In recent months across social media (smp) mainly Instagram, I have come across a number of posts from female influencers speaking out against rape culture, what it is, what consent is not and naming and shaming male followers who have continuously participated in inappropriate behaviour towards the influencers even though they have been asked repetitively to stop.
It first started when I watched an upload from Liverpudlian comedian @missspeare on Instagram after an individual sent her a video exposing himself in her private direct message masturbating. Miss Speare was quite rightly extremely upset about the incident, venting her frustration on her SM platform. She highlighted the fact that regardless of how she portrays herself to the public, the clothes that she wears or whatever topic of conversation she speaks about does not give men the license to act or behave in this kind of way. She spoke very sincere words of feminine empowerment expressing that she is allowed to be a sexual being. She is allowed to feel and to dress ‘sexy’, to show off her cleavage if she chooses and wear any kind of clothing that accentuates her figure without having to receive this type of harassment from men. She also posted an image of what is commonly known as the Rape Culture pyramid. It is a straight forward display of unacceptable behaviours that are a direct violation of women’s rights in regards to sexual advances.
After listening to her emotional feed my initial reaction was “what a sleazoid” and “what kind of grotty man sends naked videos pleasuring himself to a woman he doesn’t know and who hasn’t solicited the behaviour? And is this what men do now on SM to get a woman’s attention?” and in honesty the more I thought about it the more angered I became. Surely it’s common decency to know that these types of behaviours are unacceptable! They must know that right? My opinionated thinking can’t comprehend the situation for this kind of anti social behaviour because my rational mind is thinking to myself don’t these men who actively participate in rape culture behaviour against females have important and cherished female members in their lives they care about. That if the shoe were on the other foot and their important person had succumb to this kind of behaviour from another man, wouldn’t they find their stomach burning hot with anger that would make them want to hunt down the perpetrator and enact a form of punishment on him that would render him unable to defile a woman’s security ever again? How can these men who have grown up during this modern age not know that this type of behaviour isn’t socially acceptable.
But maybe they think that it is?
Which then leads me to think what kind of man thinks that this is acceptable?
What kind of man invades an unconsenting woman’s cyberspace and violates her in this kind of way? @missspeare hasn’t asked you specifically to expose yourself. She hasn’t sent out a group call to all her male SM followers to send in private DM’s pleasuring themselves.
So what kind of man does this? In my opinion the bottom of the barrel, that’s who, the worst of the worst, scavengers and buzzards, animals that dabble in rotten ways. It’s men like this that get their jollies off perving over a new mother who is out in public trying to feed her child with her nourishing milk and have this kind of guy is nearby, dribbling over her, making her feel uncomfortable to the point where she feels she has to hide herself, not being able to expose her naked breast in public, so she carries a blanket to cover herself up and her hungry babe or omits the process altogether. It’s these scavengers that perverse one of nature’s most natural and beautiful acts between a mother and child. It’s these buzzards, these vile men that walk the streets of London town with greasy skin, strong body odour, unwashed wire fronts, who scratch and root out the crevices between their posterior cheeks and then smell their fingertips to facilitate their olfactophilia, wow you might say, Obaleski is going in, this isn’t real, these types of people don’t exist, I’m making it up, well I am going in, I can assure these types of people do exist and I’ve seen them but maybe I am getting into my feelings a bit. Maybe I’m letting loose my temper. But don’t some things in life warrant a man to lose his temper?
Maybe I have a predisposition against these types of scavenger members of society, well not maybe, I do, but perhaps I shouldn’t categorize these individuals in the box of strange and unusual sexual habits as they might not be two peas in the pod after all. So let me hold back my emotional self.
The sad reality here is that if one takes a good look at the Rape culture pyramid, I greatly advocate that you do, you will most certainly notice, especially in the lower amber level of the pyramid, that we see examples of these offenses every single day. What’s even worse is that not only do they happen every single day, they happen without repercussion. Plenty of men have or will conduct these types of behaviours and will do so without a second thought. So what does that say about our society which allows men to treat our women like this. I say “our women” not as a label of ownership but as an indicator of connection between us as we are connected to them. They are our mothers, our sisters, our cousins, our friends, our best friends, our spouses and much much more. In some shape or form we have a connection with them. We are a part of them. So why wouldn’t we want to look after them and protect that which is dear to us.
But maybe it’s just me?
