Faux-Feminists: They Just Don't Know

Source: "Hex" by Crawbaby

Sometimes you read a story by a stranger that is so close to your own experience, it strikes you cold. Kate Sloan's honest and chilling article was one of those. While I would strongly advise you to read the whole text, the gist of it is that she realised that an ex friend-with-benefits, whom she had previously trusted as a strong feminist ally, had sexually assaulted various female partners of his. Because he was well-versed and vocal about feminist theory, he managed to deceive those around him while actually violating the same principles he professed to share.

As Sloan describes it,

In his groundbreaking book about abuser psychology, Why Does He Do That?, domestic abuse counselor Lundy Bancroft talks about an archetype he calls “Mr. Sensitive.” This archetypal abuser “presents himself to women as an ally in the struggle against sex-role limitations” and “speaks the language of popular psychology and introspection.” In other words, he uses the jargon of liberal, pro-women social movements — such as, in Tom's case, sex-positive feminism — to pacify his victims and make them seem crazy if they accuse him of abuse. Who, after all, would ever suspect a soft-spoken, sensitive, “woke” man of psychologically and physically destroying his female partner behind closed doors? Feminist lingo and logic can be used to gaslight unsuspecting women, and this is an incredibly dangerous threat.

 

The article has been making numerous cameos in my mindscape recently, because I've been quietly spending idle moments doing internet searches that look like this:

Lol.

 While this is obviously a joke and I don't believe in violence (supernatural or otherwise -- hey, I saw The Craft), it stems from a very real desire to make a person in my past realise what they have done, and what they are. Content warning for sexual assault, and length warning -- this is a long one. Get yourself some tea and a snack.

 

 

I started dating a boy when my feminism was still new. Like, it was around -- I'd been reading stuff like The Vagina Monologues and various teen-based feminist blogs since I was twelve, and I owned the label. But I hadn't really developed a 'proper' understanding of the theory in practise. Perhaps this is why I didn't immediately see this person for what he was. I'll call him That Guy.

 

That Guy was raised feminist by his hardcore, independent, strident-feminist mom. He often talked about how all the theory he was exposed to as a kid led him to develop a sort of internalised bias against himself. He was very aware of his masculinity and what he, as a cishet man, represented in the world. I felt sorry for him for that. I was often feeling sorry for him. He often felt sorry for himself. He complained of being rejected at social gatherings and lamented his awkwardness in making friends, his unluckiness in love, and the generally negative feedback provoked by his interpersonal skills. We met by chance through an extended family member and our friend-groups did not intersect at all, so all my impressions of him were utterly lacking in context. I met a boy who was kind, generous, and so affectionate to me, and he seemed just that. He'd take huge chunks of time out of his day to do favours for my friends, wrote me long, wistful emails when we were apart, and included me in everything he did. He was a good guy -- a nice guy.

 

So when he told me -- in a flippant, offhand manner -- that he'd been accused of rape by multiple previous partners, I patiently listened to his explanation. It was all a misunderstanding, of course. The situations were anomalies, the girls were vindictive, it hadn't happened the way they claimed it had and he had a jolly good rundown of what had actually transpired. I, my feminism young and inexperienced, not realising that multiple different traces of smoke meant that there was surely fire somewhere, put more trust in my new boyfriend than the stories of girls I had never even heard of. I dismissed the third-hand accounts, as he had. Although sometimes he cried at night, remembering how horrible it had been to be accused of rape, how bad it felt until each accusation blew over. One image is cemented in my mind: him crying, screaming into the pillow as I softly rubbed his back, "How could they?! How could they?!"

 

Meaning, how could the women accuse him. How could they do that. To him. What I haven't mentioned is that he did charity work with at a centre which provided free counselling and treatment for rape and sexual assault survivors. He was fighting rape, you understand.

 

I won't go into detail about the various physical slights that occurred in our relationship, because like my feminism, my relationship acumen was fairly low. I still blame myself for my lack of communication, my lack of a blatant, verbal "NO" that would have halted the situations which my body language clearly expressed were unwanted. He would have felt so bad, you see. His victim-complex, self-hatred and rejection biases only would have gotten worse, so I took the fall for him instead.

 

Only years later I realised that in one incident, at least, I was utterly blameless. I'd gotten intoxicated for the very first time. It was an accident, I didn't know how to cope and was a little worried. When I told him what was going on, he had a further two beers before taking me home and lying on the bed beside me, watching cartoons as I lay in a semi-conscious haze.

 

Something about my motionless body must have ignited a spark, because he proceeded to initiate intimacy with me at least twice. Although it physically hurt to move -- although I was barely even awake -- I responded clumsily, out of a sense of obligation; wanting to get it over with so that I could resume my borderline catatonic state. Afterwards, it was this fumbling pseudo-participation that led me to blame myself. When you respond to unwanted contact, however lackadaisically, you feel as if your interaction is damning you. When you don't verbally say no, you feel as your consent was somehow implied. Only much later I realised that, due to my intoxication, I couldn't have consented from the start.

 

Remembering That Guy makes me mad. Halfway across the country, I would burn with anger; unable to sleep from the rage I felt remembering a relationship that had been over for years. But I don't like conflict, so I tried to let go. Only far later, when I found he had raped one of my friends, did I have the courage to confront him.

 

As you might imagine, the poor boy was shocked and hurt at the accusations. He just didn't know he was a rapist, you see. His feminist upbringing, the charity work, his noble and earnest belief system blinded him to his own actions, and he couldn't bring himself to reconcile with the fact that it had all been mixed-up -- he was the monster in the story; and it should have been the girls receiving comfort as they screamed their trauma into the bedding. But I was patient. Gently, I recited the evidence -- his exes, my friend, various interactions we'd had, and of course, the final, gloriously-irrefutable example of my inability to consent. Any self-proclaimed sex-positive feminist would recognise that this, at least, could not be explained away as circumstantial. He'd been able to lie to himself about the others, saying that they'd misinterpreted his benevolent actions, but this. I knew that he couldn't argue against it without violating his own doctrine.

 

So I said my piece and waited, watching him. He didn't say anything. He didn't say anything at all.

 

Later, he texted me that there was more to what had happened that I didn't understand. He never did tell me what, though. I'm still waiting to hear how he justifies it all to himself. I'm still anxious to know how myself and at least three other women (that I know of) are all woefully misguided, our festering trauma somehow made less real by the fact that That Guy has an explanation, and it's a good one! There's more to the story!

 

That Guy still doesn't believe that he's a rapist. His friends probably also have no idea. His feminist mom draws him in for a hug, not knowing. It's not real to him, therefore it's easy to ignore. His explanation is never coming, but it still has a mental hold on me. I'm still waiting for the reasoning behind my assault. Until then, I have some final words from Sloan's "The Dangers of Dating Faux-Feminist Men", which sums it all up pretty nicely. 

“Feminist” isn’t a label, it’s a way of living; a man is only a feminist if he consistently performs feminist acts. This seems obvious enough, but it’s shocking how many men in this world are merely misogynists in feminists’ clothing.

It makes me wonder how many of these men just don't know.