Wednesday 16 October 2013

Talking to Boys 2

When I was in my early 20s, boys made me nervous. This would have surprised them because I didn't look or sound nervous. But they made me nervous all the same. Walking up to a stranger my own age to ask for directions was almost impossible. I was really that self-conscious inside, no matter how composed I looked on the outside. I survived pro-life activism because I didn't usually have to speak to strangers; I just held my sign.

So I know perfectly well how hard this Talking to Boys thing can be. And I would never have learned to do it if I had not adjusted my thinking about myself and about boys. I don't know what your elementary school days were like, but socially speaking, mine were atrocious. They ended with four years of slut-shaming (as it is now called) for some of the girls and ugly-shaming for others, including me. Some girls were targeted for groping--and the boys would gang together and fall on the chosen girl like rugby players on a ball--and when I finally complained to the male principal, he told me "Boys will be boys."

I know I have told you all this before, but it's a natural response to trauma: the traumatized relate the experience again and again. Fourteen years after I left that school, my therapist tried to convince me that "sexual experimentation" was normal and healthy for children, but I could not sign on. First, Christian children are called to purity like everyone else. Second, the "sexual experimentation" of my schoolyard was public, violent and hateful. One little girl was called "whore" almost every day, and I was called "ugly" almost every day. For the record, it was better to be "ugly" than a "whore" because, as far as I know, the ugly went untouched.

It was a very long time before I could convince myself that most boys were not like that, or even if they were (although my little brothers weren't), the vast majority of them stopped being like that when they grew up. But I did convince myself. I gained the confidence I should have developed in school through boxing and my first real grown-up job. And when I went to theology school I was surrounded by very good, very bright men. Now, instead of telling me that men are potential rapists, the voice at the back of my head says they are potential Jesuits--which is to say, good men who may or may not be orthodox, and who may or may not go off the rails, but at least they are clever and decent human beings. This view changes only when the strangers reveal that they are not at all like the good and clever men I met at theology school. But, to tell you the truth, so far most of the men I have met in the past five years are rather like them.

If your default position is that men are clever and decent human beings, you will have an easier time talking to them than if your default position is that they are A) potential rapists or B)likely to tell you that you're ugly. This default position is not the final word on any man you meet, of course, but it is a helpful basic orientation towards the world.

We all have basic orientations towards the world. Yours might be that the world is divided into sexually attractive men and sexually unattractive men, and that somehow you always end up talking to the unattractive ones. This is not a helpful stance. In fact, it echoes my schoolyard, where girls were divided into pretties, whores, uglies and, in a unusual cases, friends. If it is your basic orientation that prevents you from conversing easily with men, then you may want to consider changing it. And one way to change it is to temporarily adopt a helpful, imaginary persona, which could be your nation's Ambassador to France.

As your nation's Ambassador to France, you are accomplished, confident, and occupying a position so important that you can afford to be gracious and nice to everyone. If someone is rude to you, then the joke is on them because obviously they do not know that you are the Ambassador to France and therefore their rejection is not worth bothering about.

And that's enough from me today. I'm all tuckered out from the mental journey from elementary school to theology school. Hatred--even the hatred of an ex-child for children who no longer exist*--is so tiring. Thank God for the S.J.

*Any philosophers out there want to address the idea that a child loses existence when he becomes an adult? I'm not sure this is true. It just seems illogical for me to hate people who are now 39+ for what they did when they were 10-14.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

(Anonymous for this comment please Auntie.)

Having just graduated from an English University I'm not sure, sadly, that I can whole heartedly believe your conclusion that the majority of men/boys grow out of that misogynistic/'sexually experimental' pack mentality towards women and the horrible consequences that accompany it.

Just using one example from my college (which wasn't even one of the more traditional ones in the university) sums up what sort of behaviour arises when playground and 'lad' behaviour mix with an unhealthy dose of alcohol.

I made the unfortunate mistake in my first year as a 'Fresher' of disclosing that I was a virgin to one of my female friends on the corridor. She got into an odd 'friendship' with another older first year (he had been to uni before and was 24) and to cut a long story short, let slip to that guy that I hadn't had sex. This turned into whole other embarrassing situation for me when he decided that the best time to question me about it was on a packed dinner table. I didn't deny it as I was not ashamed that I was a virgin (which he found unbelievable) and that the reason was because of my faith.

Anyway because this guy told his mates, I often was wary at college events. There was nothing that happened that I wasn't able to deal with through firm and repeated 'no's ' until my second year. I was seated with some friends near some 'rugby and football lads' when, after some jostling and rowdiness, one of these guys came up to where I was sitting and exposed himself. Being not well at the time myself, I was in a bit of a state of shock and couldn't do anything except simply turn away. Luckily for me the bouncer in the bar noticed and dragged the guy away. I never reported anything, probably because I shrugged it off and tried to get on with the night but also because that was by no means the worst type of lad/pack behaviour I had observed which was never reprimanded by the uni or police. What made it worse is that I knew some of the guys in the group who were egging the other guy on, and I hadn't placed them in my mental 'be wary around this guy' folder.

