All men benefit from women’s reinforced fear of being hurt for saying no.
read it again and again
Understand that this applies even to non-sexual situations. Women are more likely to be asked for favors from coworkers. Regular “can you file this for me” / “can you cover my shift” / “can you finish up this paperwork” workplace favors. Men are less likely to return those favors. Women are more likely to be seen as “difficult to work with” if they refuse to do favors when requested. Being viewed as ungenerous has negative social and professional consequences.
So yes, even gay men benefit. All men benefit from women’s reinforced fear of being hurt, not just physically, but also socially and professionally, for saying no to anything at all.
Psssssst. Derek Hale fell in love with Stiles first, and Stiles was completely oblivious to it, and never realized that Derek kept looking at him as if he’s not just the moon and sun but also the stars and all of their infinite possibilities.
the spanking debate isn’t all that complicated. you’re either ok with hitting small kids who are completely defenseless and literally at your mercy, or you’re not. supporting the first option makes you a bad and dangerous person, and unfit to be a parent, and im sorry to say but there’s no way around this, no excuses or loopholes. it is what it is
I’ve told this story before and my clam chowder is getting cold but fuck it.
A couple years ago while I was working for a care center during my ece training – we had a big thing about spankings. We went around and asked children who were spanked how they felt about it and what it told them or how it made them feel.
Then when the parents were over, we anonymously read everything that was said by the children on how they view spankings and unanimously it was found that the children never saw it as a growing experience.
It was “painful” “really scary” “I thought mommy hated me now” and we often found it never actually TAUGHT the kids what they did wrong. in fact it seemed to teach them that at any moment your mommy or daddy would just haul up and smack you until you cried and said it was for your own good.
Needless to say I’m pretty sure we changed a lot of parents opinions on spanking and SHOCK OF SHOCKS actually TALKING to their children worked far better disiplinary
I even included my own story, pretending I was telling an outside story “well, I happened to know one person who’s mother only stopped spanking them cause they got tall and big real fast so they could fight back. so there’s a lot of intimidation and fear to your children.” and just – I’ll never forget the dawning look of realization on their faces
100% on this, and let me admit that, even so, I have smacked Kitten once or twice, though I felt awful about it immediately after. It hasn’t happened for years upon years, though, because I really and truly believe that it is never the right answer, and that doing it was horribly, horribly wrong of me.
As an additional point, here is a quote from Astrid Lindgren, author of Pippi Longstocking, which has always stuck with me:
“When I was about 20 years old, I met an old pastor’s wife who told me that when she was young and had her first child, she didn’t believe in striking children, although spanking kids with a switch pulled from a tree was standard punishment at the time. But one day, when her son was four or five, he did something that she felt warranted a spanking – the first in his life. She told him that he would have to go outside himself and find a switch for her to hit him with.
The boy was gone a long time. And when he came back in, he was crying. He said to her, “Mama, I couldn’t find a switch, but here’s a rock that you can throw at me.”
All of a sudden the mother understood how the situation felt from the child’s point of view: that if my mother wants to hurt me, then it makes no difference what she does it with; she might as well do it with a stone. And the mother took the boy into her lap and they both cried. Then she laid the rock on a shelf in the kitchen to remind herself forever: never violence. And that is something I think everyone should keep in mind.“
To all those authors who think happy endings are overrated- THEY’RE NOT, THEY’RE FINE, BETTER ACTUALLY THAN HAVING AN AMAZING BUILD UP, THEN HAVING YOUR HEART SUDDENLY RIPPED OUT AND BEING LEFT FEELING EMPTY AND USED but of course that is just my opinion, call me unadventurous if you will…
sometimes i just want to give everyone self-conscious about their writing or art or anything made by them a encouraging hug and say ‘do it, keep writing those characters, and finish that lineart or sketch’ and ‘who cares if someone doesn’t like it’ or ‘don’t compare it to that thing that has over 100K views’ because like;
Because you know what destroys me about Stiles? Is that you can see how much he wants his dad’s approval. You can see how hurt and upset he is when his dad will trust Scott about anything in 0.2 seconds flat but will continue to be sceptical of anything he has to say until Stiles can back it up with cold hard facts or Scott’s word.
