#a man alone with a woman is not an inherent threat

[leupagus]

I've seen a number of posts claiming that Rebecca choosing to stay on Boat Guy's houseboat was "incredibly stupid" or "wildly unsafe" or other such descriptors. Everyone's perspectives are valid; I certainly understand that individual people would not want to stay there in that situation, and don't get why Rebecca did.

That being said, I really disagree with the posts that think she should have left or that she was in danger. Even putting aside that this is a television show and not real life, Rebecca, had she been a real person, did not have a "death wish" merely by remaining on board and spending time with Boat Guy.

Boat Guy was clearly interested in Rebecca, even before she fell into the canal — after all, he tries to warn her about being in the bike lane first by whistling at her and then saying she's a beautiful woman. He's smitten right from the jump! And during the scenes they have together, we see him make a number of passes at her. This is a guy who saw Rebecca and thought "ooh yes please."

But that does not make him unsafe, nor does it make any of his actions "creepy," "gross," or "red flags." What it makes him is a middle-aged man speaking as an equal to a middle-aged woman, who is similarly showing sexual interest in him. And who doesn't feel the need to pretend he doesn't find her gorgeous and compelling and sexy, which again, is not a bad thing!

I suspect a lot of the folks framing this guy as predatory just... don't have a lot of personal experience of being a 40-something woman flirting with a 40-something man. And I can say, from personal experience, that it's really fucking nice to see that dynamic between them.

Because I would've stayed on that boat, you'd better believe.

[lgbtlunaverse]

I've been wrestling with two beliefs I hold simultaneously but that I previously (incorrectly) thought were contradictory: that sexuality is inherently harmless, but also that specific kinds of sexual desire have been used to enact and justify grievous harm. The notion that men's sexuality is more important than women's consent, that white men's sexual access to white women must be protected from the "threat" of men of color, the idea that this specific kind of desire is so inherent to a proper society that if you have the wrong kind of sexuality you deserve to be shunned and harmed.

How can sexuality both be inherently harmless and measurably harmful?

Anyway, the answer is very easy, and part of why I feel like we should stop treating sex as something completely unlike other things and horniness as unlike all other emotions. Because I realized that, oh, right, this happens to other feelings too.

You know another feeling that is not inherently dangerous but is frequently used to enact and justify violence? Fear.

Fear is not inherently evil. Not even if it's irrational and your level of fear does not correspond to the level of danger you're actually in. In fact, irrational fears are such a common phenomenon we literally have a word for them: phobias. Which you are not evil for having. (Am I calling phobias the fear equivalnet of kinks? Kind of... I guess)

But fear and discomfort are used all the time to harm people. Let's say some random white woman is walking home late at night, and she notices a man is following her. This man might just be walking in the same direction by coincidence, but there's a small chance he's following her on purpose. It is quite natural for the mind to wander, and we frequently fear what we do not know. Discomfort or fear, in this situation, is neither inherently harmful nor unusual. However, if this white woman has been inundated her whole life with 'stranger danger' narratives and stories of women being brutally kidnapped, assaulted, and murdered by strangers. (Even though the vast majority of female victims are killed by someone they know, most often a romantic partner or family member) and she then, by the flash of a streetlight, spots that the man following her is black, and she has also been fed a narrative that black men are inherently violent and dangerous, that feeling of discomfort is enhanced and distorted until she believes she is in genuine danger and calls the police.

Statistically speaking, that guy really was just walking in the same direction, and is unlikely to be a threat. However she has now seriously endangered him, and justified it by the fact that she was scared.

A man justifying sexual assault because he couldn't help it, he was just so attracted to her. (And she led him on! She was barely dressed!) Is weaponizing his horniness in exactly the same way as people who call the authoroties on a disabled homeless person because they were "acting weird" are weaponizing their fear.

And all emotions can be weaponized this way. Anger is used to justify domestic violence ("you shouldn't have provoked me") Happiness and fun is used to jeoparidize safety (the last 30 years of olympic games have had a death toll among construction workers of over 116. The 2022 world cup alone has an officially admitted death count of 40, but the real cost is likely in the hundreds) disgust is used so often it's hard to restrict it to a single example (queerphobia, ableism, fatphobia, racism, misogyny, it's everywhere)

Sexual desire is just one way among many where the comfort of the powerful is valued above the safety of the opressed. It's not unique, but instead painfully common. And it's useful to keep this in mind not to devalue it or deny it's happening, but because we can borrow tactics and learn from similar situations rather than getting stuck on endless debates on whether porn is intrinsically evil or not, which will get us nowhere.

[transandrobroism]

What are your thoughts on women choosing bears over men

i think that's where you end up when you view men as inherently dangerous just by virtue of being men.

and i do get why people pick the bear and defend picking the bear - it's Schrodinger's rapist and stranger danger PSAs and all the statistics about violence against women etc. i understand where that fear comes from. but a lot of it stems from radfem rhetoric that has wormed its way into mainstream feminist discussions and produced this take that men are The Problem - not because of learned behaviours, not because of the patriarchy, but just because of something inherent to men and masculinity that means men are always a danger.

so whilst i'm sympathetic to the fears that lead to women going "i'll take my chances with the bear!" i do think it's worth reflecting on why exactly so many people would rather meet an apex predator than a fellow human being who happens to be of the Wrong Gender. the scenario doesn't specify that the man in the woods is doing anything threatening: he's not wearing a MAGA hat or blasting Andrew Tate podcasts on his bluetooth speaker or leering at every woman who walks past on the hiking trail. he's just some guy in the woods minding his own business. is it easier to imagine a sympathetic wild animal than a sympathetic man? why?

and the thing is, i'm old enough to remember a time when the feminist actions du jour were things like slut walk and 'take back the night' because the whole point was women shouldn't have to be scared. that women deserve to walk around in public and feel safe. somehow we've gone backwards on that to where women living in abject terror of 50% of their fellow humans is defended as the "feminist position" and going "that seems kinda bonkers actually maybe that should not in fact be how women experience the world" is anti-feminist. how did we get here. what went wrong.

the fear of men and choosing the bear are usually justified by talking about statistics on male violence against women. these statistics point to very real problems, but the talk of stranger danger and choosing the bear elides the fact that. statistically. you are more likely to be harmed by a man you know than by a stranger. over 85% of sexual assault victims knew their attacker beforehand (see this NIJ report and this BBC article). or see the UN Women report on global violence against women: "While 55 per cent of all female homicides are committed by intimate partners or other family members, only 12 per cent of all male homicides are perpetrated in the private sphere." Or this report from the BJS in America: "76% of female murders and 56% of male murders were perpetrated by someone known to the victim". The same report also states that 21% of male homicide victims were murdered by strangers, compared to 12% of female victims.

based on actual statistics on violence rates, men are more justified in fearing strangers than women are. but the "stranger danger" myth persists, and it feeds into the radfem narrative that yes, men are an existential threat and inherently violent just for existing, and yes you should be terrified of every strange man you see on the street. it's worth asking: who benefits from this? who benefits from women being scared of strangers all the time? given the high rates of domestic violence and other violence directed at women by men they know, family members, partners or ex-partners, fathers, brothers... who is benefitting from a population of women terrified to walk into the woods alone?

the most dangerous man in the woods is the one you brought with you.

[dgrailwar]

I don’t think we ever saw Foreigner’s summoning… what happened there?

"...It's complicated. And it doesn't matter right now... I'm just a participant... a Servant in the Grail War."

However, even as unimportant as the Voyager claimed his manifestation to be, the truth was quite the opposite. For he was not a child of Echidna, or a gift from the Moon, but a true Servant of the Human Order. And so, for a moment, you were all shown a dream. Not of something ancient, but a dream of a boy who would represented a future.

Round 13Δ - Meaning of Birth - Promise

Wave after wave of monsters. Endless, spiraling, a lesser Heroic Spirit would be quickly engulfed and swallowed within the darkness. No, even a greater one. The only thing keeping this Servant alive was sheer speed and tenacity,

He didn't know why he was the only one summoned. Why the Human Order chose him in order to combat this threat.

The threat he was summoned against was a massive she-viper, with the top half of a woman, and the bottom half of a horrible serpent. And her weapon was rage. Sorrow. Curses.

Curses, for all that humanity did to her and her loved ones. Curses, that if given the chance, she would ruin humanity a thousand times over, and create a world for her children. A world of monsters, and monsters alone.

The little star listened to the goddess' anger, and responded with empathy. The world could be evil, and cruel, and unkind. Humans could be, and monsters could be too… but to try and compound that with further violence would just result in more death for her children. Rather than a world for man alone, or a world for monsters alone, a world for both.

