{"id":3332,"date":"2010-11-07T22:37:30","date_gmt":"2010-11-08T03:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=3332"},"modified":"2010-11-07T22:50:09","modified_gmt":"2010-11-08T03:50:09","slug":"sexism-in-reverse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/sexism-in-reverse\/","title":{"rendered":"Sexism in reverse"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the blogs I like to follow is postsecret<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s basically this project where people anonymously send in their secrets on postcards, and this guy posts them online.\u00a0 At times, it can be raunchy and gross, but it’s always very honest and I like that.\u00a0 Plus, it’s a great place to go for story ideas.<\/p>\n

This week, there was a particularly disturbing one<\/a>–and the most disturbing thing wasn’t necessarily the secret on the card, but my reaction (or lack thereof) to it.\u00a0 Here’s what it said:<\/p>\n

I wish there was a place for me to go on a regular basis to find great looking men to pick up and safely<\/em> bring home and have sex with me.\u00a0 I am in my 40s and have needs.<\/p>\n

I am a professional woman working for a well known company.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The image on the postcard was of a bunch of ten to fourteen year old boys on a beach smiling for the camera and flexing their scrawny muscles.<\/p>\n

Initially, I didn’t have too much of a reaction to this.\u00a0 As I glanced over it, my first thought was: “oh dear, another raunchy secret.” My second thought was: “Huh, I guess women have needs too.”<\/p>\n

My third <\/em>thought didn’t come until ten hours later, when I was driving home from my brother in laws.\u00a0 For some reason, the postcard came into my mind, and I started to wonder: what kind of a person would write such a thing?<\/p>\n

The comment about being a professional made me think that the woman might be some kind of CEO.\u00a0 If she’s a CEO, she’s probably used to being in charge and controlling people.<\/p>\n

Instantly, the secret began to feel a little bit sinister.<\/p>\n

I then started wondering about the kind of “young men” she wants to pick up.\u00a0 Does she want someone she can dominate?\u00a0 Someone young, like in the picture?\u00a0 That’s when I started to feel disturbed.<\/p>\n

But then, as I reflected a bit more on it, I started to wonder why it didn’t disturb me as much at first.\u00a0 Does it have something to do with the way our society sees men and women?\u00a0 That women and girls are sexually vulnerable, but men and boys aren’t?<\/p>\n

Here’s a question–what if the postcard had said this:<\/p>\n

I wish there was a place for me to go on a regular basis to find great looking girls to pick up and safely<\/em> bring home and have sex with me.\u00a0 I am in my 40s and have needs.<\/p>\n

I am a professional man working for a well known company.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Superimposed, of course, on an image of fourteen year old girls in bikinis.<\/p>\n

It’s a lot more disturbing than the first one, isn’t it?\u00a0 But why should that be so? <\/em>Is there really any difference between a middle aged man seeking young girls and a middle aged woman seeking young boys?\u00a0 How screwed up is it that we think there is?<\/p>\n

That’s when I started to get really<\/em> disturbed–when I realized how much I’d unconsciously bought into the screwed\u00a0 up worldview of our modern society.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, I just thought I’d point it out, because sexism is not a one way thing.\u00a0 Sometimes, it can be really frustrating when people forget that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the blogs I like to follow is postsecret.\u00a0 It’s basically this project where people anonymously send in their secrets on postcards, and this guy posts them online.\u00a0 At times, it can be raunchy and gross, but it’s always very honest and I like that.\u00a0 Plus, it’s a great place to go for story… Continue reading Sexism in reverse<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[316,475,257,476,599],"class_list":["post-3332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-feminism","tag-postsecret","tag-sex","tag-sexism","tag-thoughts-reflections","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-RK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3332"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3351,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3332\/revisions\/3351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}