entitlement

You’re Not Entitled to Friendship: Further Complicating the “Nice Guy” Concept

Miri, , , ,

Read first: “Having Feelings About Rejection Doesn’t Make You a ‘Nice Guy.’“

Alex and Sam are friends. At some point, Alex realizes they have a crush on Sam. Alex lets Sam know how they feel, but Sam says they don’t feel the same way and they’re only interested in a platonic relationship. As a result, Alex decides to end the friendship.

What do you think of Alex and their decision?

In many progressive spaces, there’d be a lot of derision towards Alex, especially if Alex is a guy and Sam is a girl. Terms like “Nice Guy” and “Friend Zone” would come up, the latter in the sarcastic sense. (“Oh, poor Nice Guy, probably off whining on Reddit about getting friendzoned!”) Alex would be accused of being manipulative and entitled.

Sam themselves might be upset, which is reasonable when you lose a friend. They might claim that Alex only wanted them for sex and now that that’s off the table, there’s no need for them to keep Sam around. They might claim that Alex is obviously trying to get back at them for saying no to a date or hookup.

But just as Alex isn’t actually entitled to sex or romance from Sam, Sam isn’t entitled to friendship from Alex.

I didn’t include any information about Alex’s internal process in that vignette, but many folks might imagine that if I did, it would go something like this:

Alex and Sam are friends. At some point, Alex realizes they have a crush on Sam. Alex lets Sam know how they feel, but Sam says they don’t feel the same way and they’re only interested in a platonic relationship. Alex feels angry and humiliated. “I can’t believe Sam won’t even give me a chance after how good of a friend I’ve been,” Alex thinks. Alex decides to totally cut Sam off, hoping that maybe once Sam sees how it feels to be rejected, they might change their mind. And if not, at least they’ll be even.

Given these details, I’d definitely agree that Alex is acting in an entitled and manipulative way. Yes, Sam isn’t entitled to Alex’s friendship, but Alex’s reasons for ending the friendship are not about setting their own boundaries or constructing their own relationships as they see fit. It’s about punishing Sam, manipulating their emotions, and controlling their experience.

It’s creepy, boundary-crossing, abusive behavior.

On the other hand, you could also fill out the story this way:

Alex and Sam are friends. At some point, Alex realizes they have a crush on Sam. Alex lets Sam know how they feel, but Sam says they don’t feel the same way and they’re only interested in a platonic relationship. Alex feels crushed, but respects Sam’s decision. Alex hopes to stay friends, but realizes that they’re heartbroken. Every time Sam posts on Facebook about going on a date or talks excitedly about their crush, Alex feels depressed, sometimes even resentful. It’s interfering with Alex’s life and with their ability to move on and get over the crush. Alex realizes that they’re not in a good place to be a real friend to Sam at this time, and that in order to heal from this heartbreak, they’re going to need distance. Alex decides to end the friendship.

Comparatively few people would insist that Alex is doing anything wrong here. Alex is taking responsibility for their own emotions by setting their own boundaries, and while this may hurt Sam, it’s ultimately what’s best for both of them. Nobody should have to stay in a friendship that’s making them feel depressed. Nobody should have to stay friends with someone who can’t help but resent them.

The problem is that from the outside–for instance, from that first vignette, which I wrote in a way that only gives an outside perspective–you can’t tell the difference. When all we see is someone’s outward behavior, it’s all too easy to use tropes like the Nice Guy to automatically fill in those missing details. Often we don’t even realize we’re doing it, and we end up shaming someone for having boundaries.

Okay, one might argue. Obviously if you’re feeling heartbroken and depressed, that’s a good reason to end a friendship. But if it’s not that bad, you should stay in it.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you can probably guess what I’m going to say about that: there’s no such thing as a “wrong” boundary. But I’ll tack on this clarification: “setting a boundary” means altering your social or physical environment in order to protect yourself or alter your own emotions. If you’re doing it in order to make someone else feel a certain way, or do a certain thing, then that’s not setting a boundary anymore. That’s manipulating.

So, ending a friendship because it makes me sad, or because I don’t feel like being in it anymore, is setting a boundary. Ending a friendship in order to hurt someone or convince them to want me after all is being manipulative.

