Has the "Bear vs. Man" conundrum made you reconsider your writings?

[Bramblethorn]

Good men say they're good men and mean it. Their actions further prove they are good men.

Most of the good men I know actually don't go around saying "I'm a good man" very often. I think some of that is that they've figured out that bad dudes are just as capable of saying "I'm a good man" as anybody else, but a lot of it is that they're more focussed on the work of actually being good men than on advertising it.

Actions are indeed a pretty accurate way to find out whether they mean it, but if he's actually not a good guy, that's often rather late to be finding out.

As a person in need, you have to trust that they will prove their claims.

That is certainly an option. "Trust that the bear isn't hungry" is also an option.

If you're a cynic who doesn't want to accept help and cares more about reminding the man trying to help you he might be a bad man... well, good luck not approaching his breaking point and getting him to decide he'd rather not help you and leaving you in trouble.

If your response to women explaining why interactions with unknown men feel intimidating is to focus on your own hurt feelings rather than to empathise with the reasons for their reaction - based on threats much greater than a bruised ego - you might not be part of the solution.

If you're going to #NotAllMen at a woman who's discussing her fears, even after she's already acknowledged that it's "not all men", you're definitely not helping.

If your ego is so fragile that a woman saying "I can't assume you're a good guy" is enough to push you to "breaking point" and leaving her in trouble, you were never a reliable ally in the first place.

As a wise god once said to a strong capable woman- "You, Sonya Blade, are afraid to admit even you sometimes need help. You must not be afraid to trust, or you will be defeated." Raiden, Mortal Kombat, 1990s film. True words.

Just need to get this off my chest:

Mortal Kombat is fictional. Pretend. Not real. Raiden is not a wise god, he's a fictional character invented by a fallible human. Sonya Blade is not a real person. Glib advice works great in video games and movies because the same person who put that advice in the mouth of a fictional character gets to write the story so following the advice works out, but that has nothing to do with whether that advice works IRL. Mortal Kombat has nothing to teach any of us about male-female relationships.

There are plenty of people alive today because they didn't put their trust in a friendly stranger with a smile.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I love that chart. As someone who has fought a goose - LOL - those things are way tougher than you think. I didn't win. I escaped by virtue of the old indian trick of "run like hell"!

I didn't see your mention of the survey until afterwards, but I see it made an impression on the both of us. The 6% who think they could beat a grizzly are bad enough, but the 8% who think they could take an elephant? I really hope they were just kidding.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I didn't see your mention of the survey until afterwards, but I see it made an impression on the both of us. The 6% who think they could beat a grizzly are bad enough, but the 8% who think they could take an elephant? I really hope they were just kidding.

I'm just wondering if the elephant was just standing there, completely chill and letting me hit it, how long it would take to take it down. I mean, the organizers of this cage match would need to give me a step-ladder for me even to get a head blow in.

 

[AchtungNight]

Most of the good men I know actually don't go around saying "I'm a good man" very often. I think some of that is that they've figured out that bad dudes are just as capable of saying "I'm a good man" as anybody else, but a lot of it is that they're more focussed on the work of actually being good men than on advertising it.

Actions are indeed a pretty accurate way to find out whether they mean it, but if he's actually not a good guy, that's often rather late to be finding out.



That is certainly an option. "Trust that the bear isn't hungry" is also an option.



If your response to women explaining why interactions with unknown men feel intimidating is to focus on your own hurt feelings rather than to empathise with the reasons for their reaction - based on threats much greater than a bruised ego - you might not be part of the solution.

If you're going to #NotAllMen at a woman who's discussing her fears, even after she's already acknowledged that it's "not all men", you're definitely not helping.

If your ego is so fragile that a woman saying "I can't assume you're a good guy" is enough to push you to "breaking point" and leaving her in trouble, you were never a reliable ally in the first place.



