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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Apology accepted, and I appreciate you taking the time to reconsider that aspect of the issue.
Another person's opinions of you--or even a whole group's opinions of you--can never validate or invalidate you. But being with people who are constantly questioning your worth can make it hard to remember that.
It would be nice if the first sentence were true. It's not. Perhaps it's true for you. If it is, I envy you.
The second sentence is true.
I am not interested in the "perks." I am interested in working hard for something and then NOT being told that because I'm a man, none of my work made any difference. Do that enough times and anyone would probably say "then the hell with this; I'm done beating my head bloody against this particular brick wall." As synecdochic's comments about "don't bring up male rape" initially seemed to be More Of The Same, it served as that crucial back-breaking straw for me. Fortunately, that turned out not to be the case, but at the time, for me, it was Yet Another Iteration Of How Men Are Bad Because They're Men, and I couldn't take it anymore.
I do not hang out with folks who do this on a regular basis, but it seems that every time this issue comes up in a supposedly "open discussion of issues" area on the 'net, I'm the one getting smacked down, simply for being male. This particular experience here in synecdochic's journal is both refreshing and anomalous in its vast difference from my usual experiences. To give you the flavor of what my usual experiences have been in discussions like this, they include being told by more than one self-identified feminist that I could not possibly have been raped, because men can't be raped, and since I'm a gay man I must have enjoyed the experience. A few comments like that is all it takes for me to have a permanent bad taste in my mouth when I see or hear the word "feminist," as I'm sure you can understand. And so, when someone identifies themselves as a feminist, my first thought is always "this person thinks that men can't be raped, and is going to tell me how I wasn't raped if I mention it, and is going to invalidate me and tell me that my experiences are bullshit," which, if you think about it, is exactly the dynamic that synecdochic is speaking of when she says Don't Be That Guy. It's just that in my case, it's a matter of feminists being That Guy. Repeatedly and often.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this comment any more, but I could not let what you said about validation and other people's opinions go unanswered. If it was really true that other people couldn't invalidate you, feminism - and, indeed this post - would not be necessary. They would simply be meaningless. It seems to me that synecdochic's entire post is about Don't Invalidate Women - And Here's Some Ways You Might Be Doing That.
My response was to say, "Hey, you know what? You're invalidating me and my experiences, and I have tried very hard not to be That Guy, and if all I'm going to get for validating women is continued invalidation of me, then I've had it."
In a discussion of rape, whether it's the central point of the discussion or not, there are the privileged and the not-privileged as well - and those groups are "people who have not been raped" and "people who have been raped." Anyone speaking about rape who hasn't been raped themselves is speaking from a position of privilege. Even if it's being used as a rhetorical device. Maybe especially if it's being used as a rhetorical device. It's yet another way of being That Guy.
Fortunately, synecdochic understood what I was saying even though I was angry, and addressed it, and apologized. That kind of response is so unusual that it bears mentioning, over and over again. And it's really sad, to me, that it is such an unusual response.
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