Maybe it was a pipe dream. Maybe it would never work, but it didn't matter if it was possible or not- it mattered only if both humanity and monstrosities were willing to make the effort. An earnest belief that humans could do anything- that was the truth he held in his core, and even if that meant changing the world so drastically… well, maybe he just had to try? Maybe that was his purpose for being here?

But he couldn't speak for humanity. His body was billions of miles away… the decisions he could make for mankind would be inherently unfair. However, if mankind had emissaries sent from the planet proper, they could share their wills with the goddess. Humanity would choose the right choice- offer up their hands, and Echidna's rage would be soothed.

The goddess listened, skeptical at first. However, she knew the kindness in the little star's eyes well. He was a child of humanity- the human race was his family, every one of them a friend, a brother, a sister… a mother and a father… each one of them a miracle upon the world. However, he did not have the mind of mankind. The trickery of the heroes of Greece, or the desire for valor belonging to the heroes of Rome.

'This boy is not human, but is humanity. Therefore, his heart is honest'. Those were the thoughts of the embittered monster. And despite her anger, she found herself entranced by the little star. This tiny, flickering light.

Thus, the goddess agreed. She revealed the source of her newfound power- and newfound awakening. It was simply chance, as the world shifted her body, asleep and unconscious next to her mate, found itself upon a massive fount of magical energy. Perhaps the Fates had arranged this meeting, as the magical energy had served as a way to pin the little star to this place as well.

Such a cluster of magical energy, a 'Holy Grail' as revealed by the little star, could do the impossible. The star and the goddess spoke, and the star spoke of an ancient ritual that would allow the Grail to be used to it's full potential. Therefore, they developed a foundation. A way to bring back the children of the goddess, and perhaps lead humanity into a new world.

And so, the Grail was split into two. One half was granted to the goddess of monsters...

...And the other half was granted into humanity's hope.

And then, they created their world. An artificial world created by the combination of the Goddess' propensity for birthing life, and the schematics of the world embedded deep within the soul of the Voyager.

Regardless of the path humanity chose, the little star would support it.

To keep a close eye on the humans decided for such an endeavor, the little star made a choice. He wiped his mind of his memories, and cleared his body of the strength that he had gathered, falling deeper and deeper within the simulation. The first 'change'- the first 'delta' within the digital space, he allowed himself to overwrite his nature as a 'Voyager' and exist as a 'Foreigner', constraining himself so that he would keep himself close, without unveiling that he was another fractured part of the Grail.

And so, he began his own journey.

[blubushie]

i've seen some blogs i follow say that misandry isn't real and men aren't opressed for being men and honestly the former doesn't sit right with me. misandry is not systemic like misogyny but your answers about your experiences prove that it does indeed happen in queer spaces. masculine queer men have to prove that they aren't a threat by making themselves a walking gay caricature.

Hell men aren't just oppressed in female-dominant "cultures" (like queer spaces) but they're also oppressed by patriarchy and, in some ways, legally. They're just not oppressed in the same way women are.

Men are considered inherently stronger/better, which means women can't compete with us, which means any time a man is a victim of a woman it's automatically his fault for ALLOWING himself to be. How are you, a man, gonna let a woman hit you? (It's because even if you defend yourself, and you make the call the police, YOU'LL be arrested as the aggressor. It's your word against hers, and in domestic violence they will always favour hers.)

We are simultaneously shit on for defending ourselves, because how dare a man ever put his hands on a woman even in self defence, but at the same time if we DON'T do that, it's our fault for being abused because we didn't "resist" our abuser. This is the male version of being asked about what you were wearing when you were victimised. The only way men are ALLOWED to be recognised as victims is if you're a child and your abuser is an adult man. If it's an adult woman? Hell, kid, you're lucky.

A lot of people think men can't be raped—either because we "always want sex", or because we're expected to physically resist our rapist and win. Contrast this to women, who are told to piss themselves or scream, or just take it because maybe if you do your rapist won't kill you. (If you ask me a firearm makes a helluva equaliser, but that's a conversation for another day.) Legislation even reflects this—in the UK, for example, according to UK law, it isn't possible for a women to rape a man unless she penetrates him with an object. A woman violently raping a man, even a child, by restraining him or otherwise and forcing him into penetrating her, is merely considered sexual assault and carries a much lighter sentence than rape.

And that really sucks for someone like me, who was raped by two women while I was drunk. Who didn't even realise I was raped until a mate explained it to me, because it's normalised that women can have sex with a drunk man and that's not considered rape—not even if he blacks out and asks them to stop when he wakes up, and they keep going while he blacks out again. Like what happened to me. An even bigger kicker—a man is always considered responsible in sex. So if a drunk man and a drunk woman both agree to sex while both are intoxicated, legally HE is raping HER despite both being unable to actually consent.

This in addition to men being expected to be sole providers for a home by society—look at the current rise of women looking for a sugar daddy or red-flagging a man because he only has one car instead of two, or of men never being favoured in family court even when the mother is unable to care for the children or is abusive, or how women will weaponise visitation against fathers for spite because they know the court will side with her regardless of how good of a father he is, or the lack of men's shelters, or how DV shelters won't take women with minor children who are boys older than 12 so a woman has to either go back to her abuser with her children or leave her sons behind alone with an abusive father, of people laughing at the male loneliness epidemic and treating it like a good thing/deserved reckoning instead of recognising it as a warning sign for a flood of lost teens and young men drifting down the Andrew Tate or rapist incel misogyny pipeline, of people laughing at men's mental health month posts and outright encouraging men to commit suicide under them while men already statistically commit suicide at a higher rate than women...

Men are oppressed in some ways, I'd argue some of those ways are systemic, but no one talks or cares about it. There was a feminism wave in the 90s of "patriarchy harms everyone", which is true, but now we're on a different wave of "men are biologically evil", which is absolutely batshit fucking insane and helps no one. Bioessentialism helps no one. (Plus it's transphobic and intersexist.)

Anyway I'm gonna go back to working on my ute now.

[bassproblues]

Butch: The Good, The Meh, and The Ugly

A recent girlfriend of mine asked me about what it was like being butch. I flat out told her that, while I wouldn't have it any other way, it comes with so many problems the positives are nearly negated. I spent some more time thinking about it and feel just a tad differently. I think I spoke from a place of clouded judgement and wasn't really taking in the sum of my life. Below is my experience with butchness. And I fully own I am unique or unusual in some ways.

The Good:

* No line ever in the men's restroom.

* My body finally feels like home.

* I connect with men very well over things downstream from masculinity; hobbies, interests, traumas, and more.

* I pass as a man. People ignore me and leave me alone.

* I love it when a girl calls me handsome :)

* I am stone. My stone melts when I'm with a woman I can trust to not feminize me in the bedroom. It's a truly wonderful thing.

* I love the masculine preening that comes with butchness.

* I love being chivalrous -- spending a night on a girls couch to protect her from her ex who trashed the place, giving a woman my last $200 to pay for groceries for her and her kid.

* I love making women feel safe. I'm the one that walks them to their cars, tell their boyfriends to bug off when they get aggro, stay up late with them cause they're worried about an ex.

* I've maxed out my masculine personality (things like assertiveness, stoicism) in such a way that it perfectly contrasts my feminine traits (things like joy, gentleness). I feel like very complete and whole person.

The Meh:

* I don’t mind being called sir or ma’am, nor he or she. Neither one is offensive to me because I know that people are limited in their understanding of me unless they know me intimately.

* Gay men often hit on me. It's a very bizarre experience.

* I walk into queer spaces and feel like a goddamn space alien.

* Women expect me to be the pursuer in relationships.

* Women often regard me as some kind of exotic full-time crossdresser (see: The Ugly). As a result, they think I've got more sexual experience and am way more sexually active than I actually am.

* As a very masculine butch, I spend a lot of time defending that masculinity. It is a source of contention among LGBT and straight people alike.

* I am stone. Women often regard me in the bedroom as something they can "fix.

* AFAB Non-binary people often regard me as a gender therapist that has endless patience. I am not-- I am annoyed and want to be left alone.

* Forms and IDs with gender markers are the bane of my existence. I'm often the ridicule of police/security/ bouncers/bartenders/government pencil pushers when they realize my appearance does not resemble my sex unless I'm stripped down.

The Ugly:

* Women will 100% scream and call security and start crying when I use the women's bathroom. I have not used the women's restroom in 6 years.

* Many (ignorant) lesbians reject me outright because of my masculinity and question why they would not just date a man if they were going to date a butch.

* Lesbians and bisexuals sometimes treat me like a rare, exotic, crossdressing sex object. They can be quite predatory sometimes.

* Women and men often write me off as an inherently aggressive entity.

* Pop-feminism thinks I need to be enlightened and I don't know what's good for me. It often feels like modern day feminists admonish butches for not being more feminine in the streets and in the bedroom.

