(TW: Descriptions of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.)
Sometimes, a creator presents a piece where their truth, their layered vulnerability, their authenticity, and their sheer empowerment knocks on your soul.
I live for moments like that.
They feed oxygen into my existence and keep me feeling alive.
This writing by -Pocket- on FetLife was one of those moments for me. I suspect it will resonate with many of you on a visceral level as well.
How dare you call me a man hater.
I was busy loving men when I was 17.
He lied and cheated.
Rather than be accountable to his own shitty behavior, he taught me that my jealous insecurities were a character flaw that made me unlovable.
He taught me that having trust for men is a responsibility I hold, and an entitlement he held, regardless of his actions.
He taught me that good girls are not teases, because that is actually abusing men.
He taught me that the evaluation of my body should be through his eyes.
I learned that I was unlovable but that he would teach me how to be loveable. I learned to hate my body. I never had an orgasm from PIV but I faked them for his ego, and learned to think that sex without orgasm was just normal.
And still, I never stopped trying to love men.
I was busy loving men when I was 21.
I was serving my country in a foreign land.
My brothers in arms raped me.
I could not bring myself to hold them to account. Because I was a good girl, and a dedicated Marine, and I knew that destroying a man’s career was a crime against humanity.
I felt too much empathy for their situation to harm them.
They taught me that suffering was my fault because I was broken. They were right about one thing: I was now actually completely broken.
I was raped again.
I wanted to sever my soul from my body I fucking hated my flesh so much.
And still, I never stopped trying to love men.
I was busy loving men when I was 25.
He was an angry drunk just like me.
We loved and hated each other with complete abandon, second only to our love for booze. Completely insane now, I was surrounded by other lunatics.
He taught me that suffering together was better than suffering alone as he beat me to a pulp and abandoned me unconscious in a pool of my own blood.
He taught me that when I finally gathered the courage to fight back that I was also an abuser.
He taught me that we are all fucking lost and that we are all fucking unlovable, and the world is a cold and meaningless place. Love was a cruel illusion in this hellish landscape where I lived.
And still, I never stopped trying to love men.
I was busy loving men when I was 30.
Finally, now sober, starting to clear the wreckage.
Therapy. Fearless moral inventories. Amends. I learned to take responsibility for myself. I learned to get good at that because I realized my life depended on it. I was doing the damn work. I learned that I was signing up for a lot of bullshit from men because I would not raise my bar.
I became committed to fixing my picker and to being a person who I could love enough to make room for higher quality men to love me.
He came as a knight in shining armor. He was stable and normal and just a regular good guy. A little boring but a stable, family man. Then he consumed our life with massive debt because he needed his toys.
He taught me that if I tried to right the ship I was in, that I was a joy kill and a nag. He taught me I was a control freak when I made a case to curb the spending. He taught me to distrust the part of me that was trying to protect myself and build a sense of security in my world, because that was more comfortable for him than to admit he was bringing it down around us.
And still, I never stopped trying to love men.
I was busy loving men when I was 35.
I became a feminist.
I devoted myself to learning the social constructs that make men and women so that I could learn the secret code that was eluding me in my lifelong pursuit of loving men.
I became fascinated with intentional power exchange.
Finally we can be honest about what the fuck this love shit is. I submitted.
I felt freedom. I did my part.
He taught me the luxurious experience of loving through actual consensual pain and service. He taught me how to have purpose in that, and I did so love it.
He also taught me that no amount of giving on my part will obligate him to giving back when I had needs that interfered with his wants.
I learned that his compulsions for self destruction were actually needs, and my desire not to enable them was unrealistic and harmful to him. I learned to hold my tongue as self destruction ate him alive in front of my eyes, and powerlessness devoured my dreams. I learned that it was controlling behavior to try to help a man because I loved him and could see his demons so fucking clearly, having already conquered the same ones myself.
I learned to hate myself for seeing things clearly and mirroring them back relentlessly until abandonment was assured.
And still, I never stopped trying to love men.
