Mystical mind powers~

CURRENT PERSON STATUS
STILL DEAD INSIDE: Yes
THINKING ABOUT: writing a story based in Korea (with an all Korean cast), fruit
CURRENTLY CONSUMING THIS MEDIA: A Touch of Cloth but goddamn is Charlie Brooker brilliant.
WHY SHOULD I BOTHER WHEN YOU'RE NOT THE ONE FOR ME: OOOOooooOOOOOOooooo.

This post is about feminism, not Korea (except anecdotally) so maybe you should deal with it?

A couple years ago, during my first year in Korea, I had probably the only real blow-up I've had in my life as an adult. I was in a bar with some girlfriends and a dude whose name I forget but who I will call Trevor, drinking and chatting about our experiences with sexual harassment. Trevor was shocked -- bewildered even! -- at how upset/angry we became. After all, isn't it a compliment? He would love it if women came onto him the way men came onto us. And even if it's unwanted, all you have to do is say no.

What the hell dude, I said, basically. What about rape? Women can't always say no and anyway that's not even the issue here

Women are powerful, he argued. Women have "mind powers" over men (I distinctly remember that phrase because it might be the dumbest thing I've heard a person say with their mouth).

But what about rape

He never really did get back to me w/r/t women's mystical mind powers and how it can be used to prevent rape.

I'm reading this article on Jezebel about some gross high school women's basketball coach who self-published a book giving women advice on how to exercise their true power over men (while incidentally giving them hella blowjobs/acting like a stripper) and I had the strangest/grossest feeling of deja vu come over me.

A couple months ago I also read an article on noted bastion of intellect Cracked.com about how men are trained by the media to hate women, which started off decently (funny, true, etc) and then on page two took a sharp turn right off the reservation and straight into crazy town.

We're starving, and all women are various types of food. Only instead of food, it's sex. And we're trying to conduct our everyday business around the fact that we're trying to renew our driver's license with a talking pair of boobs. So, from about age 13 on, around 90 percent of our energy and discipline is devoted to overcoming this, to behave like civilized human beings and not like stray dogs in a meat market. One where instead of eating the meat, they want to hump it.

In the author's (admittedly minor) defense, he does admit that it's fucked up that men think this way and then does the written equivalent of shrugging his shoulders about it.

"Hey ladies here's a plate of garbage alright peace!" - The author, probably

What is this notion, this belief that in the sexual dynamic between men and women, women are the ones with all the power? Where did this come from? Is it the product of a few sexually frustrated guys or is this the overwhelming belief amongst men? I've only seen it pop up twice on the internet so far. I bet there's more to be had on noted internet sociopath sanctuary Reddit.com's MRA subreddit but I can't visit that site without vomiting blood all over my laptop, which is pretty bad for the processor.

The notion that women have all the power just because they have agency over their bodies, and who gets access to them, is pretty fucked up, especially when you consider that most women DON'T, at least not all the time. From minor cases like a stranger at the bar draping a "friendly" arm over her shoulder, to a stranger pressing his erection into her ass on a crowded subway, to a stranger grabbing her and kissing her in a park, all the way to distressing cases of actual, full-on violent assault, the average woman often doesn't have control over her personal space.

All of the above scenarios are real things that happened to either myself or my friends, by the way.

I was gonna go on a jag about how society pressures women to be pretty above all else, that you can be whatever you want in the whole wide world so long as you are still pretty and feminine and sexy (but not slutty, gross) but I don't think I have anything new to add to the conversation beyond "hey this exists and it's messed up and it's not changing and I'm pretty mad about it".

The point is, I'm a women and I never feel like I'm the one holding all the cards in any relationship. The notion that I'm the more powerful one is insulting, because it invalidates my experiences with harassment and assault*. "Hey you feel gross and inadequate and powerless well guess what you aren't!!!!! Because you won't have sex with men (me)!!!!! NOW STOP COMPLAINING." 

Besides, I don't want to have all the power, that sounds exhausting. I would rather just share. 

* You know what my first thoughts always are after being attacked? "How could I have prevented that?" My first instinctual reaction is to blame myself instead of, say, the actual person who did the attacking. Thanks rape culture!!!!