Marsh Middleton
Nov 6 · 2 min read

I, too, am a feminist by definition. There is not a single word you’ve written here that I disagree with.

I do take issue with some points that are often discussed in relation to rape. For example, I frequently hear that giving young women advice about protecting themselves from rape is “blaming the victim” and “supporting the rape culture.” And, “instead of telling a female college student not to go home with a man she just met for the first time in a bar, we should be telling men not to rape.”

Sure, in theory, a woman should be able to go home with a stranger without the fear of being raped. And in theory I should be able to stand on a street corner at 2 a.m. in the worst part of town, waving a wad of $100 bills, without the fear of being robbed. Unfortunately, neither of those is reality. I will continue to tell anyone who’ll listen that those are both unsafe practices.

In another case, I was recently blocked by a writer here when she disapproved of my response to her article about women being culturally conditioned to give in to men’s sexual advances. Her point was that as a result of our patriarchal values women often feel like they can’t or shouldn’t give a firm “no.”

Basically, she was saying that men wrongly take advantage of this whenever they persuade/beg/cajole a woman into saying yes. I totally agreed with her about the need for women to find their “no” voices. But she didn’t like it when I pointed out that we men are also culturally conditioned to be persistent. In my generation, women were taught that nice girls weren’t “easy”. Men, in turn, were conditioned to expect some resistance to their advances.

I made it clear that I wasn’t defending this ritual of reluctance and persuasion, but was merely pointing out that men are just as susceptible to social programming as women. In a perfect world, I suppose, one person on a date would simply express to the other their desire to have a sexual encounter. Consent would be given or refused, and that would be that. But again, that scenario just doesn’t mesh with reality. We all have to navigate the subtle nuances of sexual attraction and romance.

    Marsh Middleton

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