Hetero-fears

 Something I find fascinating is the distrust heterosexual men and women have for each other. Despite being mutually attracted sexually and romantically. This is what I've observed, please comment to let me know if your observations are different. I'm conducting some anthropological research on the heterosexual psychology. Lol.

I have a lot of girlfriends (girlfriend in the gay way obviously) who say they like gay men because they feel safe around gay men. Implying there is some kind of threat from straight guys. This can be terrifying for the straight man, and the threat is like, so abstract. He knows he's a threat, but doesn't understand why, because he feels like he's a nice normal person. A straight man might think "geez Louise if I even breathe wrong I will be seen as a threat! I can't do anything!" 

There is some responsibility on the women to understand why she feels those threats. I'd appreciate it if the threatened feelings were more clearly communicated. What are the things men do that make you feel threatened and why? (This is a rhetorical question but I'd love to see some answers in the comments) I'm also suspicious of this feeling of threat. Like, it could be a trauma response, or an unfair prejudice against men, or you've watched too many true crime TV shows recently. What if nothing the man did warrants feeling threatened, this is confusing for the poor guy.

If a guy slips up and says something out of line, please do not throw the whole man away. Appreciate the good parts of him and let him learn and grow. Correct the behavior that needs to be corrected. This might sound anti-feminist and I ask this with quite a bit of privilege. I'm not really that invested in telling women what to do, it's really no skin off my back if heteros make monsters out of each other. 

There's an interesting quote by a feminist author Andrea Dworkin "This dominance of men by women is experienced as real- emotionally real, sexually real, psychologically real; it emerges as the reason for the wrath of the misogynist. The woman controls sex. The man needs it. It causes rage at her perceived power over him" 

I think there's some truth to that quote. I've observed a less intense form of this rage in some of the men I know. Men are capable of becoming less misogynistic, and rage should be used to motivate soul searching. I think this quote might encourage men and women to be scared of each other though. And I don't like that. I think a lot of the fears heterosexual people have is unfounded and it's easy enough to rise above them.

There's responsibility on the guys' part to make women feel safe. And like, I've cracked that code. Just be gay. Lol. But for real women are not hard to understand. They want to be seen as a a whole person with desires and needs. Not a prize to be won or solely a sexual object. 

There's responsibility on the man's part to figure out what he wants in a romantic partner, do you want the archetypical Madonna to mother your children and have a pure heart? Do you want a whore to sexually satisfy you? Or do you want both the Madonna and the whore in the same woman? Because both those desires are bad and unrealistic. It's called the Madonna-whore complex. And it's a pervasive view of womanhood.

No man or woman can completely escape the Madonna-whore complex. Sometimes you want a healthy and balanced relationship and other times you want to be a sex object. Everyone has times where they are not their best selves. Everyone has multiple motivations and conflicting desires. This is okay and makes life exciting.

Now, this post has been reductive. Not all women are threatened by every interaction with a man. In fact, my guess is it's very few women who are scared of men. And it's very few men that are confused by women. 

Straight men and women can be friends, they can be friends with benefits, they can fall in love and have a beautiful romance. I have a ton of straight friends who do have these healthy mindsets.

I'm going to give some unsolicited advice, if you have a healthy relationship with someone of a different gender, don't overthink a good thing and just enjoy time spent with them.

Also not every woman is attracted to every man and vice versa. Just because you're heterosexual doesn't mean you feel romantic or sexually attracted. Y'all could just be friends without the romance and sex. Or like, not even friends, maybe you're coworkers or go to the same church or something.

I love the story of Orpheus, I'm lucky I'm queer and I see myself in both Orpheus and Eurydice. It's not hard and fast rules for how men and women are supposed to interact. It's also a very old story, and I think gender roles have changed quite a bit since then. 

Orpheus promised not to look at Eurydice, until they made it out of the underworld. But he broke that promise. He looked at her beautiful face and body for just a moment, when Hades threw her back into the underworld. Orpheus spent the rest of his life writing poetry about how he missed her. I wonder if Eurydice still loved him after he broke that promise.

I have a lot more to say about this so stay tuned for part 2. Also comment and share! My anthropological studies of heteros is gonna make me famous. Love you all