That thing that men do.
M: Can I get some?
F: I really don't want to I am not in the mood but I love you!
M: I don't give a f***!
F:Thats rude I was just trying to be polite about it.
M: You want me to just take it from you then?
F: NO!
M: Then get the f*** outta MY room!
F: Stop begging for it and you might get it more often.
M: GET THE F*** OUTTA MY ROOM You USELESS BITCH!
F: Why do you have to be so rude!
M: GET OUTTA MY ROOM!
There’s that thing men do when their primal desires take a hold of their actions; it is a savage thing; it is almost beyond our control. But it is a thing.
And we all do it.
Up until yesterday, I would refer to this thing as a “momentary lapse in sanity”, my way of sanitizing the savage nature that lies in me. Until yesterday, I hadn’t come to terms fully with what this was until I read a post from Iszi Black.
So here’s to you Iszi, thanks for making me accept and come to terms with what that thing men do, essentially is.
He was doing that thing, that thing men do, where they plead and beg but also threaten. That thing you learn to fear, if you’re a woman, starting from maybe 11 or 12, where you realise you aren’t being heard anymore, where nothing you say will make it stop.
I know this thing. And not because I have experienced it, but because I have acted this way before. It happened once.
I managed to convince myself that it was just a natural reaction to my sex-starved mind experiencing “a momentary lapse in sanity”, but that was me trying to justify it. I had somehow even gotten the lady who it was directed toward to believe it. But but calling it that I was trying to whitewash it, after that moment passed, I stood there feeling as savage as I had never felt, I knew exactly how wrong it was of me to have tried to force this other person into doing something she would rather not not.
But it didn’t start with me trying to force my way.
Nope. Not at all.
I sought consent, I didn’t get it. And in retrospect, I should have stopped right there, but I didn’t. There’s this thought that creeps into your mind during times of heightened desires like that, the thought that you deserve whatever it is you want; the thought that when “women say yes, they mean no”; the thought that you ought to persevere.
Because the man in front of you only cares what he can get from you, and right now he’s pissed off because your brain is resisting what he believes he’s entitled to
So armed with this thought and an ever increasing desire, I sought consent again. But only in a different way this time.
I wasn’t asking if “she would want to”. I was asking “why she wouldn’t want to”, I was asking if “this was the plan all along”.
I wasn’t begging yet, I wasn’t threatening yet, but I was also not asking for consent anymore, I was trying to cajole it out. It came with the whole “you know you want to” and related sentences, and they flew out my of my mouth with such an ease that still amazes even today.
I take particular pride in being called an almost perfect gentleman so this “plead-beg-threaten” trio was very foreign to me at that time.
He was cornering her.
When this failed, the 3rd attempt at getting consent almost immediately followed.
Beg. Plead. Promise.
Promise the world even if you don’t have it, beg wildly as though you were for your life. Plead like you’ve never done before.
I was there. That stage.
And it was characterized by sentences like “oh c’mon”, “just once”, “just the tip”, “I’ll be quick” etc.
And occasionally I would let out a feeble “I beg”. Very feeble. Because I was too masculine to beg, but also feeling too entitled to let go.
I’m told most people actually start to plead, making it about other repercussions of such arousal. “I will have blue balls if we don’t” is a crowd favorite from what I gather. This stage makes what would be an encounter between two people (or more, if you’re kinky like that) about the desires or otherwise of one person. It’s a classic patriarchal move, but that’s an issue for another day.
Fight him off in that way we’ve learnt to do: you’re sort of fighting but you’re also trying really hard not to let things escalate from “aww, but I really like you, I really like you give me a chance” to “I’M GONNA BREAK YOUR FUCKING FACE BITCH YOU’RE FUCKING DEAD.”
Threaten
I’ve never gotten to this stage. And I hope to never get there.
But I’m informed that it is very easy for things to escalate from pleading and begging to threats. I don’t know how this happens yet, but I know it can happen and the alone is a scary thought.
PS: This is my first Medium post written completely on the app on my phone, some robbers ransacked my house and stole my stuff, so do pardon me if some mistakes and oversights are in here.