sexual abuse Archives - Paging Dr. NerdLove

Episode #83 – What Terry Crews Can Teach Us About Standing Up For Male Victims

July 5, 2018 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

(Content Warning: Sexual Assault)

On June 26th, Expendables and Brooklyn 99 star Terry Crews testified before Congress in support of the Sexual Assault Survivor’s Bill of Rights. As part of his advocacy for survivors of rape and sexual assault, Crews talked about his own experience of having been the victim of sexual violence. In doing so he challenged the narrative of what it means to be the survivor of sexual assault… and showed us how we fail male victims of sexual violence.

Show Highlights:

Why few men ever speak up about having been sexually assaulted
How we teach men to not trust other men
How we treat male sexual assault as a joke
Why the narrative of who can be a victim harms survivors of sexual assault
Why rape and sexual assault isn’t about sex

and so much more.

Sexual Harassment and the Toxic Culture of Comics

Jonathan Martin and the Quiet Strength of Manhood

When Masculinity Fails Men

Understanding Toxic Masculinity

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Ask Dr. NerdLove: How Do I Overcome Sexual Shame?

April 6, 2018 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hey Doc, first off I’m a big fan of your site and really appreciate all the healthy dating advice you give. I’m a 26 year old straight male and I’ve basically had intense shame about my sexuality for my entire adult life. It’s really held me back and makes it extremely difficult/impossible for me to seek out relationships.

Some background, and apologies if this is a bit long. I got my first girlfriend back in college when I was 17. We dated for about 10 months and I didn’t realize it at the time but it was an INCREDIBLY unhealthy relationship (possibly abusive? I’m not sure what qualifies). I’m now fairly sure she had something like borderline personality disorder, but being naive I mostly just took it upon myself to change to make her happy. She was extremely jealous and passive-aggressive, would accuse me of cheating if I so much as talked to another girl, would constantly explode at me over the tiniest things, made me basically cut most of my friends out of my life, etc. She also very early on (within a few months) started to frequently pressure me to agree to marry her, which I was extremely uncomfortable with but eventually gave in to and said I would consider it. But the worst of the problems revolved around sex.

Initially she seemed very interested in sex (she was not a virgin) and would talk about some kinkier stuff she wanted to eventually try. To my surprise, she said that she didn’t want to have sex until 6 months into the relationship, which I fully respected. However, she would somewhat frequently perform oral sex on me (never on my request, it was always her initiating) but would always turn down my offers to reciprocate. After 6 months we did start having sex, though it was very infrequent (I think maybe 4 times total). She always acted into it before/during, but afterward she would immediately call her mom and talk in front of me in Chinese (no idea what she was saying but it was very uncomfortable), and would seem upset/passive-aggressive for a while.

She had some really nasty sex-negative views which we would frequently disagree about. For instance she believed that a woman should only have sex with a man who was willing to marry her, otherwise she would be “devalued”, and that sex was a thing that women did for men to keep them happy. She would also slut-shame girls who dressed in revealing clothes.

Eventually, near the end of our relationship, she revealed that she apparently hated sex, thought kissing me was disgusting, and didn’t even like hugging me. Rather than being flattered/happy that I found her attractive, she basically took it as an insult. I said that we didn’t have to have sex or kiss anymore if she didn’t like it, so we stopped.

I should also note that during this time, my dad dumped my mom after 20 years of marriage for a woman 20 years his junior. It had devastating effects on my family, particularly my mom, and I hated my dad more than anyone in the world. I promised to myself that I would never be anything like him.

Finally after maybe a month or so of no sex, my girlfriend and I broke up, and she said some of the most hurtful things I’ve ever heard in my entire life: that I didn’t love her and that I only used her for sex, and that I was “just like my dad”.

Honestly, hearing this was my worst nightmare come true. Here’s why:

If a woman says no, I will absolutely 100% stop whatever it is I’m doing, and won’t push it.
If a woman seems hesitant but doesn’t say no, I will absolutely 100% stop whatever it is I’m doing and ask her if she wants to continue.
If a woman says yes/seems enthusiastic then I can trust that as a great sign to continue, right? … except I can’t.

