There is an anonymous blog entry floating about online that made its way onto Facebook and into my newsfeed. It, and the online reactions to it, are now batting about in my noggin. As are, of course, my own thoughts on “The Ugly Side of Being a Single, Attractive and Available Heterosexual Woman.”
In brief summation, the anonymous author draws comparisons between current date culture and rape, citing that consensual sex, particularly of the hook-up variety, too often morphs into a kind-of, “Well she’s here, so game on!” mentality that leads men to expect that “Yes” means “Yes to everything.”
Additionally, she expresses her frustration with still feeling that, after all this evolutionary time, it is the woman who must act responsibly, talk responsibly and think responsibly—setting the boundaries that men aren’t expected to set themselves—and carefully choose the when and where and how to have sex, lest her choices give the wrong impression and turn a man cold … or too darn hot.
The blog's responses are mixed and I won’t get into all of those here. I will, however, get into my own “The Ugly Side of Being a Single, Attractive and Available Woman.” After I set a few things straight.
First, for those of you out there who believe when a date, or series of dates with the same man, goes horribly wrong or embarrassingly wrong or just plain annoyingly wrong, that it is, by default, the fault of the woman’s faulty choice-making abilities, fuck you.
Second, if you have ever said to a woman that when a date, or series of dates with the same man, goes horribly wrong or embarrassingly wrong or just plain annoyingly wrong, it is her fault for having faulty choice-making abilities, double fuck you.
Because …
—and now I’m going to cheat here, so-to-speak, because what comes next is my previous (now edited) response to a stereotypical “C’mon girls, just make better choices” comment that followed a friend’s reposting of the article in question—
… making a man’s behavior about a woman’s choice skews the relationship between what men and women are held responsible for when dating (or fucking) one another. So much so that when a woman is horrible to a man, she’s considered a bitch and when a man is horrible to a woman, she’s considered a poor decision-maker. Hmmm.
It’s embarrassing enough when you think you’ve chosen well—whether that’s when to have sex with a man or to simply go on a date to see if you want to—and all goes awry; it can become embarrassingly debilitating when friends and family shame you into believing that, as the woman, surely you asked for it, if by no other means than agreeing to go out or get undressed in the first place. (NOTE: by “awry,” I don’t mean that the movie sold out or that he wore a holey hoodie instead of a light jacket; I mean the he-has-a-girlfriend or the he-tried-to-force-you-to-swallow variety of “awry.”)
Blaming the woman has historically been a part of rape culture. Unfortunately, it is now a part of consensual sex culture as well. Choice Shaming has to stop.
No, I am not generalizing that all men are bad. No, I am not ignoring when men sometimes have a helluva time trying to unravel the confusion of what-in-the-hell-kind-of-signal-is-this-chick-giving-me-Jesus-I-don’t-know-if-I-should-go-for-it-or-get-the-hell-outta-here and that that confusion sometimes breeds misinterpretation. No, I am not denying that men never get shit from their friends for having their heart torn apart by the same woman over and over or that women don’t indeed make faulty decisions about the same man or the same kind of men.
What I am saying is simply that Choice Shaming has to stop.
My own dirty dating details to follow in Part 2.