the guy by the door …

“Our Clothesline Project” by Take Back the Night April 2008

Guys,

You’re mentioned on the Take Back the Night “Our Clothesline Project” edition 2008. You’re not mentioned by full name and in mosts cases only by deed. I don’t judge, but I hear the pain in these women’s ‘voices.’ I simply want to share what I’ve learned. I’m am old bachelor. Desire is not as urgent as it once was, but I remember. Elektra says that because I’m a man, by definition, I hate women. I don’t believe it. I’ve done bad things to women. None of them would meet the legal standard of rape, but they might be called hateful. I don’t remember when I first began to realize it. Even in this very moment, I’m struggling to bring it further into the light. I’m afraid of women.¹ Part of it is her greater role in reproduction – the nearest reality to the impossible dream of immortality. That’s something well worth being afraid of. But it’s not the whole story. I remember when Faith was so desperately trying to get pregnant. It was like she was on trial. If she could not have a child, she would be condemned to a lesser class. It did not seem fair.²

In my youth, the conventional wisdom was that women want intimacy first and sex second – for men, the reverse. Young men would threaten to withhold intimacy to get their way. I played that game and sometimes it ‘worked’. But I didn’t win anything. For one thing, three minutes³ of panting and sweating lasts … well… just about three minutes. By the time you go through all the plotting and conniving, it really would be easier to take care of it by hand, unless … For another thing, if you think you have most of the say in the important things where women are concerned you’re an idiot. There really is nothing like it – when she has unambiguously, unmistakably chosen you.

I don’t know what I can tell you about intimacy, but from what I remember it was quite scary for me. From what I can see, it’s not easy for anybody. You might think staying aloof is the easy way out. I do not recommend it.

I gather from the shirts⁴ that listening and being able to hear is an important skill. Perhaps you can give it another try. Come hear the voices of women unheard. No one need know. Except you.

¹And yet I spend so much time thinking about them. But I’m told the younger men think a sexual thought every 7 seconds. I can go at least 10 without breaking a sweat. But seriously, I think about women often, but differently now.

²I was raised in the Episcopal Church – my mother’s church. I was at one point rehearsed in the six wives of Henry VIII – divorce, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. He declared himself head of the Church of England denying the authority of the Bishop of Rome. My mother denied, in a highly unspecific way, that Henry’s desire for a male heir was the cause. Catherine, the first wife got off easy. Her marriage was annulled, and she was consigned to living in minor castles with few servants for the rest of her life. Her successor, Anne Boleyn, having suffered more than one miscarriage and given birth to a daughter but no male heir, was beheaded.

³I know, stud. You can go sooooo much longer. Save it for the locker room.

⁴Some of the shirts are addressed to a male parent. I don’t know if I will have anything to say to them. I know only that when a child cannot say “no”, whatever “yes” might be coerced from her is bound to be meaningless or worse.