You know how I was wanting a more complicated / nuanced conversation around the metoo movement? I’ve decided to table much of that for now, rather than trying to start and host a set of conversations.
Mostly my feeling is that it’s similar to the crisis circle model of comfort in / dump out — in this moment of cultural conversation, the people actually affected by sexual assault and harassment are at the center of the circle, going through the most hardship and pain.
So while there are valuable conversations to be had elsewhere, about how others are affected by these cultural dynamics around sexual behavior, I think now would be a bad time to *center* those others affected. We can have quiet side conversations among ourselves; we can call up our friends and talk some of this through.
I did write some stuff out, mostly about how bad men and women are at talking to each other about sex, how bad our culture has trained us to be. I’m holding that material for now, and will maybe release it in a year or two, or just save it for the memoir, where it can appear in context of other issues.
Not everyone has to to adhere to this approach, obviously, but I have a big enough social media platform that I realized I’m not comfortable taking the risk of displacing attention from those most hurt by our society’s sexual assault-enabling culture.
Support and solidarity to the survivors.