Here’s another vignette:

Alex and Sam are friends. At some point, Alex realizes they have a crush on Sam. Alex lets Sam know how they feel, but Sam says they don’t feel the same way and they’re only interested in a platonic relationship. Alex respects their decision, and also realizes that with Sam, they were specifically interested in a sexual/romantic relationship. They’re not interested in a platonic relationship with Sam. In order to be honest with both themselves and with Sam, Alex ends the friendship.

How about that?

For some folks, this would be unacceptable even if the previous vignette wasn’t. Even though Alex isn’t ending the friendship to “get back” at Sam or manipulate them in any way, something about it still feels…off. It feels “wrong” to want someone “just for sex” (or dating) and to not want them as “just a friend.”

I can’t grok this, personally, because I’m demisexual and I literally cannot desire someone sexually or romantically if they’re not a friend, or if we’re not at least already emotionally connected in some meaningful way. But even though I can’t grok it, I don’t actually see anything wrong with it.

For instance, I have friends that I enjoy seeing one-on-one, and friends that I enjoy interacting with as part of a group, and friends that I’d enjoy in either context. But there’s nothing wrong with preferring to interact with a particular person one-on-one, or as part of a group. I have friends that I like playing games with, and friends I don’t like playing games with. I have friends I like watching movies or TV with, and friends I don’t like watching movies or TV with. I have friends that I’d happily invite to a loud party with drinking and dancing, and friends that I don’t really want to see in that context for any number of reasons.

Just because you want to have sex with or go on dates with someone, doesn’t mean you must also enjoy having a purely platonic friendship with them. It certainly doesn’t mean you “owe” them that friendship just because they want it, whether or not there’s any unrequited attraction happening.

Here’s the problem, though. If you become friends with someone just to see if that’ll lead to what you actually want, which is a sexual/romantic relationship, then that person may reasonably assume that you’re interested in being friends with them unless something significant changes (i.e. your mutual interests fade, you have a fight and don’t want to interact anymore, you move apart, one or both of you experiences a period of growth that leads them to change up their priorities and friendships, etc). On some level, any type of relationship other than a very casual sexual fling is built on that trust. We understand that things may change and the person may decide to end the relationship (well, provided we’re not being extremely idealistic and/or denying others’ boundaries and agency), but we allow ourselves to safely assume that it’s going to continue for at least a while, and that if it does need to end, then that person will be honest with us and will care about our resulting hurt feelings.

So, when you end your friendship with someone who has said no to a romantic/sexual relationship with you, they may perceive that as extremely hurtful and objectifying, because up until this point you’ve been doing a very good imitation of someone who’s interested in a friendship. It won’t seem like too far a stretch for them to assume that you’re trying to punish them, or that you were dishonest about your interests in an attempt to “get” them into a romantic/sexual relationship. And, in a way, you kinda were dishonest.

“But if I approach a near-stranger and tell them I’m interested specifically in dating/sex, of course they’ll say no, because they don’t know me!” Honestly, I don’t really know what to tell you. I don’t think that effective and ethical social interaction means always being 100% open about everything we want–I might ask someone on a date without specifically stating that I’d like to have sex with them, and just see where the night goes–but if getting what you want requires misleading people, that’s not right. Maybe it’d be better to search for what you want in the kinds of places likely to have other people who are also interested in that, such as Tinder or OkCupid.

I also feel that if you do find yourself having misled someone about your interest in a friendship (or any other sort of relationship), you should own that and accept accountability for it. It’s hard for me to suggest what this might look like, though; I’m probably a bit unusual in that I prefer people I’m not super close with to just ghost on me rather than to inflict on me some tortured and patronizing conversation about how I’m totally a great person and it’s not anything I did wrong but you just don’t see us as friends or whatever.

But most people aren’t me and would appreciate some clarity, closure, and accountability. If you know you’ve hurt someone by appearing to offer friendship and then withdrawing it when you didn’t get what you were actually looking for, apologize.

More to the point, I want us to be clearer about what the problem is with being a “nice Guy,” or whatever you want to call it. The problem isn’t having feelings about getting rejected. The problem isn’t deciding not to be friends with someone who has rejected you as a partner. The problem isn’t only being interested in someone as a partner rather than as a friend. The problem is not having personal limits about how much involvement you can handle with someone you have painful unrequited feelings for. The problem is not being unable to magically wish away those feelings.

