I've been trying to come up with a juicy blog title to draw you in, an interesting topic to keep you and a way to tie in my apology to placate you. I think this might cover it.
My absence has been due to a few things, not the least of which being my insecurity in my writing, and 'dating' a boy. For this, I sincerely apologize. I only received positive feedback from any of my friends or followers, but my brain creates an alternate reality for me. A reality where people whisper about my pathetic attempt at the single life and my lackluster prose. The truth is, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of failing, and of letting you down, and of turning out poor work. But that is the time to act! So here I am. Attempting, again, to act.
Fear is a powerful motivator. It makes us silent, it makes us run, it makes us attack. Fear can distort memories and it can influence decisions. Recently we've heard a lot about misogyny. Namely, the murders and mass shooting carried out by Elliot Roger, a college student from California. His unadulterated hatred for women drove him to hunt women he didn't even know, that had never wronged him, and gun them down in the streets. He posted videos of himself spewing his extreme loathing of all women and then he carried out his well-contemplated plot to rid the streets of them and then of himself. And this made me very afraid.
This incident brought the subset of men identifying as 'Failed Pick-Up Artists' and their severe loathing of women to light. I read the story in horror, and then I watched his video titled Retribution. Stomach acid welled in my throat by minute 3 and was threatening to choke me by minute 6. By the end of the video I was shivering with disgust. I became obsessed with finding out more about this branch of society and dove deep into the bowels of online chat rooms, blogs, vlogs and articles to find out more. One of the most bone chilling rants I came across is as follows:
I wish there was some way to encapsulate pain and make a weapon out of it. So guys like me could track down all the women who rejected us and who were f**king lucky we even spoke to them, but because of their delusional society ingrained idea of them being special, they simply brushed us off like ants,
And then we could just fire that weapon on them and all that intensified humiliation and self-degradation could just beam right into their soul and stay there and it would take years or a f**king lifetime for that injury to heal over.
When the abominable acts of Elliot Rodger played across my television screen, I became fearful for my life simply because I was a woman. After reading forum after forum of these men who wanted nothing more than to run me through a band saw because I was born with ovaries(actual statement found on a forum), I became terrified. Shortly after the Elliot Rodger event, and because the dark(er) underbelly of this well organized misogynistic society was revealed, a trend arose. A trend brought on by the women who stood their ground and decided to leak the identities of the men who treated them like garbage. And most of these men could be found on online dating websites such as OKCupid and Plenty of Fish. I mention these, because these were the ones I participated in.
I wanted to meet a good man. But I also wanted to mark these particular men for what they were; dangerous. There was a sense of comradery among women as we submitted the disgusting messages we received to blogs dedicated to this endeavor. We were uniting against the onslaught of woman-hating shitbags and it was empowering! Warnings for women in certain areas were published about men who had attempted rape, the true nature of these men were revealed. There were also examples of how a man should take a rejection, with grace and humility. It was a win/win. But I began to notice a change in myself. The fear had changed me.
Amidst being solicited for prostitution, being sent photos of men's genitals and wading through pages of porn involving myself (one man expressed his desire to scoop my eyeballs out of their sockets and urinate in the empty space, all for his sexual gratification) I began turning bitter. The thought of a man touching me in any way made me physically sick and I began to get anxious in public. I saw every man as a potential rapist/murderer, every message I received was a man waiting to be pushed over the edge and take his guns to the streets. I could see my messages rejecting one of those pornographers as evidence in a murder trial. I became so petrified of men that I began looking at each of my male friends in turn, trying to decide if they would murder a woman for rejecting them. I eventually stopped speaking to them altogether. I knew I had to stop.
I stopped submitting my entries and deleted my profiles. Where, once, reading the various whistle-blowing blogs were part of my morning routine, I now sat gathering my courage back around myself. What was supposed to be a way for me to educate myself and connect with other women who had been victimized by this behavior at some point in their lives, I had turned into my own, personal Fear Monger. It took me about a month to come down from my cloud of suspicion and bitter terror. But I've resolved myself to remain aware of my surroundings but not project my illogical fears out into the world.
This entry is not to condemn the fail blogs designed to mark the men who deserve it. This entry is to outline my experience and to warn you of the dangers of following in my footsteps.