* Women sometimes think I'm butch because someone touched me as a kid and I'd grow up to hurt their kids. I was in 7th grade when a woman first expressed this fear to me.

* Men sometimes see me as a challenge to be overcome or as a threat to their identity. I can count on being jumped a few times a year.

* I pass as a man. People don't like feeling deceived.

* Women sometimes dip into 'masculinity is a lack of expression’ and forget that butches have feelings.

* Lesbians sometimes often write me off as an oppressor or a chauvinist. It often feels like I have no voice in those spaces.

[sagevalleymusings]

Man or Bear? Is a Stupid Dichotomy, but No One on Tumblr Will Believe Me

So there’s this meme that’s been going around… ‘which would you rather run into alone in the woods: a man, or a bear?’ I’ve heard a couple of variations on the answer (which of course is always ‘I choose the bear’) - at least someone would believe me about the bear attack, it depends on the bear… I’ve even heard the variant where a man will answer, well it depends on the man or the bear, but then if you ask the question, alone in the woods with a woman or a bear, well there’s no question!

Here’s the thing. I hate this thought experiment. For a lot of reasons, and I worry this essay will be nothing but me circling the point like a vulture if I try and write it without structure so as a spoiler, here’s the main three reasons: it treats violence from men against women as a personal threat and not a systemic issue, it continues to perpetuate the narrative of violence as heteropatriarchal, and it completely ignores race, even though race is highly prevalent when talking about gender and violence in America. 

Are you ready to get into it?

The Violence is Unstated but it isn’t Subtext

Whether they mean to or not, when thinking about the man or bear prompt, people are primed by the language to come to a specific conclusion. People are thinking about men and bears as two things in a set and priming themselves for the belief that if it is a choice between the two, we are assessing the threat of two different apex predators. Everyone knows why you are asking this question, so everyone whether they realize it or not is answering as though what you meant is obviously, ‘would you rather be assaulted by a man or a bear?’ All of the responses hinge on the assumption that one of the two will assault you. We are less primed to think immediately of violence if the question is ‘would you rather be alone in the woods and run into a man or a blobfish’ for example. 

But even that phrase, ‘alone in the woods’ evokes a long history of horror media and potentially even an evolutionary fear of predators. What about the question, ‘would you rather be alone in a tiger enclosure with a man, or with a tiger?’ ‘Would you rather be alone at a pet food store with a man or a coyote?’ 

Because if we’re being honest… I think I’d rather be assaulted by a bear too. And it has nothing to do with thinking that men are more physically dangerous. If my options are to be assaulted by a man or by a bear, at least a bear is alien and inhuman. It’s assaulting you for food, or for defense of her cubs, but a man would be deliberately causing another person harm, with the intent to terrorize. A bear is more likely to kill you accidentally, but there’s something about psychological violence that makes it more frightening even though it is less deadly. 

And from what I’ve seen, the responses do seem to know this. Posts that actually get into the why talk about the fear of being followed home, the frustration with not being believed, the long-term psychological damage of the consequences of rape without Roe V Wade, the jeering catcalls and general lack of empathy… it’s never about the physical danger or threat of death that a man could bring, but all the things a man could bring that a bear literally could not, which are ultimately more frightening and insidious, precisely because they are not physical.

In previous iterations of this essay, I spent a long and arduous time proving why, when people cite that bears are more violent, it’s a faulty comparison. And I want to still get into that, but I don’t want to lose sight of this point. I agree that if my options were to be assaulted by a man or a bear, I would also prefer a bear. A bear can only kill you. 

But the question isn’t ‘which would you be assaulted by’ it’s ‘run into alone.’ And because we are talking about one while meaning the other (foreshadowing) it absolutely encourages the assumption that running into a man alone is inherently a risk. I’ve seen people say this explicitly in response. I don’t like that this thought experiment leads to people talking about men as inherently violent, and I want to get into why I have a problem with that part.

But before I do, I want to be very clear that this is going to sound like me saying #notallmen, but I do take violence against women very seriously. I have never been more than casually groped by a man, which is relevant here when talking about lived experience, but I am still a woman and so I do understand the psychology that goes into having to take active precautions against violence from your fellow humans in a way that men just do not have to think about. But in the socioeconomic climate we find ourselves in, I think it bears considering that some women are thinking about male violence… a little too much. 

Crime Statistics and White Hegemony

I’ve talked about this before, but there is a difference between ‘men commit more violent crimes’ and ‘men get convicted of more violent crimes.’ But when it comes to talking about rates of violence, we talk like we are speaking about the former while using the rates of the latter. And it cannot be left unsaid when talking about rates of conviction that black men get convicted of violent crimes at much higher rates than white men. 

At the same time… there has been a real and genuine shift in our conversations about consent in the last forty years. Some of the numbers have not caught up yet but it’s important to bear in mind that violent crime of all kinds has been steadily going down for a long time. Part of the reason we don’t talk about this is because the American hegemony is reliant on prison as a form of capital and population control, and so politicians have a vested interest in keeping you specifically afraid of the dangers of violent outsiders.

It can still be propaganda even if it isn’t Mexicans specifically you are calling rapists and murderers.

This can be really hard for people who have been subject to violent crime to hear. And the numbers are pretty disappointing, even still. Patriarchal violence is real and present in America. But I will stand firm in my conviction that although violence from humans does represent a danger in the world, the way in which we talk about violence as an act men specifically do against women specifically is unhelpful for combating both systemic violence and personal violence. And even though we don’t think we’re doing ‘white women’s tears’ we absolutely are, because our statistics about violent crime in America come from conviction rates, which means we are basing our fear of all men on black men in specific. 

When is Personal Violence Systemic?

I’m going to circle back to this point about violent crime, statistics, and racism, but I want to tangent briefly to talk about statistics normalization. 

I saw one post early on which cited some actual numbers, and claimed that bears killed 8 women in North America between 2020-2022, while men killed 12,000 women in that time. 

So about that population density…

There are approximately 800,000 brown and black bears in North America, the populations responsible for those 8 deaths. Meanwhile, there are approximately 225,407,000 legally adult males in the United States and Canada. That means that the ratio of deaths per bear in North America is 0.001% per bear. And the number of murders per adult man in North America is 0.005%. That does still mean that you are five times more likely to be murdered by a man than a bear, but… that is absolutely a zero percent chance of being murdered no matter what. Does that mean I think personal protection against that slim chance is pointless? Not really, they mostly never get used but do help when they are. But it’s important to bring up how rare it is already because there is another factor here that we’re not taking into consideration. It’s called negativity bias.

Have you ever seen a bear in the wild? Probably not, right? There’s not that many and they’re mostly in the forest. I would guess that a majority of people who actually do see a bear in the woods do get attacked by that bear. You’ve been in the woods with a bear, you just didn’t see them. The majority of the time, bears don’t care about you. You are a predator, and they’re an enormous mammal that just doesn’t have the energy for that fight. Bears get a reputation as violent animals much for the same reason that sharks do - because they are a dangerous predator, and if you do see one, that’s already a step too far.

So… Have you ever seen a man? Sounds like a dumb question, you presumably have a father. But go on this journey with me. There’s a likelihood that if you are inside of the North America demographics we’ve been talking about this whole time, you do not live in a female-exclusive commune that kicks little boys out of their den the second they stop breastfeeding, yes that is a real thing. 

In which case, there are probably men you interact with. Dare I say it on a daily basis. Rural towns look safer on the surface but in fact when you adjust for population they are not, they just have less people and therefore less opportunity for disruption. This is why we have to adjust for population when we do demographics in general, but the fact that bears and people do not share the same social sphere means that adjusting for demographics does not truly normalize these two numbers. We are literally comparing apples and oranges. Are you more likely to be assaulted by the guy ringing up your groceries, or the lynx that just gave you a warning growl?

You are far more likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash, even after normalizing the data for per vehicle, per passenger, per mile, or per trip. But we don’t act like that’s true because for most people most of the time, cars are incredibly safe - millions of people drive millions of cars safely every single day. The risk is negligible not because the number of automobile accidents are low - they aren’t. It’s negligible because when accounting for daily risk, cars occur in our daily life so frequently that we stop thinking about it as dangerous.  

The risk of being attacked by a random man is, genuinely, also negligible. Choosing literally any adult man on earth to find yourself alone in the woods with versus any bear, you are physically safer choosing the man, statistically, not that you needed me to point that out because it’s the one thing the MRAs have figured out about this thought experiment and they won’t shut up about it. 

But none of that matters emotionally, because of the negativity bias. Men are more likely to be the perpetrators of violent crime. Not by as much as you would think, and more on that later, but what this means is that if something dangerous has happened to you, it was probably done by a man. This is why the response to #notallmen was #yesallwomen. We become primed to believe men are threats not because they are, but because if we’ve experienced harm, it’s been by men. And that negativity bias is a bias. The hundreds of normal interactions you have in your day to day are normal. 

