In which I was serially sexually abused as a child by a slightly older male relative.

So, yeah, #metoo. Me, too. My perpetrator even went to prison for it. (Not for me, but for others, later.)

I honestly don’t think it affected me in any measurable way. I was never hurt or damaged. For years I thought it must have affected me badly, because my culture tells me how horrible and awful it is to be touched sexually without consent, but now? At 49? Nah. I don’t see it.

And I looked for it, the awful traces of it, for years. I positively delved through my own psyche, looking for horrific damage, rage, frigidity, timidity. I don’t find it. Because being touched sexually is not like starving to death, or being wounded, or living in a war zone. It’s mostly just irritating, if I’m honest. Which I am.

This is how I ended it, finally: at, like, twelve or so, I decided it was fucking annoying, so I brandished a pair of scissors at him, and told him to fuck off. And that was that. Because he was horny and stupid, but not violent. Which of course makes me lucky. I get that.

There are at least two experiences I had as a young woman that I could, if I wished, call rape. But I don’t. I was never violently jumped by strangers; the experiences I could name rape, if I were a different person, were ones I’d entered into through choices I’d made myself, and I take responsibility for that. I put myself there. That’s the price of sexual freedom.

Now. What’s making me sad about this fucking hashtag is that this is, again, some sort of women’s movement, not a human movement.

What about the thousands upon thousands of men and boys who have also been abused, assaulted, raped? It doesn’t matter that it happened to them? Where’s the fucking compassion and inclusiveness, bitches?

Swear to God. Your husbands, your cousins, your own sons? Sure, it happens statistically less frequently to them, but damn it, ladies. It happens. Being one in a hundred doesn’t make it less awful. But the hashtag isn’t inviting their stories, oh no. It’s about women being victims. Same as it ever was, feminism.

Furthermore, the blame for all of this is fully placed on “men.” The elusive, predatory, cruel, power-hungry man. And that absurd psychological tenant from the 50’s that erroneously states that it’s “about power,” not sexual appetite.

I know I’ll get lambasted for it, but how is there NO EMPHASIS PLACED on women’s choices, or their responsibility to honor and protect themselves? The sexual liberation movement appears to have been taken not as a new level of freedom and responsibility, but a free-for-all entree into dangerous situations without any awareness of self-protection!

If all your #metoo experiences are from your childhood or the boardroom, so be it. You’re innocent as the driven snow, and a lamb to men’s wolves. But if you were ever in the wrong place at the wrong time, especially and particularly if you knew better, well, that’s on you. That’s the responsibility of freedom. If you make dumbass choices, you reap the results… and they’re yours.

In other words, if you take a knife to a known gunfight, yes, that is your own damn fault.
Own your freedom and your choices, ladies. I say this not because I lack compassion, but because for every #metoo post about being raped, genuinely raped, there are a thousand about being ogled. And fuck that.

Because:

If you’re a male, particularly a cis male, with a #metoo story, I’m deeply sorry nobody appears to give a fuck.

It’s unloving and exclusive and selfish and wrong, and I apologize for my sex being such angry, heartless attention whores.

I’m also certain that only a very successful, wealthy, healthy, and primarily safe culture can focus so much on sexual molestation. Being leered at, having your butt touched or your bra snapped, remains a social faux pas, not a fucking PTSD-inducing experience. Violent rape is bad, of course, of course, but horny men awkwardly plying their “game” at the wrong time will not fuck up your life unless you decide you’re that fucking delicate.

Which — spoiler! — you’re not. Unless you decide to be.

If you say no to a man in power à la casting couch scenarios and get ruined for it, well, that’s clearly bullshit. Speak up, when and if you can. I’m not saying there aren’t asshole, powerful, predatory men, because there are. There aren’t a lot of them, honestly, but they are there, and sure, write manifestos about how All Men Are Responsible for reining that shit in, if you must — even though you don’t write similar manifestos about reining in ball-busting bitches who ruin otherwise perfectly decent men — and pretend it’s not very much like suggesting all Muslims are responsible for ISIS. Whatever. I don’t care.

But so much of the #metoo thing is just women bitching about the fact that men have libidos, are frequently awkward and dumb about it, and do dumb shit that is more annoying than damaging. You want men to have better manners? Fine, reinstate the age of manners. They’re not that bright, men, really. Manners were probably invented by women to keep men in line in the first place, and most of them went out the window when feminists started being offended at having doors held open for them.

I find that #metoo, overall, is more offensive than moving, more self-righteous than loving, more exclusive than inclusive. Much of what’s being “protested” is male sexual desire and awkwardness, and this undermines the real issue of those, of both sexes and all genders, who have been legitimately damaged.