Revolting

Our dear national broadcaster, the ABC, has a delightful show called You can’t ask that where people from certain groups answer the questions that are considered impolite. Muslims have answered “are you all Jihadi?” nudists have answered whether they are all swingers, clergy have opened up about their sex lives and HIV+ individuals have shared their stories of life with a death sentence. It breaks down barriers and is quite nice.

Finally, lesbians have their day!

Except, there’s one little snag. Almost literally, there is a sausage in the works. A self-declared lesbian male has shown up to tell lesbians what’s what.

Mostly he’s a bit clueless with statements such as “labels do work for me. Having the labels lesbian and trans-woman really helped me get to my current identity”. Well, that’s obvious mate. When you are searching for identity over substance, labels are all you will get.

He’s also revolting.

Revolting, adjective. Causing intense disgust.

I was going to let him go, chalk it up to the everyday and ordinary outrage that doesn’t warrant a formal response. Like wolf whistles on the street, or being spoken over by men.

However, mulling his words over and over, I came to understand that he caused me disgust.

When asked about sex, he declares “it’s not all P in the V”. Oh I supposed that is news to some, but not many, healthy adults.

“People are really conscious”, he says, of the fact he has a penis. Whatever you do, don’t stand up and yell at the TV “of course you have a penis, you’re a man not a lesbian!”

On the topic of his penis, he is coy, almost sheepish and cheeky. “Well I’ve got it. I know how”. Oh he knows how, what a relief. “And it technically still brings me pleasure”.

Technically. More than technically. It does bring him pleasure to penetrate a woman even when he knows she is a lesbian.

It reminds me of something I read on Reddit earlier tonight. A man advises to defy doctor’s prescriptions because “Taking my blocker every day ended up messing with my sexual organ ‘functionality to a point where I was not comfortable (I actually want to still use it)“.

Men going to great lengths to become a woman, but only as long as they have a nicely functioning penis that can be used for sexual penetration.

But it’s not all about the P in the V is it? I say that penetrating a woman who has expressly built her life around not being penetrated by a man is very much about getting that P into that V.

This is rape culture.

This is only part of the reason for my disgust. That casual admission of sexual assault has become commonplace and ordinary now that men finally have a reason to enter lesbian boundaries.

There is also his attitude to his “straight” sex life.

It was a race to the finish… That’s not how sex should be.

– Bloke

The type of sex he was having was “not how sex should be”.

A race to the finish. Maybe a soulless and mechanical endeavour. No savouring of the moment, no willingness to leave his P out of her V just because she doesn’t want it in there.

This is rape culture.*

This is sexism in action. He observes that women don’t enjoy his style of fast intercourse and prefer to take it slow. In his mind, men race to the finish. As a man he is unable to slow down. Women take it slow. To take it slow he must become a woman.

It’s important to realise that he isn’t having a different type of sex now, with a different type of person. He’s a male who fucks females. But by becoming a ‘lesbian’ he has given himself permission to slow down and enjoy sex.

He can only fully embody sex while taking advantage of lesbians. How many heterosexual women did he subject to rushed and unsatisfying sex before he figured out that his body was capable of more? He has also taken advantage of his heterosexual conquests.

The common theme: male advantage. He is using women’s bodies for validation. This is how sexism leads to misogyny.

Revolt, verb. Take violent action against an established government or ruler; rebel.

My disgust isn’t just for this man.

I feel disgust for the women who validate him. The ones who take hold of his penis and tell him he is a lesbian. I feel disgust for for his friends, who supported him in his awful behaviour as a male. And then allowed him to believe that his trans-identification was the key to accessing good sex. I’m disgusted by the school system that taught him about penetration but neglected to teach him that women are human.

I’m disgusted that our national broadcaster validates and supports him. They are broadcasting permission for men everywhere to finally put their Ps into lesbian Vs.

There is an established social structure that supports this man in his delusion. The system of gender roles rules him as much as it does us. Without it, he could have developed his sexuality as a male, pleased his lovers and stayed well clear of lesbian spaces.

There is only one option. We must revolt.

Not with violence, but with words. Clear language, deployed without flinching. Calling a man a man is the start. Every single moment, the system of gender is replicating itself in sexist statements at attitudes. The long fight is speaking up in our everyday lives. Whenever someone says “men are like this, women are like that”, you have to speak up. When you hear that men are selfish lovers, you have to challenge the women who support their selfishness.

Revolt, etymology. Latin: revolvere. To roll back.

Roll back this system of gender roles, and keep rolling until male behaviour is no longer ruled by ‘what a man should be’.

It’s not easy. Revolution is not easy.

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Note:

*21/10/2022 – The line “It’s called rape” was changed to “This is rape culture”. This piece hasn’t sat well with me since I wrote it because I wasn’t intending to accuse this particular male of a crime. Hence my decision to leave his name out of the piece. The intention was to make a broader statement about the ABC’s role in promoting male sexual entitlement.