But just because most men are fine doesn’t really change how people feel about it, does it? All of this stuff is subject to context, and if your context is negative, your conclusions will be negative. It depends on the man, it depends on the bear. If you see a polar bear at even twenty miles, you’re dead. Radio the base to warn them and pray to your god kind of dead. Polar bears are extremely territorial and more importantly they’re so much larger than us that they think we’re prey, which is not true of any other species of bear. I would rather be stuck in the woods with Ted Bundy than a polar bear, at least I have a chance of taking Ted Bundy in a fight. But if I have to choose between a sun bear and Matt Walsh, I’m definitely okay chilling with the sun bear. Hell, there is a long list of men no longer in my life right now that I wouldn’t choose before a sun bear. So believe me, I do get it. 

Heteropatriarchal Assumptions

But the thing is, I would absolutely say it depends on the woman and it depends on the bear. I was living with four people, and the cops showed up because the two women got into a fist fight. My ex girlfriend was abusive. I moved three hundred miles because a woman was stalking me.

Women can also be violent. To quote from me: Women are less likely to be reported as perpetrators of violent crime, more likely to receive smaller sentences or warnings for the same crimes, and more likely to use methods which aren't considered assault (like emotional abuse). And when you look at self reports instead of crime statistics, the gender gap is much lower.

I had this complaint about #metoo when it first came around and people started posting the corresponding hashtag #believewomen. For starters, it doesn’t take almost any kind of queer domestic experiences into consideration. It’s hard to talk about for example partner violence in lesbian separatist circles where they firmly believe that violence is a male only behavior. The few times I tried mentioning people I knew who weren’t women who’d been raped or assaulted by women, I was told to sit down and shut up, because this conversation was about male violence against women and nothing else. And yeah, sure, it is… but it shouldn’t be. 

Which I think is a good opportunity to circle back to negativity bias, because I did check those murder rate statistics by the way. 

The number of women murdered in the United States and Canada between 2020-2022 was nearly exactly 12,000 - it was 12,075. This isn’t women murdered by men by the way - it’s all women murdered, regardless of the gender of the perpetrator. I can’t say for certain how many women were murdered by men specifically (most crimes are more frequently in-group violence), but I can say specifically that only about 78% of the perpetrators were men.

And also 77% of the victims. The number of men murdered in the same time frame was 44,715. Over three times higher. The numbers from our ‘man or bear’ folks deliberately remove the 6 men killed by bears and over forty-thousand men murdered in the same time frame. 12,000 looks pretty scary if the number you are comparing it to is 8. But it doesn’t look very large at all if the number you’re comparing it to is 44,000. 

‘Men are murdered at disproportionately high rates compared to women’ is a thing which at this point would feel true if I said it, but again we’re looking at conviction rates. I got these US numbers straight from the FBI. Both the US and Canada notoriously have a high number of missing and murdered women. 

Wait, I think I’m missing a word in there… oh right. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

Oops All Racism

That’s right I’m talking about race again. I find it almost offensive as a white woman when I hear other white women talking about the threat of violence as an epidemic. The demographic info everyone is sharing about murders disproportionately represents people of color in the perpetrator column and the victim column. That 12,000 number just isn’t about me. We cannot have this conversation unless we are willing to look at intersectionality. I will 100% always and without reservation believe a black or brown woman when she says that she feels threatened. But I extend less grace to my fellow white women. We have been tools of white hegemony for a long, long, long time. America’s system of oppression, including patriarchal oppression, relies on our fear of male violence to maintain control.

I cannot help but have a conspiratorial voice in my head whispering that it serves white hegemony to keep me, a white woman, afraid of men in general while pretending that it’s not black men we’re talking about. From a practical standpoint, a fear and distrust of all men has not and does not lead to white men being convicted at the same rate. Even if you use the language of feminism to justify that fear. What it does lead to is continued reliance on a criminal justice system which fails to arrest for crimes committed, fails to convict for crimes arrested, and disproportionately punishes people of color and black men in specific as an extension of slavery. 

If I find myself alone in the woods with a black man, let’s be real here… the threat in that space is not the man. It’s me. 

So What Now?

In conclusion, I think that painting men as the target of our ire in a conversation about patriarchal violence is the wrong tactic, because it teaches a fear of personal violence that from a sociological perspective bears out in increased policing of black and brown men only. I believe that the conversation we should be having about male violence is about politics and systems and not about personal interactions. 

Brock Turner served half his sentence. Bill Cosby’s conviction was overturned only three years after the court case. Harvey Weinstein’s case is going to retrial right now. All of these people are household names - deeply vilified by most of the country. But it doesn’t matter. They are still free from consequences. 

People are not the problem here. Systems are. Systems which privilege the rich and powerful, which give the benefit of the doubt to the perpetrator, and which discourage restorative justice. Post #metoo, we’ve genuinely made enormous strides on interpersonal relationships. It simply is not the case that the average person will refuse to believe you if you tell them you are the victim of a crime, even sexual assault. But in the court of law, a jury is legally required not to believe you unless the evidence is overwhelmingly otherwise. 

I hate the thought exercise ‘man or bear’ because it highlights that there is a real problem but does nothing to attempt to solve it. And at this point in the conversation I am done underlining believe women in bright bold sharpie. I know where people stand by now, they’ve had plenty of time to figure this out. But I don’t need Mitch McConnell to get it in his bones why I’d cuddle with a black bear than spend five minutes in a room alone with him in order to get some fucking laws passed around here. And I think that while we focus on the fear of personal violence broadly, we lose some ability to control what laws exactly we’re talking about. Are ankle bracelets a safe and effective means of reintegration? How do we divest funds from overpolicing and into community care? Has increased security in secluded parks (where the question ‘man or bear’ is relevant) actually increased safety, or has it merely increased state violence toward vulnerable populations such as racial minorities, unhoused people, and persons with mental health issues? 

Yes we need to fix patriarchal violence in our country. And we have been. We’ve literally been watching this happen for years. And it’s for that reason for me that I think the man or bear thought experiment feels like a second wave argument in a fourth wave era. Feminism cannot continue to be about protecting women from men without taking into account the ways in which intersections of privilege affect those relationships, including the ways in which white women have power in this society and ‘man or bear’ completely flattens a lot of the conversation and work we’ve already been doing. 

I believe in our ability to have nuanced conversations about violence, and ‘I’d choose the bear’ isn’t it. 

[atopvisenyashill]

Another hot take. The only reason the Greens fought against Rhaenyra taking the throne was her lack of dick and the only reason they championed Aegon was his. It had zero to do with character or ruling style. Rhaenyr could pull a Laenor and claim his wife's bastards were his. If he had all little sisters, the Greens, from Otto on down, would try to marry them to the Strong princes!

I'm not following that last part there, I'm assuming you mean that if Aegon had had all daughters the Greens would have tried marrying them to Rhaenyra's boys? Or are you saying if Rhaenyra was a man who claimed her wife’s bastards, they’d try to marry them anyway? I think?

Anyways, no yeah, that's why I have that line in my pinned post:

I’m well aware Rhaenyra has plenty of faults but the greens do not like her because of her gender, and not for stuff she does that’s actually wrong. Argue with the wall.

They usurp her because she's a "whore" not because she has a temper or because she tied herself to Daemon. They offer her terms that are basically "you can have the castle you already have and also we're taking your youngest as hostages" and she's just supposed to accept that they'll keep their word there, and because she says "fuck off if you think you're getting your hands on any of my kids" Aegon calls her a whore and doesn't even attempt to try renegotiating with her. No one offers to Orys Baratheon this shit earlier - giving a Targaryen bastard an important seat and an official spot in the line of succession is not actually without precedent!!! - or without the threat of her youngest children being murdered hanging over it. No one assures her that they’re not going to take her head off for having children out of wedlock. No one looks at the inherent issue as to WHY she’s having these bastard children. They completely focus in on her acting improperly as a woman and use that alone to justify the coup and not shit like Vaemond’s execution, her association with Daemon, because they genuinely don’t give a shit about that - why would they, when Aemond, Aegon, and Daeron do the exact same stupidly violent shit because that’s what being a feudalistic ruler means.

