He silently disagreed with me.
“And it’smanthink,” I informedhim.
This made him look amused.
And again I wanted to climb him like a tree.
Those silver eyes dancing and his mouth quirking an eighthof an inch up at the ends?
Damn.
We totally had a problem here.
In fact, several of them.
But the one I wasn’t going to get into right then was methinking about how badly I wanted to treathimlike a sex object.
“You know, men get drunk a lot,” I pointed out.“Women dotoo.They get drunk alone, among only men, or only women, or mixed.It happensmillions of times every day and every night.And does every one of thosemillions uponmillionsof men get drunk and then go out and perpetratea sexual assault on a woman?”
His amusement vanished.
“No,” I answered for him.“Because to do that, they have tohave the monster in them.Bottom line.You either have it in you to do that,and thank God the vast majority don’t, or you don’t.It has not one thing to dowith booze.Or drugs.Or what a woman wears.Or what she doesn’t.Or how shebehaves.She has absolutely no responsibilityat allfor a man harmingher.A monster does that because he’s a monster.He just hides it when he’ssober.But when he’s weakened, that monster comes out.And that’s it.The end.”
His big body shifted slightly, but he made no response.
Though I read in that itwashis response.
He was with me.
“And the same with any kind of bad behavior a man commits,”I continued.“If he harasses a woman.If he beats her.I’m sick and tired ofmen, and women for that matter, blaming women for the bad behavior of men.Thatsaid, there’s something that helps to make this never ending.You know whatperpetuates this kind of thing?”
He shook his head.
“Locker room talk and no man in that room having the ballsto say, ‘You know what, that shit does not make you sound cool.It makes yousound like a loser who can’t get laid by a real woman.Knock it off,’” I toldhim.“When men allow men to talk shit about women,thatreduces womento sex objects.It gives the impression all the men in that room are down withreducing women, and with that validation, some men carry on with that, theasshole ones, and they do things directly in an attempt to reduce women.Andsince it’s men doing it, they have no clue what it’s really doing.Reducingthem.”
Mo agreed with me.
He didn’t say it.
I saw it.
Considering he communicated his response (his way), and eventhough I liked he had that response, I kept talking.
“Turn this around, what do you think of a woman who goes toa Chippendales show?Thunder Down Under?Is that about skanky guys who areprobably addicted to drugs and have no other choice in how to make a living?”Iasked.
“Skanky, maybe.The rest, no,” he muttered.
I felt my lips twitch but kept at him.
“Though, women who go to those shows are thought of as randyor out-of-control bachelorettes with their bridesmaids or desperate.Why thecontradiction?”I demanded.
“Men that watch strippers are considered randy or bachelorparty dickheads or desperate,” he returned.
Hmm…
“I do not let men objectify me, Mo.I don’t drag them to theclub to watch me dance.They come on their own.And you can look at it twoways, just as you could look at a woman watching men dance while taking theirclothes off.I make a damn good living off a man who’s totally down withappreciating the female body and he’s at one with the fact he enjoys it, or itturns him on, and it ends right there.Or I make a damn good living off weakmen who are weak because they’re not strong enough to respect strong women,even if those women are strong women taking their clothes off.And I’m okaywith both.”
“You’re you,” he grunted.