Just need to get this off my chest:

Mortal Kombat is fictional. Pretend. Not real. Raiden is not a wise god, he's a fictional character invented by a fallible human. Sonya Blade is not a real person. Glib advice works great in video games and movies because the same person who put that advice in the mouth of a fictional character gets to write the story so following the advice works out, but that has nothing to do with whether that advice works IRL. Mortal Kombat has nothing to teach any of us about male-female relationships.

There are plenty of people alive today because they didn't put their trust in a friendly stranger with a smile.

All I have is glib advice and the fact that I am a friendly helpful stranger with a smile. If you are not inclined to trust me based on that, I am glad to stop helping you. I will get back in my car and drive off, let you take your chances with another hopefully friendly man or bear as you prefer. I am part of the solution, not the problem. You can either accept me as an ally or not. I can't make the decision for you.

If your trust in others is so fragile your default response is to accuse them of being a bad guy and mock their choice of favored fictional characters among other things... maybe you're not part of the solution either. Might want to muse on that.

 

[TheLobster]

View attachment 2344028

I’m really disappointed in this survey because it’s missing two obvious options:

• hundred duck-sized horses
• one horse-sized duck

They could’ve solved an age-old debate, and they didn’t!

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Good men say they're good men and mean it. Their actions further prove they are good men. As a person in need, you have to trust that they will prove their claims. If you're a cynic who doesn't want to accept help and cares more about reminding the man trying to help you he might be a bad man... well, good luck not approaching his breaking point and getting him to decide he'd rather not help you and leaving you in trouble.

Do you tell kids to tale candy from strangers too? What fucking drugs are you on??

Serves me right for not taking a complete fucking stranger's word that he's totally trustworthy?? Just who the FUCK do you think you are? Holy fucking shit! You need professional help, dude. Go see a therapist. Like really.

 

[AchtungNight]

Do you tell kids to tale candy from strangers too? What fucking drugs are you on??

Serves me right for not taking a complete fucking stranger's word that he's totally trustworthy?? Just who the FUCK do you think you are? Holy fucking shit! You need professional help, dude. Go see a therapist. Like really.

No, I do not tell kids to take candy from strangers. But if you're in a bad situation and need help, I do advise you to accept offered help. A ride to a gas station is not the same thing as candy.

I will not take offense at the rest of your insults. I am not on drugs or in need of therapy except in the opinion of internet trolls. I know I am a good man. Believe me or not, your choice.

If you're not an internet troll, quit acting like one please.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

No, I do not tell kids to take candy from strangers. But if you're in a bad situation and need help, I do advise you to accept offered help. A ride to a gas station is not the same thing as candy.

I will not take offense at the rest of your insults. I am not on drugs or in need of therapy except in the opinion of internet trolls. I know I am a good man. Believe me or not, your choice.

If you're not an internet troll, quit acting like one please.

You are so deluded. Seriously, you really need professional help you poor lonely man.

 

[AchtungNight]

You are so deluded. Seriously, you really need professional help you poor lonely man.

If you're not going to provide that help, please stop paying attention to me. I would rather not have to deal with your unkind words. Or do you have some agenda that needs satisfaction? If so, I point you to other men who have furthered your poor opinions and kindly but firmly request you go bother them instead of me.

I am treating you with the same level of disdain that you are showing to me. If you can't understand that and modify your behavior accordingly, it's not my problem.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Normally I just ignore you, but I just can't let someone advise women to just give full trust to total strangers without refuting it. That's fucking asinine. To actually be upset with women who don't is your pathetic problem, but women being abducted on roadsides is ours, and our safety is just a wee bit more important than you getting a phone number or a date. So fuck you.

 

[AchtungNight]

Normally I just ignore you, but I just can't let someone advise women to just give full trust to total strangers without refuting it. That's fucking asinine. To actually be upset with women who don't is your pathetic problem, but women being abducted on roadsides is ours, and our safety is just a wee bit more important than you getting a phone number or a date. So fuck you.

No thank you. Women like you aren't my type.

