Our circle of existence limits us and those around us. If you have never been attacked, or you don’t have a ton of experience hearing from and witnessing the experiences of friends and intimates who are victims, that absence of personal experience limits the accuracy of your view. Also, if your religion or culture puts the onus of any sexual interaction onto the woman as gatekeeper, that changes how you see sexual assault and victimization. How you live your life is your business. However, we are all limited by our inability to see outside of our circle of existence. Also, most men (the majority of whom haven’t experienced feeling a daily lack of power and a daily unconscious feeling of perhaps being attacked) don’t know what it is like. They probably haven’t been sexually traumatized or physically attacked. They can only imagine from their own lack of experience. Fantasy is just that—fantasy. As Anais Nin so eloquently stated, “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
2018-10-03