I once was mere inches from a bear at a zoo, separated only by a chain link fence. I could see his nostrils quivering as he caught my scent. Then he started drooling. Yeah, I would pick the man over the bear every time.
It’s hard not to marinate in this discourse for a decade or more (which about as long as “ironic misandry” has been a thing online) and not feel pessimistic about the ability for two people to have the mutual trust that makes real emotional Intimacy and romantic love possible.
I know it’s 90% LARPing on the part of these ladies saying they fear men more than bears, but it’s easy to see how a sensitive young straight man could look at that and cocoon themselves in video games and porn rather than subject himself to all that fear and contempt.
My last GF got noticeably distant when she discovered I had listened to Joe Rogan on Spotify. Its exhausting, I’ve barely dated in the last 16 months since we broke up. An absolutely staggering amount of profiles telling me what I have to believe politically to go out with them and I’m an independent so I can’t win. Although it mostly seems to be liberal women who care.
Exhibit 100,343,564 in "Social media is a stupid, stupid place full of vicious, insufferable hypocrites who are completely full of shit about many things."
Never thought about avoiding turkey fight, but geese are no joke. People say "break it's neck. " but the neck is a small target, and while you're trying to break it, those wings and break can do some damage. Wouldn't volunteer for a goose fight without weapons.
Both the turkey and the goose are getting roasted. Even hand to hand. It goes without saying though, you aren’t walking away without a lot of cuts and scrapes and peck marks 😂😂.
I think the man vs bear thing is silly, but I also feel you are significantly underestimating the actual existence of actual women who actually, yes, really do fear men that much.
Discounting intimate partner violence (which I have also experienced), I have been mugged by a man who was a stranger to me (I was walking with a friend, also a man, who took the brunt of the considerable violence, but I was certainly terrified by proxy — my friend ended up in the ICU) and then I was singled out by a another male stranger to be stalked over the course of months including multiple attempts to break into my apartment for the purposes of (confirmed later when he was caught) sexually assaulting me.
I accordingly avoid walking anywhere after dark, and when I must (I live in a northern city, so any activity after 5pm during the winter involves SOME walking alone, if only from my car to my apartment), I carry a Taser. Actually I carry the Taser all of the time. Sometimes I walk with my hand on the grip. If I’m not walking with my hand on my Taser, I often use a panic button app on my phone — I walk with the button pressed down, and if I were to release my grip, the app would call 911 for me. I don’t use online dating apps. I generally avoid any form of “meeting up with people I met online” unless I am SURE they are women and even then I do so in very public places. I do sometimes go to a bar alone as a substitute for dating apps, and am careful about watching my drink, never drinking too much, not being followed out the door, etc. I study martial arts and self defense. I even avoid getting into an elevator alone with a man who is a stranger to me.
Idk, are those enough actions to demonstrate that my fear is real? And am I really that much of an outlier? I just don’t think I am.
Yes you are an outlier, in some senses. The liklihood of being the victim of a violent crime is fairly low, at a population level. Of course, being out late at night, in certain cities/neighborhoods, in smaller groups, while intoxicated massively increases those chances, which you clearly recognize.
Your fear is real in the sense that I believe you truly feel it and act accordingly but at the same time, I think you overestimate your risk levels. The point being: the existence of your experience does not validate the overall fear of men propagated on the internet.
But at the same time, that shouldn't diminish that there are risks that you see. I think this is like crime in Chicago. One side points to blatent examples of lawlessness, the other to population-wide statistics. Knowing that crime is overall rare is of course cold comfort to the victim.
Neither fact invalidates the other nor fully illustrates reality.
What's odd is, all men I know act like this all the time, and are mocked for it. Not by men, who are doing the same thing, but by women who think they're overreacting. ...While NOT doing the same thing. Preparing nothing, defending nothing.
So when you or other women say they're holding a taser ready, men are are all like "So? Good idea, I should get one." The narrative is that women are uniquely afraid and only they are at risk, that's generally why such stories are told. Men get so tired of always being prepared or at risk eventually, after worn out years of being on high alert, they just shrug and say "Whatever, come at me bro" (I'll do my best.) Source???? Look at who is into guns, self-defense, and concealed permits. And who thinks that's a waste of time.
I know this is old, and your fear is real, and women are careful (they will arrange travel, groups, etc) but they seem to think it's unique to them, and men both are more worried, and tell their women to be far, far more careful and are ignored. (called paranoid). Strange, really.
Most men aren’t on high alert all the time. Most of us normally maintain more situational awareness than most women seem to. Women can be so oblivious.
Bummer about the mugging and the unhinged stalker. I would recommend getting a Concealed Carry permit, and practicing regularly. That may be difficult where you live.