Alicent I do have some sympathy for because her father puts her in a weird position but Otto is not only the dumbest man alive, his bitch ass deserved his death a hundred times over. He purposefully fucks with the GC 101 because he doesn't like Daemon, enables Viserys' avoidance issues wrt legitimacy, then immediately sets about undoing the legal loophole he just fucking created. He raises Rhaenyra up as crown princess with his own damn hand, then makes his daughter Queen and says "haha oopsie nevermind" and expects that Rhaenyra will feel like her life is not being dicked around without regard for her safety, and that she wouldn’t be under a very clear and present danger if she just gave up and handed the crown over. If Rhaenyra is a monster, she’s a monster Otto created himself, except he doesn’t have to live with the consequences of her fear - he gets to die early when she takes the Capital. It’s Aegon the Younger, Jaehaera, Alicent, Baela, Rhaena, and the people of King’s Landing that they trap in the city like lambs to a slaughter that pay the ultimate price, and they never recover, not a single one of them!

[marchenkonig]

I feel like I have to appologize before posting this, but I still have to post it because I’m so bad at really understanding how I’m feeling unless I talk about it and put it out there. I guess I’ll put it under a read more

I don’t want to be a man. I do not want to be perceived as a man. I don’t want 50% of the population to see me as a threat, as inherently a predator. I don’t want to be a man. So I turn and look and I see trans women and they’re the most beautiful people on earth. They’re gorgeous they’re so genuine. Sincere. Their hobbies their art their love is just so unapologetic about being themselves and loving who and what they love. The way they talk about their relationships and their partners is beautiful.

I want to be one of them. I want to be in the sisterhood of what from the outside looking in is just endless, unconditional love and acceptance and radical sincerity. It’s beautiful.

But I feel like I can’t like that’s not me. I would just be an imposter because I don’t want to be a woman. Sure I’m obsessed with femininity but I don’t experience Dysphoria, I don’t wish I was born a woman. When I really break it down, the gender I wish I was isn’t “Woman” it’s “Trans Woman”, and then I feel guilty for making a distinction. Like the fact I see them as not the same means I already failed the test and am barred from entry. It feels like a fundamental disconnect that can’t be overcome.

And it hurts. It hurts to see people living the life I’ve always dreamed of. Struggling and having their own problems, sure, but still loving with their whole heart and putting their sincere selves out there. It hurts to see that and feel like there’s an invisible barrier between my life and that. So I have to live my life as just some guy. Perceived as a man. Perceived as a threat, society unable to see what I see when I think about myself. I wanna be seen as Small. Cozy. Loving. Cute. Feminine. I don’t want to be perceived by woman hiking alone as a worse alternative than a literal wild animal.

But it all feels fake. It feels like I’m doing this for the wrong reasons. That it’s selfish, that I don’t experience the symptoms. And then it’s a whole mess of imposter syndrome. My friends use she her pronouns for me, they assure me that just wanting it is enough. That I am one of them, but if that’s the case why don’t feel like it. Why do I still think of myself as a boy, use male gendered language for myself in my head. Why is there the fear. The disconnect. Why can’t I just be happy. I just wanna feel like I belong.

And so this is just my life. Doomed to forever just fucking ruminate in this and cry, parked at a gas station pump for an hour and a half, waiting for my turn to be happy. I don’t want to live like this. I don’t want to be caught crying at my desk at work.

[invinciblerodent]

Hello!! I am so in love with the Veilguard companions already and I am 👀 very curious about your own opinions. Do you have an idea of what companion you would want to romance with your first character? Did you have a character that really stood out to you as a character you want to get to know better?

For Inquisition my immediate favourite character was Dorian for many a reason, but with Veilguard I'm less sure - from appearances alone I'm a little in love with Davrin and Bellara but I honestly find them all really interesting.

Oooh, bless your little SOUL for giving me a reason to rant!! Thank you for asking, I am blowing you many, many kisses and offering many an apology for the unfiltered thoughtstream below, lol.

As much as I've been yearning for a romanceable dwarf companion for a literal decade and a half, and as delighted as I am to see Harding most likely fill that niche (fingers, toes, and all crossable appendages crossed), I can't deny that I'm just.... immediately drawn to Davrin, to a degree I absolutely did not expect. Which is honestly not like me at all, but there is just something about the introduction, his voice, and the fact that he is (or seems to be) a genuine Grey Warden, from Weisshaupt (who probably knows the Warden-Commander!!!!), that just struck such a chord with me.

I've always loved the sheer dramatics of the Wardens: that sense that a happy ending is pretty much impossible for them, them being duty-bound and required to throw their lives at the threat in the event of a Blight regardless of their personal feelings, the constant ticking of the clock from the moment of their Joining that's counting down to their tragic deaths, the undercurrent of doom that they inherently carry just by being who they are, them being both the sickness and the cure at the same time, it just.... I love it.

Even if in the game there will be an opportunity to cure him of the Taint (which I'm guessing might happen, since it's been kind of a thread that's been following the story since Origins, and it sounds like a fitting story arc to give to the one Warden character guaranteed to show up), I think without knowing anything else, that already makes for a nice, solid base for a story, even a romance. And, him being described as a bold and charming monster hunter on top of that, that's just really, really appealing to me. He's got kind of a slight Wyll Ravengard, but there are a number of characters that fit that description that I really like (my partner's first thought was Xenk Yendar from Honor Among Thieves)- AND he's gonna share a voice actor with Javik from ME3, so I'm like, sold immediately. Like, listen to this man speak. Come on now.

...... This, of course, could be overwritten in a second- my immediate first impression is that the character I have planned (only in the vaguest of terms) might very reasonably fall for someone like that, but it's almost equally likely that any one of them will just bat their eyelashes at my girl, and she'll (I'll. lbr, I'll.) be a lost woman, lol.

There's honestly not a character in this lineup that I can't see myself getting very interested in. Davrin is a definite standout (god I hope we'll get to call him Dav), but Bellara is is kind of giving me a similar feeling as Peebee did when Andromeda was revealed, so I'm very curious as to how that'll work out (she's SO CUTE??? and described as a ROMANTIC????? HELLO??????), and Taash's vibe, I really like so far- especially her name. Like, I'm sure it's derived from "ataashi" (yknow, qunlat for dragon) and means something like "Glory" or "Greatness", but I'm very curious to see how she and these "Lords of Fortune" will play into the overall plot. I only vaguely recall them being mentioned in the netflix show (Absolution) which I've only seen once when it was released, so I'm flying totally blind on them, lol.

But also, a Mortalitasi companion is inherently just really cool, especially considering how little we know about Nevarra, Neve is the POV character in Streets of Minrathous (from Tevinter Nights) which I'll HAVE to reread but remember also being cool (upon a quick googling that's not the one Dorian shows up in, I got excited because I could have sworn and thought she'd know him then), and Lucanis is in The Wigmaker Job (same book) which I'll ALSO have to reread but ALSO remember being one of the stories I liked most in that book, and just.....

Head in my hands, they all sound so fun, every last one of them. I'm reading The Missing (the comic, I think the only one I've not read yet) in another tab literally right now, and I'm like bouncing in my seat over the buddy-cop back-and-forth between Harding and Varric. I don't remember being this giddy about a game release.... literally ever. The only comparable event was Andromeda for me (I didn't have time to be excited about Inquisition, I was still oblivious and playing DA2 for the first time when it came out), but even though I love both, deep in my heart of heats I'm so much more of a Dragon Age girlie than I am a Mass Effect fan.

..... For my Rook, I decided I think sometime around 2017-2018 or thereabouts that her name is going to be Verbena (like the plant, Ver for short), and I think she's going to be human warrior, or the closest thing to it, depending on how classes are gonna work- because as much as dwarves are my favorite, and as much as I think the trade relationships with dwarves that Tevinter have could play really interestingly into the story, I've learned my lesson from playing a Cadash, and I'm gonna go with a standard height race for my first run. (I don't wanna miss the action the first time around because of a slightly off camera angle and a misplaced table leg, lol.)

I've only thought of Ver in the vaguest of terms, no backstory, just vibes and associations (primarily based on the name), and kind of a voice, but I don't wanna plan too far ahead or too specifically on anything, I'm just very excited to just explore things as they come! ❤️❤️❤️

[lanabotomy]

The Female Rage Consumes Me

“Female rage,” sounded like an oxymoron for the majority of my life. The characterization of the words alone create this kind of juxtaposition that seems unrealistic. Female; womanly, kind, soft, gentle, all these words just to portray this image of innocence and purity. Rage; ugly, consuming, violent, the word itself feels inherently masculine. And yet, I watch and listen as the rage fully envelope and consume me.

I don’t know when the idea of Female Rage enraptured my brain, but I could say it started when I read a silly little book by Margaret Atwood called The Robber Bride.

“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”

The idea that I can never fully be myself without the ever lurking man watching me, sexualizing me, consuming me like a piece of media only to be spat out once I fulfilled his satisfaction, it disgusts me. To worsen the matter, I know deep in my soul, that if I wasn’t desired, I wouldn’t know who to be. I don’t even know which parts of me are real or which parts of me have been created in pursuit of this ideal “male fantasy” I have created in my head subconsciously, and that enrages me even further.