I'm not here for a date or a phone number. I'm here because I was asked questions and am providing answers. For the record, I did acknowledge that women don't like being sexually harassed and kidnapped. You chose to ignore those words and concentrate on others that caused you offense. I get that you don't like me and don't want to listen to me. I likewise can not let you advise people who might be in trouble to ignore helpful strangers all the time when there are still some of us out there. No situation is absolute. Can you at least admit that? Or is your cynical "never trust a man period" attitude more important to spread?

So go ahead and get in my car please, Woman Lost in The Wilderness. I will let you out at the nearest gas station and not accept any reward from you which you don't want to give. I have helped a lot of people in similar circumstances. You have to take my word for it, I didn't bother getting phone numbers and names. I doubt you'll get a similar offer from that bear.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I likewise can not let you advise people who might be in trouble to ignore helpful strangers all the time when there are still some of us out there. No situation is absolute. Can you at least admit that? Or is your cynical "never trust a man period" attitude more important to spread?

You are telling women that if they don't want to get into a stranger's car it serves them right. Just listen to yourself.

 

[AchtungNight]

You are telling women that if they don't want to get into a stranger's car it serves them right. Just listen to yourself.

I am saying cynical attitude earns bad karma. This is a fact of life, whatever your gender. Look, if you're in trouble, I can and will help you out. Either you trust me or you don't. If you don't trust me, I am capable of driving away. Would you rather I do that or help you? Let me know. If you really need help, that is, and aren't just insulting me for whatever rush you get from doing that.

If it were a man speaking to me as you have, I'd treat them with the same disdain.

 

[Flybynite1892]

When asked whether they would rather encounter a bear in the woods or a random man in the woods, most respondents (women and men), chose the bear.

I am embarrassed and disappointed to acknowledge that if I was making this choice for my wife or daughter, I would also rather they encounter the bear.

This almost universal lack of trust and fear of the human male is something that I am going to have to consider in some of the stories I am brainstorming.

What say you?

So, I think this is a good question to think about, and it kind of caught my attention since the stuff I write all falls in the BDSM world, where all kinds of stuff that, on the surface, might look scary or sketchy are, in fact, kind of the point. And I do worry about portraying that wrong in what I write, because I truly intend everything I put on the page to just be hot and fun.

I took the whole bear-or-man thing (when I ran into on other social media) as a tongue in cheek way of talking about a problem and starting a conversation that might not otherwise happen, and I think there's a lot of value in that.

To answer the question though, I don't have all the answers and I'm still definitely learning. I think context, tone, and emotional intelligence are all really important in crafting scenes that are hot and fun. I try to keep in mind how what I'm writing might look in certain contexts, even if it makes perfect sense to me. I don't always get it right (at all), but I do appreciate the question. It was worth thinking about for sure.

 

[nice90sguy]

The 6% who think they could beat a grizzly are bad enough, but the 8% who think they could take an elephant? I really hope they were just kidding.

I could handle most large animals just fine. But I NEVER fucks with my pussy cat

 

[AchtungNight]

If anyone cares, I'm not inclined to start any bad situation with any potentially dangerous animal, whatever its size and potential for violence. Same goes for women, I can't exactly recognize someone of Holly Holm's skill level at first glance, no way would I want to fight someone like her, and I usually treat people with respect if they do the same for me. Those with whom I have argued in this thread have not done that. I tried to answer their inquiries, they chose to question my character and put me down. I responded in kind. I do not give _anyone_ a free pass to treat me as they have, especially not random strangers online. I have to walk a fine line between being a doormat and standing up for myself. Can you begrudge me that?

Yes, strangers may be dangerous. They may also be friends you haven't met yet, to quote a classic Simpsons episode. Until you encounter them in the wild and decide whether you will trust them or not, you can never know. I didn't say that I would reach my breaking point, merely hinted at it and asked if people would prefer I not help. Of course I would prefer the opposite of that and choose to help if inclined. Unless people don't really want help, or help with an agenda I don't support. Is this not acceptable for some reason? Or hard to understand?