The problem is believing that anyone owes you any sort of physical or emotional intimacy. The problem is also habitually misleading people in your attempts to find the types of relationships you want.

The problem is also expecting anyone you reject as a partner to simply have no feelings about that and continue being your friend as if nothing had happened. Sometimes that’ll happen; if you’re fortunate/unfortunate enough to be my crush, you’ll find that I feel very little about that sort of rejection because I prioritize sex and romance so lowly, and am almost always happy to continue the friendship unchanged unless you were cruel or awkwardly vague about rejecting me.

But, as with the weird ghosting preference, that’s not nearly everyone.

It must be okay to end friendships that you’re no longer comfortable, interested, or invested in. Otherwise, you get this:

Alex and Sam are friends. At some point, Alex realizes they have a crush on Sam. Alex lets Sam know how they feel, but Sam says they don’t feel the same way and they’re only interested in a platonic relationship. Alex feels crushed, but they don’t want to hurt Sam or look bad to their friends by trying to get some distance. They continue the friendship, forcing themselves to act happy when Sam dates other people and pretending not to be heartbroken.

Although Alex still likes Sam very much as a friend, it’s impossible to prevent resentment from creeping in when Alex is forced to hide their emotions and constantly put themselves in painful situations (presumably for Sam’s sake). Eventually, that resentment starts bubbling up through passive-aggressive comments or mixed signals that Alex doesn’t even mean to make and may not realize they’re making.

Sam feels confused and hurt. They sense that Alex is deeply unhappy, but whenever they try to bring it up, Alex just says that everything’s fine and of course they’re happy for Sam and Sam’s new partner, what kind of horrible friend wouldn’t be? The conversations get nowhere, Alex is never able to be honest both with themselves and with Sam, and the friendship is never quite the same again.

Rejection hurts. It hurts whether it’s platonic, familial, sexual, romantic, or professional. It hurts when someone you want to date doesn’t want to date you, or when someone you thought was a friend decides they aren’t.

That is a pain to walk towards and through, not to run away from by trying to create rules about what is and isn’t an acceptable reason to end a friendship.

From a personal perspective, I do feel very wary of people who seem to have left a trail of confused and hurt ex-friends in their wake. I see that as a red flag. That they may have had perfectly good reasons for ending those friendships does not increase my interest in becoming one of those ex-friends.

If that pattern seems to describe you, that may be something to explore on your own or in therapy. But the solution isn’t to just force yourself to stay in friendships that don’t fit, harming yourself and probably others in the process.

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You’re Not Entitled to Friendship: Further Complicating the “Nice Guy” Concept
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In Which I Attempt To Educate An OkCupid Guy

Miri, , , , , , , , 56 Comments

A bad OkC message.
A common complaint I hear from straight men on OkCupid is that women won’t even respond to their messages to politely decline and/or to explain why they are declining. Personally, I don’t believe that is a courtesy that anyone owes anyone on a dating website, especially not when a lot of these messages read like copy-pasted spam sent out to every woman in a 10-mile radius. If you don’t send me a personalized message, why should I give you a personalized reply?

In most other social contexts, when someone spams you, it is considered acceptable to ignore the request. I don’t need to explain to the nice person with the clipboard on the street exactly why I will not be stopping to listen to what they have to say today. If a salesperson knocks on my door, it’s fine to just say “nope sorry” as I’m shutting it.

In situations where the person who receives the message is getting very many other messages, it’s also reasonable that they might not take the time to respond. I have emailed numerous writers, researchers, and speakers that I admire, either to just tell them that I admire them or to ask questions about their work or whatever, and did not receive replies. That’s okay! Either they saw my email but didn’t find it interesting enough to respond to, or they meant to but it just got buried in the inbox, or they didn’t even see it because they get so many emails, or whatever. It’s not a personal slight.

But on OkCupid, for some reason, we are expected to give spammy men “closure” or else we risk being seen as “rude.” But aside from the fact that nobody owes anyone attention on the internet, the reason many of us are so disinclined to offer a polite “No thanks, not interested! [Optional: Here’s why!]” is because of things like this:

Him: Hey, I know this is kinda wierd and pushy haha, but would u like to have sex with me? I’m not a creep or pervert, just a genuine guy. I would treat u with respect and the sex would be good. I can even make u squirt if the connection is right haha. I will not judge you or think you re “easy”. So yeah, excuse me if I come across as a little uncalibrated but I think you re attractive, so what do you think? 🙂 haha

Me: This would be a perfectly good message if my profile said I was looking for casual sex. It specifically says I am NOT looking for casual sex. In fact, it even said I’m looking for friends primarily, maybe more later.

