Prince Harming

An American horror story

A number of years ago when my kids were about five and eight and my mom was still alive, she started asking when I was going to get on the dating apps. I’d been doing the single mom thing for a good four years at that point, busy the way a woman is when she has two little kids and owns a business, and is somehow also trying to write a book.

When my marriage ended, my son was four years old and my daughter was eighteen months old and still nursing. I had no desire whatsoever to go sit in a restaurant and order a drink and — oh my god, are you kidding me — try to have a conversation with someone about where they grew up or what they liked to do on the weekend. My head was not in that game at all.

I was in business with my not-yet ex, the kids lived with me full-time, and all I cared about was making sure they were okay — that they felt secure and happy and loved, and our house was full of laughter and joy. By the time my mom started wondering how I would meet anyone since I only ever worked or was home building couch forts — and it wasn’t likely someone was going to show up on my doorstep in a bow — the divorce had been final for a few years, the kids were thriving, and I had started to think maybe it was time to put myself out there again. So I stuck a toe in the dating app waters.

I made a profile the way you do, put up recent pictures, said true things about who I was and what I wanted and didn’t want, didn’t answer any of the sex questions because wtf, why would anyone tell the entire internet about that, and hit publish. I don’t know how to explain what happened, and I don’t have to if you’re a woman. To be clear, I had never been on a dating app before. I had social media profiles and I’d been blogging since 2009 (back when we blogged), so I was no stranger to being a woman on the internet, or having people “slide into my DMs” in the parlance of the oldish days — but I was not ready for this.

I’ll skip all the messages you can guess, the ones with zero creativity and no punctuation, the dudes who wanted to ride over on their Harleys and head up the PCH for lunch like I’ve never seen Dateline. We don’t have to discuss the men who were way out of my stated age-range (on both sides of the spectrum lol) messaging me at 11pm on a Saturday night wondering if my kids were asleep and if I wanted some company. As though I’d ever allow some guy I don’t know to have my address and come to my house — let alone while my tiny children were asleep in the other room.

I’m sure he’s one of the good guys. Photo by Harley-Davidson on Unsplash

Then there were the dick pics, and there were a lot of them. I both do and don’t want to talk about this. I do not get it, that’s the only part worth discussing. Did someone on reddit say this was a good idea at some point? I instantly blocked, because that’s the kind of guy who thinks having a dick makes him special I guess. Why else lead with that? Not even hello, just — bam, here’s my dick — like he’s taking advice from Louis CK.

If you’re a guy, I am kind of assuming you have a dick, and if I want to see it, you’ll know. If I haven’t asked, I do not want to see it. Super easy. I won’t speak for all women, but every woman I know feels this same way, and I know a lot of women. Maybe part of it is we are always dealing with dicks whether we want to or not, so it gets old and boring and — oh yeah, it’s a violation. There isn’t any consent if you whip out your dick in person or online. Just boom, dick in your face. Not great.

Eventually, I went to meet a guy for dinner. He seemed interesting, funny and smart. He even used punctuation. I got to the restaurant first, which was fine — I was early, and he was driving from the other side of town during rush hour. I went to the bar and ordered a glass of wine while I waited. It was a popular place, but not hopping yet. There were plenty of people having dinner outside, and three men a couple of barstools away from me. The bartender was getting ready for the night ahead, moving around, making sure the bar was stocked.

The three guys started talking to me. They seemed like they’d been there for a while, they were speaking more loudly than necessary. I was polite, but not friendly. I am pretty well-versed in the land of dealing with people who’ve had a lot to drink. One of the guys, the one closest to me, came over and put his arm around me and asked why a woman so hot was alone at a bar on a Friday night.

I slipped out from under his arm and slid off the barstool, said I was waiting for someone and was going to the restroom. I smiled the way women do when they don’t want to die — but I was aggravated. His buddies laughed. He said he hoped I was waiting for a hot girlfriend to join me. I said, Sorry, not your night, and went inside. I didn’t need the restroom, I just wanted to get away so I could strategize. My date texted he was stuck in traffic, but almost there. No worries, I texted back. I thought about asking if we could meet somewhere else, but couldn’t think of a place nearby. Plus, I could handle this. I’m from New York City.

I returned to the bar. The three guys were still there, but now they’d moved down the bar right next to where I’d been sitting, and they’d ordered a round of shots. One for me, too. I said thanks, I appreciated it, but no thanks, and asked the bartender if I could be seated. “Oh, come on!” the handsy guy said, “lighten up and have a shot with us. Your date is late. His loss, not smart to leave a woman like you waiting!” The bartender looked at me then, like he was understanding what was going on for the first time.

“Hey fellas, she said no,” he said, “I’ll do the shot with you when I get back,” and he came out from behind the bar, grabbed my wine, and brought me to a table. “Sorry about those guys,” he said, “they’ve been here for a couple of hours. That one guy is a real asshole.” I nodded, sat down, and texted my best friend. Told her what was happening. Had a little more of my wine.

Then the guy came over and sat down at the table like we were playing a game. “Listen,” I said, “I need you to go back to the bar. I’m waiting for someone, this is not cool.” I looked over, hoping the bartender was on his way, but now a man and woman were at the bar where I’d been sitting, and he was getting their drinks. The other two guys waved at me — clearly, they thought this was funny. “Why are you being such a bitch?” their friend asked, and his eyes flashed in a way that was familiar and made my heart pick up the beat. “Your date is really late, and I’m into you. Why don’t you just hang out with me, instead?”

It was clear he wasn’t going to leave, so I got up, but as soon as I stood, everything got hazy and I collapsed back into my chair. My knees knocked together. The room had gone sideways, and everything looked grey. I felt like I might pass out. I gripped the table. I thought maybe I’d stood up too fast — I have low blood pressure, and sometimes that happens. He laughed, reached forward and put his hand on my thigh, squeezed it. “Don’t fucking touch me,” I growled, batting his hand away, but my words came out like one word, slurred together, Dontfuckingtouchme. I sounded like my mom, after a bottle of wine.

He grinned. “Are you okay? How much have you had to drink? Do you need a ride home?” I looked at him carefully. I felt sick. I have no tolerance when it comes to alcohol, but I’d only had a glass of wine, and it wasn’t a large glass. There’s no way I could be this woozy. “I’m fine,” I said, “I just stood up too fast.” I had to focus on enunciating every word.

I got up carefully and looked toward the bar which seemed very far away now, and this time the bartender saw me. I walked toward him unsteadily, trying to find the floor underneath my feet with each step. It was like walking on a boat at sea in heels. I must have looked scared because he walked out from behind the bar and met me halfway, grabbing my elbow. “Something isn’t right,” I said to him, “I think he spiked my drink, I don’t feel well. I’m going to call a friend to come get me. Please don’t leave me alone with him or let him pull me outside.”

“Oh my god,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the guy, “Do you want me to call the police? Do you want an ambulance?”

I didn’t want any of that. I wasn’t positive I was right, all I wanted at that moment was to get away from the whole situation and get back to my house. I sat down at the bar and texted my best friend, asking her to come — not the kind of thing I’d ever done before. The bartender got me some water and called the manager over. The manager went to talk to the two guys still at the bar — their friend had gone outside. Apparently they apologized their friend had “bothered” me, settled their tab in cash, and took off.

My girlfriend pulled up in front of the place as my date was walking in. By then I felt certain something had happened — either that guy put something in my drink, or I had food poisoning from something I’d eaten the day before — though I hadn’t eaten anything my kids hadn’t eaten, and they were fine.

I told my date I was sorry, but obviously I needed to reschedule. He said it went without saying, and helped me into my friend’s car. He asked my girlfriend if she could stay with me overnight. She could and did. They exchanged numbers and he asked her to keep him posted.

I went home and vomited violently all night, until it didn’t seem possible there was anything left. I had a blinding headache for 18 hours. I had tears streaming down my face from exhaustion and from my stomach cramping like it was in some kind of vise grip. I was pale and shaky and miserable. Much of the night was a blur. When I wasn’t vomiting, I’d pass out again on the cold bathroom floor because I needed to be near the toilet. My girlfriend told me things in the morning I did not remember at all, and still don’t. I came out of the bathroom naked at one point and told her it was because my clothes hurt and my skin needed to release the poison.

The poison is everywhere. I think it’s important we all realize this now. When the Swalwell stuff started coming out I was dismayed like everyone. Disgusted. Especially when I saw his video denying the allegations, saying this was happening because he was the Democratic front-running candidate for governor, and he would fight back legally if necessary.

There was something about the way he was squinting, rocking his body forward for emphasis, like he had to use momentum to get the words out, and the way he was breathing — that shallow chest breathing. It was all the body language of a caged narcissist. A man who can’t quite believe it’s over, who thinks if he says it forcefully enough, he can bend reality to his will.

He must have known what was coming. Maybe he made that video so he could wake up in the same house with his kids a few more mornings, to see them look at him with all that love and trust before their world falls apart because he turns out to be an absolute monstrosity. Allegedly. I put that there for my own legal protection, not because I have any doubt.

People challenging the women who’ve come forward have no clue how hard it is to step into the arena and accuse a man of assault, especially when time has gone by. Not that it’s easy at the time, either, especially when he’s a powerful person and you are not — like a big-time congressman, and a twenty-one-year-old staffer.

There is no good time when every time a woman comes forward to say she’s been assaulted, people doubt her, men and women alike. They want to know how much she had to drink. Why was she having drinks with the guy if she didn’t like him. What she was wearing. Whether she said no.

Also, why did she keep working for him after it happened, if it wasn’t consensual?

When you are in your early twenties right out of college and you get your dream job as an intern working for a congressperson or a senator or an ad executive or a novelist or an attorney or a spiritual guru — and this person you admire so much is paying attention to you and making you feel special — and then the interaction starts to get a little strange, but you aren’t totally sure — you probably won’t want to ask anyone, because what if you’re wrong?

You won’t want to say anything to your mom, for example, because she’ll freak out, and if you’re making “something out of nothing”, maybe you’ll mess up a really great break you’ve gotten for yourself. What if she calls the office or shows up or does something embarrassing? Surely it’s all okay. So many people admire the person you’re working for, this is a huge break. People would kill for this opportunity. It must be you, misreading things.

Maybe those disappearing Snapchat messages are not so inappropriate, and maybe having drinks with your boss is a grown-up thing to do. By the time you know it isn’t okay you’re in over your head, and you try to manage the situation on your own, and somehow keep your great job.

Maybe you can just flirt and walk the line, and that will satisfy him. And then one night if your boss slips something in your drink and you end up in his hotel room, well. Is anyone going to feel sorry for you? Why didn’t you say something sooner? Plus, you don’t know he slipped something in your drink, you think you just drank too much — another reason to feel ashamed. You won’t know he slipped something in your drink for years, until another woman comes forward and describes meeting this person for drinks in the same way. You’re too young to know this isn’t your fault, and he — the grown man — is the one who should be held accountable for the real and conscious choices he made. You were prey, you just didn’t know it, and the people around him didn’t warn you.

When two different women said they’d met Swalwell for drinks, woken up in his hotel room the next morning, and felt confused because the “night was a blur” I felt ill. Alcohol alone does not do that.

Lots of people second guess themselves and talk themselves out of their feelings when they’re young, especially women. We’ve been trained to be polite. We’ve been taught no one will believe us or back us up. We kick ourselves for being so dumb, for putting ourselves in a vulnerable position in the first place. Ask me how I know. Do you think we don’t see what happens when women come forward?

Representative Tony Gonzalez (R, Texas, Uvalde) also lied when his sexual misconduct came to light. He said it wasn’t true, and then he avoided the media and refused to answer questions about it for months while he ran for re-election. He has six kids with his wife, Angel. His family figures prominently in his political persona, he describes himself as a “conservative, religious, family-values man.” Uh-huh.

His personal life became a topic of investigation when a former aide, Regina Santos-Aviles, took her own life. She was married with an eight-year-old little boy. Rep. Tony Gonzalez harassed her, took advantage of his position as her boss, pressured her for nude photos, and sent sexually explicit texts. A second aide has come forward to say he did the same with her. Very family values. Very upstanding.

It’s noteworthy that Mike Johnson and Republicans in the House demanded that Gonzalez drop his re-election campaign when this came to light, but did not require him to resign from Congress — because they held only a 2-seat majority over the Democrats. It’s a game to these people. Once Swalwell resigned, it cost them nothing to do the right thing. That’s why both resignations happened on the same day. Why does it have to cost them nothing before they’ll do the right thing?

Or, to put it another way, why isn’t integrity worth anything?

It should be noted, it was women who made it happen, on both sides of the aisle:

It took the voices of female members of Congress–particularly, Democratic Women’s Caucus Chairwoman Teresa Leger Fernández and Republican Rep. Anna Paulina of Florida–to lead the charge to take out the trash.

“Two Latinas, I would point out,” Leger Fernández told The Independent. She said her leadership was helpful in her push to kick out Swalwell.

“What we had was we had Republicans refusing to move against against Gonzales,” she said. “But we needed the votes, and that’s what both Anna Paulina and I could do is we knew we could deliver the votes for the expulsion, because we needed two thirds votes.”

Still, that is a stinging indictment that accountability comes if neither side experiences political pain or consequences for ignorance or looking away.

Luna–a pro-Trump conservative who nonetheless works with Democrats on legislation to ban members of Congress from trading stocks to ending nonconsensual deepfake AI porn–sounded even more adamant.

“Both sides on leadership didn’t want to call on them to resign,” she told The Independent as she walked into Johnson’s office while pushing her son’s stroller. “I felt like I was willing to metaphorically shoot the hostage.”

Luna pointed out that constitutionally, Congress has the right to set its own rules. But that lack of oversight and external protocol allows for fertile ground for creeps of all political stripes.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy went on ABC’s “This Week” and said, “Every member in Congress knows not to let any young staffer around Swalwell or Matt Gaetz, it’s not a secret there.” Lovely.

Former San Francisco Mayor Wille Brown said he wasn’t surprised because there have been “rumors after rumors after rumors” for years, and, “that’s what Adam Schiff said, and what Nancy Pelosi said.” So it would seem it was widely understood Eric Swalwell and Matt Gaetz were two predators, and you should never send young female staffers to be alone with them, because young female staffers would not be safe due to all the trafficky and rapey things they do.

I saw a video on instagram with a clip of Kevin McCarthy saying all that, and a woman expressing her utter disdain, asking why men do not call this shit out. How it is really ironic the way men like to think of themselves as “protectors” and how pissed some men get over the whole “choosing the bear” thing, but this is why. And this is also why it was infuriating to watch the Olympic Men’s Hockey Team laugh at the shitty misogynistic “joke” of the demented old man in the Golden Oval, because if you laugh along, you’re part of the problem, and if you say nothing, you’re also part of the problem. It’s all the same problem.

But some guy in the comments chimed in with, “How is this not Kevin McCarthy calling it out?” and my head exploded a little. I don’t think I need to explain this to anyone who reads my stuff, but if you’ve been walking around Congress for years knowing some guy is not to be trusted with young female staffers because everyone has heard despicable rumors — like maybe he sends dick pics on Snapchat or she might wake up in his hotel room and not remember what happened, or he seems to like underage girls — and your solution is to warn people with a whisper and a wink?

That is not calling it out. That is upholding the system that harms young girls and women as if there’s not another damn thing you can do about it. Calling it out is calling the po po, or calling your reporter friend or telling the bastard yourself it’s time to quit or you’re telling your buddy at the FBI or walking over to the DOJ. I mean, you’re right there, my god. How is this not Kevin McCarthy calling it out?

Here’s another one. Let’s say you live in France, in a small town in southeastern Provence, and somehow you hear about this website where men drug their wives and rape them and invite other men to come and rape them, too. You don’t decide to become one of the men who does that, you appelez la police.

Turns out that is not a French thing, not that I thought it was. Men drug, rape, and film their wives in the U.K., in the U.S., in Poland, in Canada, in France — at this point I think we have to assume it’s happening everywhere. There are sites set up specifically for this, and coded hashtags, and chat-rooms, and an academy where men can learn how to do it, too. Rape Academy.

Men upload their “content” — videos of them raping their unconscious wives — and there’s a big audience waiting to watch and happy to pay. One of these sites had 62 million visits in February alone, and its core audience is in the United States. It’s a real brotherhood of men who absolutely despise women, who have no respect for them at all. I could cry. I am somewhere between rage, despair, and nausea.

I want to encourage you to prepare yourself if you click on that link above. It’s not that there are pictures or videos or anything. It’s that there are casual screenshots of men telling other men what they gave their wives to knock them out so they can try it, too. The mothers of their children in many cases. The women who tell them where their keys are, and buy the cheese they like, and do their laundry. Those wives. Who usually also work and do the lion’s share of the household cleaning and childcare. Now I am crying. I don’t understand. What is the issue? What is the fucking issue?

I was absorbing/processing all this and watching people here in California scramble to figure out who they were going to support now that Swalwell dropped out of the governor’s race — quick note, how come we’re all talking about how women really need to take over, but not that woman? Every. Time.

I literally watched a woman I know scrunch up her nose and say she didn’t want to vote for Katie Porter because she’s “mean” and she’s probably taking Ozempic. That she’s lost a lot of weight, and now her closeups don’t look good because her skin is sagging, and even though we don’t like to admit it, that stuff matters here in California, wink, shrug! Omfg.

A woman said that to me, a woman. She probably uses the hashtag women supporting women, unironically.

I’ll tell you one thing Katie Porter isn’t doing. She isn’t whipping her dick out or harassing any of her 21-year-old staffers for nude pics as far as I know. She isn’t drugging young interns and assaulting them. I know it’s a low bar, but look at what people do — that’s my point. When the “scandal” of the two Katie Porter videos came out — one where she told a staffer to “get the fuck out of her shot” and another where she almost walked out of an interview — she apologized and said she could have handled the interview better. She’d already apologized to the staffer. I can’t remember the last time we saw a male politician apologize for anything, can you? There isn’t a single candidate who is perfect, but I’m voting for Katie Porter.

We have to stop this thing of saying we want women to lead, but then disqualifying every woman who shows up because of her emails or her joyful laughter or because she’s “mean.” Maybe her interpersonal skills need some work, but I bet I’d be feeling pretty mean, too, if I was surrounded by a bunch of men failing upward all the time, and everyone knew, and I had to keep performing at some ridiculous standard while they could go to Vegas and act like the human embodiment of flesh-eating bacteria.

Anyway, I was integrating the latest shitstorm of news and feeling thankful that at least I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, because who doesn’t want the golden healing lightning that shoots out of their doctor’s hands while they fly around the room and angels sing? My doctor is a woman and she doesn’t usually show up in robes, but I figured, maybe this was the day. Maybe she’d even tell me to say three Hail Marys and call her in the morning.

But I signed onto Substack in the waiting room, my sweet corner of the internet where at least I know my writer friends are creating essays and poems that will make me laugh or cry or nod or think about something in a different way, and this incredible community of readers will add comments that are so interesting or funny or thought-provoking, that sometimes it’s all the hope I need … and I saw that Andrew Tate had been allowed to join the platform, and not only that, he’d imported his huge email list, so he’d shot straight to the top of the new bestseller’s list.

Andrew Tate, the joke of a man who tells women he loves raping them, and if a woman is assaulted she “bears some responsibility” and women are “inherently lazy” and there’s no such thing as an “independent woman.” The man who said, “I’m a realist and when you’re a realist, you’re sexist. There’s no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist.” Andrew Tate with active, pending, human trafficking cases, and trafficking of minor cases, and criminal charges of organized crime and multiple charges of rape in the U.K. and Romania.

He’s been banned from Meta platforms and YouTube and Tik Tok and Twitter — though Elon reinstated him when he made it X because he loves his bros and he has no problem with hate speech or misogyny. Which is not the same as free speech, in case anyone needed to be reminded. Most platforms draw the line at: Communication that encourages an audience to condone or inflict harm, often by dehumanizing a target group. Like women, for example.

I call him a joke of a man, because when Lucy Williamson interviewed him in Romania with the BBC, he didn’t look her in the eye and own the things he’d said. That’s what a real man would do, right? He’d be calm. What is there to get upset about if you’re just being asked about the things you’ve said and the things you believe? He got combative and tried to talk over her, though, and denied saying those things at all. He said she’d, “found quotes on the internet.” Hahahaha. She did. They were his quotes that he’d put on his own damn site. He folded like the weak little scaredy-boy he is. “I never said that. I never did those things.” He might as well have said, “You’re not my Mommy, you’re not the boss of me, you can’t make me.”

There’s a reason preteen boys are his target audience. They’re feeling as uncomfortable and uncertain as they ever will, and he gets in there and tells them how to be a man. He says “feminism” has ruined everything, and strong women are the reason the world is messed up and unfair. The world was better when women knew their place, and girls know this, deep inside. They like a boy who takes charge. They like a man who tells them what to do and keeps them in check. They like money. They like fast cars. Because they can be bought, see? Like property. Here’s how you make money, boys. Here’s how you get muscles. This is what strength looks like.

But he gets furious and defensive instantly when an intelligent woman asks him to show his work. He can’t handle it. That isn’t strength.

I suppose it was naive to think Substack would be different from any other platform, though there are tons of accounts reporting and blocking him (mine included) and he clearly imported his own email list — it’s not like the Substack community is interested in his toxic waste. It looks like his list is full of bot accounts. I don’t expect he will find many people who will engage with his “ideas” and that is as it should be. No one needs to debate whether women bear responsibility for being assaulted. Some things simply deserve no oxygen, and that’s where I’ll leave this. Perhaps his stint will be short-lived. One can hope.

You know what, though? Women can fix the bigger problem with him. Because the bigger problem is not where he is, it’s that he is. We need some nineteen or twenty-year-old woman with a big social media presence to talk to boys about girls and what they like. Who would know more about that, after all — some 40-year-old man who’s been arrested for hurting girls — or a young woman who was a girl not long ago, and knows how girls think and what makes them laugh, and what they hope a boy will say or do?

I know boys are smart and kind, and if you give them a chance, they’ll listen. I know because I raised one, and he turned into a wonderful young man who respects women and genuinely likes them, too.

We need to get more intentional in so many areas. I think about the fairytales we were raised on, the brave, charming, handsome prince who was supposed to rescue the damsel in distress, the evil stepmother, the banished witch, the mean step-sisters, the fairy godmothers, the lack of representation for anyone who isn’t white in any of these stories, the way — even here — people with money are safe and people without can be taken advantage of, even if they’re kind and they do everything right — unless some magical spell is cast or broken.

I don’t know what is going on with far too many (mostly straight, mostly white) men, but I suspect it’s the same poison that’s harming so many of us girls and women, people of color, members of the queer community, anyone who is not part of this club that isn’t even kind to its own members. It’s this patriarchal chest-pounding flag-planting bomb-dropping planet-eating ideology where they are at the top of the food chain and the rest of us are existing in their world and at their mercy and for their pleasure. We are not theirs for the taking, though, and neither is this planet. We’re all just visitors here, and we are all deserving of dignity.

It isn’t normal to want to dominate and harm people, in case that needs to be said. I no longer know what needs to be said. It isn’t normal to take pleasure in hurting people you claim to love. It isn’t normal to get off on watching people suffer. It isn’t normal to treat human beings as expendable — any of them. It isn’t normal to whip your dick out unless someone asks you to do that. It isn’t normal to use up 5 million gallons of water a day so you can chat with your phone, it’s criminal. It isn’t normal to think we can afford to use 32 billion gallons of water annually so Claude can write your grocery list — and that’s the water usage projection for 2028. The billionaires don’t care.

They’re at the very top of this broken food chain, and a lot of straight white men think they’re in the club because they bought a red hat. Meanwhile, they would not even let them mop the floor. Look at the farmers bemoaning the fertilizer crisis. Conservative women who are confused, please note: Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi. You will always be expendable in the Boys’ Club. They don’t even want us to vote, and some of y’all are like, “Oh, no problem, here’s my vote, my husband can do it for the household!” Your grandmothers are not resting in peace, ladies, and your daughters will grow up to loathe you if you don’t get ahold of yourselves. No one wants to live in Gilead, watch the show if you need to. The wives are not safe, either. FFS.

It isn’t normal to join a chat room to learn how to drug and rape your wife, but I guess if the men you listen to are telling you women are the problem and immigrants are the problem and queer people are the problem, and men on women’s sports teams are the problem, maybe you’re so pissed the rage is coming out in all kinds of dark and horrifying ways. It isn’t normal to join a site where you can watch other men raping their unconscious wives and think that’s something to emulate.

It isn’t normal to take advantage of the young people who work for you, or anyone who works for you — if you are someone’s boss, you have power over them and you should not date them. If you can’t handle that, you should not be anyone’s boss. It is not normal to want to have sex with minors if you’re an adult. Get help, and stay away from minors.

Maybe some less obvious things, because I did not know there was a Rape Academy. I am now going to say if you are a man and you have felt upset and found yourself saying “not all men”, I hope now you are starting to understand how dark and bleak things are for women. Please help. I’m really asking, from my heart. Please make your position clear. Don’t let us women be the only people loudly and passionately calling this out. We have been alone out here. We have gotten used to it, but that doesn’t make it okay.

Please don’t laugh at sexist jokes anymore, or even let them slide. Start teaching your buddies today. Your sons, your nephews. Please stop yourself from making the, “she’s nagging me again” [eyeroll] comments. Please stop doubting your female friends’ lived experiences if you have been. If a woman friend tells you someone makes her feel uncomfortable, or something is happening “because she’s a woman” don’t tell her she’s wrong. Vote for women when possible. Don’t rule them out because you don’t like their laugh. Don’t ever vote for a rapist. Don’t ever vote for a man who says he grabs women by the pussy and try to look your daughter in the eye. Ever.

Feminism just means you believe women and men are equally valuable human beings, intrinsically. It doesn’t mean you think women are better. Wanting to be done with the patriarchy doesn’t mean “erasing male voices” which is what a man said to me a while back. It means we make a circle, and men and women (and I am including everyone when I say men and women) are in the circle, no one is on top. The most vulnerable people are in the middle of the circle, being lifted up.

Once Upon a Time there was a princess in a tower.

She liked the views from up there, but it was getting late, so she walked down the stairs and through the forest…

…and wrote herself into a better story. Mimipic Photography on Unsplash

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