To get rid of men from my life altogether

[montecarlo7]

I know this sounds a bit barmy but I've been doing a lot of reflecting recently and I realised that men have overwhelmingly brought negative things into my life.

I made a list of the male friends and relationships I've had in the past and I realised there were only 5 who were good men who brought something positive and there were many who harmed me. I'm almost 40 and single.

I've been raped in what I thought were safe relationships. I've been sexually assaulted on multiple occasions, both by strangers and male friends. I've been harassed and catcalled a lot. Two male friends (both partnered) I made in the last few years ended up sexually harassing me. Not the first (or second) time either. My (male) neighbour in my last home harassed me to the point I had to go to the police.

I've had partnered and married men make passes at me over and over to the point that I don't make friends with couples anymore.

The men I've hired in a business or work context have not brought much positive either.

I do have one close male friend who I trust. But I'm thinking that I'm going to have a policy of no more male friends and stop looking for relationships...I'm going to be single and accept it.

At one point I thought this has to be my fault that the men that show up in my world are not that great. But now I'm getting to age 40 I'm starting to reconsider that it's actually them.

I plan to put my energy into female friendships only. I'm in a very female centred line of work and only work with women which is nice. I stopped hiring men for other jobs e.g. around the house if I can work with a woman instead.

I gave up a hobby I had that brings me into contact with a lot of men.

I know women are not all perfect either, but here's the thing. I've never been assaulted, sexually harmed, harassed, catcalled, verbally abused, or had an unwanted pass made at me by a woman.

It's clear that some men are unsafe to be around and that's reason enough to avoid the whole lot of them.

What do you think?

No, not prejudice. Prejudice implies that you treat someone badly because of set ideas about who they are.

I already know who many men are.

I've had extensive experience with them. I made a list of the friendships and relationships I've had with men. 24 of them harmed me in some way.

Here's the harm:

Verbal abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, rape, cheating, using me for sex and lying about wanting a relationship, porn addicts, used sex workers who turned out to be trafficked women, didn't stand up for me when they saw another man abuse me in some way, hurt me during sex and didn't care, belittled me, tried to cheat on their partner with me, sexually harassed me, behaved in a sexist way towards me, the list goes on.

6 of them didn't harm me.

So according to my calculations based on my experiences, 75% of men behave badly to the point they can harm the women they're involved with romantically or friends with.

That's not prejudice, that's experience.

Also, the men's rights forum is that way ---->

I am centering myself as a woman on this thread, and the other women's sharing of their ideas and experiences, so I will now be ignoring anything that is clearly posted by a man.

@Knight900 what "toxic environment" is the OP creating? No man will even realise that she is quietly withdrawing from interacting with them. The OP is also happy to continue working with the couple of men that she currently does.

"Misandry" seems to just be what some people call women protecting themselves. Compared to the effects of ongoing misogyny throughout the ages, which has led to nations and generations of women being denied basic human rights....

I only know one woman who hasn't been physically sexually assaulted and she has been verbally sexually assaulted if that's a thing.

I have a great partner (male), but I would never date again if I lost him. I've been with him since I was 18 (on 57 now), but I've still had a lifetime of hassle from other men, including rape, sexual assault, physical and verbal violence, incest, catcalling, groping, bullying, etc. like everyone else here.

👏

I laughed but yeah, don’t feed them

It’s not prejudice it’s a rational response to your lived experience. If you touch the grill your hand gets burned you’ve dealt with men and the majority have caused you pain so you seek to avoid those situations in the future.

That's been my experience of many gay men too. It's a pretty low bar to say gay men are great because they won't sexually assault us so we feel safe.

I think women do realise that because they do have sex drives as well. Strong sex drives. HTH.

Try walking the streets with a stunning blonde 15 year old and you will see the reality of how men are 🤮

Funnily enough stoat despite having a sex drive I’ve never found myself leering at teenage boys in the street or beeping my horn at them

Sorry for my salty comment! I have heard that testosterone is quite a drug when it's rushing around your system.

However, I have done stupid and frankly weird things during my life because of my high sex drive, and I think if I was in a position where society didn't necessarily condemn me for such behaviour (or even celebrated it as normal) like men are, I might have behaved a lot worse.

I do find this idea interesting and feel similar, but have found as I have got older and fatter I have a very different relationship with the men I meet. I now have plenty of male friends through my hobby who I think value my personality because I am not offering anything else in terms of looks. It feels like a totally different dynamic. When I was attractive to men, I was treated in the same way as you, but now I have nice normal relationships with them. I am not sure I would want to try and find a romantic relationship again, but personally I wouldn’t close myself off to friendships. Five years ago, I would have said the same as you.

I've had a high sex drive in the past but I think a woman's high sex drive in is not quite the same as a man's due to the effect of testosterone. I once had an interesting experience that I'd like to share.

I used to get PMS and I read that supplementing with magnesium (a really high dose I found used in a study which successfully reduced PMS) can help with this.

