Men are in general bigger

[Badconversationalist]

I was pondering an incident a long long time ago. A friend tried kissing me, I backed off/tried to push him away until I was pinned against the wall before getting myself free, leaving. He was apologetic later.

I saw him yesterday (we're still friends) and I thought about the sheer physicality of the situation. He is a strong muscular big bloke. So for me "push him off", actually in reality he must have stopped and let me go.

And actually the pinning against wall scenario could be passion rather than aggression to another.

I have thought a lot recently about social conditioning in terms of women being vulnerable. But I'm wondering how much the difference in physicality determines the dynamic between men and women?

Is that stupidly simplistic? Or stupidly obvious?

I'm not a small woman but I seem to know a lot of 6 foot plus men.

And actually the pinning against wall scenario could be passion rather than aggression to another

I've read your post a couple of times and I'm not sure what you mean here?

Having talked to friends (ages ago) it turns out lots of them found it sexy to be pinned against a wall.

Realise that I've written my rambling thoughts in the post and that's off topic and makes no point. Sorry.

He used his size and strength in an attempt to FORCE you in to a kiss. There is nothing passionate about that.
You backed off and pushed him away and then had to free yourself. What would have happened if you could not free yourself?

The man would no longer be my friend.

Having talked to friends (ages ago) it turns out lots of them found it sexy to be pinned against a wall

Oh OK - been there and done that with consent in my youth ... but the key is consent. I consented and it was all part of the fun. You didn't.

I guess now I am wondering re what you mean by 'the dynamic'?

I'd be willing to bet that most women who say things like found it sexy to be pinned against a wall are thinking of it in the context of the other party being a trusted partner who would stop pinning them against the wall if they showed discomfort with the situation.
Not in the context of being pinned to a wall against their will and being unable to free themselves.

Yes I'm really regretting posting in such a rambling way. Wishing i had censored my thoughts a bit. Because if it had happened now I would agree but it happened when I was young clueless and with terrible boundaries.

The result is that years on we are friends. And maybe I'm finding it interesting because I'm trying to make that ok, I have some self awareness. But it really did make me think, do we women in general (or have I) unwittingly lived with the risk of being overpowered at any point.

Not in what he did to you at all and I think you're making excuses for him by saying it was passion rather than aggression. I would not trust him anymore.

"Not on"

do we women in general (or have I) unwittingly lived with the risk of being overpowered at any point

Of course we do!
Men, as a class, are larger and stronger than women, as a class. A typical man can overpower a typical woman simply because he's larger and stronger. That makes women more vulnerable to male aggression, because it's harder for us to fight an aggressor off.
Most men don't go around routinely attacking women, but when men do, the woman usually comes off worse.

I thought I was posting sensibly but I have mixed things up so maybe I haven't worked out what I think about the personal scenario and was indirectly asking.

I think yes we are conditioned ( or certainly were in the past) to consider ourselves vulnerable in partly because on the whole some men tend to be larger than some women and have more muscle mass for those bursts of running/ fighting. I am hoping to be corrected scientifically here! However: if society values endurance e.g. surviving in icy waters, long distances etc then my understanding was that it's actually women who have a physical advantage due to our fat stores. We must also be physically less vulnerable in some way because more female babies survive infancy, old ladies live longer. So maybe it's our interpretation of what is meant by strength that needs considering? There is also the fact that women genuinely are vulnerable when pregnant and breastfeeding or looking after small children. We do value support then, but it doesn't have to be from a man! Women also have the disadvantages of social conditioning to feel weaker and vulnerable because we weren't trained or educated or employed equally, we were infantilised or put on a pedestal or in a gilded cage in clothes that hobbled and constricted us - not just hooped skirts and silk bustles, even now I would struggle to change a wheel in my work clothes of pencil skirt and heels and painted fingernails. So i do see your point OP but think there is more to it as well.

He used his physicality to dominate you in a situation you did not consent to. If you're reflecting on this still, it must obviously have left a mark and you have to wonder if the friendship you have now is a true and worthy one.

People can and do use their physicality to dominate others, to attract others, or to deter a threat. So it's not always a negative thing but of course, in your situation it was and you obviously felt threatened. This situation you experienced was with THIS particular friend of yours, so it would make life pretty grim if you worried about being at risk in the company of all men.

I think I'm only reflecting on it because of therapy in part for a more serious scenario but in a situation where it's easy to "other" the man as violent and not typical. But it sort of throws a light on the smaller things. And made me think about the everyday dynamic. I am hopeful this friendship survives that process.

In some ways it's a process of rationalising everyday threat and so the small things almost become more important.

The comments about strength and sex are really interesting thanks. And exactly the sort of thing I was wondering.

