Dear Readers,
Today I'm going to start with a little Shakespeare to get into the meat of the article today. He's one of my favourite writers, and I've been lucky enough to get to grips with his work beyond the dull and tired environment of the schoolroom.
'Were I the Moor I would not be Iago.
In following him I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so for my peculiar end.
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The Native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.
Iago, Othello. Act 1, Scene 1, lines 57-65.
Here he explains that the day he demonstrates his most inward feelings and goals is the day that he becomes vulnerable to the outside world, open to attack. He regards people who are open about their feelings as foolish and stupid, leaving them easy prey for those who would wish to target them. All of this while he plots against Othello and tries to bring him down through psychological manipulation.
And when it comes to concealing your emotions? Yeah, I sometimes think that he's got a point.
A lot of the articles about male victims involve telling us that we don't speak out or report because "societal ideas about masculinity tell them that it's wrong to be weak and vulnerable or to show emotions" and while there's a certain truth to this, there are a few problems attached to it.
The first problem is that it's such a meaningless phrase. If no man ever expressed any emotions, there would be next to no art, architecture, music, theatre, sport, or anything. In fact, stoicism is a fairly recent thing that was much less present in the 17th Century. The context that those who make these claims is on the grounds of "crying" think that if male victims of abuse only wept like women do, everything would go fine for us because "society caters to men's needs".
The second problem is that this disclaimer is presented as the ONLY problem faced by male survivors. It's not presented as a section of the bigger picture, where male survivors face stigma of being not believed, of being blamed for their attacks, e.g:
"Why didn't you fight him/her off?"
"You must've wanted it, you had an erection!"
"Women only do that in self-defence, your accusations are misogynist!"
Or worst of all, of being accused of being a potential abuser on the grounds of having been abused themselves. There's no desire to empower male survivors here whatsoever, just a desire to protect female abuse victims for fear that the big nasty male abusers will come out of vampire syndrome and hurt women because they won't express their emotions (cry).
The third problem is this. OK, male survivors "express our emotions". What next? Perhaps our problems go away as they seem to suggest. Perhaps then we're back to normal. Perhaps we're better for it. Perhaps these same people will show us the dignity and respect due to anyone who's suffered a traumatic experience.
'Male Tears'
Or maybe not.
Do you think that as someone who cried his eyes out over being abused by a female abuser I'm going to see this as a movement to follow and trust? Something for 'progressives' to be proud of? This blatant apologism for emotional abuse is coupled with the excuse that 'you're not in fear of your life', when emotional abuse doesn't need to threaten someone's life, it can cost them their lives through self destruction or suicide anyway. It really discredits the utterly worthless argument 'men fear being laughed at by women, women fear being killed by men', and anybody who uses this argument a- especially as an excuse as to why emotional abuse is 'OK' to subject males to - deserves no respect whatsoever.
Here's a piece from nasty little hack 'Max Benwell' using identity politics to justify the stupid 'killallmen' hashtag of circa 2014, which - like the recent statement of UKIP's Carl Benjamin to Jess Phillips - cannot be regarded as a 'joke' when it even implies violence against another human being.
'If you're a white man and you've started to feel excluded or anxious that someone who isn't white or male may get preferential treatment over you, then all you're doing is experiencing the same feeling everyone else has had for centuries. So please, if someone tweets something against you like this, just let it go.
Max Benwell, The Independent, 2015.
Whoever this disgusting abuse-apologist is, add in the context of being a male survivor and forgotten about, or even victim-blamed, then this statement looks like a very ugly piece of victim-blaming indeed, especially if you add the context of the sad fate of Mark Van Dongen, who suffered an acid attack from his girlfriend, and was in such pain he had to be euthanised. Perhaps Max Benwell in his infinite wisdom can explain how important his fate was to identity politics or women's rights?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-43823752
Another rather illuminating set of blog entries come from the early third wavers back in 2007. Granted, this was back then, but these attitudes have changed little among the intellectually incompetent third wave feminists. This was from an article by Tracie Egan Morrissey, who as far as I know, has since left the website.
https://jezebel.com/have-you-ever-beat-up-a-boyfriend-cause-uh-we-have-294383
I've left some of the worst comments below to highlight the attitude of third wave feminists to male abuse victims.
Yes, please, let's not forget the poor men who make up a whopping 15% of the domestic violence victims (nonsarcastic saide: this includes situations in which the violence is mutual, or the women used violence in response to violence), who are far less likely to be hurt by domestic violence, given the differences in size and strength between most men and women, who aren't laboring under lifetimes of oppressive gender hierarchy. I'm glad that you raised awareness of this terrible scourge so that we can convince the public that more of the ample, nay, surplus of resources that we throw at aleviating domestic violence against women can now be re-channelled to help the poor, oppressed men. Thank you. Thank you of thinking of the dudes.
Username, 'Petronella'.
Identity politics offers strength to female abuse apologists and victim blamers, and "gender norms" third wavers claim they're against (when it suits them) and this continues today. (I'm not sure how third wavers think that there's no money for male survivors in the richest countries in the world?)
*snicker* It's Okay ladies. They can just consider it payback for binding our feet, shoving our chunklet asses into corsets, leaving chick babies on mountaintops, droolin' over size 0 asses, and generally making us miserable for centuries.