I have been lucky to know some very decent men (christian and non christian) who are close friends of mine at uni, but I also knew a lot of guys who are fine when you interact with them on an individual basis and who seem perfectly polite and friendly. But once they are with their 'mates' turn back into playground louts, only this time with the strength and physical intimidation of men.

Seraphic said...

That's very horrible, and I am very sorry that happened to you. I hope the bouncer hurt him, to be frank. A few kicks in the alley would have served him right.

This is why I beg you all, on my knees, NOT to disclose to anyone not your doctor, priest or fiance, male or female, whether you are a virgin or not. You simply do not discuss such a private thing, for it will--IT WILL--be repeated to others who, if they think it unusual or funny, tell everyone else. It may even make you look as vulnerable to a pack of men as a tired baby antelope looks to a pack of beasts.

I hate lad culture, but fortunately I came to Britain too old to be in much danger from it. And I honest-to-God do not think most men are like that, particularly not once they are grown up. These 20 year olds weren't grown up--not that it excuses them one bit.

Seraphic said...

The "Times" reported on "lad culture" in universities, and links to an official report. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/education/article3708282.ece

When I was an undergraduate in Canada, there was no blatant "lad culture" at my university. I just came across a sad article by an 18 year old saying "What's the big deal about lad culture? It's always been like this"--but actually no, it hasn't. Men at my university in the 1990s were scared silly by the idea they might be accused of sexual harrassment and PC reigned in a way that was difficult for unPC people like pro-lifers, but also meant guys could not sexually harrass women without serious danger of expulsion.

MaryJane said...

I will venture to say that the person does not lose his existence from childhood to adulthood. But the potentialities that caused the person to be a child have become actualities in adulthood (we hope). So we could say that the potentialities have been fulfilled and in someways no longer exist qua potentialities.

In that sense, I would say that fear/hatred of the boys who were truly rotten boys was a potentiality of childhood and therefore doesn't exist anymore. It has been fulfilled by a fuller understanding of males in your adulthood.

YOU, the person continue in your existence (you have not become a tree), but your potentialities have been fulfilled/ actualized. (And are probably still being fulfilled until death.)

That's my Thomistic explanation on the spur of the moment, anyway :)

Bernadette Rose said...

Seraphic, I LOVE the Ambassador to France idea! My mom used to say, "Think of others who are shyer than you are. Go talk to them and make them comfortable." That sounds okay, but what tends to happen when shy person talks to shy person because both are too afraid to talk to anybody else is a long, boring, co-dependent conversation. It's nice to make other people comfortable in social situations--but you have to build up your own confidence first or you have nothing to give. I'm all for pretending to be the Ambassador to France, or the Princess of Andorra, or Anne of Green Gables, and deciding there's nobody here who wouldn't be charmed to meet you!

A word to the Anonymous said...

To Anonymous - yes, you'd better remain silent about being a virgin to people you're not related to. Of course, it is no shame, it is even a reason to be proud in the eyes of God, but definitely not in the eyes of the sex-obsessed modern culture. However, men are sly. If you don't get some slang expressions for sexual stuff, they will guess you're inexperienced. And, honestly, I don't know what to do with that. I can only think of being self-confident; and if somebody asks you directly, simply tell them it's not their business. Or perhaps just avoid their company if you can. I don't know what Auntie would suggest.

Seraphic said...

@A Word. I think both those options are great. Another technique could be a withering glance and a sharp "What are we? Fourteen years old?"

Of course virginity is not a shame. Young men will say absolutely anything to get sex, their primary obsession until it is replaced by money (if it ever is), so the idea that some young women aren't having it makes some young men absolutely insane with outraged entitlement.

Why you girls waste any time with guys like that is a mystery to me. The guys I hang with, and some of them are pretty young, don't talk like that in front of girls.

Seraphic said...

@Mary Jane. That sounds good. Thank you!

tiny therese said...

"This is why I beg you all, on my knees, NOT to disclose to anyone not your doctor, priest or fiance, male or female, whether you are a virgin or not. You simply do not discuss such a private thing, for it will--IT WILL--be repeated to others who, if they think it unusual or funny, tell everyone else."

Not even to tell your fiance/ee? If someone is deemed worthy to be your future spouse, than they are someone you trust and over the course of time that you've known them for, is someone you know wouldn't do anything like you've described.

(Yes, I know it isn't final until the wedding and that people can sometimes agree to marry someone for the wrong reasons, but Seraphic Singles discourages that.)