Fear would be near one end of a range of related emotions. Prudence, caution, and wariness would be other points. Which point is appropriate should depend on your situation.
How do you feel the first time you spar with someone you don’t know?
A father wears many hats. One of the most important is _sparring partner_.
What I just wrote above. Who is actually worried would be who get trained and carries. For some reason that's overwhelmingly men. Why?
And you're proving my point. Both men are worried (you've already taken great steps on a response) and are recommending this to all women. That is, men are more concerned, more "fearful" every day, even on the women's behalf. Women I know all call that paranoid and dismiss. And as the article, WHILE saying men are deadly. Every man will kill you and your plan is to do nothing? Why? Something doesn't align.
I would say that men are always alert. Most of us are more comfortable with that than most women. There may be sexual dysmorphism here, as well as differences between individual women.
Police use a color code system invented by Jeff Cooper.
It describes the various levels of alertness that a uniformed police officer should have during their workday. Civilians trained in self defense use something similar.
Men who learn armed self defense take our role as protectors seriously. A woman who learns self defense can take some of the load off. It means she will handle actual threats better.
Some women talk as if they have only two settings: off, and terrified. I don’t know if they really think that way.
Yeah, during the height of MeToo, shortly before I ran screaming from Twitter entirely (around 2018), I remember posts going around that men should cross the street to avoid a woman they see coming so as not to frighten them. And that statement definitely includes some non-progressive racial implications in the event it's a Black man approaching a white woman on the sidewalk.
lol my very biased experience of the demographic would lead me to suspect that any Asian man following me from the train station is most likely giving chase with intent to remind me to ZIP UP YOUR COAT or ISN’T YOUR HEAD COLD WITHOUT A HAT or perhaps YOU FORGOT YOUR MITTENS!
In 2020, my granddaughter had a sore throat, we thought it was Covid. The clinic told us to come back when they set up a time to see her. So we drove around. Went to the little Catholic monastery that's now a college, and walked thru the quiet little cemetery up on the hill overlooking the river, where the nuns are buried. A number of my old high school teachers. At the edge of the campus was a huge flock of turkeys. Granddaughter got out & chased them, yelling at them in turkey as they scurried away. gobble, gobble
Isn't this simply a pure example of why social media is addictive and rotten? It allows for a consequence free escape to a fantasy that is completely disconnected from reality, and it does that with other real humans, thus reinforcing the validity (as it were) of the fantasy.
There is a well known Canadian novel, Bear by Marian Engel. It tells the story of a woman who has a sexual relationship with a bear. It won the Governor Generals's Award in 1976.
I’m sad for people whose reality is created by “community” that is virtual and not real. I think about how this phenomenon affects (effects? I went to a mediocre high school and can never remember the rule) actual reality. How having no real, tangible community makes people more isolated and lonely, and disconnected from the truth about humanity…which is, for the most part, that men are generally good. And that real relationships with men are worth having. Breaks my heart really. Such opportunities lost. Lives wasted for virtual reality.
Side note I’ve been attacked by a livestock guardian goose and it was freaking terrifying. Those things are good at their jobs. Also been smashed up against the barn wall by a very large and well meaning heifer. Scary as hell. But my 4 sons and my husband, my father and my uncles…my most beloved people in the world.
As a former UND student, the study cited here is biased due to the fucked up culture of UND... also boys say shit they don't actually have the stone for.
Last year I encountered a bear at a cabin in California.
I was on the porch filming the surroundings then a brown bear ambles up under the stairs.
My voice immediately starts quavering "B-b-b-bear! Bear!"
My palms go sweaty, I freeze but want to run, I forgot everything I knew about bears!
I back into the cabin, shaking hardly remembering how to use a door knob.
I was SCARED. If you've heard accounts of Bear attacks, they are brutal and they take a long, long time. They scalp you with their teeth!
In my everyday life I am frequently only inches away from men all the time. But I wouldn't go into a grocery store full of bears.
This bear discourse is annoying and disingenuous to me. 🐻
I once was mere inches from a bear at a zoo, separated only by a chain link fence. I could see his nostrils quivering as he caught my scent. Then he started drooling. Yeah, I would pick the man over the bear every time.
Yeah but rapes go on a long long time too... and they kill you after.
Oh brother
Nah.
Y'all are missing the thought exercise.
Most bears won't bother you.
Most men won't bother you.
But women aren't thinking about the best case, they're thinking about the worst case, if you run into a psycho bear or a psycho man.
The worst case with a bear is that you get mauled and left to die in a pool of your own blood. Or maybe eaten alive. Might take a couple hours to die.
