To think that double standards are alive and well.

[DoubleStandardsISee]

YABU = your male friends are right.
YANBU = no reasonably sane person would think this was right.

I've become increasingly aware of the double standards that women in particular are held to over the last year. What saddens me is that this seems to be the case even for some of my long standing male friends. I've decided that I will challenge this whenever I can and would like to ask the community for their input on how to effect meaningful change.

The below examples are both true, and I personally know all the people I'm talking about. Trigger warning of SA.
Example 1: married couple. Husband has a serious accident 3 years into the marriage and ends up in a wheelchair. Physical limitations caused by the trauma he has suffered make intimacy really difficult for 10+ years after the accident. Wife does all she can to look after and care for husband, and because she loves him, she accepts that intimacy may look different moving forward. She gives him time to heal, and their relationship becomes stronger than ever. Male friends think this is no more than the husband is entitled to and praise the wife for standing by him no matter what.
Example 2: different married couple. Wife survived SA in childhood. Husband aware of this for 6 years prior to marriage and seems supportive. A year before the wedding unforeseen circumstances bring the SA that the wife has suffered back into the spotlight. Wife has a trauma response to this, and intimacy suffers between the couple. She arranges and takes part in counselling to try to deal with this before the wedding. Intimacy improves, and children enter the equation. Fast forward to 3 years after the wedding and the husband starts to tell his wife that he feels hard done by and that he sees the lack of intimacy prior to the wedding as the wife "withholding" sex. This is in his mind justification for treating her badly. Male friends see this very differently to my female friends and think that the man is justifiably angry, and that she should have just made herself do the deed regardless of the CPTSD she was suffering.
I find it inconceivable that anyone would think in this way and really want the words to make them understand how wrong this is. Any ideas?

Wow because men are just entitled to sex 🤮 can you just cut loose those male friends? I'm not sure it's worth the energy and not your job to make them "see".

I've known them a long time, never seen any sign of this internalised misogyny before and am horrified. I will make the effort to make them see how vile it is, but am fully intending to cut loose if this has no effect.

I think it is more than just double standards that men and women are held to, I think this is a lot about the difference in level of seriousness people take mental health problems as opposed to physical health problems

Your friends are wrong, but is it possible that this may have more to do with lack of understanding about mental health and the impact on survivors of CSA compared to the impact of a physical accident? In other words, if you reversed the sexes in both your examples, they might still have more sympathy with the first example than the second?

Cross post with @OpalHiker

I agree with this.

I think this is absolutely misogyny and I'm sorry that you've found out something so troubling about people you thought you knew well, I know that's really disturbing. I think there is also - and I'm not negating the misogyny, just saying this also adds to it - an underlying prejudice relating to mental vs. physical ill health here. I think they think she has a choice about her barriers to intimacy and he doesn't - which is ignorant, wrong and offensive, but sadly not an uncommon attitude.

Sorry, also a cross-post with OpalHiker!

That's a very good point. I hadn't considered that.

Interesting that one of the chaps is currently doing a counselling course.....

I agree with this. I think most men who have never experienced sexual abuse can't even fathom the emotional impact it has on the survivor, where many/most women who have also never experienced sexual abuse can absolutely imagine how devastating it would be. From childhood, women grow up being aware/afraid of possibly being sexually assaulted. The danger is always there. Most men have no clue what that feels like.

Fucking awful bunch of men. I’m not sure I believe it’s to do with not understanding mental health/CPTSD otherwise your female friends would have had a similar reaction. I don’t think I’d bother trying to get them to see a different point of view, they instinctively see mens desire for sex as more important than a woman’s trauma and mental health.

I think there's a couple of issues here and I agree a big one is the perception of mental Vs physical issues.

However, I'd be quite perturbed by your male friends not only thinking the mistreatment of your female friend is justified (as her husband seems to think it is because she 'withholds sex') but also the idea she should just 'make herself do it' is fairly rapey. Why do some men not grasp that woman should actually want to have sex with them?

That by itself would make me distance myself from them.

Would your male friends agree with wife 1 pressurising husband 1 into other sexual activity or maybe taking a lover? Or what they not be ok?

Maybe rather than trying to convince them, question them. Ask them why they think him wanting more sex, is more important than her not wanting sex? Do they think women don’t have a right to refuse? Do they not care if the woman they are having sex with doesn’t want it? Should sex not be something both people want and enjoy? How could they enjoy sex with a woman who didn’t want it and was actively traumatised by it? Would they carry on if she cried? Do they think it’s a man’s job to love and support his wife when she’s struggling with past trauma and vice versa? Let them try to justify their view.

I think there's a very prevalent view in society and especially on here (from other women) that sex is not important to women in the way it is for men. It's often expressed that women do sex for a relationship, rather than due to desire. The result of this mindset is that a woman would therefore not feel the loss of sex in a relationship as strongly as a man would, as men apparently have stronger sex drives.

All complete bollocks of course.

@OpalHiker has it right.

I also suspect it's not a male/female view here but more physical health/mental health situation.

There are a hundred and one things you could do with your time which would make the world a better place. Lots of charities are crying out for volunteers.
Why waste your time on these bunch of misogynistic losers?

It goes along with how women’s bodies are viewed as a whole, too.

Everyone (men & women) believe they have a say what women’s bodies should ’do’ and look like.
It seems to be everyone’s business.

I’m an asexual, don’t want to have sex, and I’ve list count how many women have told me to ’get over it and find a man’.
It’s bonkers!

Same thing with kids. People keep telling women without kids (for whatever reason) that they should have kids. Because they say so.

And nevermind if woman is overweight, people make it known.

Because people think women’s bodies (note not women, but their bodies) are used for looks, sex and having kids.

It’s dehumanitation.

Yes, I do think you're right. I think the experience that most women have had by adulthood of feeling vulnerable because they are female sets us up to be alert to danger.

I think this will be a good way of tackling it. I do wonder if they will be open to seeing it this way. I hope so.

I think some people still need visual aids to understand, sympathise and empathise with other people.

If one of each couple were in a wheelchair or had both legs/arms in plaster there would probably be more understanding.

Mental health and/or trauma is so misunderstood and generalised by some with a “just get over it” attitude.

Woman can be equal to men in having this view.

So, it seems some of you think it's the whole mental health versus physical health thing, and I'm actually hoping it is as this seems easier to tackle. I have to say I suspect it's actually the whole ownership of a wife thing though, the entitlement to intimacy seems to be a feature of men of a certain age. (I'm definitely not young!!).

I don't think any of you should be discussing such intimate details of your friends' lives.

If the roles were reversed and the husband was the SA survivor, the wife would be supportive and if it was the wife in the wheelchair the husband would've fucked off by now.
There's statistics about this sort of thing especially when the woman is given a life-changing diagnosis.

Was it Germaine Greer who said women have no idea how much men hate them. Or something to that effect