Before the wedding, you'd have to ask if you've been tested for STDs and HIV or Aids. I know that men can't be tested for HPV, but wouldn't you want to know before hand if it is something that you should watch out for in the future?

Also, I don't know if other countries have this, but in the US doctors are required by law to keep everything about a patient confidential unless the patient gives them signed permission on a particular form. So it's okay to tell them that you're a virgin because at some point they'll bring sex up when you get a pap smear which is what you're required to go through even if you've never engaged in sexual activity before. "This is why I beg you all, on my knees, NOT to disclose to anyone not your doctor, priest or fiance, male or female, whether you are a virgin or not. You simply do not discuss such a private thing, for it will--IT WILL--be repeated to others who, if they think it unusual or funny, tell everyone else."

Not even to tell your fiance/ee? If someone is deemed worthy to be your future spouse, than they are someone you trust and over the course of time that you've known them for, is someone you know wouldn't do anything like you've described.

(Yes, I know it isn't final until the wedding and that people can sometimes agree to marry someone for the wrong reasons, but Seraphic Singles discourages that.)

Before the wedding, you'd have to ask if you've been tested for STDs and HIV or Aids. I know that men can't be tested for HPV, but wouldn't you want to know before hand if it is something that you should watch out for in the future?

Also, I don't know if other countries have this, but in the US doctors are required by law to keep everything about a patient confidential unless the patient gives them signed permission on a particular form. So it's okay to tell them that you're a virgin because at some point they'll bring sex up when you get a pap smear which is what you're required to go through even if you've never engaged in sexual activity before.

Seraphic said...

Fiance is mentioned on my very short list: doctor, priest, fiance. I think you missed the word "not".

Pap smears are not "required", surely. Nobody has to go to the doctor by law, although I suppose some professions and sports won't let you participate if you don't have an official "clean bill of health." But there is no reason to get a pap smear when you are not sexually active and never have been.

HappyToBeHere said...

Dear Auntie, I'm not entirely sure about the short-list - doctor, priest and fiancee. I am very much for prudence and discretion (especially in social circles like college or the workplace) but in a culture where most people assume that virgins died with the dinosaurs, isn't there room for being a gentle, public witness, if the Holy Spirit opens that door?

I'm thinking of a couple of examples but one that springs to mind was when I met a young French guy who was dating a friend of mine. My friend and I didn't see much of each other or move in similar circles, but we both happened to be at another friend's birthday drinks, and she brought along her French boyfriend and he and I started talking. We had been chatting for a little bit when he asked about where I lived, and I explained that I lived in a convent with two nuns and seven other lay girls, and because I thought he might not understand what "lay" meant, I said, "I mean, we're not nuns", and he said, with certainty, "Yes, you have sex with men before you're married." And I said, and I remember how much simplicity and joy I had in this response, "No, actually, I don't." He was genuinely gobsmacked - and I would even say that it seemed as if he was in awe. He stuck out his hand and said, "Well! I am so happy to meet you; I never met any girl that say this." ! It opened up so many questions and a really long conversation between us about faith, life and love - he was very open, I think because while he was in the world, but did not really like the world.

So, no, I didn't say "I'm a virgin", but there have been other encounters when someone has asked me outright what I think about sex before marriage and in talking about it they could probably understand generally where I'm coming from. Of course, this is always, always in discernment. It's just that in a country like mine, where almost everyone 'lives together', the very fact that you are not doing that raises questions. And I feel that, in my experience, sometimes the Lord puts someone in our path and they need to either know that a) they are not alone, or b) someone is living a life that might, just possibly, give them pause for thought. And while saying the words "I'm a virgin" (or "I'm not a virgin, but I'm now living chastity") are not always necessary, isn't our witnessing to the truth of human love a declaration of our own decisions, in a way?

PS: Sorry, I realise this wasn't the focus of the blog post at all - and it was a really great post. Sad, but very honest and compassionate. It gives me some things to really reflect on and pray about and seek healing in.

tiny therese said...

Sorry about the misunderstanding. I thought you meant that no one under any circumstances should know that you're a virgin.

In my home state of Iowa though, even if you've never engaged in any sexual activity, once a young woman turns 21, the state law says that you have to have a pap smear.
I don't know why this was put into law, unless they don't believe girls who claim to be virgins.

Seraphic said...

Tiny Therese, it may be the law in Iowa that your insurer has to pay for a pap smear, but if it were actually the law that all adult women HAD to have an internal medical exam whether they wanted one or not that would be horrible and the National Organization of Women would have collectively shrieked. I think you will find that the news story about pap smears in Iowa was about insurers having to pay for them. And that pap smears are being recommended for ALL women over 21, although I cannot imagine why, unless to line doctors' pockets. I have pap smears myself and, to be frank, no hymen could survive the procedure, if that is important to anyone. (Some women are born without them, some women tear them during sports, and it is only the ignorant who think no hymen=loss of virginity.)

