Fear.
This is fear.
I did the math quickly, and I'm afraid to try harder to add up. However, the initial numbers are perhaps the scariest, given that I can bring them all to mind so easily.
About half of the girls I know have been raped, sexually assaulted, or in someway had a close escape from one or both of these. On three continents, and in a myriad of situations. I'm not going to name names, obviously; but some of these people are friends of mine, who I trust, and who trust me (trust me enough to tell me, anyway). How they can trust any man, given the various stories I hear, is more than I could bring myself to ever understand.
Through alcohol, through abuse of power, through violence, through emotional blackmail; all I hear from the world is a constant tale of abuse, of men harming and defiling women. To nullify the free will of another, you are making of them an object; you enslave them, you make them nothing. Why the hell is sex so important that anyone could think that they could do that? How the hell is ANYTHING so important?
Sex is barely important. It can be significant between people in a relationship, to show affection and closeness, but how does it have value above outside of this?
These girls I speak of have included lovers of the past. I regret most of my sexual partners, for one reason or another; my not being ready, their not being ready, it being for the wrong reasons, it leading to a state of awkwardness, or any number of other reasons; but in each and every case I was thoroughly aware of the connection I shared with this person, even if it was only for a night. They allowed me to be a part of them, and I allowed them to be a part of me. Take away the consent, and you are doing little but systematically torturing another human being whilst masturbating (and possibly developing further complications in terms of disease/pregnancy).
I'm just scared, you know? That this is the way things just...are.
Because if that's how men are; I don't want to be one, anymore.
