Knowing you're among predators
One of my formative childhood habits was to prepare a face to meet the faces I would pass on the highway while riding in the back seat of my parent’s car. My father was a fast driver and our extended family lived about 90 minutes away so we frequently made this trip to see relatives. The car ride was often boring and my siblings and I would sometimes play games like trying to find the alphabet on license plates, but most of the time was spent just staring out my right side window. Because my father drove on the faster end, we were often in the far left passing lane. This meant that as we would approach a car on our right, I would get curious who was in it, where they were going, and if it was possible to interject myself into their car for just a moment. At the time, I didn’t think of it exactly like that, it felt like a form of practicing something. I was rehearsing my face to see how people react to different expressions. Could I look so sad they grew instantly concerned?Could I look so peaceful and angelic they would tilt their head in admiration? Could I look angry enough to make them scowl? And what would happen if the driver and my father got into a back and forth of passing? Would I be able to maintain the first face I’d presented or would that become a burden to me? As an elementary aged child I was acutely aware that what people saw shifted how they responded or reacted and if you were able to also shift yourself-how you looked or behaved in anticipation of this perception- you could then have some manner of control over how you lived in other people’s heads. These car window experiments provided my brain with so much data about humanity that I had a lot to work with by the time I was a preteen really getting attention from men.
By 8 or 9 years old I was aware that I could control adults perception of me by behaving or looking a certain way. I understood that to please and appeal, I had to be a certain thing the other person wanted or expected. I understood the expectations changed depending on who was looking at me, so to continue to appeal, I would also have to change. I also understood that the real me, the one that was deciding what face to put on, was not like those I was constantly fooling. I knew I was different and I knew that others did not all have this ability, to be aware, to shape shift, to be what was desired. I recognized very early on that this was a type of power that I wanted but I had no idea what using the power would cost me. Like everything, I would only learn through my own experience.
As we drove past other cars, I learned my parents were not lying when they told me I was beautiful. I knew this was true because of how strangers reacted to me when they had a quick glimpse of me passing, even as a small girl, and more so as I grew older. I saw adult men turn to look at me and I noted the look in their eyes, I understood they saw me differently than the women drivers we would pass, or the kids. I knew that men liked girls and had to hide it before any man tried to touch me or anyone had told me anything about sex. I knew men kept secrets from the people in their cars because of the way they looked at me, a girl in passing who would not avert her eyes. I’ve known more than most grown men most of my life. And I’ve had to carefully guard this fact.
When a girl does not her avert eyes men see one of two things I think. They see a challenge to be solved or conquered or they see an accomplice with which to act out their desires. They almost never see a person because for most men, a girl is a puzzle to be put together the way they’d like her to be, forming a picture they have pre-conceived, with pieces cut along lines they’ve drawn for her. If she doesn’t get put together fully to match what’s been designed, that’s her fault, even if she was never given all her pieces, and she can be blamed for not meeting the expectations of her desired image. White boys, on the other hand, are more like interlocking building blocks with no pre-conceived image other than the notion there is little constraining their trajectory or potential except the number of pieces they start with, though even that can be remedied by taking blocks from others. Non-white boys are old school wooden building blocks that can still build very cool structures, but the system is less secure and more vulnerable and fewer stay standing long term because they are much easier to knock down.
If you are a beautiful girl, there is always a brief moment of crisis when a man encounters your beauty, regardless of how old you are. The crisis is felt on both sides but I believe it plays out subconsciously for most people as sex seems to be a thing most people cannot explore without shame. (I have always been aware of the crisis point- my earliest memories of possessing this awareness are around age 4-6. I have no known child sexual abuse, though my awareness has long made me wonder.) For the man encountering young beauty, I believe his desire rises, making him vulnerable to rejection-any time we state a want or need we are vulnerable. Most men can barely tolerate this moment of crisis where they may be told they are not worthy of what they want. It can bring back feelings of being dependent on a mother and can create a feeling of hatred for the woman because they are made weak in this moment of wanting and maybe not getting, they are made aware of their own dependence on women. Faced with potentially not getting what they want, the idea of taking what they want, forcing themselves on the woman, may enter their brain, probably also along with the knowledge of consequences. So just in encountering a beautiful girl or woman, a man is forced to potentially confront his powerless nature in the face of desire again and again, forced to see that he is in a role of perpetual wanting and potentially being denied, aware that force is just out of frame but unallowed. What does that do to a psyche? Knowing you’re one step from primal? I think I understand some, because of my PDA and primal autonomy drive. I know that being denied autonomy can provoke a strong fight response. I understand where violence comes from and it is not usually anger or “badness”, it is loss of control and a desperate, primal grasp to get it back.
