How To Use Established Misogyny To Emotionally Abuse In Plain Sight.
My ex just had the right foundations to could get away with it all the time.
This is a real-life example of how tactical emotional abuse can completely alter your everyday relationships with your closest friends, your surroundings, even your safety mechanisms outside of the relationship.
During a conversation with my friends where my ex was present and involved, we discussed male drinking culture. Specifically, how one handles a man offering to buy you a drink at a bar.
I’m female presenting; Boobs, butt, bah-jooter. And with this territory comes the inevitable bar-side battle of being asked if I would like a drink by passing gentlemen. I’m not an idiot. I am well aware of the of poorly masked translation of accepting a beverage from a cis-het male (By agreeing to partake in an alcoholic beverage with you I am hereby signing up for some form of sexual encounter with the purchaser and forego all autonomy and rights to my consent).
Since I entered my mid-20’s, I dedicated myself to redering this non-verbal contract void by actioning the sale while including multiple parties, therefore nullifying the clauses that apply to me as an individual.
That is: I accept a beverage for me on the condition that the purchaser also agrees to purchase for, and share a period of drinking with, every member of my party present.
I’m a femenist, this is no secret. And I was not at all ashamed of telling my friends and my bf (at the time) that this is my go to response to the bar-side battle. Added bonus insights: We agreed that doing this creates an opportunity for social interaction and meeting new people, that as femme presenting people, refusal is usually met with evening ruining insults or a level of persistance that is grotesque and threatening.
After 10 years of that bullshit, I’ve learnt not to give a flying fluck about the guys hidden agenda because he doesn’t give a fluck about the one I present upfront. Call in the cavalry, grab the victory: I’m gonna get the the sh0ts! “You buy for me, you buy for my crew!”
The girls and I had a giggle and a laugh about it… when we got outside and they walked ahead he a spent the entire walk making me feel awful. And I don’t mean this was a little sulk; I mean the emotional blackmail was real. He stopped me mid-step, pulled me back from my friends. And like some cliche fucking informant from Poirot, he told me how it made him look bad because he was with a woman who would do that to a man. I made myself look “cheap”. It made him- look some sort of way to be with a woman like that. His perspective on other mens agenda was more powerful and pervasive than my clear intentions and my previous experiences as a woman accepting or refusing drinks on a night out. The impression I gave was of a “slut” who would do anything for men just to get something material for free.
He stalked off to walk with the other women, the women who agreed with my approach. He was visibly annoyed and everyone asked if he was alright. So he visibly brightened up, he talked openly and happily with them about the night to come. He made it clear that they weren’t cheap in his eyes. They weren’t “sluts” for doing the same. He noted that they were assertive, bright, intelligent. They were -true- feminists. I was an opportunistic tramp (I am paraphrasing there but I think tramp and “slut” here are interchangable terms).
I caught up to him and apologised. Quickly. And everything was fine…I mean, I felt awful. But he was okay.
Let us start with the situation; His issue was with me regarding a group discussion where a concensus was reached publically but publically “privately” the problem was with me. His very public mood-swing was made my responsibility to fix. It was directly linked to a situation we were all probably going to encounter that evening which was how the subject of discussion came up. Then there was the overall, direct insult that, ironically, was what I tried to avoid by accepting drinks openly and publically with men…and it was coming out of the mouth of someone I loved.
I had also apologised for attempting to alter a longstanding, damaging, dangerous social dialogue between men and women about romantic intentions. I had apologised for trying to introduce a healthier approach to drinking culture with women. I had apologised for his fragile ego that couldn’t handle a simple fact: That he was with a female that was sick of being verbally assaulted for refusing male attention. So sick that she recruited her posse to take advantage of the manipulative tactics of men with such low self-esteem that they needed to barter booze for sexual attention. I had apologised for breaking the illusion that alcohol was accepted by the women he spoke to because they were agreeing to sleep with him, not because they were intimidated by him or simply wanted to establish normal platonic social intimacy. I had apologised for spreading the word to other women that we knew that a mans hidden sex agenda was not our responsibility to facilitate (though I know some fucking amazing women…so I wasn’t teaching them anything they didn’t already know).
Now let us look at the long-term, over-arching gaslight I was accepting as my reality: I was an awful person for the projected letcherous intentions of other men, I was taking advantage with my sexuality… taking advantage of the toxic-masc assumption that “booze = sex”. I was responsible for any mans inability to utilise appropriate and clear communication of intent. That it didn’t it matter that my intentions were clear from the start. That I must accept that I was damned if I did or didn’t. Toxic masc reasons were my reality.
It was my fault because I attracted men and was attractive. And if I disagreed then what did that say about my self-esteem, my self-confidence?
Looking back at this now it was a gross abuse of my sense of female pride and my right to stand up and make decisions on situations I am in as an individual aside from my gender. My ex’s direct and public comparrisons between myself and other women (the circumstances we were in and how he thought “well-behaved” girlfriends act in comparrison to the behaviour of potential female sexual partners) played off the archaic attitude that our behaviour only had meaning if it played into the hands of the men that women are faced with.
Someone playing on the vestiges of internalised misogyny is toxic to everyone and dangerous; when given the opportunity douse it with tequilla and set it on fire.