Is the rage I feel even valid? Maybe my rage is actually just a deep rooted fear, a fear of what has or what could happen to me. I remember those lurking eyes on me since the age of 9, taking out the trash around 9PM in my galaxy leggings, those men yelling at me, asking me where I am from and where I live, what plans I had. All I could do was run in fear. I remember being 6, my mother’s boyfriend holding my hand and telling me that he’d marry my mother one day, what felt like a threat, those peering eyes undressing me, that hand burning a hole through me, as if the ghost of his perverted touch was still there. Or maybe it was those days in school when I would get groped, almost daily by the boys, the teachers said I was more developed and to expect those things, to wear less revealing clothes. I wore star wars shirts, lord of the rings shirts, and DC clothes. What was so sexually appealing about that? The worst memory of all…. I was forced out of my dorm room while 5 drunk guys stayed with us, none of them my guests. I remember just wanting to sleep. I remember one of those guys being weird, and avoiding him all night. I was so tired that night, and yet I didn’t want to sleep. He snuck into my bed, put his hand over my mouth, and did what he needed to do to satisfy himself. The unwanted touching, the unwanted stares, the unwanted attention. I feel like a walking piece of meat in the land of hungry wolves; A temptation to be consumed.

The rage that consumes me comes from a place of fear, and a place of knowing that I cannot be helped. One in three women experience sexual assault within their life, one in five experience rape, and yet only one in one thousand rapists face persecution, and that is only from reported cases. More than 2 out of 3 cases go unreported. Those are just the basic statistics. Imagine them in other situations; homeless women, women in 3rd world countries, women of color, women in the military, queer women, women in prisions, women in situations where they are helpless. I cant even begin to fathom the stories that would pile up beside me if I was able to speak to every woman, every feminine person, everyone who has a story.

To be so helpless in a world that doesn’t support me, it’s simply sickening. And I live the “Land of the Free, Land of endless Opportunities.” I feel the rage of my sisters, or the women around the world who know and understand me.

[thebutchtheory]

an opening to what's hopefully a serious discussion on 'transandrophobia'

for a long time, i've wanted to open a discussion about this subject. all of this is genuine, and meant with no intentions but to open discussion on the subjects of transmisogyny and transandrophobia. not hateful discourse, a calm discussion.

any harassment, death threats, insults, slurs, and similar behavior will be blocked and ignored. this post is meant to spark calm discussions, not harassment and discourse. if you find yourself getting overwhelmed or too angry, step away before coming back to the discussion.

[post is long, so it will be under a cut]

defining 'transandrophobia'

transmascs i've spoken to who believe in transandrophobia explain and define it like this: (not a direct quote from anyone)

transandrophobia is not the intersection of being trans and being a man, because men are not oppressed on the basis of their gender. transandrophobia is instead the intersection of being trans(masculine) and perceived as a woman.

we [transmascs], when we tell others that we are men/transmasculine, are told that we're only identifying as such because we want privilege or safety, or because of internalized misogyny, that we believe being a woman is bad. for (mentally) disabled transmascs, (such as in JKR's statement that specifically brings up autistic transmascs) they are often told that they are too disabled to decide their gender for themselves, that they're just disabled women who 'think' that they're men.

transandrophobia is characterized very deeply by the misogyny that transmasculine people experience. one cannot say that it's 'misdirected misogyny' when it is specifically directed at us for being perceived as women by the people oppressing us and expressing violence against us, for being transmasculine.

so to reiterate and condense, 'transandrophobia' is defined largely as 'the intersection of being transmasculine and perceived as a woman and the intersection of the transphobia and misogyny that transmasculine people experience'.

(note: this is not saying that trans men experience transmisogyny, as transmisogyny is the experience of the intersection between being trans and an actual woman, and the combination of transphobia and misogyny that trans women experience for being perceived as both "weak, effeminate men that need to be fixed" and "evil, predatory men that want to invade women's spaces".)

note the explicit lack of referencing being a man/masculine or any oppression against men for being male. 'transandrophobia' is largely not defined as 'the intersection of being trans and a man' or 'the intersection of transphobia and oppression against men for being male', at least not at all from what i've seen.

arguments against transandrophobia

however, when speaking to someone who is anti-the concept of 'transandrophobia', you get someone saying something like this:

there is no such thing as 'transandrophobia' because oppression against men based on gender alone doesn't exist. there is no intersection between transphobia and misandry because there's no systemic oppression against men on the basis of being men. a cisgender, heterosexual man will never have his rights as a person debated.

or even worse:

trans men aren't oppressed because they're men. they inherently have male privilege on the basis of being men.

to discuss the first argument: when speaking to people who believe in transandrophobia, they're not talking about oppression against men for being men, they're talking about oppression against transmasculine people on the basis of being perceived as (masculine/'mutilated'/'wrong') women for having transitioned or wanting to transition.

this is a kind of misogyny that cis women generally do not experience because they are women--save for cases when WOC are perceived as men for having natural features of their race that are perceived by larger white societies as 'masculine', in which case they are victims of racism and misdirected transmisogyny/transphobia.

this is also not a kind of misogyny that trans women will generally experience, either, because they are perceived as men (in various forms), by wider society, or as women who cannot be feminine enough to get away from their perceived masculinity/maleness by 'allies' and 'supportive' parts of the queer community, and are thus treated differently based on that perception.

to discuss the second argument: i see this argument from baeddels and transmascs alike, for some reason, but it needs to be said: transmascs do not have male privilege because we are not perceived as men by wider society, we are perceived as women. perceived women, no matter how they identify, do not have male privilege. even if they pass, if it's made known that they're trans, they are perceived as 'wrong women' or 'women who mutilated their bodies' and are infantilized and pitied because oppressors believed we did something 'horrible' to ourselves for 'safety' or 'male privilege', raped in transphobic attacks meant to 'fix' us and make us 'back into women' or for similar transphobic arguments, etc. that doesn't sound like male privilege to me.

many trans people are not going to pass enough to gain any kind of advantage in society. that is just a fact of life. even on T, many trans men are still 'clockable' by oppressors. even on E, with voice training or FFS, many trans women are still going to be 'clockable' by oppressors, as depressing as it is.

this doesn't even take into account the many, many trans people that can't or don't want to transition medically. or, the fact that transmasc does not mean male. many transmasculine butches experience very deep levels of homophobia/lesbophobia, transphobia, and other forms of oppression for being butch.

there is no privilege gained in transitioning to another gender. you can't just identify yourself into any privilege or advantage in society. if trans people can understand that being transfeminine doesn't give you any advantage in (women's) sports, then you can understand that being transmasculine doesn't give you any kind of inherent privileges in society, and in fact, invites more violence into one's life than if they were cisgender.

further discussion and my understanding of 'transandrophobia'

now, it's my understanding that 'transmisogyny' was coined to express the intersection between trans(femme)phobia and the misogyny they experience for being women who are perceived as 'wrong men', 'predatory men', 'men in dresses', 'not women, not men', or other 'facsimiles' of femininity.

i also understand that, by that logic, it makes sense why people would be angry at the potential implications at a term like 'transandrophobia', which according to many people implies oppression against men based on gender alone, which is not something that exists.

however, from what i've seen, there's no good way to word the specific kinds of misogyny and transphobia that transmascs experience for being trans and perceived as women that makes everyone happy. i mean you could co-opt 'transmisogyny' to refer to trans men as well, however that is something i am deeply against.

the best substitute term i've been able to come up with while writing this is 'transphobic misogyny', and even that i don't feel is a very good term due to its similarity to 'transmisogyny' as a term.

another term i could come up with is 'transmascphobia' or '(anti) transmasculine transphobia'. i have no idea if that has already been coined, but it personally feels a little better than 'transandrophobia' and especially 'transmisandry'. however, i'm not quite sure if i like it regardless.

so all of that said, i'm going to list some experiences of 'transandrophobia' and other forms of (generally) tranmasculine-specific forms of transphobia based on my experiences and the experiences of other transmasculine people i know of:

hyper-invisibility and historical erasure: transmascs are not privileged for being invisible. invisibility means erasure and forced silence. trans men of the past have their histories spoken over as 'revolutionary women who went about life as men'. our attempts to be recognized as men, both in life and death, are seen as revolutionary stories... for women.

infantilization: when a person comes out as transmasculine, best case scenario, they're told something along the lines of 'that's cute sweetie' and brushed off and referred to as female regardless because our attempts at masculinity are seen as feminine regardless. we're seen as "cute" attempts at being male. we're also treated as if we only 'want' to be men because of male privilege or past violence from men to be safe, and are belittled, pitied and disregarded because of that perception. once again, best case scenario. all of this ties in very much part of the 'soft trans boy' stereotype that overtook tumblr for years.