HappyToBeHere, that's an great story, and it sounds like that French guy was a real grown-up. And you didn't say "I'm a virgin" in a baby antelope kind of way but just corrected his misconceptions about the laywomen living in your convent. That sounds okay to me--as you say, it's with discernment.

The problem is that most young women aren't having this conversation with sophisticated Frenchmen already in relationships or other sophisticated, respectful adults. In a sex-saturated society like a British university or an American college campus, virgins-known-for-sure-to-be-virgins are in danger of serious harassment and targeting by virgin-hunters.

As crazy as this should sound "I'm a virgin" has become as provocative as "I like sex, why not?" no matter why the speaker said it, as a way to evangelize or explain her social habits or what. And it is particularly sad when this girl has left an environment where she is told to be proud to be pure and to wear a purity ring and to tell all and sundry that she is waiting until marriage. Real pure girl power stuff. She is told she is strong and powerful and people will respect her, but outside of religious and culturally conservative circles, that is a total fantasy. Young women are vulnerable, and they should avoid talking about sex with strangers as much as they possibly can.

Seraphic said...

If physical virgins want to have a pap smear for some reason--and I really don't see why they should although I am not a doctor so obviously this is something you should ask a doctor--this is one of those times you must tell someone you are a virgin. Doctors are on the list!

Non-physical virgins who are spiritual virgins (which means rape survivors) should probably also explain their situation to an examining doctor, too. Also women who have not had sex in years.

Although I (though not a doctor) heartily endorse pap smears for the currently or formerly sexually active--cervical cancer is horrible--they are not a pleasant procedure. Blah.

I am so mad to think that Eavesdroppers are reading my comments. Well, maybe they are learning something helpful.

Urszula said...

Seraphic, to answer your question about why we hang out with those kinds of people... Sometimes, it may seem like we don't really have a choice? For those of us (most of us, I'm assuming) living and working in the secular world, be it academia or industry or the government, we are most likely not surrounded by people/men who share our values, and the workplace is where we end up spending most of our time and social energy. Unfortunately the 'lad culture' or what is probably equivalent here in the US, the 'frat boy mentality' is something that seems to linger on way past college years, even among men who have reached high managerial positions, are respected at work and seem otherwise sensible.

I completely agree with not disclosing any private details, with my friends at work I think it is better to hold back on 'the full scoop' of being a Catholic in the world, mostly because this kind of information always seems to make the rounds, no matter how much you trust someone, and anyway it belongs to a private sphere that is not really anybody's business. I would think we have plenty of other opportunities to witness as to be being a Catholic in terms of honesty, fairness, forgiveness and courage in social situations and at work, why should we necessarily bring this aspect up?

Seraphic said...

I have been out of the office world for ten years now, so either things have changed a lot or Canadian office culture was way different from what you've experienced, Uszula. Are people not worried about being accused of sexual harassment anymore? Is professionalism a dead concept? Is it no longer acceptable to say, "I prefer not to discuss my private life/religion/beliefs at work?" or even "I'd love to chat, but I really have got to get down to this work!"

Urszula said...

Oh, I think it would be perfectly acceptable to say something like that at work, yes, and indeed most people are quite professional (and, more to the point, afraid of being sued). My point was more that, for example, I tend to spend the majority of my time at work (and often travel during extended periods of time with work colleagues) so by default I tend to 'hang out' with people whose values can be - and most often are - completely different than mine. I supposed I could make a conscious choice to seek other, more edifying company outside of work hours but honestly for an introvert like me it can be exhausting, so I default to work colleagues. And I imagine this may very well be the plight of other Seraphic readers. It's not necessarily that I 'choose' to hang out with these people, it just happens.

Sheila said...

I think it is much better to say that you don't believe in sex before marriage or that you aren't sexually active than to say straight out that you're a virgin. There's more of a fetishizing of virgins.

But really, when it comes to being a witness to chastity, I think the best course is to leave it to us old married ladies. It's not at all dangerous for me to say "my husband and I waited till marriage" now that I do have a husband. When you are still in that rather vulnerable state of having no one to stick up for you, it might be better to leave the subject alone.

Meredith said...

Regarding Pap smears - since we're talking about them - I just had one for the first time yesterday and it wasn't bad at all. A little awkward, but not painful. I guess the experience varies from woman to woman and doctor to doctor, but in my case I expected it to be much more traumatic than it was.

Gregaria said...

As far as inappropriate comments at work, people don't seem to be afraid of sexual harassment anymore. I have friends who endure a constant stream of po*nographic comments and dialogue from older, crass, men at work who are, obviously, very troubled. When I suggested they go to HR, they said there was no use. I think there was some real fear of retaliation. In work environments like factories and other places of manual labor where the majority of employees are older men, there are virtually no moral standards.