Creep Vs Slut

I’ve been thinking for awhile now that if men can be called creeps, pigs, sleazy, douche bags, etc, then we can continue to slut shame women. Because, it is the same thing. Men are taught to be ashamed of doing something as innocuous as talking to a woman on the bus, or just finding her attractive. Using any excuse they can get, they begin to label a man, who has some kind of sexual desire, a creep. Man, fuck that.

I thought I was the only one who felt this way, then I ran across this thread on Reddit
In fact, there is quite a bit of discussion on the subject. I don’t agree with that Reddit poster’s characterization of the hypothetical married teacher possibly being rightfully called a slut for sleeping with her student (in his comparison to guys who really are jerks), but nonetheless the basic premise of his post was spot on; and the responses were great. I knew I couldn’t be the only one.

I think one of the best lines from the poster of that thread is this: ” The idea that a guy should already know if he is ‘worthy’ of talking to a girl before ever approaching her is ridiculous.”

I mean, like, yeah. The creep stigma makes it so that you must never approach a woman or have some kind of extrasensory power that women themselves don’t even have; and let’s not get into that double standard that a woman is allowed to have such a flaw as insensitivity, but a man isn’t allowed to make a minor faux pas. Just like the situation in which she hurts you and you have to fix it and if she hurts you, this makes her feel bad and you still have to fix. Either way, you lose. And she can’t be wrong.

I also found this video which has now become a favorite of mine on the subject; this guy nailed it.

I mean, you can’t show interest in women at all without being thought of as a sleaze; made to feel ashamed of your desires and sexuality. Sound familiar? He’s right what he says in that video, everybody’s fucked up and they shame everyone, men and women, because of their hang-ups.
How about instead of just getting rid of slut shaming and body shaming, we just get rid of shaming? Including making that genius scientist ashamed of his T-Shirt, or making another man ashamed that he likes to admire the beauty of women, or making men feel like they’re not allowed to have a desire. Really get rid of your prudish, backward, archaic, psychotic repressive ways. Go into your own mind and stop trying to control ours.


Featured image: By Bart Everson (Flickr: The Creep) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons