To have lost faith in men

[nondrinker1985]

As a result of all the Epstein stuff. Having been a victim of a sexual assault as a young child then in my teens and twenties I had a sense of what men were like but my DH is a good man.

Literally everyone is involved in this Epstein stuff- anyone with power. So this makes them exploit young women? It’s sickening - it’s heartbreaking for the young girls who are victims of these men.

My DS has had his bum slapped and pinched by girls (complete strangers) in nightclubs. He reports them if he can and had gotten them kicked out.

Thank you, Marjorie - haven't seen that before.

It needs to be on a huge billboard.

My dear - we aren't saying 'all men' - we're saying 'many men'; and that how can we tell who's a good'un? When they all look the same.

They are myriad. They are legion.

Well that would apply to everyone, male and female.
I haven't gone through life being suspicious of every man I have met, and so far, it's made life a lot more pleasant than for someone who sees every man as a potential threat....even the ones she is close to.

I don't want to hijack this thread as male physical violence to women is real..but my ds as teen was ridiculed and bullied by some of the "popular girls" in the year. It really hurt his confidence and make him feel like a complete and utter loser.

Why is being patronising to the posters they disagree with the default for so many posters on this thread?

Disagree with me all you like but it would be better if you could debate without the passive agression.

YANBU

I've had endless trouble with men most of my life.

On the way from primary school in the 1970s, age about 8, a man exposed himself to me.

When walking home from secondary school, I would say about once a week (!!!) I would get men stopping in their cars to make lewd suggestions ( didn't happen at weekends when I wasn't wearing uniform).

When I was at uni, I was supposed to have my final year dissertation supervised by a male member of staff but I didn't ever have any supervision because be was well known to try to get female students into bed.

Also while I was a student, I stayed with some family friends one summer while doing an internship at that company the husband
Worked at. I went to work with him and he kept on putting his hand on my thigh near my crotch when he was driving. I was the same age as his daughter.

As an adult, my 3 romantic relationships (all men) have all been abusive.

I have also had endless bullying (not of a sexual nature) from male doctors.

I can't see myself ever really fully trusting a man again.

"Some 47,000 women and girls worldwide were killed by their intimate partners or other family members in 2020. This means that, on average, a woman or girl is killed by someone in her own family every 11 minutes"

• United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2020 Estimates

"A 10th of men in Britain report having paid for sex, and this group has an increased risk of acquiring a sexually transmitted infection, a large survey has found" (2014)

• https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g6854

"An estimated 840 million women – almost one in three – have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life (30 per cent of women aged 15 and older)"

• UN Women, Facts and Figures: Ending Violence Against Women.

"The scale of child sexual abuse is truly staggering. Children make up only 20% of the population (of England & Wales) but are the victims in 40% of all sexual offences. 7.5% of all adults in England and Wales are estimated to have been sexually abused before the age of 16"

• Gov.uk, Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Progress Update

These stats are just the tip of the iceberg, the vast majority of rape, sexual assaults and childhood abuse go unreported, lets not even think about what's happening in countries like Afghanistan and other likeminded societies that see women as little more than orifices for men to gain pleasure from and child bearing vessels.

Let's not even delve into the routine violence that prostitutes - no, I don't call them sex workers, it is not an empowering career choice, most women in that situation are victims of child abuse, domestic violence, addiction and are economically underprivileged. They are almost always exploited or trafficked by men.

Men are definitely a huge problem but to my mind the bigger problem are women that act as handmaidens to men, that place male needs firmly at the centre of everything.

Men are not the most marginalised, vulnerable group in society. This is why it's so important to have statistics recorded that are based in biological reality.

All women born in the UK today have never known what it's like to be disenfranchised by their sex but let's not forget that we've only have the vote for just over 100 years.

I know not all men are awful, my Grandfather was the most wonderful person to have walked the face of the Earth. He was truly the most decent human being I have ever had the privilege to know.

But men are definitely a problem.

Why are women not being sweet enough to you while they point out your nonsense more of an issue than violence against women and girls? Why do you have no counter other than "be nice, woman"? Why must you criticise the tone, which is totally justified, rather than what is actually being said?

If you would like to highlight the "nonsense" and debate and discuss it fair enough but that's not what happened.

You think the tone is justifed whereas I don't. I don't care if people are rude or unpleasant, I just find it disappointing that some poster's can't articulate their point in a more effective way and just default to silly statement rather than cobstructive challenge.

