Continuum

What to do and how to do it? What to say, and how to say it?

Men infatuated with the power to control are frightening, their

toxic, rabid anger, their explosive arguments, their infantile

rage at not getting what they want, destructive and debilitating.

I’m speaking of extremes. I don’t hate men, but there’s a

continuum of behavior and I wonder, even now, why it was a

teenaged boy who sexually abused my seven year old body,

and not a girl. What is it about maleness which encourages carte

blanche? Surely there are angry women, but they mostly don’t

store explosives in their basements. “Just be nice” is how I heard

it, when I was agitated.

So what kind of power do you need, which you can only get by

robbing me of mine? It seems to me a cheap and cowardly

sacrifice. You’ve hurt me, true, but I’ve not lost the soul of my

humanity, like you.

LBM 2/7/2021