It reminds me of the time I had a personal experience outside Granaries nightclub in Croydon. Myself and my compadres had been having an enjoyable night inside the club. It was hot inside so I took a minute for myself and went outside. The club was soon to be closing and I didn’t want to get stuck in the last song rush to the front door. Outside the front entrance I went to call my friends and tell them to meet me outside when I noticed a young blonde girl in a short dress sleeping on the cold stone floor behind a parked car. On a closer inspection I realised that she was highly intoxicated and she had collapsed. What brought my attention to her more urgently was there was a slim guy, slight build, short brown hair trying to pick her up, pulling her by the hand. As she was a full figured woman, her dead weight was too much for his skinnier frame and he was struggling to get her off the floor. However I noticed that when he lowered her back down on the floor he would grope her breast and thighs and I knew by his nervous manner that he did not know this girl. So I approached them looking directly at him. I don’t consider myself an incredibly big man. I’m only 185cm, so taller than average and I’m of a larger frame but anyway I was bigger than him and he backed away. At my attempts to bring her round she started to come to and I managed to pick her up and support her under my arm. I asked her if she knew him and she shook her head and put it to rest on my shoulder. I didn’t have to say anything more to this scavenger because the look I must have given him must have been in such a way that he instantly abandoned his attempts and disappeared by himself around the corner never to be seen again. Long story short unfortunately the young lady was so drunk no cab driver would agree to take her home as her friends had left her thinking she’d gone off with some guy, so me and my friends did the decent thing of dropping her home. She was so intoxicated that I had to unlock her phone, call her aunt, let her know the situation, get her home address, personally carry her into her home, put her to lay down on her sofa and locked the door behind me as I left. Her aunt and family called me the next day with an infinite amount of gratitude and a bottle of champagne was delivered to my house the next day.
The reason why I’m telling this story is that I often think about it when I hear of these types of situations. What if I wasn’t there at that point and time when that guy was trying to pick her up? That guy who had disappeared around the corner obviously wasn’t trying to take her home safely. What disgusting designs did he have for her that evening but luckily I was there and my first thought was this could have been my little sister, fortunately my younger sibling doesn’t drink alcohol to that extent but that’s not the point. The young lady on the cold floor could be anything to anyone and she was. But I shouldn’t have to identify her with a close female connection in order to do the right thing should I? But again maybe that is the sad truth of this current world we live in. As there are people like me and my birds of a feather who thought it safer that we get the girl home directly rather than leave her outside on the street to fend for herself. Maybe and unfortunately and equally, there must be men out there on the other side of the spectrum who have alternate intentions far removed from this young girl’s safety.
Even more distressingly, the incident involving @missspeare is not an isolated one. Other female influencers, like @chanellemauricette have also posted live feeds highlighting a similar situation which she endured a few months back and this incident was perpetrated by another social influencer. What was even more disheartening was this influencer allegedly posted the incident on his own SM timeline and rallied support from his followers who insisted that he hadn’t done anything wrong. If there are people in this world that support this kind of behaviour or think it’s acceptable then there must be a greater underlying problem. The problem is, I believe, with our discriminatory society; which boxes everyone into these derogatory categories of race, gender, religion, class and so much more. Not only do these labels carry with them a prejudice code of conduct about how groups of people should act and behave it also promotes a prejudice code of conduct about how we treat these groups of individuals which we categories. Unfortunately, women have been vindicated with the most derogatory labels for the longest time. We all know or have heard the sexiest stereotypes regarding the personality traits of hair colour variations for the Caucasian females, the sexual freedoms or docile of the Asianic females and the aggressiveness or barbaric tendencies and body type expectations of African females. Our Male phallic worshiping society which has always pushed that God is a man, The Father and that the root of all suffering is from a woman who couldn’t listen and didn’t do as she was told. How often have we heard that systemic rhetoric before we start to believe it subconsciously. It’s these types of anti feminine narratives that maybe give men license to keep women in their place or allow men to treat and behave however they deem is right towards women without a second thought. Speaking words of normalisation for derogatory behaviour like “she deserved it” or “if she didn’t want that to happen why did she dress that way?”
Of Course in the end, these are just my two pennies worth and maybe we can argue indefinitely about what are the root cause and effect of how our society has come to enable men to treat women in such a way. I would like to say this to all the female readers who happen to come across this small 2 pennies worth blog that I’ve posted. In the end no matter the reason why men behave like this towards you, the main priority is to keep you safe. Now I am not saying to you as females that you shouldn’t dress a certain way or behave in a way that you feel expresses your sexuality but I am saying you must be aware that certain types of triggers attract or repel certain types of behaviours, some which are positive and some negative. There will be some men, unfortunately, who might interpret what you do, what you say or what you wear as an invitation for their sexual advances, whether solicited or not, you may find yourselves the recipient of unwanted behaviours. In some way shape or form I believe your safety is paramount and you have to find a way to protect yourselves and limit or reduce the circumstances of undesired situations. I don’t know how you can facilitate this but I do know that how things should be is not how things are. How people should act is not how people really act and we can’t rely on the “shoulds” in order to keep you safe. Until we can find a way to change this deep embedded ideology which takes to some and eludes the rest, or eradicate it all together.
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