The worst case with a man can go on for days... weeks... in some lurid cases years.
I do not think all men are bad. 90% of men are good. Great. But the 10% that are bad will be really really bad if given the unfettered opportunity.
Insufferable.
Not much of a rebuttal. OK.
Your rape fantasies aren't worth reading.
It’s hard not to marinate in this discourse for a decade or more (which about as long as “ironic misandry” has been a thing online) and not feel pessimistic about the ability for two people to have the mutual trust that makes real emotional Intimacy and romantic love possible.
I know it’s 90% LARPing on the part of these ladies saying they fear men more than bears, but it’s easy to see how a sensitive young straight man could look at that and cocoon themselves in video games and porn rather than subject himself to all that fear and contempt.
My last GF got noticeably distant when she discovered I had listened to Joe Rogan on Spotify. Its exhausting, I’ve barely dated in the last 16 months since we broke up. An absolutely staggering amount of profiles telling me what I have to believe politically to go out with them and I’m an independent so I can’t win. Although it mostly seems to be liberal women who care.
Exhibit 100,343,564 in "Social media is a stupid, stupid place full of vicious, insufferable hypocrites who are completely full of shit about many things."
*the man vs bears stuff, not your post
Do I have prep time for the turkey fight?
No, but you each get a baster.
Never thought about avoiding turkey fight, but geese are no joke. People say "break it's neck. " but the neck is a small target, and while you're trying to break it, those wings and break can do some damage. Wouldn't volunteer for a goose fight without weapons.
Both the turkey and the goose are getting roasted. Even hand to hand. It goes without saying though, you aren’t walking away without a lot of cuts and scrapes and peck marks 😂😂.
It just shows that a small group of (young) women do not know either men or bears.
I think the man vs bear thing is silly, but I also feel you are significantly underestimating the actual existence of actual women who actually, yes, really do fear men that much.
Discounting intimate partner violence (which I have also experienced), I have been mugged by a man who was a stranger to me (I was walking with a friend, also a man, who took the brunt of the considerable violence, but I was certainly terrified by proxy — my friend ended up in the ICU) and then I was singled out by a another male stranger to be stalked over the course of months including multiple attempts to break into my apartment for the purposes of (confirmed later when he was caught) sexually assaulting me.
I accordingly avoid walking anywhere after dark, and when I must (I live in a northern city, so any activity after 5pm during the winter involves SOME walking alone, if only from my car to my apartment), I carry a Taser. Actually I carry the Taser all of the time. Sometimes I walk with my hand on the grip. If I’m not walking with my hand on my Taser, I often use a panic button app on my phone — I walk with the button pressed down, and if I were to release my grip, the app would call 911 for me. I don’t use online dating apps. I generally avoid any form of “meeting up with people I met online” unless I am SURE they are women and even then I do so in very public places. I do sometimes go to a bar alone as a substitute for dating apps, and am careful about watching my drink, never drinking too much, not being followed out the door, etc. I study martial arts and self defense. I even avoid getting into an elevator alone with a man who is a stranger to me.
Idk, are those enough actions to demonstrate that my fear is real? And am I really that much of an outlier? I just don’t think I am.
Yes you are an outlier, in some senses. The liklihood of being the victim of a violent crime is fairly low, at a population level. Of course, being out late at night, in certain cities/neighborhoods, in smaller groups, while intoxicated massively increases those chances, which you clearly recognize.
Your fear is real in the sense that I believe you truly feel it and act accordingly but at the same time, I think you overestimate your risk levels. The point being: the existence of your experience does not validate the overall fear of men propagated on the internet.
But at the same time, that shouldn't diminish that there are risks that you see. I think this is like crime in Chicago. One side points to blatent examples of lawlessness, the other to population-wide statistics. Knowing that crime is overall rare is of course cold comfort to the victim.
Neither fact invalidates the other nor fully illustrates reality.
What's odd is, all men I know act like this all the time, and are mocked for it. Not by men, who are doing the same thing, but by women who think they're overreacting. ...While NOT doing the same thing. Preparing nothing, defending nothing.
So when you or other women say they're holding a taser ready, men are are all like "So? Good idea, I should get one." The narrative is that women are uniquely afraid and only they are at risk, that's generally why such stories are told. Men get so tired of always being prepared or at risk eventually, after worn out years of being on high alert, they just shrug and say "Whatever, come at me bro" (I'll do my best.) Source???? Look at who is into guns, self-defense, and concealed permits. And who thinks that's a waste of time.
I know this is old, and your fear is real, and women are careful (they will arrange travel, groups, etc) but they seem to think it's unique to them, and men both are more worried, and tell their women to be far, far more careful and are ignored. (called paranoid). Strange, really.