I was busy loving men when I was 40.
Beautiful submissive men who taught me to feel embodied power for the first time in my life.
He taught me how to embrace the feeling of being in control with abandon in so many passionate moments.
He also taught me how his cock was still the only thing that really mattered.
He taught me how my value was still derived as an object of his desire. He taught me to love feeling my power, right up until I tried to call him to account for actual harms he was doing to me or himself.
Then he taught me that basic accountability for his words and deeds was too much to ask, my expectations were too high, that his inability to own his shit was still my fault.
I learned to beat myself up for wanting too much.
And still, I never stopped trying to love men.
I was busy loving men when I was 45.
I tried vanilla again.
Love is love I told myself.
I loved with abandon and believed forever fairy tales, again.
I tolerated subtle abuse because I had learned to have so much empathy for all the ways men are broken by toxic masculinity. I forgave with abandon. He isn’t perfect, I said. I am not perfect, for fuck’s sake I have PTSD so bad I can’t even leave the house some days, so I have to have empathy for his imperfections.
After all, I can see how his rage stems from his own experiences with trauma. He will love me for not abandoning him in his pain and showing him the way out: accountability, honesty, facing fear. Be patient, I told myself. He will grow.
He taught me that his abject terror of inadequacy, taught to him by his abusive father, was my responsibility to navigate carefully. He taught me that I should own all of my shit and most of his because he was simply unable to carry the burden of his trauma and face his shortcomings.
I was strong and wise enough to see it wasn’t really me this time. I had all the language and tools I needed, so he couldn’t possibly hurt me beyond my superhuman abilities to heal myself from abuse.
The gaslighting, the negging, all to save himself from basic accountability – they slid off me like water on a duck’s back because I was so fucking immune with self knowledge.
He lied to himself, he lied to me, he blamed me when I called him out on his delusions. He made me the bad guy because calling him out on his actual shit was equivalent to berating him, equivalent to abusing him. He would scream as he threw tantrums, destroyed property, and as he put the safety of me and my pets at risk.
Trying to teach him things I have learned in my healing journey from trauma was still somehow me disrespecting him.
He could not grow, because learning was literally too painful to his ego for him to bear. He taught me to have shame for knowing things he didn’t. He taught me that if I cannot love him from the little box he made for me so that his fragile ego could feel safe, then I am not lovable.
When he finally left for good one day, on the premise that I was somehow inexcusably abusive for very quietly complaining about something he promised to do but didn’t, he taught me that no amount of empathy for the inability of a cowardly mother fucker to own is his fucking shit is healthy or productive for him or for me.
He taught me to regret being so fucking empathetic.
And still, I have not stopped trying to love men.
I am 50 now.
Back on Fetlife, I am engaged in the search for men to love. I do this in the face of countless men on this site foisting responsibility for their shortcomings onto women day in and day out in forums, in status updates, in inboxes.
I do this in the face of being lectured on “not all men.”
I do this in the face of disgusting displays of violent threats when he is told he is not a good fit, usually because he has demonstrated he has no internal sense of accountability for the way he reduces women through his dick centric/toxic masculinity infected worldview in various ways.
When I tell him he is not empowering women with his attitude, words, or actions, he teaches me that he is a terrified coward who is unwilling to do the work to be a better human, and he will defend his right to be unfuckable and angry at women about it until the day he is dead.
Daily he teaches me that he is dangerous because his slavery to his fragile ego keeps him on edge and ready to lash out at any perceived threat.
And still, I have not stopped trying to find men worth loving, and even now have found a few showing up in my world.
Even now, I am still loving men.
And you dare to call me a man hater?
Fuck off.
I am a fucking Love Warrior.
I’m very honored that -Pocket- agreed to, and trusted me, with her writing and granted me caretakership of her beautiful piece here on my blog. I find it difficult to articulate the depths of which her trust means to me. Please follow her on FetLife at -Pocket- for more incredible, vulnerable and profound pieces from this extraordinary human.
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