You’re going to have more luck with this approach if you message women who say they’re looking for someone to hook up with. As it is, I’m annoyed that you clearly didn’t even bother to read my profile.

By the way, making women squirt has nothing to do with “the connection.” Some women do it, others can’t, and the ones who can will do it if you stimulate the g-spot the right way.

Him: Ur profile is kinda long. But I get u re bi and u speak Russian. I do speak Russian too. I’m here to have a good sex actually

Me: “Ur profile is kinda long.”
Then that should’ve been your first hint that we’re not gonna get along very well, no? The people I’m looking for have all told me that my profile is awesome and interesting. If you don’t agree, that’s fine. Go find someone else who’s interested in having sex. I am not.

Him: It’s interesting actually but it’s better when it’s not so long. It’s too detailed. Just my humble opinion

Me: I didn’t ask for your opinion. We’re not interested in the same thing. Find someone else.

Him: Ok))

Him: I will keep my fucking opinion to myself

So, rather than a simple “Ok, sorry about that!”, I got: 1) repeated attempts to interact with me, 2) unsolicited advice about my profile, which I had just said works perfectly well for what it’s meant to do, and 3) childish, passive-aggressive pouting. Attractive.

Dudes, the reason women so often try to immediately disengage when you proposition them isn’t because they’re too rude or self-centered to give you a polite “no.” It’s because so many of you will turn any verbal or nonverbal response from the woman into a Referendum On Why We Should Totally Fuck Even Though You Just Said You Weren’t Interested.

By the way, I do this sort of exchange on OkCupid a lot, because I don’t mind doing it and I think it’ll be good if I manage to convince a guy or two to stop spamming women who specifically state they’re not into random fucking. (From my profile: “I’m not looking for casual sex.” Yes, it’s actually in bold.) I will say that this latest instance is actually pretty benign. Often it’s more like “Fine ur ugly anyway u fucking cunt.” Mmm, those sour grapes sure taste good after a hot summer day.

A lot of guys will claim that the reason women get angry at messages like this guy’s first one is because they hate sex and hate men and especially hate male sexuality. It’s true that some people (including all genders) are very uncomfortable with direct sexual propositions for all sorts of reasons and would find that message disgustingly inappropriate. There are plenty of reasons someone might feel that way.

But I’m actually not one of those people. I didn’t feel disgusted or uncomfortable or creeped out by that message. I felt annoyed, because I made such an effort to be clear about what I’m looking for and what I’m not, and I still constantly have people ignore what I say, either assuming that they know better than me or that there’s nothing worthwhile to read in my profile, and every attempt I make to clarify to people that we’re not looking for the same thing is met with Referenda On Why We Should Totally Fuck Even Though You Just Said You Weren’t Interested.

And that is a behavior that is not exclusive to men, by the way. I get it from women who (along with their boyfriends/husbands) are looking for a fun young female sex toy to try in the bedroom, even though that’s another thing I specifically state I’m not looking for. While entitlement to sex shows up most often among men who have sex with women, since that’s a dominant cultural script that we have, plenty of people display it egregiously regardless of gender.

Not only does this guy clearly think he knows what I want, he also seems to know what the partners I’m looking for want: a shorter profile. As I mentioned in my exchange with him, I’ve gotten tons of compliments on it. I worked hard on it. I think my personality comes through pretty clearly on it, and the fact that I’m so clear about what I’m looking for is meant to keep folks from wasting their time (and me from wasting mine).

Not only that, but, well, I’m a writer. If you’re not interested in what I have to say, I’m probably not that interested in you. Since I’m looking for friends and possibly partners, it doesn’t make sense for me to engage with someone who’s not interested in reading my profile, so if you’re not curious about me, there’s no reason to pursue an interaction on OkCupid.