I don't think so.

 

[Demiurging]

Godzilla is super cool in the movies.

If you were within ten miles of a Godzilla attack, you would need therapy for years.

People are very bad at considering hypothetical situations and their reactions to them.

 

[OffNSFW]

Transplant this scenario to a zombie apocalypse universe and then gauge the trustworthiness of the strange man with unknown intentions.

 

[Bramblethorn]

If your trust in others is so fragile your default response is to accuse them of being a bad guy and mock their choice of favored fictional characters among other things... maybe you're not part of the solution either. Might want to muse on that.

1. It wasn't my "default response". It's one that I made in response to your comments in this discussion, based on those comments.

2. I didn't mock your choice of favored fictional characters. I mocked your habit of invoking them in discussions like this as if people could count on real life to work out like a video game. Perhaps that was unkind of me, but I don't think I'm the only one here who finds it exasperating.

No thank you. Women like you aren't my type.

I'm not here for a date or a phone number. I'm here because I was asked questions and am providing answers. For the record, I did acknowledge that women don't like being sexually harassed and kidnapped. You chose to ignore those words

You don't get a cookie for acknowledging the most basic and obvious of facts. And you really don't get to complain about people "ignoring your words" when you reply to a woman who just said "we know it's not everyone" by accusing her of not acknowledging the good men.

Yes, strangers may be dangerous. They may also be friends you haven't met yet, to quote a classic Simpsons episode.

Oh. Oh wow. Of all the Simpsons episodes ever made, you're invoking that one, in this discussion? Okay, then...

In that episode, Marge is playing Blanche Dubois in a musical of Tennessee William's "A Streetcar Named Desire". For those who aren't familiar with the original play, Blanche is a woman who goes to stay with her sister Stella and Stella's husband Stanley. (During the play we discover that Blanche was widowed after her husband, secretly homosexual, committed suicide.) Blanche becomes romantically involved with Mitch, a friend of Stanley's, but Stanley passes on some gossip about unsavoury secrets from Blanche's past. Mitch dumps her but demands sex anyway, claiming he's entitled to it after waiting so long. After she kicks Mitch out, Stanley comes home (Stella's in the hospital giving birth to their child) and rapes Blanche. Stella refuses to believe Blanche, and Blanche suffers a catatonic mental breakdown. While Stanley plays poker nearby, a doctor and nurse arrive to take Blanche to a hospital, and the play ends with Blanche telling the doctor "I have always relied on the kindness of strangers."

It's a bitterly ironic line, because Blanche has been betrayed by just about everybody in her life.

In the Simpsons version, we see the beginning of Stanley's attempt to rape Blanche - played for laughs - and then the next we see of the musical is a cheerful happy-ending song where Marge/Blanche leads the cast in singing "A stranger's just a friend you haven't met".

The joke there, and it's a grim one, is that these people have completely butchered the play and missed the irony of the "kindness of strangers" line. They've slapped a ridiculously incongruous, inappropriate ending onto a story about a woman shattered by rape and betrayal, a woman who put too much trust in other people's goodness.

 

[AchtungNight]

She was not betrayed by the stranger, I can't help but point out. Would you rather she turn the stranger down? Not trust him? Remain bereft and alone?

Look, I get that you and the other person on this thread who challenged me have a sex negative agenda or at least a vendetta against me. I get your various concerns about rape and exasperations too. I feel compelled to point out- again- that all men are not the same. There are a few good ones out there. I like to believe I am one. Maybe I have poor choice of media sometimes, but I still like to believe I am a good man. And I state truly that I have proven that in several situations for various people.

You can either accept it or not. Same goes for everyone else. If you can't, well, I can't make people trust me. And there are limits to my energy levels at challenging mistrust.

So let's do this. I'm disengaging from this hostile discussion. I have stated my points enough. I am going to sleep now.

