What frightens me about the men I know is that I know men are so good at compartmentalizing and creating public and private selves. I don’t think there’s a single man I know, including gay men, including men I love, including men in my own family, who I don’t fear might secretly be doing some horrific shit on the internet. I’ve just read too many stories about women who were happily married for years before they found out their husbands’ abusive online habits.
I’ve often joked with my friends about how me using the internet in front of other people (like in a class) is “taking a walk on the wild side” because the might see my search history, but I just want to clarify: when I say that my search history is private and might be embarassing, I meant, “I look up geeky, uncool things like fanfiction and I spend too much time reading celebrity gossip blogs and looking at Pinterest shit,” not embarassing as in the male sense of “My search history would reveal that I send violent, abusive threats to women online and watch rape porn.” My private self is maybe less cool than my public self, but it isn’t so dramatically different that my ethics would be called into question if my search history were to be made public.
I feel bad for the women in the notes who are acting like gender has nothing to do with this. Those are the types who let their guard down around men. Men know to exploit these women in particular.
I’m sick of people downplaying the issue with “oh it’s just the internet not real life! it’s a people problem not a gender problem.” Nah. Men on the internet are almost universally terrible. They’re also REAL men, revealing their true thoughts and feelings. In contrast I’ve never had a woman on the internet threaten to rape me. The problem is men.
When I was in middle school, my dad called me from work and left the average “Hey how’s it going, call me when you get a chance, bye” voicemail. Except when he thought he hung up, it didn’t end the call and the voicemail kept recording. I heard a few seconds of quiet clicking and typing on his computer, so I was about to ignore it and delete it, but then I start hearing screaming. Like bloody murder screaming and angry voices. I assumed he had turned on the TV or something until I heard, “Take it, you disgusting slut! Look at that gaping pussy!” And the woman is just screaming and screaming for it to stop. I wanted to stop listening and hang up, but I was completely frozen in horror that my dad went straight from calling his 12-year-old daughter to watching violent rape porn at his job. It just went on and on and on. I don’t care what your opinion on porn is, but that is all kinds of fucked up.
Women, don’t kid yourselves. These are your fathers, brothers, friends, boyfriends, coworkers, neighbors. This is who they are when no one is watching (or when someone IS watching because plenty of them don’t even fucking care).
Women, think about who YOU are when no one’s watching. Are you getting off on men being sexually tortured and humiliated? Most of you I’m going to guess the answer is no. Personally, I’m relaxed and quiet, finally enjoying a moment of peace, maybe read or take a nap. What I’m NOT doing is furiously masturbating to acts that would violate the goddamn Geneva Convention or sending graphic rape threats to women who dared to disagree with me about A Thing On The Internet. And when I receive graphic rape/death threats because I’m a woman who disagreed with men on the internet, I’ve never had to stop and wonder, “Hmm, is this from a man or a woman?” Because I know. Just like you all know.
The men who threaten to rape women who disagree with them on the internet aren’t fucking Pod People. They aren’t man made algorithms that only exist on a hard drive. They’re shopping alongside you at the supermarket. They’re teaching your kids. They’re bankers and dentists and athletes and gardeners and truck drivers
Sex workers and trafficked women have been saying this forever. Your fathers, your husbands, your brothers, your coworkers, your friends - they come to us and say and do disgusting, horrible things. Things they wish they could do to you. They pick us out because we resemble you. They call us by your names. They make excuses for themselves, that they “have” to do this, because you won’t “let” them. Every single night, I heard, “My wife/girlfriend is a prude.”
Only slightly less often - “You remind me of my daughter.”
But liberals don’t listen to us. They just tag #slay kween on our selfies and go back to being grateful that we exist to absorb this violence, so they don’t have to deal with it.
