In my case, I do it because a lot of people I know tend to hit tangents when you get them off a topic, and so expanding topics can mean that the original discussion, which is sometimes very neccesary to an upcoming project/plan gets neglected. That's not useful.)
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when male rape is mentioned, that conversation becomes immediately relevant to male victims of rape, regardless of what else is being discussed.
virtually every woman responding to the original post has described her experience and her needs- why can't griffen? simply because he's male? that doesn't seem quite fair.
"shutting up and listening" is important when there is a problem to be solved. so, however, is honest exchange of opinion. many people here seem to believe that honest exchange is not appropriate. i am not one of those people. i would much rather risk being offended, and then have the latitude to address the issue, than ask everyone to walk on eggshells around me- and vice versa. if all we can do is pretend to agree with one another, even when we really don't understand, nothing will ever change.
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Part of the problem is that to people without that privilege, the emotional construct of that privilege that they're operating under (discussing it, attacking it, reacting against it, etc) is monolithic. All Men Are. All White People Are. All Straight People Are. Etc. There's that mythological construct of The X Experience, where X = the particular type of privilege being discussed, and the social construct of that privilege is what people are trying to discuss, not so much individual experiences.
There's less room, I've found, for people who belong to the group that historically has the privilege being discussed but whose personal experience doesn't mesh with the social construct of that privilege -- because when they try to discuss the ways in which their experience doesn't mesh with the social construct of the privilege, it's taken by the listeners as trying to say "you are wrong, you are imagining things, it's not really like that". It sucks that people whose personal experience doesn't mesh with that social construct of privilege get shot down in discussions so often, but I think the problem is that people without that privilege are used to people with the privilege saying things and actually meaning "you are wrong, you are imagining things, it's not really like that for any of us" instead of "it's not really like that for me."
I don't know. I really don't. I don't have answers. I wish I did. Being a human is hard.
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White privileged is probably the easiest for me to understand- I mean, not understand all the nuances and effects and all that- but I look down at my body, see I am white, and thus am classified accordingly. Even though I might not have some of the privileges on the well-linked to checklist, I know that I will be generalised to have them until otherwise understood. Where I get particularly confused, is when I have no idea what I'm being read as- gender is a big one for me, both offline and online, although online is harder because at least off line I can try to look for the most obvious cues (eg: this person is wearing a dress, they are most likely female; or even *I* am wearing a dress, therefor I will most likely be read as female) but online I don't have that. I do not know to what extent this is a limitation (or blessing in certain situations) of the internet itself, or of my own short comings, due to how I was raised and my autism. As much as I can try to make up for this though, I would like to. I don't think most people (any people?) enjoy extreme conflict/fighting/banning/etc, we want to get along, but we also want to talk about how we relate to things both to better understand the original topic as well as to make others aware of another POV.
I wish I had answers too. People sometimes ask, because I live as both Male and Female, but it seems more accidental... I do not know. I have no answers. and it is frustrating. No one does- or they would have written the book that told us all how to live peacefully and this wouldn't be an issue! People ask about autistic things, and I always must underline when replying, that this is MY experience/reason/etc, and my not be the same as your child/student/etc's.
Anyway, I want to tell you, I have read every single one of the posts here (well, except for the 67 that are in my inbox that I just came home to, but I will read them next!) and this has probably been, since I joined LJ way back in '03, the most educational post I've read and joined in, and I am very happy that so many people have been able to interact from different starting places and remain civil.
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Mostly, I manage this by having more conversations with people who have them fairly, and who will call me on it when I'm missing something, and who know me well enough to be truly supportive. And fewer out in public or in situations where people can try and take over the conversation in dismissive ways. (And if people behave badly towards honest conversation, I spend less time with them.)
(Linkage - depends on a lot of other stuff. Do you get linked to widely on other things? I don't except on about 3 very specific topics, so I don't factor it into my decisions.)
But I know that's not the right solution for every person, or every conversation. Yay for you for *having* the hard stuff out there sometimes.
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Depends on the initial conversation.
Here? I agree with you that there's no particular gender focus set in advance, and that it's totally appropriate for griffen to bring up the same kind of experience.
That said, it's also clear to me that there are two different - and in some ways, opposing - conversational focuses going on which are (in overly simplified summary) "How to have conversations about sexual abuse", and the initial topic, which was more "How not to be That Guy".
Both are important conversations. But if we spend all our time on the first one, we're not going to get as far on the second one, because we're human. No matter how well we multitask, there's a limited amount of time/energy/ability to meaningfully participate.
They're both good conversations. But I think it's also not unreasonable to say "Hey. This conversation, here, about X right now. Give us a bit, and we'll move to that next." or something else.
That's *hard*. (LJ's structure makes it harder - but it's hard even in person, in a setting with trusted friends who know each other well.) But that doesn't mean it's wrong, bad, or not the best thing to do sometimes. Followup, of course, helps - it's much easier to drop topic B for initial topic A if there's a history of truly coming back to B later.
I agree with you that an honest exchange of opinion is important - Gods know, I spent Wednesday night in a difficult conversation with a dear friend that had me in tears for about half an hour (and where she called me on being That Guy on a specific issue, and quite rightly.)
But that conversation - as good and necessary as it was - also got us off the topic of some other stuff that we also need to talk about. It affected the energy and focus I had on Thursday. There's prep work, reading, and learning I really need to do before I can continue some parts of the conversation with her that is going to take time away from other things that are good, important, and necessary for me.
I'm willing to do all of that, because it was and is important - but I'd be lying through my teeth if I pretended there weren't consequences and costs to that, too. There are costs. They're not tiny.
None of that means that conversation wasn't important and necessary (and I feel *very* good about it, overall) But it is clear to me that there's more going on than "mutual desire for honest conversation." And to my way of thinking - and in my experience - unless we can back up and figure out a few things, we (as humans, very much in general) may keep going around in circles, which can be really frustrating.
What things? (For me, anyway)
a) What are our hopes for this particular conversation?
b) Are those hopes best served by focusing on a particular part of the question (like here, That Guyness vs. a more specific conversation about sexual abuse or rape?)
Both are good conversations, remember - but in a particular time and collection of people, we cannot have all of the good conversations that potentially exist in the world. Which one is where we want to focus right now? Does it make sense to split the conversation? To have some way to come back?
c) Is there stuff that at least some people in the conversation may need to learn/understand/reflect on before they jump in with both feet into the middle? This is where the privilege piece comes in. And the listening.
d) Different communities have different conversations. The flow, structure, and norms are different here in a specific person's journal than they might be in a community with a specific focus, or with people who share a particular common set of experiences. It's also good to keep that in mind, even though that can be hard to define or navigate. (And of course, people differ, too - conversation here works differently than it would in my journal: different people, different talking styles.)
None of it's simple. It's all worth doing. But we can't have every meaningful necessary conversation all at once - that's instant failure. And that means having some conversations Right Now and others Later. Or Not Here. Or some other option.
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