misogyny: because we are perceived as 'wrong women' by larger society, we are treated like perceived women who society does not like; we are beaten, locked up by family members or, in the past, mental hospitals and/or lobotomized, raped in transphobic attacks that are meant to 'fix' us, and more. we are told that we're stupid women who don't know what they want, and are abused into silence. cishet men in particular abuse us in these manners because they believe they own (perceived) women, and when we come out as men and transition, they feel that something (a (perceived) woman, which they feel they own) is taken from them. this is not 'misdirected misogyny', this is a form of misogyny and transphobia pointed directly at trans men for being trans men.

reproductive oppression: part of the misogyny we experience as trans men is reproductive oppression, such as getting forcibly sterilized or denied the access we need to birth control because of the perception that we are women, and thus our 'job' is to have children, transmasc or not. we are also denied the right to have children, in that we are oppressed for wanting to get or getting pregnant and giving birth and are frequently denied entry to what's seen as 'women's only spaces', such as at women's clinics, for routine procedures like mammograms and pap smears, abortions, as well as seeking treatment for things such as vaginal infections.

ableism: in the case of (mentally) disabled trans men, we are very frequently denied the dignities of our genders because we are seen as 'too disabled' to know what we want, or oppressors see us as having been mislead or abused or groomed or whatever, into 'thinking' that we're trans. what comes to mind is JKR's statements made specifically about autistic trans men, who she believes have been tricked or groomed into believing that they are men.

there are probably more things that are not coming to mind, but these are some big ones off the top of my head.

my questions to the trans community

so with all of this said, here are my questions directed at the trans community. these are all genuine, and have no malice or ill intent behind them, so i am hoping that they are answered the same way.

why are we against trans men also having language to describe these experiences? what exactly are transmascs stealing or taking from transfemmes if they have language to describe their experiences?

what does the community gain when shutting down discussions of transmasculine-specific transphobia, and continuing to destroy solidarity between transmascs and transfemmes by behaving as if there are no shared experiences between our two groups?

what, if any, other terms could be used or created to describe the experiences of transmasculine specific transphobias that encompass the experiences of being transmasculine/a perceived woman by society, and experiencing transphobic misogyny?

conclusion

i'm hoping this post can help people better understand arguments for 'transandrophobia', and open a bigger dialogue on the subject within the trans community.

once again, this is all very genuine and meant with no intentions other than to open discussion on the subject of 'transandrophobia' and why it is or is not valid as a term, what other better terms could be used, and the experiences of anti-transmasculine transphobia.

[drbased]

The Two Genders: Part 1

There are two genders: the attractive and the attracted. (Straight) Men believe it is their birthright to be the person who feels attraction whilst women, straight, bi and gay alike, are alienated from our attraction. Women liking muscly fireman hunks is a coy joke; scraps thrown to the unwashed masses to keep them from revolting. After all, men are secretly laughing at us, for they know that no women is going to seek out, let alone get a muscly fireman hunk. The 'ideal' of man is seen as no more than one of physical fitness, admired not because of some inherent sexual quality - unlike a woman's purely sexual curves. It is women who possess some sort of universal, inherent sexual nature; it is women who are attractive, and the idea that women could be attracted to anyone else is laughable because the woman's role in this dichotomy is so clearly outlined by the lines of her body.

When women find men attractive, they are merely operating on some sort of base, animalistic understanding of attraction: they are simply recognising physical fitness, nice aromas (like aftershave), and attributes that signal a man's ability to provide (like money, a nice car, etc.) and thus they form these collection of ultimately disparate things into some sort of rudimentary 'attraction' - a subhuman, lesser form of attraction that is of no real threat. Meanwhile, Lesbians and bi women are merely correctly recognising what men have always seen. But since they, like all women, have no real ability to feel attraction, they are also no threat. All women are beautiful, we are told.

If all women are beautiful, and I am not beautiful, am I not a woman? If I am not a woman, then what am I? Certainly not a man, for their personhood is embraced regardless of, or perhaps even because of, their ugliness. Men seem to go out of their way to not be attractive; many of them disavow personal hygiene, 'pretty boy' is an insult, even 'men's lingerie' seems to be suspiciously lacking in any frills or lace. Men do not want to be seen as gay because, unlike women, men recognise a man's fundamental humanity, and therefore his ability to show real, genuine attraction: that is why gay men are an 'abomination'. The universality of the straight male sexuality is the cornerstone of patriarchal order, so anything that implies that men can be attractive is seen as largest threat of all.

For the patriarchy to function, it must be recognised as a universal law. Men are capable of seeing a beauty in women that is sublime, that is above nature. And it must be above nature, for men must be above nature. Men have made it into the core of their existence how they are driven by sublime desire; in their minds, rape is not a base, animalistic horror but an exercising of transcendent attraction. Men are so attracted to women that they, as we're told, will start wars over 'beautiful' women; they will endlessly pursue their chosen woman; they will collect women (in harems, in porn); they will batter and abuse and rape women in order to keep them. This is all, as they understand it, 'proof' of their ability to experience attraction and desire. The fact that women do not do these things is used as proof that she does not experience attraction the way men do. This is combined with the biological fact that a woman can be forced down and forcibly impregnated, thus showing that their lack of desire is built into their very nature. Women simply cannot force and rape and claim the way men can, therefore they cannot transcend nature and exercise the most human of attributes: desire, want, attraction.

However, we're now told that rape is wrong, that stalking is wrong, that even a scene in a film where the camera pans up a woman's universally attractive legs is 'objectifying' her (which is a bad thing). Also, gay men are no longer a threat to the patriarchal order, demonstrably because gay men are in the public eye and women have not seen through the male ruse yet. In fact, women seem to be more accepting of the idea of themselves as the attractive than ever before, despite the 'woke mob' ruining everything. Men are certainly terrified of even the most minor cultural developments, for we would not have gamergate and the incel movement and neonazis without it; this is because men feel that they have lost a core component of how they understand themselves in relation to the universality of their desires. If man is not above nature, if man is not transcendent, how will he survive?

[klienerp]

Arriving to the Weirwood's entrance Harwin found Ser Zoltan Clegane, Princess Nyssa's personal guard and commander of the king's guard standing guard, slowly turning his head toward Harwin's direction. A cocked eyebrow and cold stare told Harwin that Lady Lyanna must indeed be in the King's Wood with the princess. Resigned with a sigh, Harwin stood straight and tall in front of his commander and waited for being told off. And waited. And waited.

"It takes time, Strong" Clegane finally said, his tone low, and surprisingly, a tad softer than his usual grating voice. His gaze shifted into the wood where the two sitting female forms were visible among the trees. "They are vexing beyond reason, but they are wee butterflies. Do you understand?" the edge of Clegane's voice returned as his flashing eyes bore into Harwin's, and Harwin understood the threat and reprehension for Harwin's failure to protect and shadow his charge.

"Make sure you won't lose her out of your sight again."

"Sir" Harwin bowed his head and turned his gaze toward the two women.

⚔️Ser Harwin

"Don't," Lyanna begged softly and shook her head at the princess, "I will not hear it about him, I don't care who he is and how many ladies are lining up to put their tribute around his lance. I don't need a guard, I am a woman, not a child."

Nyssa spotted Clegane and Ser Strong behind Lyanna but said nothing. Even from a distance, she could easily make the man's good features. He was almost as tall as Clegane, his shoulders sturdy, and his dark long curls framed a commonly bearded face.

She remembered what Clegane told her about his nicknames and what he thought was more suitable and smiled to herself.

"Lyanna... I love you like a sister, but what you did on my name's day was terribly dangerous, what if you encountered robbers in the woods?"

"I was armed and not alone." Lyanna moved to half-sit, beginning to look frustrated. She knew she had earned her father's punishment that night, but despite that, had a hard time accepting it. "You know he wanted to marry me off that night..." she added bitterly, remembering all the pompous men who leered at her as if she was nothing but her title and her father's inherence.

"Please, help me, Nyssa..."

"Fine," Nyssa nodded, "I will speak to my father on your behalf, but I can't promise anything. In the meanwhile, Lyanna, perhaps you can enjoy the privilege of being accompanied by Ser Strong. I heard they call him Breakbones, as he is known to be the strongest man in Westeros."

Lyanna snorted and jumped to stand, crossing her arms together.

"However," Nyssa smirked, "Clegane calls him: Ser Breakbones Breakhearts Strong because..."

"I don't care if he is the strongest, smartest or has the biggest cock in Westeros, I won't suffer that big burly brute for one more minute." Lyanna dared and walked backward when her back hit something sturdy, and she heard the clink of metal chiming in her ears.

