people asking shit like “well can we forgive Aziz Ansari? should he lose his career over this? IS THIS A WITCH HUNT????” (that last one is always implied even if it’s not stated outright) are so disingenuous. that’s not the fucking point of the conversation, or at least it absolutely shouldn’t be. how Aziz acted was wrong, definitely, but no one in good faith is out there saying he’s like “as bad” as Weinstein or Spacey- that’s not the point and never was the point, and it’s just a distraction by people who don’t want to be confronted with a hard conversation. nothing he did was illegal, but the reason it should be discussed is that lots of other men do those things. lots of them. MOST of them, if we’re being realistic. it’s how men are trained by media and cultural conditioning to pursue sex and romantic relationships! the point is that the whole way we’ve been taught to look at relationships and sex is lacking, that it enforces this shit, that the conversation we should be having is what genuine consent looks like, what manipulation looks like, and what “signals” actually mean. we should let men know that sometimes, women will consent to sex when they don’t want to in order to get things over with or not make things awkward or to make the other person happy, and that, no, that isn’t rape, but just because it isn’t rape doesn’t mean it’s healthy or acceptable and doesn’t mean it’s not damaging and potentially traumatizing.
as far as forgiving him goes, maybe if he made an actual fucking apology and not just “well if she says that’s how she felt, i’m sorry she felt that way” bullshit. look, let’s be real, i’ve known men who’ve acted similar to how he’s described as having acted in the past. and some of those men have genuinely grown and learned that that isn’t right, to the point where i would trust them now, but all of them, every single one, only got there by admitting that what they did was wrong and seeking help, whether that be professional or going to their female friends who agreed to help them and seeing exactly what they’re doing wrong, exactly what the things ingrained in them stopped them from seeing, and then actively working to improve themselves. i can even say, from my own personal experience, i was an absolutely shitty person to be in a relationship with from age 18 to, say, 23 (in different ways than Aziz seems to have been, but similar enough in terms of emotional immaturity)- i was totally selfish, inconsiderate, self-obsessed, and never really listened the way i should have. the only way i became a good friend, a tolerable person to be around, and even an ok person to have romantic/sexual relationships with was going to therapy, owning up to the things i’ve done wrong, apologizing to people in private without the unspoken subtext of trying to be “forgiven”, constantly trying to better myself. and it’s hard, and it should be hard! genuinely? i do think this whole situation was probably a shock to Aziz. that’s part of the reason this conversation is worth having. and i think, more than most, i’m willing to try and see the best in people, to assume that they do mean well, and that they can grow and change and become better people. but my willingness to extend forgiveness a.) is my own to give when i choose to give it, not on a timeframe someone else decides based on arbitrary goals and b.) cannot come without an apology and genuine expression of knowledge of what was done wrong, and why it was wrong, and then continued action to improve oneself.
i think, in my experience, most women have far more capacity for forgiveness than hysterical men crying witchhunt could ever dream of having, but we’re not gonna give it out just because you don’t want your favorite comedian to stop making his tv show.
tangentwithtanner
titsay
2087