Apparently for all those months, my ex-girlfriend hated sex and felt used/forced into doing it but said nothing. This is so incredibly horrifying to me. I was basically… forced to rape someone for months without realizing it.

On top of this, what my dad did, and the accusation that I was “just like him”, have caused me an incredible amount of shame over the mere fact that I’m sexually attracted to women in general.

After breaking up with my ex-girlfriend, I didn’t date or have sex or any relationships for over 5 years. I went into a pretty terrible depression and eventually got therapy for over a year.

I finally managed to find a girlfriend via online dating and we dated for a bit over a year and it was a MUCH healthier relationship.

However, it’s been about 9 months since we broke up and this deep-rooted shame is still really holding me back. I occasionally work up the courage to introduce myself to women and I’ve managed to go on a few dates via Tinder, but I’m absolutely incapable of making any sort of romantic/sexual moves, so the dates all just go nowhere.

In my mind, making a move = creepy, sexual assault, unwanted sexual objectification, irremediably insulting. I know it’s not rational or true, but it’s what I’ve been conditioned to believe. (It probably doesn’t really help that in an attempt to learn how approach dating/sex in ways which are respectful toward women, I spent years reading radfem-esque dating “advice” articles which were basically just big lists of all the ways men should stop being horrible, but no actual advice on what is desired/considered okay.)

Honestly at this point I don’t know how to move past this. I know that it’s unhealthy to focus on the worst possible outcome, and besides, as everyone seems to say, what’s the worst that could happen? You try to make a move but get rejected and it’s a bit awkward, right? Nope, the worst is FAR worse, and I know because it was my experience. I take rejection incredibly well. In fact, I almost prefer being rejected because at least I know that “no means no”, which is way better than “yes but secretly I feel violated/used/raped and I won’t tell you until after/possibly ever”. To make a move on someone means risking that they may feel violated, even briefly, and after my experience with my ex-girlfriend, taking this risk just seems completely incompatible with my drive to be a good person.

At the same time, the fact that I feel this way makes me feel like a nasty sexist asshole because it implies that women are fragile flowers who are incapable of handling a moment of discomfort. Obviously I don’t believe this on a rational level, but it’s the logical conclusion of my deep-rooted fear, and this also makes me feel like a bad person, because I do not want to be sexist.

In the words of Andy from The 40-Year-Old Virgin: “You know what? I respect women! I love women! I respect them so much I completely stay away from them!”

As I mentioned before, I did therapy for a while and it helped me sort out the reasons why I have all these hang-ups, but ultimately I can’t seem to move past the fact that my worst fears were actually proven true, and could happen again.

Do you have any words of advice to offer?

Sincerely,
A Guy With Issues

[Read more…]

Ask Dr. NerdLove: Do I Come On Too Strong?

December 16, 2016 by Dr. NerdLove 543 Comments

Hi Dr. NerdLove,

I’m 23 and looking for love in the Big Apple. I recently stumbled onto your blog, and I’ve really enjoyed it/found it helpful. I would like some advice. My problem isn’t actually getting girls. I’ve had a couple of girlfriends and can get a date. My problem is pushing them away because I come on too strong.

Here is my most recent “failure.” I met this girl at a bar about a month ago. She was very good looking and we bonded over singing “Jessie’s Girl,” being nerdy, and similar experiences with Greek Life in college, among other things. We talked for a long time, and I was smitten. I got her number and asked her out the next day, and she responded positively. We texted just about every day for two weeks until we actually went on the date (she was busy the weekend after we met so we had to wait). She told me she was really looking forward to it. I was too.

The date started out really well. We took an hour to order food because we couldn’t stop talking to each other long enough to look at the menu, and never ran out of things to say throughout the meal. We had similar interests and personality quirks, so there was obviously chemistry. She told me she was having a really great time near the end of dinner. She offered to pay for part of dinner, but I picked up the check and said, “Maybe if we do this again…” and she cut me off immediately and said, “When we do this again.” And after dinner, I took her to a romantic spot and we kissed, and it was mutually wanted (we both leaned in for it). And I think it was a fine kiss too, before you ask. So all good signs.

