April is SAAM, or Sexual Assault Awareness Month. I’d like to link to a couple of cogent journals on the subject and a few relevant sites, because the writers sound off better than I think I could, and the sites are excellent resources.
The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network
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My life started out shakily, as the repeated victim of sexual abuse. If you’ve been riding the Writer Tamago train for a while, you probably knew that, and actually, I’m not going to talk about that. What I am going to talk about is the good fortune I’ve had since my unfortunate childhood, because since I left my good-for-nothing family behind me, I seem to have landed my star ship on the Planet of Decent Men.
Here on the Planet of Decent Men, men are actually my friends. They listen to me with love and concern. They think before they act. They do not engage in pointless macho positioning.
On the Planet of Decent Men, the men I know who have SOs listen to their SOs. They don’t stereotype the people they love. There is no eye rolling, no jokes about beef and football, no posturing like bull apes in season. As a matter of fact, these people treat each other like…people, not like gender stereotypes.
Some of the Decent Men father carefully and thoughtfully. Two of my Decent Men friends are raising a daughter, careful of the roles they portray to her as she has two dads. Another Decent Man flew over with me from the Planet of Abused Children, and he takes anger management classes, and is very careful to sit down and talk quietly and respectfully with his daughter.
You might even say I’ve gone native. I’ve married a Decent Man. He is a kind and considerate man who once told me that men are not ruled by well, you know. He is thoughtful, and mutual respect and consideration, especially in the bedroom, are very important to both of us.
What does any of this have to do with SAAM? All of the Decent Men I know believe that there are ways to stop sexual assault. All of the Decent Men I know have friends who have been through this, and are outraged, or saddened, or both.
I think that they would approve of the Men Can Stop Rape site, and I think they would never see sexual assault as a woman’s issue, but as a human issue we must all work on together by being very clear, communicative, and respectful of each other.
I want to thank my Decent Men, for letting me settle on their planet, even though I was a stranger when I first arrived. I want to communicate our hope to the people of earth that your young men grow up to be Decent Men, and that we do everything in our power to help them change the way society conditions them to think about sex.
Catherine
