A Minute to Think

Remember the parable of the licked cupcake? A youth leader would bring to church enough cupcakes so that everyone in class could have just one. Then, they would lick the frosting from one of the cupcakes, put it back on the tray and pass the cupcakes around so everybody could take one. Of course, the last person in class was stuck with the licked cupcake, and of course, they wouldn’t eat it.

The licked cupcakes in the chastity lesson always represented females. In Young Women’s, the cupcakes represented us - we didn’t want to be a licked cupcake. No one wants a cupcake licked by someone else.

In Young Men’s, the cupcakes also represented girls. You boys were taught not to lick cupcakes that weren’t yours. No one else wants a licked cupcake, and neither do you.

Never once was I told that boys could be licked cupcakes. Never. What boys did was, I guess, none of our business. All we girls knew was not to let boys lick our cupcakes, or no one would want us. The burden of chastity was ours to bear, and the prospects of forgiveness for failure were grim.

Some active, yet non-believing men say they don’t defend sexism in the LDS church. But they don’t need to defend it. They support it every week as they walk through the doors of that church bringing their wives and children with them. Your children will no doubt get the same tired cupcake lesson we all got as youth. And try as you might to counter the misogyny pounded into their little heads, the fact that you keep taking them back for more teaches them what your words never will.

When Stuyvesant says that women’s dress and bodies are distraction in a learning environment, for example, what they’re really saying is that they’re distracting to male students. The default student we are concerned about - the student whose learning we want to ensure is protected - is male. Never mind how “distracting” it is to be pulled from class, humiliated, and made to change outfits - publicly degrading young women is small price to pay to make sure that a boy doesn’t have to suffer through the momentary distraction of glancing at a girl’s legs. When this dentist in Iowa can fire his assistant for turning him on - even though she’s done absolutely nothing wrong - the message again is that it’s men’s ability to work that’s important.

And when rape victims are blamed for the crime committed against them, the message is the same: This is something that happened to the perpetrator, who was driven to assault by a skirt, or a date, or the oh-so-sexy invitation of being passed out drunk. Women have infringed on their right to exist without being turned on. (Ta-Nehisi Coates describes this centering of male sexual vulnerability quite well.) Our very presence is a disruption of the male status quo.

When Stuyvesant says that women’s dress and bodies are distraction in a learning environment, for example, what they’re really saying is that they’re distracting to male students. The default student we are concerned about - the student whose learning we want to ensure is protected - is male. Never mind how “distracting” it is to be pulled from class, humiliated, and made to change outfits - publicly degrading young women is small price to pay to make sure that a boy doesn’t have to suffer through the momentary distraction of glancing at a girl’s legs. When this dentist in Iowa can fire his assistant for turning him on - even though she’s done absolutely nothing wrong - the message again is that it’s men’s ability to work that’s important.

And when rape victims are blamed for the crime committed against them, the message is the same: This is something that happened to the perpetrator, who was driven to assault by a skirt, or a date, or the oh-so-sexy invitation of being passed out drunk. Women have infringed on their right to exist without being turned on. (Ta-Nehisi Coates describes this centering of male sexual vulnerability quite well.) Our very presence is a disruption of the male status quo.

Rape happens. Rape happens a lot. If you know six women, you probably know someone who has been raped. We live in a culture that doesn’t tell men not to rape; it tells women not to get raped. If they do get raped, they are taught by our society, through the images and words our society produces, that it was their fault. Meanwhile, the same images and words encourage rapists to do what they do.

So, what’s the solution? Being educated is a good place to start. Acknowledge and appreciate just how many women are raped or face the risk of rape daily. Read at least some of this post about the actual, tangible effects of rape culture instead of brushing it off as this vague, abstract notion. Consciously note the many depictions of a woman’s sexuality as clearly directed by males for males, and how often this plays into a rhetoric of victim blaming is also a good idea. Don’t stay out of the argument by just flicking it off with a “well it’s okay to like it and it’s okay not to like it” bullshit kind of comment. No. It is not okay to like this. It simply isn’t. It shouldn’t be up to a few brave women to stick their necks out on male-safe websites at the whim of the commenting hive-mind to tell us what the problem is with our rape culture, putting their own online safety at risk. Rape shouldn’t be a women’s issue, it should be a men’s issue because we are the ones that keep fucking doing it and keep perpetuating the culture. It’s about time we took responsibility for that ourselves.

And, gentlemen, that really kind of angry defensive feeling you got in your gut while you read this post where you felt attacked? That was your privilege kicking. Every time you think something is sexist towards men, there is a pretty good chance the playing field is just being leveled out