I am absolutely terrified of men. All men. That admission is so emotionally penetrating, I can feel my sulci shift as I write. The fear isn't proportional to size or proximity to wealth. In fact, its universality is what vexes me. This epistolary essay is not the preface to a #notallmen hashtag or some shit. This is me honoring myself and the men in my life that I cherish. It is the self-love letter that I should have written 20,000 teardrops and 100 therapy sessions ago. This is, in the words of the inimitable Tupac Shakur, "the realest shit I ever wrote."
Let me begin from the beginning. My biological father hates me for being my mother's child, never acknowledging that he chose her for that role. He loves me, though, in some strange ass way, resulting in my having erroneously processed acts of love and hate my whole life. My mother is a womanist, different from a feminist, who taught me how to very effectively push back against the patriarchy. She never taught me how to be unafraid of men. As such, I saw men as dragons to slay. My baggage is the bloody sword I carry while I walk with care through graveyards of past failed relationships. More about that later.
My memories are populated by the terrible traumas I have suffered at the hands of boys and men, at least the ones I choose to remember. I hated my relationships with women for different reasons, but I was never terrified of them. They didn't wrap their hands around my throat. They did not relentlessly harass me on the street. They did not destroy my trust in them with infidelities and other forms of emotional cruelty. They never threatened my body with themselves or a 40-ounce bottle as their weapon if I spurned their advances. Given recent events, I should consider myself lucky to have survived those encounters. One of the boys in my family molested many of us over several years. I can still smell the stench of that silence.
I do not consciously find all men terrifying. I don't hate men. I hate the terror they summon. My initial response to the terror I feel in the presence of men is something I used to label 'shyness'. Sometimes it actually is shyness. However, that 'shyness' can transform into aggression using a permutation of strategies. Maybe that's why men can find me equally or more terrifying than they are to me. Or maybe it's because I excel at a lot of things. Either way, the more threatened they feel, the more aggressive they become. The more aggressive they become, the more terrified I become of them. And then we begin this twisted emotional tango until the relationship fades to black. They think I am an alpha. I'm not an alpha or any other Greek letter. I am not impervious to pain. I am emotionally sensitive. I cry at the end of the "The Color Purple." I bake homemade biscuits from scratch. I'm cheering for love over war.
I am extremely selective of the men with whom I surround myself. There's this invisible metric of aggressiveness that many men do not realize they are being subject to in my presence. Sometimes if a man raises his voice in protest of something I've said or done---even when I'm actually on the bullshit---I cower deep into my traumatic memories and push them away. For weeks, months, years, or forever. I feel like the monster of men's creation and the women who have provided a safe haven for their destruction. An excrescence of femininity. Unlovable. Fuck you all for Christmas.
In a weird way, I feel safer antagonizing men. This is probably why I loved to play basketball so much. I could play physically without consequence. I could say whatever the fuck I was feeling in real life and it be ascribed to the intensity of competition in the moment. I think I subconsciously put myself in the domain of men because they were less terrifying that way. There were times when I went to some of the most dangerous playgrounds in Chicago to play basketball, in part, to get the rush that comes from humiliating men in the company of men. I have experienced that same rush when I would be on a public platform, like a podcast or a scientific talk, destroying these men's confidence in their abilities with my feared and sometimes merciless intellect in full earshot of their peers. However, as soon as I walked the street or entered a new intellectual space, I was vulnerable again. The man on the street could kill me in front of my children if I spurned his advances. I could lose my credibility as an academic and, thus, lose my paycheck if I wasn't on my shit. The stakes were much higher.
Ironically, I seek the protection of men and I have it. It seems strange to seek protection from members of the group that presents as a threat in the first place. I am a willing participant in this patriarchal practice. I guess that makes me a "bad feminist" to borrow the term from Dr. Roxane Gay. In fact, to not have this protection draws my ire. I guess it makes for wonderful theater to witness a girl or woman on the basketball court playing physically with or talking shit to guys, or to engage in some bullshit quasi-debate with men who sprinkle misogyny on their cereal every morning. The voyeuristic enjoyment that men got seeing me metaphorically torn limb from limb was hurtful and distressing. Every single encounter left my heart feeling sore. No one rushed to my defense. No one asked me if I was okay or if I needed a fucking hug or anything. As I write this, I am re-evaluating those friendships. I'll let you know what I come up with.
To love men while being terrified of them has left me undefined like a zero in the denominator. There are times I retreat from the terror of men. They can feel close to and distant from me at the same time. I have been accidentally enigmatic for years which, oddly, seems to draw men closer to me instead of pushing them further away. The thought of loving women romantically did not ease the fear. I love my sister friends, but I have enough lesbian and bisexual friends to know that I'm not lesbian or bisexual. I'm a cis woman who loves, is attracted to, and is terrified of men. That's a fucked up thing to say. Imagine how fucked up it is to live.
Men are police officers to me. They delight in trying to police my body, my mind, and my spirit. And like police officers, there are some good ones and some bad ones. Not all police officers kill people of color. But there are police officers who kill people of color. And there are other police officers that protect those killer police officers. Not all men beat, kill, rob, and sexually violate women. But there are men who beat, kill, rob, and sexually violate women. And there are those--men and women--who staunchly defend these men (if you think this statement is directed at you, let me assure you that it is). Internalized misogyny is the worst form of betrayal by women. Opting to justify men's unscrupulous behavior in their quest to be proximate to power significantly adds to the terror and to the anger.
My son is becoming a man. A tall, sinewy kid who has the strength of a young man. He can lift me with little effort. He's faster than me. His voice is deep and loud and sometimes, terrifying. In real life, he's actually a normal teenage boy with teenage angst and all that shit. In my mind, he's a terrifying man in training when he's angry. I am terrified of men, but I'm more terrified of being afraid of my own son for being one. I keep writing as if the terror will stay on this page and not seep into my close relationships as it always does. Although I don't know exactly what I need, I will say this: treat me with care but not with pity. I don't need pity, I need healing. I don't need men to fix me, but to listen to a voice of the unheard. I also need to curb my reckless use of Oxford commas. This essay is my gift to myself from myself. Thank you for allowing me to share my gift to me with you. One.
