Saturday 5 July 2014

The double standard still exists.

I had a really bizarre conversation with an older man the other day. It reminded me that the good old double standards of sexual politics are alive and well today.
I am happy with being single and even not being in a relationship. Due to life commitments celibacy has a become a fact of life.
However recently I came under enormous pressure to give in to this bloke, when it was the last thing on earth I wanted to do.
Even weirder was the conversation we had about sex these days when you are single and well over 40.

He said my wife was fast because she had about 20 lovers? But he added she had also been sexually abused by an uncle/father/brother/grandad.
Um, 20 doesn't seem that many . After all if we go to bars and occasionally engage in casual sex a couple of times a year it adds up after ten or twenty years.
How many girls have you been with then? I asked.
83, he said.
Unfucking believable. So ex-wife is slutty pants and you have slept with 4 times the number.

I decided to lead this conversation astray and when he said what about you, I said none of your business. Nice girls don't tell and gentlemen don't ask.
But since prostitution is legal and felt that he was doing the same thing, as in if I pay for dinner I have really brought you,... I went out on a limb and said I'm still working it out. but perhaps ten thousand men?

For money of course. I sell sex and worked out that if I had worked for the past 11 years that it has been legal and worked a 40 hour week and done about one man an hour my sum was 40 x 52 weeks equals 2080. Over eleven years that would be nearer 20, 000 blokes. Nothing wrong with that eh?

Of course he looked horrified but I just joked and said well sorry but I don't like your double standards. If you have slept with four times the number of people you have less morals than her, or what???

I am not a hooker, never have been,  I wasted my time on cannabis law reform instead of making money.

But I then had a bit of a flash of insight, does being sexually abused, raped or continually harassed for sex mean that you are labelled promiscuous when you are just unable to say no, as past experience has lead to violence?

The research suggests that many sex workers did experience sexual abuse as a child. Again does being violated damage your power or ability to say no?

Rape victims often feel some how responsible that a man raped them and they are pressured not to take him to court or worse send him to jail!
Many victims feel a sense of shame at being raped. Sometimes this is enough to stop them from reporting the rape to the police. Most people know that the process for investigating rape is as invasive if not more invasive than the actual rape itself.

Having sex with a really drunk girl seems to be ok, with many young men.
Telling a girl you will break up with her if she doesn't do it with you is coercive. so is saying another girl will take her place if she doesn't do it.

The Roast buster boys were not unique, just cocky youth with a sense of entitlement.
The men in the media and radio especially seem to belong in past decades with their inane comments about the girls and another prominent spokesperson making fun out of sexual harassment.

 He has daughters I wonder will he set them up for abuse with his stupid comments or be a man and help protect them.

If you are a man and think New Zealand does not have a rape culture, talk to any man who played team sport in the 80's and what went on.
And if you still don't get it, ask a women you know well if she has even being raped or was pressured into sex she didn't want.

That is, if you can handle it.