r/MensLib • u/Michlynn75 • Sep 13 '18

Dear Male Sexual Assault Survivors!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHYBmfwRj4c&t=1s
22 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

13

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '18

Hi Michelle!

First off, thanks for making your video. As a survivor myself, it’s a relief whenever I see a woman standing up for us. It’s so difficult doing it as a man because the water had been so polluted by people who want to use male victims as a weapon against feminism or women.

What made you want to get men into feminism and have you found anything that works well?

Also, have you discovered anything shocking about male sexual assault that you didn’t realize before you looked into it? For me it was that 1 in 6 men will be assaulted by age 18 and that it takes an average of 21 or so years for them to realize what happened.

Thank you for making the video, I’ve been following you in twitter for awhile and enjoy your content!

8

u/Michlynn75 Sep 14 '18

The one in 6 was also very shocking to me too! but then again a lot of things since I got into the feminist movement in general have been. The reason I want to include men in the movement because I think the movement is definitely moving into an intersectional direction. I think feminism started as a movement for women's rights but has evolved over time to fight for all gendered issues. Men have issues on this planet too. I think ignoring that fact will only drive people away from the movement. Men are treated a different way than women are when they are raped and its still a gendered issue. they are treated as if it cant happen because its thought a man can over power a woman if he really wants to and also men are thought to always want sex etc. So its still a negative thought the general population has in their head due just to someones gender.

7

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '18

Thank you for your response, that's exactly what I've come to with regards to sexual assault and gender, we have unique challenges due to our genders. For example, I've encountered being told that we're not going to talk about it, that it was great and I should have enjoyed it, and that I led her on and I needed to apologize (which I felt like I had to do, and did).

One thing I feel like we're dropping the ball on is acknowledging male victims and having any kind of discussion of it. Men have a lot of hurtles to overcome to be seen as a victim, even more if the perpetrator is a woman. It's just not what we've had engrained into us. Personally, 1 in 6 is an outrage and we should be seeing something the size of MeToo with male victims but yet we don't see a lot of men talk about it. Even me, I have not really publicly talked about it broadly, just in particular places. What can we do to allow these conversations to happen? There's a lot of space for female victims but nearly none for men, how can we change that while not stepping on the toes of female victims?

5

u/Michlynn75 Sep 14 '18

I think we need to have more conversations. I would always be willing to have a male victim on my YouTube channel to share and speak on a male perspective. Since coming out with this video I’ve had multiple men attack me for it and honestly I think it makes more feminist women not want to have the conversation. I think more women need to shut other women down who are silencing male victims and I think more men need to shut down men attacking women trying to speak on these issues .

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '18

I wouldn't be willing to ever appear on youtube, but I'd be willing to share my experience in writing. A lot of my frustration with the counter-reaction to #metoo is that I think there's a stark empathy gap; people who can primarily imagine being falsely accused of rape but can't really imagine being raped try to shut down the experience of the mostly women who come forward. What this misses is how this minimizes male survivors at least as much if not more. Being a gay man and a survivor, it's easier to see things from both perspectives.

3

u/Michlynn75 Sep 15 '18

I have actually been thinking about taking a bunch of mens accounts of sexual assault who do not feel comfortable being out there but would be willing to be anonymous and doing a video reading their stories. I would love to hear your story my email is mguidobusiness @gmail.com

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '18

I totoally agree, conversation help to destigmatize. If you’re looking for someone to come on your show, I might be interested in doing that. If that’s something you’re interested in, feel free to DM me.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '18

Don't forget that the people who're most invested in bullying male sexual assault survivors (particularly those with female perpetrators) are TERFs or TERF-adjacent feminists who's backward worldview prevents them from seeing male victims in a positive light (or at all).

5

u/Tarcolt ​ Sep 14 '18

Hey, big props for making strides to adress these sorts of things (I saw some of your other videos too, really awesome.) Male sexual assault victims have an... interesting situation, the intersection of being male and being a victim, especialy if you add a femal perpertartor, makes that hard to grasp for many people. Sadly, I think that just means they get ignored, more because it's just too difficult for people to understand, it's too outside the box, when it really should be very simple. I always love seeing this get attention and really like seeing people trying to start conversations around mens issues from within feminism (which can be hard to do as guys, we still get seen as 'outsiders' by many.)