Most men aren’t on high alert all the time. Most of us normally maintain more situational awareness than most women seem to. Women can be so oblivious.
Bummer about the mugging and the unhinged stalker. I would recommend getting a Concealed Carry permit, and practicing regularly. That may be difficult where you live.
Fear would be near one end of a range of related emotions. Prudence, caution, and wariness would be other points. Which point is appropriate should depend on your situation.
How do you feel the first time you spar with someone you don’t know?
A father wears many hats. One of the most important is _sparring partner_.
What I just wrote above. Who is actually worried would be who get trained and carries. For some reason that's overwhelmingly men. Why?
And you're proving my point. Both men are worried (you've already taken great steps on a response) and are recommending this to all women. That is, men are more concerned, more "fearful" every day, even on the women's behalf. Women I know all call that paranoid and dismiss. And as the article, WHILE saying men are deadly. Every man will kill you and your plan is to do nothing? Why? Something doesn't align.
I would say that men are always alert. Most of us are more comfortable with that than most women. There may be sexual dysmorphism here, as well as differences between individual women.
Police use a color code system invented by Jeff Cooper.
https://www.police1.com/police-trainers/articles/coopers-colors-a-simple-system-for-situational-awareness-Np1Ni2TbRj9EkGUN/
It describes the various levels of alertness that a uniformed police officer should have during their workday. Civilians trained in self defense use something similar.
Men who learn armed self defense take our role as protectors seriously. A woman who learns self defense can take some of the load off. It means she will handle actual threats better.
Some women talk as if they have only two settings: off, and terrified. I don’t know if they really think that way.
My other concern is how many people in the digital artist community have such bloody fantasy along with pronouns and flag and 🔞.
Cannibalism here made a popular post because the man is very positively Northern European.
Ooooo- I would have loved to see the reaction if dinner was darker. Bet a lot fewer likes!
Yeah, during the height of MeToo, shortly before I ran screaming from Twitter entirely (around 2018), I remember posts going around that men should cross the street to avoid a woman they see coming so as not to frighten them. And that statement definitely includes some non-progressive racial implications in the event it's a Black man approaching a white woman on the sidewalk.
Hence Schumer/Dunham made this joke: "A man was following me from the station. Never mind, he's Asian."
Some Asian Americans were offended for uncertain reasons, but I feel vindicated.
lol my very biased experience of the demographic would lead me to suspect that any Asian man following me from the train station is most likely giving chase with intent to remind me to ZIP UP YOUR COAT or ISN’T YOUR HEAD COLD WITHOUT A HAT or perhaps YOU FORGOT YOUR MITTENS!
possibly in July. I wouldn’t put it past y’all 😉
I actually used to do that.
In 2020, my granddaughter had a sore throat, we thought it was Covid. The clinic told us to come back when they set up a time to see her. So we drove around. Went to the little Catholic monastery that's now a college, and walked thru the quiet little cemetery up on the hill overlooking the river, where the nuns are buried. A number of my old high school teachers. At the edge of the campus was a huge flock of turkeys. Granddaughter got out & chased them, yelling at them in turkey as they scurried away. gobble, gobble
Isn't this simply a pure example of why social media is addictive and rotten? It allows for a consequence free escape to a fantasy that is completely disconnected from reality, and it does that with other real humans, thus reinforcing the validity (as it were) of the fantasy.
There is a well known Canadian novel, Bear by Marian Engel. It tells the story of a woman who has a sexual relationship with a bear. It won the Governor Generals's Award in 1976.
I’m sad for people whose reality is created by “community” that is virtual and not real. I think about how this phenomenon affects (effects? I went to a mediocre high school and can never remember the rule) actual reality. How having no real, tangible community makes people more isolated and lonely, and disconnected from the truth about humanity…which is, for the most part, that men are generally good. And that real relationships with men are worth having. Breaks my heart really. Such opportunities lost. Lives wasted for virtual reality.
Side note I’ve been attacked by a livestock guardian goose and it was freaking terrifying. Those things are good at their jobs. Also been smashed up against the barn wall by a very large and well meaning heifer. Scary as hell. But my 4 sons and my husband, my father and my uncles…my most beloved people in the world.
I have both been described as a "bear" (presumably because of my body shape) and fought geese. Fighting geese is not very easy.
Why are they eating the grossest parts?
John Hamm meme: “Instead of “A Boy and his Dog”, “A Girl and her Bear”.
As a former UND student, the study cited here is biased due to the fucked up culture of UND... also boys say shit they don't actually have the stone for.
Wonderful piece! Well done.