A general contemplation on how I feel about men as an AFAB person (and a slight mention on what this means to me in relation to my sexual identity):
MASSIVE TW: sexual assault/harassment, paranoia, in general bad things
For a while now, I’ve had this tendency to say “I hate men”. I never really questioned why exactly I hated men and thought about it on a deep level on any sense. It was just a casual thing I said. If somebody complained about their boyfriend to me, I would respond with “this is why I hate men.” I said it enough times that my manager at work told me that she thinks I’m a lesbian because of how much I dislike men. That was the point, as someone who has a tendency to spiral over their own sexual identity, that I started to really think about why I hated men.
The farthest back I can trace my dislike of men in my memories is in elementary school. I must have been about eight years old at the time, maybe even younger, but definitely not any older. My parents grounded me for coming home after curfew in the dark (I had been at the neighbor’s house playing with my friend about three houses down from mine). Their reasoning for doing so was not “not following directions” like one might assume, but instead was “because there are dangerous people that can hurt you in the dark.” While my parents did not specifically say men at the time, somehow this idea of dangerous people in the dark twisted into dangerous men in the dark. In fact, men are almost synonymous with danger in my mind- but I’m getting a little ahead of myself here.
As I got older and learned about the horrors of being a woman in a patriarchal society, the idea of men being dangerous got all but hammered into my skull. To a child who knew nothing but what her parents, books, and anime told her, all pedophiles, rapists, and criminals of any sort were men. In middle school, I remember doing a report on rape statistics for a communications class. (Off topic, but I remember that we were required to share those reports with the class but my teacher excused me from that because she was worried she would get in trouble with the school if other kids heard it. I also was the only one who had to have parental consent to do their report.) I remember reading that in America less men, one in twelve if my memory serves me correctly, get sexually assaulted in comparison to one in seven women (higher for women of color, especially indigenous women). While these statistics may be incorrect, the point still got across to me: women get raped more than men. Somehow, in my world where women could do no wrong, even men who are sexually assaulted must be victims of men, not women. These statistics, although important to know, solidified in my mind the danger of men. Paired with being constantly surrounded by preteen and teenaged boys, the word “man” had nothing but a negative connotation in my mind.
The moments in my life that accentuated this the most though was in eighth grade. My eighth grade US history teacher was my least favorite person to ever walk this earth. His very existence was what pushed my fear of men from creeping downhill to rolling. The final shove that sent my fear of men barreling towards full blown paranoia was when I went to Home Depot with my parents the summer between eighth and ninth grade. There, we were looking for lightbulbs but couldn’t find the right type so we asked an employee to help. The employee in question was in his 70s at the very least, wearing a Vietnam veteran hat. The entire time he helped us, which was quite a while, he alternated between telling us stories about his life and making sexual jokes. The jokes made me extremely uncomfortable, but would have been forgettable if not for the last one. He made fun of me for being embarrassed, and said “your ears are red like cherries. I could suck on them”. Those words were the shove. What made that specific moment a million times worse for me was both of my parents were with me. They said nothing. After the employee left, I told them I did not like that and my mother told me “he’s just an old man, don’t let it bother you.” That was when I realized that my parents would not protect me. I had already been drifting apart from my parents as an emotional almost high schooler, but that was what solidified my conclusion that my parents are not who I would like to be when I become older and maybe even a parent someday.
Once I got to high school, I started specially requesting that teachers didn’t put me by men. Although I never complained if they did, those classes where I was surrounded by the opposite sex became my worst nightmares. I didn’t want to go to them, didn’t want to pay attention in them, couldn’t fully relax because the thought of even touching them through clothes nauseated me. I had one rule though: in classes where my teacher was a man, I would not request to not be put by men. Male teachers, even ones I liked, were still people to be wary of. I did not want to talk one on one with them. I did not want to say anything that would prompt more time speaking with a man than necessary. (I speak in past tense, but the reality is this is how I still feel and live.)
This uncomfortableness with speaking alone with men wasn’t just for acquaintances and strangers, though. It existed with my dad’s friends that I’ve known my entire life. My cousins. My uncles. My grandfathers. My friends from elementary school. If they were men, I actively avoided being with them without another woman present. And even with another woman present, I struggled to feel entirely safe.
The most recent moment that stands starkly in my mind is when my best friend came over to spend the night and we were talking about our greatest fears. I told her at that point that my greatest fear is men in the dark. That I hate being home alone and a major part of why I wanted to get a cat after my old cat died was because I lived in a constant state of paranoia. In my own home. I could not move room to room without thoroughly checking every space to make sure no man would jump out and hurt me. Even with a full security system in the house, I feared being caught unaware and raped, murdered, even just looked at. I told her that in top of all of this, though, my greatest fear is that the core reason for this entire paranoia isn’t a combination of my past experiences but instead one big moment that I have trauma blocked. My greatest fear is that my hatred of men stems from being raped and not remembering it. I know it’s not logical in any sense, but fears themselves are illogical.
And that is the end of why I “hate men”. I’m sure to recover from this I will have to go to years upon years of therapy, and even then I’m unsure if it would work. I’m unsure if I will ever feel truly safe in a world where men also exist, even if I am confident those men would never hurt me. That is the depressing underlying message that exists when I joke about men being the worst.
The other aspect of this that I’ve only dwelled on slightly is how this fear might affect my sexuality. I don’t know if I will ever know what my sexual orientation is. Between my conservative religious upbringing that makes me, as much as I try to deny it, not want to be a lesbian, and this fear that makes it inconceivable to me to ever be attracted to a man, I really have no options. To identify my sexual identity, I will have to spend a lifetime unraveling every belief and experience I’ve ever held up until this point. I told my friends that I don’t want to identify as anything because I don’t align with any words I’ve heard, but on a deeper level I just don’t think I have the mental and emotional capacity to break down myself enough to actually find out the truth. The most I can do is be open to whatever and whoever and suppress the fear and internalized homophobia I’m already aware of.
Thanks for reading if you’re a stranger. Let me know if you feel the same way, either by DM or in the comments. (I don’t really know how tumblr works because all I do on it is rant.) If you’re one of my friends irl text me. I do want to talk more about this but I’m too much of a coward to send this to one of you so I sent it to the masses that don’t know who I am lmao