Username 'Warmaiden'.
In other words, lack of historical women's rights is a good excuse for a female domestic abuser to beat up her partner? Yeah, I don't think so, sunshine.
My favourite comment however, comes from a blog called 'iblamethepatriarchy.com. To be honest, this wasn't made by the person who runs the site, rather by an anonymous commenter, but the fact is that it was tolerated by the site tells us a lot about their true colours.
'A man never deserves pity for being raped. After all, it's not like he had sex. Unless he was gay, it's just a little lesson in what it's like to be treated like an object.'
Anonymous user, iblamethepatriarchy.com, 2007
I have no words for that last one. I actually regard this as the worst piece of hatred from the disgusting third wavers in my entire life.
In this below article, the author highlights how so-called "progressives" have attempted to hamstring efforts to approve men's mental health, satisfying them with harmful and meaningless ignorance, usually nonsense about "capitalism" and "patriarchy" most notably. Most notable is what Rob says about how efforts to get men to talk more about emotions, anything else is unnecessary, or unacceptable to them. Progressives seem to labour under the entirely unjustified assumption that helping males means "men must show emotion and they'll be alright, because "patriarchy" will cater to them, (even though they say "patriarchy hurts men too" as well), and to be more like women". This doesn't address the fact that an indifferent, schizophrenic society that hates your weakness, or dismisses your self-defence or suicide as "violence".
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/talking-about-men/201906/the-men-s-mental-health-double-bind
The 'daws to peck at' quote is one that I put in for a reason. I cried my eyes out as an abuse survivor, but I later learned to conceal my pain. Why?
Because I thought it was unmasculine? The thought crossed my mind, but not really.
Because I thought I was weak? I assumed I was, I'd never heard of a female abusing a male, but not really as much either.
No. The real reason I started to conceal my pain was that I really thought that people didn't care, and with good reason.
The real watershed moment came when I said semi-jokingly, that I got "molested" in response to a woman I knew, joking about how a woman she knew had sexually harassed a man. When I made my comment, intending to make light of what'd happened, a male friend of mine responded in shock, and that I should've called the police. It was over the next few days that I suffered a colossal meltdown.
But "progressives" see no problem whatsoever in telling men and boys to be more emotionally open, and when it doesn't suit them, telling us to be silent. Take this little gem from the talentless hack Ken Solin on 'The Good Men Project' from back in 2011:
"I urge men struggling with the changing sexual dynamic, to stop whining about how women are treating them. First, it's unmanly to whine."
So much for caring about so-called "toxic masculinity" eh?
"Second, no one is listening except other whiny men."
Perhaps something to do with cretins like this overrated "writer" calling male victims 'crybaby whiners' all the time.
"Women have long suffered second-class citizenship, especially in relationships, so it falls on deaf ears when men complain that women aren't treating them well."
Probably not very knowledgeable about relationships and how they work. Also, not what a lot of women said about Alex Skeel as it turned out (on the contrary, they seemed to be sympathetic), and this ignorant pig would do well to see how many of my female followers (including female survivors) are hugely sympathetic to male survivors. (Seems to be a bit more of a male third-waver thing curiously!)
"There's often a temporary swing to the other extreme during a cultural shift."
And we have victim blaming. The context isn't there, but with a broad comment like this, because he hasn't excluded male survivors of female abusers, I'm going to assume that he includes them (us).
If we're told to "express and talk about" our emotions, what good is it if the same people will treat us with utter contempt? How on earth are we supposed to "show emotions" as these unthinking writers so frequently say if we're going to get flak for it? For the same people to urge us to "show emotions" and then shame us for "oh it's so hard to be a man/[insert interest group] have it worse/STFU" when we DO talk about what bothers us. And are they doing it for our sakes, or because they think it stops women being abused? I think we all know the real answer.
Like Iago, why on earth would we male survivors open our emotions up if we leave ourselves open to predatory vipers such as Benwell, Egan Morrissey, and Solin to be free to attack us?
Male survivors have enough to deal with beyond this disgusting, deceitful, lying, rape-apologism and victim blaming, and I'm no longer prepared to tolerate it, and if you're a male survivor, neither should you, no more than your female survivor counterparts should.
And for all you abuse-apologists, victim blamers and concern trolls? Don't wave a white flag at me while kicking me in the groin. It won't end well for you.
Sincerely
The Invisible Man
RESOURCES FOR MALE SURVIVORS
MEN RECOVERING FROM MILITARY SEXUAL TRAUMA: http://www.mrmst.org/
MALE SURVIVOR: http://www.malesurvivor.org/
1IN6: https://1in6.org/
SURVIVORS MANCHESTER: http://www.survivorsmanchester.org.uk/
MANKIND INITIATIVE: http://www.mankind.org.uk/
MANKINDUK: https://www.mkcharity.org/
MATRIXMEN: https://matrixmensa.blogspot.com/
SAMOSA (SOUTH AFRICA): http://www.samsosa.org/wp/
AFTER SILENCE: http://www.aftersilence.org/forum/index.php
PANDORA'S AQUARIUM: https://pandys.org/forums/index.php?
RAINN: https://rainn.org/articles/sexual-assault-men-and-boys
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