A Moist and Unwelcoming Place
A bit back, I wrote a piece on our blog about how women are treated in metal, and I learned a lot from the experience. The main takeaway? Holy shit, are there a lot of stupid people out there.
I tend not to get involved in the comments section of things I write, but the backlash was so amazing that people felt the need to alert me every time MENSA’s newest member called me a “fag” for defending women’s rights to be able to go to a show and not be groped, called a “whore” or asked where their boyfriend is when they’re there to see a band or play in one. Seriously, some of these people have the reading comprehension of a used condom. It’s almost as if they skimmed the article, found words they didn’t like and rushed to the comments section like it’s 12:01 on Black Friday and Walmart just let the best of humanity trample one another at the entrance. I’m normally not one for rebuttals, but this dialogue obviously opened up the issue and shed light on a man cave loaded with cummy tissues and a deeply entitled sect of guys who wouldn’t know what to do with a woman if they could muster up more than “TITS!” whenever they saw a pair.
A big argument from these trolls was that it’s somehow acceptable to grope women or tell them how much you’d like to fuck them at shows because it’s only rock ‘n’ roll and they like it. Using “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll” as an excuse to free you from their consequences doesn’t hold up when you’re attending a junkie’s funeral or staring at your skullet in the mirror when you’re in your 40s and the only woman you’ve ever lived with is your mother. No amount of clichés can save your shitty argument.
“They love the attention” was another award-winning battle cry. It’s no secret that people like to feel attractive; that’s not the fucking issue at all. The issue is when you put your hands on someone like they’re a purchase and not a person. There is no rational defense for this, and the fact that there’s guys out there typing out manifestos to justify their shitty behavior is fucking mind-boggling.
There were some women who said that this never happened to them, so obviously it’s not a problem. Guess what? I’ve never been shot, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t getting plugged on a daily basis. Just because you haven’t experienced something a lot of other people have doesn’t mean the world should throw you a fucking parade or ignore it when people come forth who no longer want to go to shows because they’re tired of having to clean strangers’ precum off of them. Some even said they did, in fact, enjoy that kind of shit happening to them. Great, high five. Some people enjoy scat-play, whereas a lot of people don’t like mixing feces and coitus. If you shit on one of them, chances are they’re not going to be happy. Stop discounting something being problematic because you either dig it or never experienced it.
I could honestly keep going on and on just based on comments sections across the internet, but it feels like I’m going in circles. I was accused of writing the original piece to help get myself laid. I can only respond by telling those accusers to fuck off. My motivations were based solely on listening to friends tell me about their personal experiences and how people don’t take these concerns seriously. If what I wrote offended you, please take a minute and ask yourself why. If it’s because I took a mirror to you and exposed your tiny dick, maybe I’m not the problem here.
This article appears in the November 2015 issue of Decibel.
