Not Your Bro, Bro

Originally written:  Early June 2016.

"If I've gone overboard
Then I'm begging you
To forgive me for my haste
When I'm holding you so girl
Close to me"
["Crash into Me", Dave Matthews Band]

There's a great quote at the end of the song Anne Braden, by Flobots, where Anne says "You don't have to be a part of the world of the lynchers.  You can join the other America. There is another America!"  It's stuck with me ever since I heard the song.  The civil rights movement of the 50s would seem to have very little if anything to do with what's on my mind today, but those lines remind me of the idea of rival subcultures, of a society struggling to change and find its path forward.  It's about an evolution in thinking.  It's an important element in progress.


I read with disgust last week about the crime perpetrated by Brock Turner, the complete inadequacy of an American legal system in giving him a slap on the wrist for what was such a heinous and undeniable crime - undeniable it happened, undeniable in its gravity - and his father's attempt to minimize his crime while simultaneously providing little more than solid evidence of the pervasive rape culture that exists.

I hate those words:  rape culture.  I hate them. I hate them. I hate them.

But I hate them now for a different reason than I first did.

When I first heard them long ago, I hated them because I wanted to roll my eyes with a "fucksakes" and insist that the feminist movement was overreaching or overstating and that it was all bullshit and no such culture or subculture exists and give me a fucking break and you're trying to portray all men as predators and creating a self-defeating us vs. them mentality and and and and and...

Yesterday, I was reminded of those words when I came across an article that suggested most men could relate to Brock Turner.  I don't know that that's true.  I don't feel it's true of me, but if I'm being truly honest I can at best only say "I hope it's not true, of me, or of most men..." but... 

But as to the existence of a culture or subculture that either promotes (or in the very least fails to adequately condemn) the sense of entitlement that allows sexual predators to feel somehow justified in what is clearly non-consensual behaviour...


Nowadays I hate the words "rape culture" because I have finally had the time for enough somber reflection that I am ready to admit that such a culture does exist.  I don't want it to.  As a man I hate to admit that it does.  It turns my stomach that it does.  But it does.  It is very real, and on reflection, I've always known it was there, because I've always fought against it in what little ways I could.  And we all have mothers or sisters or daughters or lovers or female friends, and we all need to take a big gulp and swallow our pride and admit that there is a big, horrific elephant right there in the room with us.

I've "cock-blocked" guys at parties when I have seen them getting too close or "touch-y-feel-y" with a woman who was plainly looking uncomfortable and whose body language suggested she was uninterested.  (Usually to be followed by mixed feelings of guilt later about whether such interference is in itself sexist for having denied her agency in being able to extract herself from such a situation without some chivalrous male coming to the rescue...  Let's put a pin in that for another day.)

Going back a ways there was a time in my 30s when I came home from downtown distraught with worry over a girl I'd just met that night, because a guy I suspected of being a predator was swirling around her like a vulture while she was drunkenly slurring her words, waiting for my friend and I to leave so he could make his move.  I wrote the next day about the horrible mixture of anxious emotions it evoked in me.  She was a stranger: did I have a responsibility?  (Again, perhaps that pin.)  I was relieved to find out the next day that, thankfully, she was brought home safely by a much nicer gentleman than the one I saw looming.

Going back farther, in my early 20s there was a time when I found myself bringing a semi-conscious, drunk girl back to her room in the military barracks.  Her eyes were half-open.  She was trying to flirt with me and paw at me (and throw up on me - I narrowly avoided).  I was very intoxicated myself (such that attempting to clean up her vomit would spawn a fresh load of my own).  For much of this story, we were alone.  While alone, I found myself propping her up with one arm as I had to fumble through her pockets with the other hand in order to try to find her room key.  I was mortified at the thought of someone coming upon us at that moment as I awkwardly groped about her shirt pockets.  I'd be branded a sexual predator, when all I was trying to do was get this girl home safe.  As it turned out, every pocket was empty; she didn't have her key.  A long story later, in the end it took myself and two friends to carry her limp, unconscious body to her room, get her into the First Aid recovery position, put a garbage can and towel by her bed, and leave her there - fully clothed and unmolested - while locking the door behind ourselves when we left.  We returned to check on her in the morning.

That's the good news part of the story.  She got home safe.  She was a hangover and a little friendly ribbing away from living it down.  (Ok, a lot of friendly ribbing.  We were jerks.)

The bad news part is that the next morning, after joking with her and embarrassing her a little over the whole ordeal, I warned her quite candidly that she was 'lucky to have landed with the right guys', suggesting that there were other males at the same party - a work party of 100 or so coworkers, not even some random bar downtown - with whom she'd not have fared as well.  I'm not blaming her now and I wasn't blaming her then.  If she'd been so unfortunate it would still have been their fault and theirs alone, especially since clearly they could have simply chosen the very same path we did - to see her as a human being in need of assistance and to see her back to her room safely.

Maybe I was being cynical.  Perhaps among those coworkers no such predator actually existed.  But the fact of the matter is that back then I knew in my heart such a person could exist among them - likely did exist- and believed it strongly enough that I felt it necessary to suggest she was being naive if she didn't believe the same and cautiously act accordingly.


I believed that then (and still believe it now) because I knew that from the "sport-fucking" of frat boys to the desperation of 13-year old boys casting magic spells on apples in the vain hopes of a little "titty action", when sexual conquest is regarded as a sport, there will always be cheaters.  The most regulated sports in the world suffer from those participants whose desire to win outpaces their willingness to play fairly.  When sex is treated like a unregulated one and the desire to win is rooted not just in the competitive spirit, but further exacerbated by hormones, how can you possibly believe there won't be those willing to bend or break the rules?

Machismo has to go.

Telling women how "not to get raped" is fighting a war on the supply side.  And like the "Wars on" terror and drugs, you never succeed fighting a war on the supply side.  Where there is demand, there will be supply.  At the risk of sounding flippant, predation is easy. 

In a future world where universal human compassion becomes the norm, no room remains for turning a blind eye to the self-indulgence of those unwilling to play by the rules and too stupid to recognize "potential fruitful relationship" as the true end goal of their sexual encounters.  That's an "other America".


So if there really is an unwritten "bro code" and cock-blocking guys from "gettin' some" (from a woman I think is way too drunk to consent) is going to get my "bro credentials" revoked, I will happily tear up the imaginary card.


Maybe for every Brock Turner there's a Carl-Fredrik Arndt and a Peter Jonsson, or maybe there's even 98 more similarly-minded men who would have just as readily chased him down, held him down, and called the police.  The problem is that whatever that ratio is, whether the predators are only one percent or one tenth of one percent of men, we're still not winning, because the victims are still losing: losing lives or losing futures.

Ladies, some of us are trying to help.  Sadly, I don't know how many of us.  Even more sadly, it's clearly not enough.  I hope it's getting better.  I - we - sincerely do.

Gents, we need to soundly condemn these ass-clowns like Brock, not just to women but to each other and to our fathers and our brothers and most importantly to our sons.  We need to be a part of the solution.  We need to condemn it in every way and at every opportunity, until future generations look back on us as barbarians the way we look back on the lynchers of the 50s as barbarians.

The barbarians they were.

The barbarians we are.