No once have I said that voilence against women and girls is another other than horrifically wrong.

No once have I said some men aren't awful.

This is just more of the same deflective bullshit where you try to blame women for not being sweet and apologetic enough while they counter your nonsense so that you can put the emphasis on their supposed wrongful behaviour rather than the abuse under discussion. If you gave a shit about what mattered, you'd be more concerned about that than a woman being a bit sarcastic towards you while you lecture her.

It's ancient.

I must say yesterday I did have a loss of faith in men.

I was reading this news story yesterday;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgjwxdz45ywo

It was a link to a news story on a social media platform.

Reading the comments every single male account was lambasting the decision, how disgusting it was, how wives have a duty to have sex with their husbands, and how if she says “no” then he has a right to cheat with other women.

I normally don’t read the comments but wanted to see if any “good men” commentators would challenge the others.

I saw none.

100% this. The sad thing is that this poster cannot even see it. They claim that the women on this thread are not being ''sweet' and 'apologetic,' they are being a bit passive aggressive, and not very nice.

Ya know what @AwfullyGood I am not going to be sweet and lovely when someone is trying to minimise the dreadful, hideous behaviour that comes from many men, and the effect and impact their abuse and control and bad behaviour has had on billions of women.

@CatsAreBetterThanMen Thank you for that long detailed post. Lots of interesting, but also terrifying stats on there, but sadly, none of it is shocking to me! (Probably not to many other women on here either.)

The only thing I will say is regarding your last sentence, where you say your grandfather was 'the most wonderful man', my grandfather was too, a gentle, funny, kind man who we had so much fun with as kids - me and my brother and cousins, and we had lovely Christmas days with him, and caravan holidays in Wales.

But this one time (when I was about 12 or 13,) I was at my grandparents house visiting with my mum and my auntie, and my cousin, and my cousin and I decided to play hide and seek whilst the adults chatted in the garden. I went to hide in my grandad's wardrobe (he and gran had separate bedrooms,) and I was being a bit nosey, and as I was trying to wriggle in, and a bunch of video cassette tapes fell out. 6 of them. All hardcore porn. The covers had pics of people actually shagging/giving blow jobs/and all manner of porn.

I am not saying my grandfather was a bad person, or that people who watch porn are bad people, but I was shocked, and I never saw my grandfather in the same light again. He went from a loving, kindly old man who was my hero, to just another dirty-minded man. I still loved him, and he was still nice to us, and I was still OK to visit him, but that side of him I had discovered wouldn't go from my mind. He was actually just a typical man. Even in his 70s which he was then, he had porn. Sadly, when push comes to shove, all men are the same. Some are just worse than others, and there are varying degrees of their awfulness, but all men have some kind of sexist, pervy, misogynistic traits in them. Every last one.

I appreciate that he was your grandfather, so you’d prefer not to be aware of that side of him, but otherwise - that’s not representative of pretty much anything.

Women watch porn. Women can be dirty minded, if we’re putting it that way. Women are into rough sex, and hardcore porn. “Shagging and giving blow jobs” is neither of those things.

I think the idea that men own sex and all that it entails is really archaic.

Much the same as I’d say about searching someone’s phone history, if you don’t want to find someone’s porn - don’t go in their wardrobe. The fact he had it doesn’t mean anything - grown ups have sex, and they occasionally watch it too.

Another example of whataboutery. 'Oh but WIMMIN!' I'm not even going to respond to that. ^

If you want to go on about women, and all their failings, then start a new thread about it. THIS thread is about how awful many men are.

We're not 'lumping' all men together. How could we? Don't be so daft.

Of course women are capable of violence. But a woman is only as strong as I am, which means I'd have a chance of fending her off, and what they don't do is rape,

Of course it applies to everyone. But most women aren't strong enough to overpower me, and they won't rape me.

Neither will most men.🙄

Of course they can!

Can and will are two very different words.🙄

Yes,,I mean...sometimes I think porn discussions on FWR or elsewhere on MN are less 'misogynistic/violent porn is bad' or 'you can never know if porn actors are happy to do it' and more 'wanting to watch any kind of sex is misogynistic'.

I don't think even porn showing vanilla sex is OK as you can never know if the people are OK with doing it or not, but I also don't think wanting to watch sex is automatically misogynistic.

If men weren't overwhelmingly motivated by sex, would any of us be alive? Would the human race have been sustained?