At this point it’s become clear to me that I’m not going to be able to write this entire response start to finish before publishing part of it, which I had really hoped to be able to do, and that I’m instead going to have to publish it in pieces as soon as each part is done. So this (pt. 1) is going to address the original post itself, Donovan’s reblog, and our conversation. This response is addressed partially to everyone and partially to Donovan himself (I don’t know if he will see it, but if he’s interested, it’s here.)
Before I start, I have only one request, and that’s that if you decide to read this, please read the entire thing. If you would rather just skip it and block me, you can do that, but please don’t read only part of it, and please don’t screenshot isolated bits and pieces in order to take them out of context and deliberately misrepresent them. The last time I wrote a response like this, there were fewer comments to address than there are this time, and it took me three full days to write (during which the situation was left alone/no comments were made about ‘how I had responded’ before I had actually responded). I think taking some actual time (as in a handful of days) to write something like this is important; it seems to me like any type of serious response or apology requires some actual time and reflection or it’s kind of meaningless. I didn’t want to hastily type out the first thing that came to mind, or something I just thought would get people to drop it and move on, because ultimately, that would be more for myself than anybody else, and that defeats the entire purpose. So with that clarified, I want to repeat that this is PART ONE of several, and to once again ask that no one claim I have left things out in order to purposefully ignore them or avoid responsibility; I am not done yet. There quite literally has not been enough time for me to address every single thing yet, and I do still intend to address the rest.
I’ll start by putting my original post below, including the original tags I used.
Before Donovan reblogged it, there was one other comment by a different person which I responded to. I’ll put that below.
Nobody even said anything about this, but in retrospect, I think I was a little short with this person too. It probably wasn’t necessary for me to be quite that curt. I was a bit frustrated, because I felt I had just explained in the tags that I a) wasn’t talking about privilege under patriarchy, and b) was specifically holding men in the LGBT community accountable for their ability to perpetuate misogyny, because I often see them discussed (or even my own posts ‘corrected’*) as if they don’t have that. This isn’t an excuse, it’s just insight into what was on my mind at the time/why I responded that way.
Next, I’ll put Donovan’s comment, along with two timestamps that are only relevant for context. Normally, I would not include the icon or URL (and in fact I answered him privately the first time) because I know it’s always a possibility that someone I reblog will get anon hate due to that visibility, and I really didn’t want him to get any anon hate. I also know from experience that whenever that does happen, at least one person assumes I’m the one who sent it, or I get accused of ‘sending people after [them]’. However, everyone who’s become involved since then has either said or implied that I should have answered it publicly instead, so out of respect for that, I’m leaving Donovan’s URL and icon in the screencap.
Below are the two timestamps. On the left is the timestamp for my first reply – the one to the other/previous commenter – and on the right is the timestamp for Donovan’s reblog.
Because there were five and a half hours between my first reply and Donovan’s comment, I assumed he had to have seen my first reply, because he would have had to scroll past it to reach the original post. Again, this is not an excuse and especially not an attempt to discredit Donovan – it is just context for why I responded the way I did. Because Donovan reblogged the post directly from me without the first comment and my response, it seemed to me he had seen the first comment, seen my explanation clarifying what the post was and wasn’t about, and opted to reblog an earlier version in order to add his comment on a thread that didn’t include my clarification of what I meant. This frustrated me at the time, as in my eyes, I had already explained what I meant both in the original tags and in an additional reply, and that all that had been overlooked in order to make a comment that I felt (at the time) I had already addressed twice.
There is more I want to say about both our conversation and how I interpreted his response, but first, I want to say this: After re-reading my (DM) conversation with Donovan, I agree I was too short with him, and should have been significantly gentler, more patient, and more understanding of why he felt the way he did. In retrospect, I should have approached the entire convo differently, starting from what (it seemed to me) we had both agreed upon (that no man is exempt from misogyny), and going from there. Being frustrated at the time wasn’t an excuse, because I’m an adult and I could have just waited a minute before I answered him instead of responding as soon as I saw it. So, Donovan (if you’re reading this), I’m sorry for taking a tone with you that was way more confrontational/argumentative (and way less understanding/open) than necessary. There was really no need for that, and I should have taken a second to reign it in before I answered you because looking back, it’s clear you were just trying to share your point of view with me. I’ve heard (from a different person who got involved) since then that I made you feel stupid, and I’m sorry for that too. Obviously it’s ultimately not most important what my intention was, but for what it’s worth, I definitely never wanted to make you feel that way, and I am sorry I did. In retrospect, I can absolutely see how my attitude was hurtful and dismissive, and that me feeling as though I had just explained it twice was not a reason to treat it as though it should have been obvious. I have more to say about my answer, but I thought it was important to first make it clear that I am sorry. (The rest of this is for context/insight into how I was thinking, and not a defense of/argument for my initial reaction).
The other thing that was frustrating me at the time was that it seemed to me like what I was being asked to do was already done, and I really didn’t know how I could… do it even more, for lack of a better way to phrase it.
To me, this meant that what was being asked of me was rewording the post. Obviously not an issue in and of itself. What confused me were the wordings and points cited afterwards, as my post already didn’t contain them.
This frustrated me because it seemed like I was being asked to remove things from my post that already were not there, and I have no idea how to do that. As far as I could tell, what was being requested was already done, because my post already didn’t contain those wordings or make those points. After reading through several other viewpoints on the situation, I’m gathering that I took it too literally; I have seen Donovan’s request referred to as both ‘asking me to reread/reconsider the post’ and ‘asking me to reword the post so that it specifies that it doesn’t mean [the points I wasn’t making/wordings I didn’t use]’, but that did not connect for me at all at the time. It really didn’t occur to me to interpret a direct request like that any way other than literally, so it seemed to me like I was being asked to remove words from my post that already weren’t there, and that frustrated me because it’s not possible to do it. Ultimately, this is what I was trying to communicate during my DM convo with Donovan, but because I didn’t take the time to chill for a second and was therefore overly confrontational (and because I wasn’t listening as well as I could have been), it came across as an argument against what Donovan was saying. I’ll include a link to the convo screencaps below for context and in case anyone hasn’t seen them. I
So that’s part one. As I said before, there is a lot more to cover. This isn’t directed at Donovan as he isn’t the one who’s doing this, but I think it’s a fair request to ask that I be given a minute while I’m addressing everything else (as in a few days where no more anons about me full of blatant lies are being published to an audience, for example, and as in a few days where no one claims I’m ignoring the situation despite my having said six times (and counting) that I’m in the process of writing a response). I’ve managed to extend that courtesy to everyone else involved, and it’s not as if there are no anons in my inbox making accusations I can’t substantiate abt other people. I just haven’t published them because among other things, I have no idea if they’re true. Kind of seems like the bare minimum.
The next part will address @slutauthority’s reblog of my post
*’corrected’ being in quotes is not a specific reference to Donovan’s comment to imply he was incorrect. It is a specific reference to what I mentioned in the tags of my original post: that people had reblogged my posts about men in the past with comments like “*cishet men,” ‘correcting’ them.