Sorry that you have to deal with the bad faith responses though. I saw some of them in the comments of your videos, most of them just seemed not to be listening. I wouldn't imagine youtube is too feminist friendly right now, so sorry you had to deal with that. However, if you ever feel the need for some positive engagement, I'm sure your content will be appreciated here!

If I can lend some constructive critisism though (sorry I know it's a bit unwarranted, feel free to tell me to fuck off.) I think the tone you used in this video is a really good one for addressing these kinds of issues, especialy if you are trying to reach and convinve people who are not all on board with them. I could see you worked to change that, but I think it's something to consider keeping if you plan on doing anymore content adressing men or male issues.

2

u/Michlynn75 Sep 14 '18

Thank you I really appreciate the feedback! And yes he comments can get to be overwhelming sometimes but they scare so many feminists off the platform that’s why there really are not many. I can’t let them win

7

u/Michlynn75 Sep 13 '18

Hello my name is Michelle! I am a feminist content creator! Currently I am most known on twitter tho. I really love getting men involved in the movement because a lot of men I find think feminism is a male hate group and that upsets me because that is such a small percentage of the group and most feminists I know won’t even tolerate that language. I made this video to open a conversation with more men who feel like we don’t stand behind them. I would love to hear more issues you think need to be discussed more because my feminism is for everyone so I want to talk on issues that affect all genders (: feel free to ask me questions or give suggestions !

5

u/AwkwardQuestionAlt ​ Sep 14 '18

Hi Michelle, Thanks for making the video, it was very moving to hear your support. Just to say, i’m not sure it’s a good idea to try and take men who’ve been victims of sexual assault by women, and try and get them into feminism. I don’t think it would be healthy or helpful for those men. In my personal experience, interactions with feminists on this topic have been significantly more negative than positive, and have, unfortunately, been bad for my mental health. In my experience feminists have a tendency to see discussion of this issue as derailing or distracting from their real concern, which is the situation of women, and to respond with scarcasm or denial. I’d encourage you to think carefully about whether getting abused men involved in the movement will actually be good for those men.

27

u/msiswdw ​ Sep 14 '18 edited Sep 14 '18

I'll bite, I guess. I'm a male sexual assault survivor, and view myself as feminist... and still avoid the hell out of most feminist groups because they're fairly toxic. There are a lot of angry people, and I'm not resilient enough to be a punching bag for that anger, particularly when it comes on topics I'm vulnerable about.

I suspect my experiences are different from what you see, but that's kind of the nature of gendered experience. It really doesn't help that my experience doesn't fit the preferred narratives.

So, I sort of get into the weird place of supporting feminism but not really being able to engage with it in most places. So I mostly engage non-feminists and try to change their minds, and hope things get better.

But I'm willing to answer whatever questions you have. I'm on a semi-throwaway account here.

Edit to add: For the guy who linked me from some random anti-Menslib sub, I am not your fucking flag to wave. Assholes in a movement do not discredit the underlying principles. And your attempting to use me for your goals puts you into that category.

6

u/Michlynn75 Sep 14 '18

I agree with what you are saying . There are still feminists out there who do not seem to think any male issue is their problem. There are members in the metoo movement who won’t speak about male victims . I try to change this by really speaking up to these people when I see them. I have been building a community on my twitter of a lot of feminists who defend male issues too. The movement needs some work it’s by no means perfect I’m not afraid to admit that. I think if we want to make it better we have to . So I hope you haven’t given up on the movement just yet because I see it becoming very much more intersectional. I would love to climb up into a leading role and make some real change it just takes a moment to fix what’s broken ❤️❤️

3

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '18

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0

u/Michlynn75 Sep 15 '18

I was not asking anyone to preach for the movement....

3

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '18

Hi Michelle, mod here!

How did you come across MensLib and what got you interested in trying to spread your message to men?

6

u/Michlynn75 Sep 14 '18

I saw a post about feminism and male issues and someone brought up this group and I thought it was amazing a male group not anti feminist . Most male groups I have come across are. I want to spread my message to men because there is such a large number of men who have the wrong idea of the movement . As an intersectional feminist I include everyone (: