Victim Of The Week: Look At This Arse!

Conversations about street harassment and consent often focus exclusively on the experiences of women – and most of its victims do identify that way – but it’s also a broader issue. Many gay men silently cope with harassment and consent within male-dominated social spaces designated for LGBT people, spaces most heterosexual people never enter. Spaces created for people like me.

The most toxic forms of masculinity pervade gayborhood mainstays such as nightclubs, bars and even the occasional cruise down the sidewalk. Yet these uncomfortable, if not traumatizing, experiences get swept under the rug – or worse, internalized as something that “just happens” and shouldn’t be taken seriously... 

Guardian online.

Derrick Clifton's story is so harrowing I must give a TRIGGER WARNING, so brace yourself, here goes...

A few summers ago, I walked home as I normally would from a gym in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, which has a high concentration of LGBT residents and business owners. With headphones in, I enjoyed a breezy afternoon stroll down Broadway Street, the wind drying my sweaty brow, soaked shirt and gym shorts. Approaching the last few blocks of my journey home, I heard loud jeers and laughs from three men walking behind me.

“Man, look at that ass,” one man said to the others, as if I wasn’t present and listening to his remarks. “Wonder if he’ll let me get a bite of that.” ...

Yup, that's right, poor Derrick was walking through a 'gayborhood' (sic) and someone said he had a nice bum - basically.

This, I am sure you'll agree, is a clear demonstration of 'how the misogyny and patriarchy imbued in rape culture targets gay and gender non-conforming men'.

Yes, he actually uses 'rape culture' here!

He must have felt like Jodie Foster in The Accused and Panic Room both at the same time! ('So I quickly shuffled to my buzzer gate, slammed it behind me, and unlocked my building’s double doors in haste, rushing inside for a buffer between myself and the men on the outside.').

One is reminded of the stellar work done by Patrick Strudwick in exposing this GAY RAPE CULTURE; Smugtwit - Britain's bent bedwetter in chief - once argued persuasively that a man touching your bum in a gay club is 'sexual assault'.

So remember to take a consent form next time you're going out dancing.

James Dawson in Attitude recently asked; How Common Is Rape On The Gay Scene?

This is then rephrased as; 'Have you ever had sex - or been coerced into sex - that you didn't really want?'

Really!!?

If we can have 'micro-aggressions', I guess these must be 'micro-rapes'.

Guardian Cif seems to love these 'woe is me' exercises in victimhood; Fagburn particularly enjoyed Zach Stafford's Do my short-shorts make you feel weird about your masculinity? Good, I'm glad.

Fight the power, Zachary!

In September the Guardian published something of a classic of the genre, Why I was sweat-shamed as I waited for my coffee at Starbucks by Amy Roe.  

Yes, she actually says 'SWEAT-shamed'!

It was so widely ridiculed you'd think The Guardian might now be wary of running these 'boo hoo squish squish' articles where silly middle class people imagine they're being oppressed.  

Or am I just crap-shaming???