Thread by @DrNerdLove

Been reading the stuff about Aziz Ansari and here’s something that keeps coming back to me: how very VERY fucked up the lessons men get about sex are.

No, I’m not talking about him specifically, I mean generally.

Literally *everything* men are taught tends to come down to “you’ll know, so just roll with it.”

How’re you supposed to know if she *really* means it when she says no?

“Don’t worry, you’ll know, roll with it.”

Combine that with “women are sooooo hard to understand” memes and you get people, even people who should know better, reading things wrong.

So we get to a point where men have been taught a) women don’t like sex, b) women are hard to understand c) you’ll instinctively know what they “really” mean.

And it *really* doesn’t help that men are taught to never question, never show weakness and that they should be able to read minds like goddamn Charles Xavier.

So what happens? You get guys who THINK that they’re getting mixed signals and a lot of dickful thinking and decide to err on the side of BJs.

A lot of this “no weakness, no uncertainty” ties into part of why so many guys don’t like asking for consent.

If you admit you aren’t sure, you’re less of a man.

(I mean, there’re also assholes who think that if you don’t ask, they can’t say no, but that’s a different fucked up issue entirely)

And it really doesn’t help that we treat emotional and social fluency as a given.

But when you’re taught to be disconnected from your emotions, you can’t UNDERSTAND those emotions in other people.

(Shout out to @radicalbytes’ The Case Against the Jedi for another example of how men are trained to think “emotions are bad, m’kay?” )

So here we are: dudes whose emotional fluency tends to focus around things like anger, not excitement or eagerness. Guys who’ve basically been taught to not recognize the difference between reluctant agreement and enthusiastic agreement.

Guys who are taught that sex is for men, that women don’t like sex and need to be encouraged.

Guys who are taught that they *can’t* understand women b/c Mars/Venus bullshit.

And guys who are taught to not be weak, to not show weakness and to ALWAYS be confident and cocksure.

And now they’re in a situation they *think* is ambiguous.

“She didn’t leave, she didn’t slap him, she didn’t force his hand away, she couldn’t have been THAT bothered by it.”

Except, y’know, all the ways she said “stop, I’m not comfortable, not now”.

So take all the ways that even good, well-meaning men have been trained and yeah, there’s that hearing all those no’s and thinking “ok, well maybe she just needs to be turned on more.”

And there’s a lot of “well, I’m a good guy, it can’t be that bad…”

Kinda like how nerds still define themselves as the oppressed underdog despite reality.

“I’m a good guy, she should *know* she’s safe with me.”

Yeah well…

So, long story short: part of the problem is how badly *we’re failing boys* in the way we teach about… well, pretty much “how to human”.

It becomes systematic. “This is how I was taught and it worked out great for me…”

Reinforce these ideas over and over again in media. Teach boys overtly and covertly that they should always be right and if they aren’t, just plow ahead anyway.

Then stand back and be horrified when those same boys do something to our daughters and suddenly have that moment of blinding insight.

(No, it shouldn’t require having it happen to someone you care about to trigger your empathy. But sometimes you just don’t see it until you get smacked upside the head.)

And let me tell you from experience: when you grow up with this, this shit is HARD to root out. To quote Yoda:
“You must unlearn what you have learned.”

You grow up with it to the point that it’s knee-jerk instinct, even when you know better.

So like I said: even folks who know better will fuck up. It’s not an excuse, just recognizing that so much of this shit is buried DEEP.

And when an orgasm’s on the line…well, you’re invested in reading things in the way you hope it’ll come out.

The key for all of this, ultimately, is to aim for the root.

Dealing with all of us who grew up with it is an uphill battle. It *should* be done, but it’s going to be a long slog.

Teaching the upcoming generations, on the other hand, cuts it off entirely. It treats a firebreak.

Which means that we have to stop assuming shit is inborn.

Teaching boys to recognize and express their emotions helps recognize them in *others* too.

Teaching how to recognize when someone *actually* wants something rather than when they’re just going along to get along.

Teaching empathy. Teaching understanding other people’s perspectives. Teaching that it’s OK to be unsure, to need to ask for clarification, to double check that you’re reading things correctly.

And accepting basic things like “hey, *people* are sexual beings,” not “men want it, women have to be convinced.”

(Which leads to bullshit like this: doctornerdlove.com/the-economics-…)

The current generations need to learn too. We’re going to fuck up a lot in the process because we’re still neck deep in this shit. But we need to keep working at it.

But the next generations are where we can break the cycle.

And starting to bring things like enthusiastic consent into pop culture as something *other* than a sad joke will help.

‘cuz hey, you can STILL have sexy comedies where both people are freaking horny for each other…

And because it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t plug myself a bit, I talk a little about how to ask for consent without ruining the mood here:

Anyway, tl;dr, shit runs deep in the culture and it means even good guys who know better are gonna trip on their dicks.

The good ones are the ones who’ll realize they fucked up, learn and try to make amends as best as possible.

The sooner we start fixing the system from the start with what we teach kids and how we encourage it, the sooner we can change the entire system.

/fin

(Is it cool if I point out that I have both a patreon and a ko-fi? patreon.com/drnerdlove and ko-fi.com/O5O66EFG)