The advantage of OkCupid to meeting random people in-person is that, in theory, it gives you the ability to weed out the people that you already know you’re not going to be interested in, and, as my friend Wes has explained, to weed out the people who ultimately won’t be interested in you. I’m a picky person, and also a person with a lot of potential dealbreakers (polyamorous/not into casual sex/introvert/feminist/atheist/progressive/huge nerd/can’t date anyone who doesn’t like Chipotle/NEVER MOVING OUT OF NEW YORK UNLESS I ABSOLUTELY MUST/etc), so it makes sense for me to have a long profile. It works for what I need it to do, dude.

It strangely parallels the unsolicited and useless “advice” I get about making my blog posts shorter, too. I don’t get it. Many people enjoy my blog posts and I am not at all lacking for readers. If you don’t want to read something, the sensible response is to not read that thing and not bother with the person who wrote it, rather than send them messages demanding that they tailor their style to the personal preferences of a random stranger on the internet.

In conclusion, I’ll probably continue responding to these messages politely and trying to get their senders to see why they might not be very successful, and will probably continue getting either verbal abuse or whiny passive-aggressive snipes in response, because I hold out hope that one day I will get someone to realize that it really doesn’t make any sense at all to keep trying to offer people things they have already said they don’t want.

~~~

Extra moderation note: I will delete your comment if it includes some variation on “How dare you think so highly of yourself as to not be grateful for any and all attention you receive, you smug _____.” Yup, I really do think so highly of myself that I am not flattered by these messages. (Not) sorry!

Second moderation note: Please do not ‘splain to me about “Yeah well nobody reads profiles anyway because it’s just a numbers game blahblah.” I am aware. I understand very basic mathematics, and even some slightly less-basic mathematics, and even–here’s the real shocker–a little bit of psychology. I am not arguing “wow huh I can’t imagine why people would do this wow such surprise.” I am arguing, “You should read people’s profiles so that you stop wasting people’s time and possibly be slightly more successful.” I am also arguing, “Wow, I am annoyed right now! I have a good reason to be annoyed! I’m going to write about it.”

~~~

DISCLAIMER: The Author in no sense intends to imply that All Men are responsible for the aforementioned Conflict(s) or Issue(s) as described in this Text. The Author reiterates that Not All Men commit the Offense(s) detailed in the Text, and that the Text is not intended to apply to or be addressed to All Men. The Author hereby disclaims any binding responsibility for the emotional well-being of such Men who erroneously apply the Entreaty(ies) contained within this Text to their own selves. The Reader hereby agrees to accept all responsibility for any emotional turbulence that arises as a result of the perusal of this Text.

In Which I Attempt To Educate An OkCupid Guy

Touching People Without Their Consent: Still A Problem Even If It's Not Sexual

Miri, , , , , , , 94 Comments

Since I’m always blathering on about consent, including consent in non-sexual situations, I’ve noticed a common belief that a lot of people have. It can basically be summed up like so:

  • If you’re interacting with someone sexually, you need their consent. (Duh.)
  • If you’re interacting with someone of the gender to which you’re generally attracted (i.e. you’re a straight man interacting with a woman), you should be careful and get their consent before you touch them.
  • BUT! If you’re interacting with someone of a gender to which you’re not attracted, or you’re interacting with a family member or a friend and so the situation is, in any case, “not sexual,” THEN you don’t need their consent and you should feel free to hug them, touch them on the shoulder, or even grope them “as a joke.”

The reason this is on my mind right now are two articles, and my life in general.

One article is by Ginny over on the Polyskeptic blog. She recounts a disturbing incident in which another woman wanted to get a better look at the tattoo on the back of Ginny’s shoulder and proceeded to lift up the strap of her tank top in order to do so–without consent. A man nearby told the woman off, but she responded that it’s “just the shoulder” and “I just really like tattoos.” And then:

But something the guy said, or maybe just the way I was sitting there rigidly instead of turning around to engage in friendly conversation made the woman realize she was maybe being a tad inappropriate, so she let go of my clothes and patted me soothingly on the arm and said some half-apologetic patter. To which I didn’t really respond because I was still in my “I am so weirded out right now and your soothing pat is STILL YOU TOUCHING ME” frozen zone. And I think by this point she got that I was really uncomfortable, so she broke out the magic words to make it all better: “It’s okay honey, I didn’t mean anything by it, I mean, I like men, ha ha.”