So I took the huge dose of magnesium. On day 2 I noticed a massive increase in sex drive. I actually went and looked at porn (which I never do...and this was when I was quite young and unaware of the ethics around porn.) I knew I found porn distasteful but in that moment I was so horny I didn't care.

I had never had that experience before of being intensely horny that everything else faded into the background as unimportant.

I stopped the magnesium and it went away. Started again and the intense horniness came back.

I read that high dose magnesium raises DHEA quite a lot in women which raises testosterone.

I think what I was experiencing that day was the effect of raised testosterone. I was obsessed with sex...thinking about it for much of the day. As I said, I've had a high sex drive in the past but nothing like that before or since.

Whatever helps you get through the day.

If OH dies (which he will some day) then I'll probably continue on with our current friendship group which is mainly male and has been stable for years. We're both on the older side (retired) so I think the hormones have subsided and we're more happy and loving companions in life now.

In our younger days he gave up looking for female companionship fairly early and it was a bit of a fluke we got together. I have few female friends, when I as younger I was bullied at school and at work. I found my female colleagues to be people I simply didn't want to be around.

Well I’ve just found out my partner of three years had knowingly put me at risk of a potentially fatal STD. I have two young children.

so YANBU.

I gave up on relationships 5 years ago Ozp after a 20 year marriage to someone who just used me and then dumped me for a pipe dream with zero care for my welfare. My first husband was violent. I'm so happy on my own. I dont feel I'm half a person waiting for my other half. I feel like a whole person who doesn't need anyone else.
I have a lovely adult son. I have a lovely gay male friend who I go out with regularly.
My life feels comete. I dont need a man in it.

Oh my god. That is unforgivable.

Well that really depends on the criminal doesn’t it? Of course a straight rapist is targeting women, and a child abuser targets children. My dad sexually abused me as a child, it wasn’t because I was giving off ‘victim vibes’, it’s was because I was convenient.

On the topic of testosterone - I was watching an interview recently with a de-transitioner - this is a young woman who was fooled by gender ideology into thinking that transitioning would solve all her problems, and then realised after taking the puberty blockers and going through surgery that it was all bullshit.

Anyway, she spoke about the effect that testosterone had on her physically (body hair, voice change etc.) but also that when she first started taking it, she felt invincible. Before that she had been depressed and anxious, but she suddenly felt powerful and confident.
When I heard this it made so much sense - men are pumped full of testosterone at puberty, and then society reinforces that invincible feeling, so they think they are untouchable.

Yes I’ve never understood the concept of male friends, just why?

I’m married as are most of my friends and I can chat to their husbands (I can chat to anyone) but I wouldn’t go out of the way to see them or any men.
They are either boring, droning on about football or trains, boastful show offs or weird creeps.
Ive noticed men never ever ask about my life yes I am expected to hang onto their every word.

I'm so glad people have acknowledged this - I have felt like this for a long time, but always thought we aren't supposed to say it as it would be tagged as homophobic.
One of my best friends of 16 years is gay, and when I was younger I would socialise with him in gay clubs and with his other gay male friends.

Some of the stuff I heard regularly about women was disgusting, so cruel and dehumanising. The drag shows mocking and deriding women. And they all thought it was hilarious! Women were always the but of the joke, women's bodies were mocked and ridiculed. Women's biology just seemed to disgust them.

I felt so uncomfortable by it all, that I eventually stopped going out with them. I still see my friend but we go out for dinner instead. I used to think gay men were our allies, but I really don't think so.

This is an article which features a study that shows that men are more selfish and greedy than women are, and talks about what the reason for it is.

In short, they are socialised to be selfish and rewarded for selfishness (whereas women are punished for selfishness in social contexts), so their brain is trained to get a hit of dopamine because of that.

https://www.today.com/health/brain-rewards-women-being-nicer-men-being-selfish-t117305

It’s not sexism or misandry it’s just basic pattern
recognition.
That it’s mostly men doing the uncomfortable stuff, the boundary violations, the physically violence, verbal put downs and harassment even from a young age, before we started school in some cases, like mine, I’ve never known a woman to be so cold critical and uncaring to such young children and if a woman was like that she’s be painted into a fabel
and labelled pathological.
I lived with that.
I was dragged up around it and even from being so small I knew it was wrong.
And he’s not even the worst of it.
the worst happened to other kids, but almost always by men.

Also, studies consistently show that men are more dishonest than women and they lie more for self gain:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/finding-a-new-home/202301/men-are-more-selfishly-dishonest-than-women#:~:text=Key%20points,lies%20that%20promote%20self%2Dinterest.

Wanted to post these links with evidence for anyone not convinced that reports of men's bad behaviour isn't just the odd bad apple but a widespread problem.

Well you either accept equality between the sexes of you don’t. Being vehemently anti male - displaying such view points is flagrantly sexist. Just because it suits OP personal view ( shared by many on here ) doesn’t mean this is not sexist