i guess we're back

Like, in Evangelical Purity Culture, male desire was basically poison. It was a threat. It was this constant temptation that would destroy everything. And even after leaving, in the sort of queer, feminist spaces i spend most of my time in that wasn't something that pretty much anyone was spending time actively dissuading me from feeling.

But my desire is good. It's not something that I'm being accepted in spite of. It's a positive thing. It's a bonus. Not even just vanilla stuff, all the stuff I'd convinced myself were these weird terrible desires that were shameful to have.

It honestly took me over a decade to fully accept that. To stop dissociating during sex and confront that I was, in fact, being a massive perv and that was fantastic and preferable and that I could accept that into my self-image without shame or self hatred.

@kisstheashes

Oh don't worry, I didn't make it out of Evangelical Purity Culture thinking that girls had it peachy or anything. Our experiences are different, but both bad.

I have seen a lot of content about E.P.C. that very firmly centers the ways that purity culture dovetails with rape culture, the ways that women and women's bodies were held responsible for the actions of men, and the ways that their own sexuality was erased under the burden of being cast as the pure, moral, oppositional force to the depredations of male sexuality. This is in no way meant to diminish that.

It is meant to focus on a part of this dynamic I don't see commented on nearly as much though. In purity culture, men are perpetrators. A good man doesn't radiate goodness, it's more that he's managed to contain the inherently evil toxicity that is his sexuality and hasn't let it harm everyone around him as it naturally will if unchecked. When I look for other stories like mine, I already see stories by and for women, and a lot of them... haven't really challenged those core assumptions about men. Which means that I can't really find comfort and solidarity there.

The narrative I've run into a fair bit is "I was taught women were responsible for managing men's horrible, evil sexuality, but I've learned that we're not. Men are responsible for managing their own horrible, evil sexuality." I very rarely run into specific positivity for masculine sexuality when I'm in circles discussing purity culture, because frankly, there are plenty of people who feel that masculine sexuality isn't stigmatized enough.

So yeah. I was specific about gender for a reason. Not because I don't understand other people's positions, but because while I do, I don't see so much stuff addressing my specific situation. So I figured I'd make some of the positivity I myself need.

It's a difficult thing to talk about, because demonstrably, gender-based violence directed against women by men is a widespread problem! But it doesn't follow that a majority of men are bad by default; rather, it's that many have been trained to entitlement and bad behaviour by patriarchal systems and misogynist ways of thinking, which are both things we have the power to change.

Attemping to affect this change and bring about equality is the core conceit of feminism, and we can see, very demonstrably, that it works. So if you fall into the gender-essentialist trap of believing that men are bad fundamentally, whether because of Evil Biology or Original Sin, then you're not only saying that the long-term goal of feminism is impossible; you're functionally agreeing with every disgusting, sexist rape-apologist who brushes off assault and misogyny as "boys will be boys" and "men are just like that." You cannot hope to hold bad men accountable for their actions without acknowledging the existence of good men; that their misdeeds aren't synonymous with their masculinity, but are rather choices they specifically have made.

and the straight cis men who were ashamed of their own desires haunt me

They bought wholeheartedly into the ideas that their sexual desires were inherently sinful and predatory and destined to doom their lives if they slipped up, in a way that forcibly reminded me of when I was trying to be a good Catholic girl and knew that the soft animal of my body absolutely could not be made to run in the correct direction of the treadmill my faith was yoked to

More than once I had to back up any specific discussion and just ask, "According to your conscience and faith, what would a healthy married relationship look like when it comes to sex? How would this desire factor into it?" Because it's totally an enormous question, but it also often produced the facial equivalent to a computer blue screen of death, because they'd been told so often that male desire was ontologically incompatible with a healthy marriage, except also, they were supposed to want sex so much they'd destroy their own marriages over it???

I have feminism and queer culture and Chappell Roan telling me that my desire is good and okay, and I'm slowly getting less ashamed about it. And I just can't help thinking: What about men? How sad would it be to be told your sexuality is inherently aggressive and predatory and exploitative? How do you feel like you're bringing something valuable to a relationship that way?

May I present the best apple:

Alastor from Hazbin Hotel (canon)

Lilith from The Owl House (canon)

Viktor from Arcane (canon)

Luffy from One Piece: literally as canon as you can get without having the character say "I am asexual". It's the equivalent of having a guy kiss only men throughout the entire show and people then saying it's not technically canon that he's gay. Mangaka has answered the question about Luffy and romance with "He's in love with adventure". There's specifically a character whose power can make almost every character, man or woman, follow her command because they're sexually attracted to her and it doesn't work on Luffy. He literally walks in on her naked and is disappointed because he thought there would be food.

Benjamin Linus from Lost: So while Lost is relatively tame when it comes to sexual content, it shows us a lot of snippets throughout the characters' lives. There's many characters and all of them we see at some point talk about engaging in sexual activity, being sexually interested in someone, engaging in romance etc. Ben is the sole main cast character where that is not the case. In fact, we see him finding a dirty magazine in one of the characters' tents and he is grossed out by it. I think there's more instances like this too. His one single instance of expressing something akin to romantic feelings towards a character is some weird trauma projection obsession mental illness thing and honestly I'm not sure if I would classify what went on in his head there as "romantic feelings". Also definitely talks about his adoptive daughter's relationship like a guy who has never been interested in sex