She didn’t realize that which gender(s) she happens to be attracted to is completely irrelevant.

The other piece is on Role/Reboot, and is written by a gay man who witnessed the following scene:

Last Thursday night as I was coming home from work, I noticed a fellow gay man who I have seen around Washington, D.C., at various nightclubs and bars. As we both entered onto the metro, we sat in seats relatively close to a young woman. The woman, who appeared tired, smiled at both of us and put headphones in her ears. In D.C., this is usually a plea to subtly ask someone to allow you to reach your destination in peace without being disturbed. Since I understood this unwritten transit rule, I respected it and pulled out an article to read. Unfortunately, my brethren took this as an invitation to engage in a one-way conversation.

Slowly moving into the seat next to her—despite no one else occupying his space—he began touching her clothing and body and commenting on the “fit” of her dress. Then he proceeded to touch her hair since he “loved how long her locks were” and “wished he had hair like hers.” Unamused by his male privilege and what he considered to be compliments, she politely said thank you and asked if he could quit touching her.

Obviously not appreciating this young’s woman rejection of his “compliments,” he immediately referred to her as a “bitch,” and told her “it’s not like I want to have sex with you—I’m gay.”

Of course, women are not the only victims of this. On the June 14 episode of Citizen Radio, Jamie Kilstein recounts a scene he witnessed on the subway in which two white women–clearly tourists–sat next to a Black man who had headphones on. They tried to talk to him, but he either didn’t hear or ignored them (reasonable in New York City). So one of the women put her hand on his knee and made a comment about it being a “tight squeeze” on the subway, and he immediately responded, “Don’t touch me.” There didn’t seem to be anything sexual about the situation, but that doesn’t make the woman’s behavior any less inappropriate. (While I don’t want to read too much into this, it definitely makes me think about the entitlement that many white people feel to touch Black people, especially their hair.)

A slightly different but similar thing happens with friends and family. People–especially children–are often shamed and guilt-tripped for choosing not to show physical affection for family members, even ones they do not know well or necessarily feel comfortable around. The assumption here is that being someone’s family member entitles you to physical affection from them, just like being someone’s partner entitles you to sex from them. While plenty of people hold one of these assumptions but not the other (generally the first but not the second), they are cut from the same cloth. And that cloth is the belief that social ties entail a duty to provide physical affection, and that if you do not provide it, you are being a bad friend/child/sibling/partner/etc.

How does this relate to the three stories I linked to? Well, many people apparently believe that once you take sexual attraction out of the equation, there’s absolutely no reason for someone to be uncomfortable with being touched (in nonsexual ways). If a gay man sits next to me on the train and starts touching me, I have to be okay with that because he’s not interested in me that way. If a straight woman starts lifting up my clothes to see parts of my body that I covered up, I have to be okay with that because she’s not interested in me that way. If a family member wants a hug and a kiss from me, I have to provide them because, well, obviously it’s not “like that.”

(False, by the way. While I am fortunate to never have experienced incest, plenty of people have.)

For starters, I’m really glad that some people have realized that you shouldn’t touch strangers without their consent if there’s a possibility that you’re sexually attracted to those strangers. But why can’t we expand that to people of all genders, whether you’re attracted to them or not?

There are plenty of reasons why someone might be uncomfortable with being touched, regardless of the sexual orientation of the person touching them. Some people have triggers as a result of past trauma. Some people just don’t know your intentions because they don’t know you or your sexual orientation, so they don’t know if you’re a friendly stranger expressing physical affection because…I don’t know, you like to do that? or if you’re someone who intends to harass and/or assault them. And, most importantly, some people–many people, I’m sure–just want to be left the hell alone by strangers. Sometimes being touched by someone you don’t know is just unpleasant, scary, and uncomfortable.

Furthermore, if we accept “but I’m not even into [your gender]” as an excuse for nonconsensual touching by well-meaning folks, that also leaves it open as an excuse for actual predators to use.

Your desire to touch someone sexually or nonsexually for whatever reason does not outweigh their desire not to be touched. It doesn’t matter why they don’t want to be touched; that’s their business. Just like you wouldn’t touch a bag or a purse that belongs to someone else, don’t touch a body that belongs to someone else–which, by definition, is every body except your own.