And even reading that hurts because we all know the Sheriff loves Stiles, would do anything for him, would defend him to the ends of the earth. But at the same time we get the Sheriff time and time again telling Stiles he doesn’t trust him and not just implying it but outright saying it.
What actually hurts me more than anything though is that scene back in 3×09 (I think?) when Stiles says, “Mom would have believed me”. I feel like when Stiles’ mom died, Stiles lost the one person who trusted him blindly and what makes me hurt even more about this entire thought is the fact that we now know when she was ill, Claudia accused Stiles of hurting her. Can you imagine, this precious boy who suddenly starts worrying he’s the reason his mom is ill, or at the very least is making her illness worse, even though he doesn’t know what he’s done wrong.
And, of course, to top it off, we have the knowledge the Sheriff might have told Stiles it was his fault when he used to drink (if Stiles’ hallucination in season 2 at Lydia’s party is anything to go by).
Trust and abandonment are big issues for Stiles and a lot of the time I think the two go hand in hand because not only did he lose his mom but his dad kind of abandoned him emotionally in the aftermath. The Sheriff loves Stiles, unconditionally, but he doesn’t trust him. And it’s the same with Scott. Scott went from someone who trusted Stiles, who turned to him for help, to someone who wouldn’t even hear him out in his darkest hour.
What hurts me about Stiles’ character is all these scenes- apart from the Scott one- are played comically. We know, as the audience, Stiles uses humour as a defense mechanism, as a way to cope, but no one else in the show ever picks up on this and I really, really need someone to. We get so many scenes of Stiles saying something alone the lines of “seriously, dude, you need to trust me on this” or “why can’t you just trust me?” For example, when Scott asks Derek to trust him in season 2 and Stiles bursts in with a comic, yet slightly heated, “yeah, both of us”. Or the pool scene when Stiles asks Derek to trust him. Stiles reacts almost aggressively in a lot of these moments (I feel?) like even just talkingabout trust is a sensitive area. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me. I’ve also noticed that Stiles also brings trust up a lot, whether that be about others – Stiles I-Don’t-Like-To-Give-My-Trust-To-Anyone Stilinski – or himself. Even in the most subtle of ways, like when he tells Scott he’ll be his Yoda. Stiles asks to be trusted, he keeps putting himself in that firing line, hoping, and I just…
This is also a reason Derek means so much to me for Stiles because he does grow to trust him. In fact, Derek automatically gives Stiles his trust in season 1 by going to his house when he’s on the run from Stiles’ dad (and we can only headcanon – *cough* childhood back story *cough* why). Stiles just unfortunately, stupidly loses that trust when he pimps Derek out to Danny. It’s also why I am so mad Erica and Stiles’ friendship wasn’t developed further because I know Erica would have been amazing for Stiles in this respect. *starts singing about what might have been*.
Anyway, I know you probably were just looking for a simple yes, I am with you on this BUT I HAVE MANY FEELINGS ABOUT STILES AND TRUST AND YOU OPENED A DARK PLACE WITHIN MY HEART BY SENDING ME THIS, NONNIE. I am sorry if I spewed rather than articulated but I just…I just…*makes sounds*
I get that it’s really painful to watch someone you love, someone you’re intimate with, be accused of horrible things by others. People will refer to that person as “a rapist” or “an abuser” and those labels don’t feel true to you because it wasn’t your experience. But look–anyone who rapes is a rapist. Anyone who abuses is an abuser. They don’t have to do it to every single person they’re involved with for that to be true. In fact, they only have to do it once.
This is the juncture at which many progressive, feminist Always-Believe-The-Survivor types really stumble. I get that it feels like you have counter-evidence. I get that it feels that if everyone only knew how sweet and loving and totally consensual he is with you, it’d be obvious that the accusation is false. But it only feels that way because believing that someone you love did something terrible is painful, and your brain’s trying to find ways to keep you from having to believe it.
shealwaysreads 