[softersinned-arc]

@cllairmont said: You’ll think it’s love, while he dines on your heart. 

There are moments when she thinks they’re close—or, at least, closer than they were—to peace between them. Their distaste for one another has been a source of infinite amusement, for one another and for his family, but at the end of the day they can part without real animosity. And Astoria has explained it a dozen different ways: their mutual distaste for one another in Henry’s court outliving the king who observed it, or the insult of their vastly different approaches to the same faith (and she knows that to each, the other’s flagrant disregard for true Catholicism, at least in the eye of the beholder, is more horrifying than an outright conversion could be), or—and they both laughed at this, and Astoria felt almost smug to have a shared joke between them—insecurity born of his mother’s obvious pleasure in another woman who shares in her hatred of witches.

          The truth is far more simple. They are simply incompatible, in every way that matters and in every way they cannot hide. Matthew laments his damnation and Astoria revels in her own. Matthew follows his father’s orders, sometimes biting his tongue bloody to avoid having to challenge Philippe, no matter the personal cost and Astoria has fully given herself over to the sacrifice demanded of a de Clermont, even (particularly) by marriage. Matthew betrays his own and punishes himself for it, and Astoria kills her kin and recounts the details like she’s describing a rather thrilling hunt. (She is.) What it comes down to, she thinks, is that Matthew is a good man. Cruel, certainly, and capricious, without a doubt, but he is driven in so many regards by a desire to be good above all else, and Astoria is anything but.

          It’s not her first visit to Sept-Tours. Though to be accurate, it’s not so much a visit, anymore: it’s a homecoming, and from the moment Baldwin swept her across the threshold bearing his scent and his bite and his name she has become as much a de Clermont as she could be, not only in his eyes but in the family’s, still gathered together to grieve Godfrey. The mourning period allowed them to delay any formal marriage but it is a delay alone, and it’s clear that planning a wedding is a respite. (Not that Astoria has had to lift a finger; all she needs to do, it seems, is idly mention something she likes, and Baldwin is there to take note of it and make whatever arrangements must be made. As you wish, wife, he’d teased when she laughed in disbelief and asked if the de Clermonts’ apparent status as wearh royalty would mean she should expect a public consummation. It occurs to her that she should probably make sure that he was, in fact, teasing; she’d have done so in the moment, but he had taken her hand in his and pressed his lips to her knuckles and she had responded by tugging him into her and kissing him and everything really is a bit of a blur after that.)

          It’s more than indulging in grief; that much Astoria could understand, and would respect without question. Matthew sits in his shame. And it doesn’t bother her, except that it does. She cares little for Matthew’s good opinion, no doubt lost forever, but she finds that she’s become a rather doting wife and that any threat to her husband’s happiness, or even simply his peace of mind, is particularly appalling to her these days.

          They are in Philippe’s library when it happens, debating yet again—this time it’s the nature of the soul that consumes them. They bicker back and forth about medieval theology and the penetrability of the soul and the potential of evil influence leads to a discussion on the nature of evil.

          “We are above questions of good and evil, Matthew,” she insists at the top of the third hour of their discussion and as she pours the last of their fourth bottle of wine into her own cup. “At least theologically. If we are inherently damned, as we both seem to believe, that means that there is no salvation to be had, no matter how good we are, and there is no damnation beyond what we are sure to experience should we ever die.”

          “Should we ever die. You’re spending too much time with Baldwin,” he observes dryly, and it gets a laugh out of her, at the very least. “Would you suggest, then, that we aren’t damned?”

          “Oh, Christ, no. The adversary is eagerly awaiting our arrivals in Hell. I have no doubt of that. But we are above good and evil. Morality, as we understand it, has no meaning to us. And if good and evil do not exist to us, then nothing we do is either good or evil, and the question is irrelevant. There is no point in debating the nature of a thing that does not exist.”

          “You have surely lived long enough to have seen true evil.”

          “Selfishness, yes. Cruelty, certainly. But you cannot change my mind so easily: such moral judgments are irrelevant to us. We are beyond morality. Is the wolf evil for hunting deer? To the deer, certainly, but not to the wolf. And is man evil for hunting the wolf? For food or for protection, each link in the chain hunts and is hunted.”

          “And what of hunting for pleasure? Blood for sport?”

          “Have you ever considered that perhaps pleasure is the point?”

          He falls silent for a long moment and he brings his cup to his lips, watching her; she is unmoved, and she refuses to be intimidated by his obvious disapproval. “My brother has changed you. You are not the woman you were in London.”

          “He has,” Astoria confirms, though she knows that they measure that change in vastly different ways. “I was incomplete, then. Suffering shaped me. Your brother perfected me, as much as any creature can be perfected.”

          “I would warn you against taking his philosophies to heart but I’m afraid it’s too late for you. He has a way about him. He is like my father in that regard. No one is beyond the reach of their influence when they choose to extend it. You’ll think it’s love, while he dines on your heart. You’ll think it’s freedom, while he strips you of everything that made you who you were.”

          “And you are certain of this?” she drawls, biting back her growing anger.

          “I have seen it.”

          “I am his wife. His mate. What we are is unlike anything you have seen of him before now. What I am is unlike anything you have known.”

          “Perhaps. And perhaps all that means is that you’ll tolerate more even when given less.”

          “Have you always thought so little of your brother?”

          “It’s not judgment. It’s observation. It is his nature to destroy things, and to revel in it.”

          “I am not a thing.”

          “No,” he says, lips twisting in a humorless smile. “You are his mate.”

          When she speaks her tone is genial, even warm, even though she’s nearly dizzy with rage. “I am,” she agrees. “And it is my nature to destroy, too. If he wishes to dine on my heart, I’ll carve it from my chest myself and hand it to him. Sometimes love is simple. And sometimes love is opening a vein. Thank you for your concern. It is unwanted and unneeded, and insulting as a result. When I need instruction in self-flagellation I will ask, but until then, I beg of you, keep your advice to yourself.”

          “And you think this—the knowing choice to become more monstrous for the sake of pleasure, or love—is anything but evil?”

          “It doesn’t matter,” she insists, and she sets her empty cup down and stands. “We are greater than such petty distinctions. But if I have to choose between such an evil and your cowardice, I will choose evil every time.”

          He doesn’t argue when she leaves.

[mistress-of-the-empire]

about the bleak terf lives - just go basically anywhere to radfem side of tumblr (#radblr), or , well, don't, it always makes me feel miserable just going through blogs like that. But here, have an example of the radfem/terf side of tumblr based on a randomly selected blog: "make up is a fucking tragedy. women are literally one of nature’s biggest wonders, and yet are expected to cover up that natural beauty? for what, some dudes to get fuller pockets? we are systematically fucking up women’s self-image and convincing them of the exsistence of flaws that literally aren’t there

like how fucked up is that" Now imagine this post as a part of a chain of post I fucking hate how men say rape isn't such a big deal Woman Assaulted in X Gender has harmed me Debate about if it's better or worse to be feminine or androgynous looking woman ending in 'it doesn't matter, they hate us because we're women' An activist said X A politician promised to ban strip clubs makeup is a fucking tragedy sex worker was a victim of abuse twitter screenshot threat 'no one stopped me from transitioning and now my body is ruined' Man violently assaults a woman Gyns, I swear swear you're beautiful and lovely, you don't have to bend for anyone Why are women only called beautiful and not also smart Men are invading safe spaces for women Worldwide there are 51 million girls between 15 and 19 years who are married gender critical is normal, queer is a slur "My body is viewed as obscene while a man’s isn’t and I’m not ok with that" "it just feels so disgusting to me that any woman would associate sex, something that should be a pleasurable and mutually loving experience, with no longer having/wanting human rights." (this is about kink/bdsm) [long hair is] " forced on little girls and expected of women because men find it attractive, sexual and a symbol of femininity a.k.a submission." child marriage in the US man abuses his wife and children "trans ideology is a belief system that actively discourages thought" And, let me end with two posts that the (randomly selected) radfem blog i'm basing this on has right in this order "The last time I took a man seriously I lost my will to live" "maybe i am a normal girl or maybe i have some kind of repulsive evil in me that everyone is just too polite to point out" And yeah, i'm already weary of the world just going through this, so i'm off now, but this is what homunculus-argument was talking about, radfem/terf blogs are also in my experience just this constant stream of misery (that's because you're a woman and everyone hates us and every woman is miserable because of this) and violence and yeah.

(being a woman brings me joy, btw, they are wrong even about the basic premise that womanhood inherently causes suffering)

Damn... like how does someone live like this? At this point I'm thinking they just does know how to be happy and are trying to make everyone else miserable like them so they won't be alone but are still alone anyways

Thanks for share with me though and sorry of it caused any unnecessary headaches