I do not believe the majority of woman feel this crisis point the same way. It is distinct to the man. Women do not desire men in the same way. A woman’s desire is more frequently triggered from being the object of desire; when women fantasize, they often envision the men they want seeking them, finding them, treasuring them. Fewer women fantasize about conquest or gaining power over the men we desire, though there are some and I can’t know how many society has simply repressed from developing that type of sexuality. While rejection fear exists on both sides, I do not believe women are forced to confront a negative self-nature in the process like men are. Women are not made to consider doing something evil because of our innate desires being rejected. Despite what Freud may have thought, I don’t think sex differences lead many girls to want to castrate. Fear of castration stems from the absurdity and actual vulnerability of the erect penis, it is a man’s issue being projected on a woman; we don’t care about their penises. Instead, I think woman are more tempted to want to be valued, to ease a man’s burden, to see his negative nature, and carry it for him as a vessel. The expectation is that the woman will accept the man as the mother accepted the son, as Mary accepted Jesus, despite her most likely being raped, not impregnated by a spirit.
Many men appear to be tempted constantly by desire, living just on the edge of accessing their force that is waiting in the wings, and they must fight this negative self-nature to be accepted and valued in contemporary society. Many walk around looking for a fight. Or conversely, if there is no force waiting in the wings and that is found out during the juvenile play that often establishes a male hierarchy on the playground, those boys are made to feel more like girls, more subservient, less likely to dominate either another boy or a girl in the future. These boys get told their masculinity does not count because it does not come out as fight. Their trajectories of valuing dominance differ but many still lead to blaming women for this fundamental male act of rejection.
Is the need to be masculine a need to prove one could overpower another man if needed or does it actually have roots in proving one could overpower a women if denied? That they are not reliant on women at all? To take on the traditional male role of big, tough, protector, you must first accept on some level that “other” men are a threat to women on a base level. This can drive some to value overt masculinity and the male protector role almost to a fault. This self own admission of capability of violence keeps women believing they need protectors. But, the danger has been misunderstood by both the woman seeking protection and the protector as another male instead of the inner primal male that exists in EVERY SINGLE MAN. Mental gymnastics happen inside the brains of some to deny this fact. I believe many men hate this inner primal male on a subconscious level and wish they could be better, they are fighting their inner nature instead of those denying them. Those men form the back bone of the “not all men” groups advocating for healthier dynamics between the genders. (And I do believe good men exist, before you come for me with torches like they used to do with women who saw dynamics clearly) But, if Gisele Pelicot’s bravery taught us anything at all, it’s that all men have the potential to fail at denying this negative self nature. All men have the potential to rape women because they cannot stand having to exist in the space between their desire, their vulnerability, and their negative self-nature. And all women have the potential to excuse this in men because we ultimately do understand their fundamental weakness, and frequently fall into the role of being a vessel for men to store their worst, to make us carry it for them so their load is lighter. On a fundamental subconscious level, I think marriage is an attempt to create a male self identity of being good in order to counteract the long running self knowledge that exists at the base of all men, that they could easily be evil if given the right context.
As a girl in a car on a highway, I learned that people lied about who they are just as much to themselves as to others and that if you could see beneath the lies, you had a chance to be free. Fascism confronts us all right now. We’ll all find out who each other are.
Sharing a reel I made after writing this, by coincidence. captions are imperfect I’m afraid. Pic was taken my freshman fall is an example of the unflinching gaze I would not avert in my youth.