The average male is larger and stronger than the average female. If you look at sports and boxing you can see that the fittest, strongest women are still not as strong as the average man.
The woman who fought Fallon Fox and was severely injured knows she is 'abnormally strong' for a woman. I dont know how they let Fox in the ring with her.
Archived link;
archive.is/uDWH0

I agree that your friend chose to let you go. That was probably because of your continued active resistance. If you had been too scared or shocked to actively resist, he may have read that as willingness or compliance.
Your counsellor may be able to offer a joint session where he attends with you. You could think about what you want to say to him and what you want from him.

Yes, he chose to let you go.

Think of all the countless women in history who have been killed by men. Do you seriously think they could in fact have fought for their lives if only they hadn't been socialised to think they were weak?

I reckon about 99.9% of men and older teenage boys would be able to overpower me if they chose to do so. Which is why, say, I don't let men I don't know in my house if I'm alone.

All men benefit from this power dynamic even if they don't as individuals use their strength against women, because we don't know who the violent men are. So we are more likely e.g. to defer to or not challenge strange men, because we don't know if they are likely to react with violence or not. It's a cost-benefit decision - the risk of provoking a violent man is disproportionately high to me as a woman because of my relative physical weakness.

You're right questingvole it's not socialization that makes us more likely to be the loser in physical fights, the ones more likely to be caught by the pursuing wolf pack or the incoming tsunami. The point I was trying to make is that our anatomy is not the sole reason we are weaker, there are social reasons too that make us feel weaker.

His being bigger and stronger than you made what happened his choice, not yours.
You were 'lucky' that he did not continue.

That is why it is the stronger persons responsibility to check their actions - they are accountable for the situations.

Many women are as strong or stronger than many men.
At the extremes of the spectrum, the strongest of the species tend to be men, yes.

Nothing wrong with "passion", and sometimes it's fun to drive fast, but you don't start a car in 5th gear. Pinning a woman to a wall and trying to kiss her as an opening gambit is probably going to be a wanted advance in 1/100 or maybe 1/1000 situations. So it's long odds indeed.

I would like to respond to posts but I have sort of lost what my point was. I'll have a think later.

The entire basis of patriarchal society is that men are stronger than women. There is no other reason why men dominate everything - the key is that when it comes to it, men can and will use force against women to make them comply. Everyone knows this but no one likes to admit it.

I assume this happened when you were both quite young, so I would give the man the benefit of the doubt re the kissing - if he has been socialised to think that's what girls like he may have made a mistake due to inexperience and once he realised you were trying to escape, he realised his error and released you. So yes he probably did let you go, rather than you forcing him. Sadly you are correct in thinking that if he hadn't have wanted to release you it would be very difficult for you to force it unless you are very strong and he is a small man.

Most men have upper body strength of at least 50 percent more than a woman of similar stature. This is biological due to testosterone that builds muscle. This biological advantage lasts from from mid teens right through to old age.

That is not to say there aren't some women who are stronger than many men. But this doesn't usually happen by accident. They need to work seriously in the gym to achieve this. Whereas most men are stronger than most women without taking such measures.

I assume this happened when you were both quite young, so I would give the man the benefit of the doubt re the kissing

I wouldn't. If a boy my age did this to a girl I'd be enraged, as I would be if my 15 year old brother did. He has a girlfriend and understands consent; there's no excuse for any boy or man not to.

There is certainly an issue with messages, not least from pornography, suggesting women and girls all like being overpowered and so forth which is very worrying.

TheQuestioningVole I also agree with your post.

I have a younger brother. I can recall quite vividly the first time he beat me in a play fight - despite being a bit smaller than me, he was much stronger than me. We must have been about 10yo and 8yo respectively. I have never underestimated how much stronger, in general, men are than women.

How long ago was this? I think (hope) things have changed a lot now, but when I was young that sort of backing a woman up against something and taking a kiss was presented as romantic in films.

There has been quite a bit written about Han Solo and Princess Leia's first kiss in terms of how it was representative of the general tone of films at the time. In the film it was more or less the same set up as your experience, except that he did kiss her and after a few seconds she relaxed into it and kissed him back. Women were supposed to put up a token resistance (I think so as not to seem tarty), and men would have been considered weak if they asked permission to kiss.

In movies the 'bad' men are the ones who keep up the kissing (or assault, to name it properly) for long enough that it's clearly not token resistance. So I think your friend was pretty much following what he learned from the media, he tried to kiss you and then let you go when it became clear that it was real and not pretend resistance.

And, yes, most men could overpower most women, but don't because they are socially responsible people. Most men probably never even think about the strength difference, but I think women remain aware of it, not all the time necessarily, but in some situations.