You meet me in a situation where you're in need, I hope you will accept the help I offer. I hope you won't be more interested in questioning my intentions and putting me down. We'll see what attitude wins out, if that situation ever even occurs. I'm not sure whether or not I want it to. Yeah, I'd love to prove you wrong, but it's not necessary either. I do not require validation from random internet jerks.

Thank you for talking to me. Bye.

 

[nice90sguy]

I should have realised from the title that this thread would have legs. And animal savagery.

 

[Bramblethorn]

She was not betrayed by the stranger, I can't help but point out. Would you rather she turn the stranger down? Not trust him? Remain bereft and alone?

If you're referring to the doctor as "the stranger"...well, he's certainly not the only person that line's about, it's much more a reflection on people like Stanley and Mitch who she knew slightly, but not well enough. But if that's how you're interpreting it, well, she does turn the doctor down.

She flees from him, and tries to hide in her bedroom, and begs to be left alone, while the guy who raped her stands by packing her things. The nurse wrestles her to the floor, forcibly restrains her, and talks with the doctor about putting her in a straitjacket, but the doctor says "not unless necessary". Then they take her off to involuntary committal to a psychiatric institution, which in Williams' day was a pretty horrific place to be, not that it's necessarily peachy today. (Williams' sister was institutionalised, and Streetcar is one of several plays that drew on his horror of that experience and his own feelings of guilt about it. He wasn't known for writing feel-good endings.)

By that point, her trust decisions don't matter any more. She no longer gets to have meaningful choices, because the people she did trust broke her and then told the doctor she was crazy because she was rather inconveniently accusing Stanley of having raped her.

Look, I get that you and the other person on this thread who challenged me have a sex negative agenda.

Oh fuck off with that slimy disingenuous bullshit.

I get your various concerns about rape and exasperations too. I feel compelled to point out- again- that all men are not the same. There are a few good ones out there.

This has been acknowledged to you several times already in this thread. I, myself, have talked to you about good men I know. I've talked about the difficulty in telling the difference between good men and bad men. I don't know why you keep on pretending that we're telling you "all men are the same" when we're not saying that.

Do you find that easier than responding to what we actually are saying?

 

[Otis_Ravelli]

Good people don't expect what they do to be acknowledged or expect credit for it. That's one of the things that makes them good. They also don't get bent out of shape if any help they are offering is declined, that's another thing that makes them good.

Any real change in this is going to come from men calling out and actively preventing the bad behaviour of other men to try and create a world where women can be less afraid. Not lecturing women that they should be giving men a chance to prove they're "one of the good ones" and if they don't anything that happens to them is their own fault.

 

[AchtungNight]

You are saying louder that you believe bad men outnumber the good men and I am a bad man. I am not a bad man. It is not bullshit.

I can’t help fix the behavior of my fellow men if you never give me the chance to prove I myself am good.

I will admit I have not seen the original Streetcar movie before and did not fully consider the quote I picked to illustrate my point. But just because you call me a bad person does not make it the truth. You are not infallible.

Neither am I.

I can’t win this argument. I will acknowledge that.

If people insist in finding faults in every person who could possibly help them, they will be in bad situations regardless. It doesn’t matter if they deserve it. They will be in such circumstances. I would rather they not be. You seem intent on preferring otherwise.

Enough. I don’t feel like continuing this futility. Please stop calling me out and leave me be!

 

[Otis_Ravelli]

Enough. I don’t feel like continuing this futility. Please stop calling me out and leave me be!

So you're feeling harassed and want to be left alone because you don't want the attentionn but they won't leave you be?

Now think about experiencing that every time you leave the house and go somewhere public. Standing at a bus stop, waiting in a queue, sitting at a desk, and maybe you might be able to understand why many women don't feel like they can trust strangers. What you're experiencing now is a little glimpse into being a woman outside pretty much anywhere. Sucks doesn't it.