And then…I held her hand for like 30 seconds and said I was glad I had met her. And I asked if I could put my arm around her and she said she was okay with it, but I could tell it was awkward. In fact, the whole mood of the date had changed after the kiss and she just seemed more out of place. So when I asked her out again, she told me no because I had come on too strong and it made her freak out.

A month later, I’m still kind of bummed about it. She seemed so into me, and now, I have nothing to show for it. And she was really great, and she was the first girl since my last girlfriend a year ago that I really felt this strong a connection with (and I’ve gone on other dates, but not one this good in a while). So yeah, I was really into her, and I guess that’s my problem: I had fallen head-over-heels for this girl who I had only met twice. And I think even if my acts were relatively tame (I mean, some people have sex on the first date, holding hands shouldn’t be such a big deal), my feelings had shown through.

It’s a common thread too. It’s why online dating is hard for me because I get attached so easily. I’ve said “I love you” fairly quickly in my previous relationships, and my aforementioned last girlfriend had a problem with me doing too much in the relationship, or making too big romantic gestures. That’s not a humble brag, by the way, it’s real problem. I fall for girls very quickly, I give too much or come on too strong too soon, and I end up getting hurt. And it seems the longer I’m single, and even though I have other pursuits in my life to make that time more fulfilling, it becomes harder to reign those feelings in because I just get more excited each time about the prospect of meeting someone.

So I guess my question is this: how do I keep my feelings in check? How do I not get so attached to someone I’ve just met, even if I think they’re an amazing person? How do I care less? Thanks for your advice.

Sincerely,

Wannabe Ted Mosby

[Read more…]

Christy Mack and the Crime of “Being A Slut”

August 18, 2014 by Dr. NerdLove 222 Comments

A quick head’s up: I’m going to be talking about the Christy Mack assault. This is going to include some fairly graphic pictures of her injuries and description of the assault that led to her hospitalization. Read on at your own risk.

It’s been an insanely busy week, news-wise. Between Robin William’s passing (RIP, Robin – wish that the love we all felt for you could have somehow counteracted the despair you felt), the paramilitary occupation of Ferguson, MO and the rest, on top of working on my upcoming book. As a result, I haven’t really had much of a chance to comment on the news that Christy Mack, an entrepreneur, pin-up model and adult film star, was brutally beaten by her ex-boyfriend.

The crime in and of itself – a woman being beaten to near unrecognizability by an ex lover – is horrific. But it’s the response to Christy Mack’s assault that makes it especially disgusting… particularly with what it says about how we view women and women’s sexuality. [Read more…]

When Masculinity Fails Men

October 25, 2013 by Dr. NerdLove 522 Comments

It’s been an interesting week for talking about masculinity. To start with, ABC’s 20/20 aired a story about the Manosphere and the Men’s Rights Movement (which, ironically enough seems to have touched off a weird Jay-Z/Nas-esque feud between two leading voices of the MRM). The Daily Beast provided a thoughtful, if somewhat flawed, report on the MRM, including some of the grievances and injustices it claims to be trying to remedy in today’s society while Jaclyn Friedman wrote about her sit-down with one of the MRM’s loudest gadflies. What makes it fascinating to me is watching these various figures trying to be firebrands and movement leaders, addressing the feelings of inadequacy and lack that many men are experiencing through articles like “Women Are The Natural Enemy of Men”, accusing (literally) random women of falsifying rape charges and generally flailing about flinging shit everywhere like a tweaked-out mountain gorilla taking pot-shots at Italian plumbers.

"...yeah, you KEEP running! You tell that Sarkeesian woman too!" — “…yeah, you KEEP running! You tell that Sarkeesian woman too!”

The most frustrating thing is that, frankly, the MRM isn’t entirely wrong… or at least it wouldn’t be if they were actually trying to help men instead of looking for excuses to keep hating on women.

There are legitimate grievances to be had over the way that, say, child custody in divorce tends to favor the mother even if she’s otherwise unfit, or the way that adult male victims of sexual abuse or rape are functionally ignored by both society and law enforcement. The problem is that the MRM types are so up their own asses with their hatred and fear of women that they resemble a one-man Human Centipede. They’re directing all of their efforts in the wrong direction. It’s not women who are the problem. It’s men. More specifically, it’s masculinity. The traditional societal definitions of masculinity – and its attendant gender roles – fails men.