Touching People Without Their Consent: Still A Problem Even If It's Not Sexual

Who Has it Worse?

Miri, , , , , , , , , 7 Comments

There’s a game we progressives sometimes inadvertently play. I like to call it “Who’s More Oppressed?”

You can probably guess what I’m talking about here. It’s the tendency of social justice-oriented people to engage in lengthy polemics regarding “who has it worse.” Is it Black lesbians? Is it transsexual Hispanic men? Is it lower-class white teenage mothers?

In fact, some (quite liberal) friends and I recently tried to figure out which identities the hypothetical most oppressed person in the world would have. (I’ll leave the conclusion up to your imagination.)

I encountered a less dramatic form of this argument recently on (where else) Tumblr. A male user had responded to a graphic against slut-shaming with the comment, “Try to nail every girl you know? Douchebag. Try to be civil with every girl you know? Fuckin friend-zoned. It works both ways.”

A user named, of course, “stfuconservatives” reblogged the post and added some commentary to it, claiming that being called a slut is worse than being “friend-zoned” and that women have it worse than men. Further comments on that post agreed with stfuconservatives and generally bemoaned the preponderance of sexism in this world.

Let’s step back for a minute. Yes, being called a slut is awful. Nobody should ever call someone that. Period.

Besides which, what this guy wrote and the way in which he wrote it is definitely quite presumptuous and entitled-sounding. However, for the sake of argument, I’ll play devil’s advocate and take his perspective. First of all, he never said that this men’s issue is worse than being called a slut is for a woman, which is what the responders claim he says. But in fact, he specifically says, “It works both ways.” What does that NOT imply? That men have it worse. This man never said that he finds it appropriate to call a woman a slut, or that he doesn’t think this is a problem. Let’s not put words into his mouth.

Furthermore, why this immediate assumption that this man’s claim does not deserve attention? Several commenters immediately point out that they themselves have never “friend-zoned” a guy for being nice. Perhaps not. But this issue is one that I have heard mentioned by guys many, many times, and it strikes at the heart of the conflict between masculinity and sensitivity that most (if not all) American men have to face. This culture glorifies the “Bad Boy,” and men are taught from an early age that being a man means being callous and aloof. Rape culture permeates through our society, teaching men that inducing women to have sex with them is a worthy goal.

On a personal level, every “nice guy” I know has experienced at least one situation in which a girl he liked picked an asshole over him. In fact, when I was younger, I did this all the time. I don’t know why women do it. But it happens. There’s no need to pretend that this isn’t an issue, because it is, and it should be addressed.

Finally–and this relates to a topic I’ll be addressing in a later post–the name “stfuconservatives” (means “shut the fuck up, conservatives,” for those who aren’t familiar with chatspeak) is just so damn wrong. How will progressives benefit from silencing those who disagree with us? Argument and debate not only causes us to strengthen our ability to defend our own views, but it also reminds us that we might not be right about everything, and that many different perspectives exist in the world. These perspectives should be valued, respected, and engaged with.

But back to my original point. What good, exactly, does it do to argue about who has it worse? Why can’t we acknowledge that even groups that we associate with privilege can have issues, and that different kinds of privilege operate in different social contexts? There are so many different kinds of prejudice and stereotypes.

For what it’s worth, I’m glad that I’m a woman, and I can act as kind and generous with men as I want without them relegating me to the status of friend (and nothing more). I’m glad that when it comes to dating, being the person I truly want to be–caring, sensitive, and witty–actually helps me get dates and find relationships, rather than hurting my chances.

Ultimately, I think it’s unfair to make any claims about who has it worse. Each of us sees the world through our particular lens. In terms of things like access to employment opportunities, salaries, historical discrimination, and reproductive justice, women undoubtedly have it worse. But how about being expected to get a job that can provide for a family? How about being drafted to fight in wars? How about being expected to show little emotion, to know how to do practical things around the house, to love sports and be athletic, to propose marriage?

Who has it worse is irrelevant. Let’s fight for social justice without trampling on any group, whether it’s traditionally “privileged” or not. What this comes down to is choosing to speak, write, and argue in ways that are inclusive, rather than exclusive. Like it or not, about half the world is men. There’s no need to make them feel like we don’t care about their viewpoints.

Who Has it Worse?