159 upvotes, 11 direct replies (showing 11)
View submission: How Men Become Aziz Ansari
How do we as a culture find a balance between holding men like this accountable while also understanding they are performing a script that is often forced upon them?
Comment by SomethingAboutUsers at 17/02/2025 at 04:44 UTC
50 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It's unfortunately going to be a little like how we have reduced smoking; it's taken years, and sometimes there have been painful (for the smokers) laws passed that restricted things but over time, a cultural shift has happened whereby once smoking was cool, and now it's anything but.
It's the same with this, I think. We're at a cultural tipping point where what was "cool" (the script) isn't acceptable anymore, because it's frankly unhealthy *for everyone*. It's going to take time, but our job is to model the behavior and teach the next generation. It will be them that really has a chance of stamping out the script.
Comment by generic230 at 17/02/2025 at 03:41 UTC
208 upvotes, 3 direct replies
It’s not just the men who’ve had a script forced on them. Women are told to protect their virginity by EVERYONE. There’s even that disgusting “purity pledge” where Dads give their pre teen daughters a ring to pledge they’ll abstain from sex until marriage. It’s time to give women the same respect for wanting to explore sex that we give men. As long as we continue to tell women that only a virgin is marriage material, we create the dynamic of men needing to pressure women. Both sides need a new script.
Comment by Salt-Powered at 17/02/2025 at 11:12 UTC
11 upvotes, 0 direct replies
By realizing the existence of the script, refusing to participate in it and informing others about the same script so they might do similarly.
Comment by VladWard at 17/02/2025 at 18:19 UTC
38 upvotes, 4 direct replies
while also understanding they are performing a script that is often forced upon them?
Nah, man. I understand that the social pressure exists, but let's not confuse this with coercion or force. No one's forcing dudes to be assholes.
For the record, I've been the teen boy on the receiving end of all the hypotheticals young guys are afraid of. I've dealt with the crying, the guilt tripping, the "do you think I'm ugly?", the "do you even like women?", the "I feel so unattractive", all from romantic partners who were expecting their boyfriend to power through their disinterest and hound them for sex at all hours. I'm not trying to minimize that - it was traumatic. I've had partners talk about feeling suicidal because they couldn't square our (active, loving) sex life with the stories they hear from their friends or read in magazines. I've been chewed out for "not understanding the shame women feel around sex," just because I wanted actual communication from my partner. I've felt terrified that being raised right was actually hurting the people I cared about.
But you know what? That shit was unhealthy as fuck. The lesson I learned from it was not "Be more of an asshole, women expect that". It was "Stop dating and sleeping with women who haven't dealt with enough of their own internalized misogyny to be an active participant in a healthy relationship".
Young dudes gotta learn that it's okay to expect better for themselves. You're gonna have less sex and date fewer people, but it'll be made up for in spades by the quality of the people you do those things with.
Comment by Eternal_Being at 17/02/2025 at 05:58 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It's not a literal answer, but you should watch Women Talking, if you haven't seen it. It's very much an exploration of that question.
Comment by Jealous-Factor7345 at 20/02/2025 at 01:35 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I've read this commend a number of times, and I still have no idea what it would even mean to "hold men like this accountable."
Comment by cannedcomment1896 at 17/02/2025 at 04:21 UTC
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Frankly, I don't think we're capable of that kind of nuance as a society. Situations like this can only ever have a victim predator dynamic because you're dealing with something having to do with a violation of bodily autonomy and personal space.
Women are not interested in sacrificing their dignity or safety to have an "in depth discussion" about the cruel expectations of men in the dating world. To do that is to give men the benefit of the doubt when they might not have even deserved it. They may complain about it, but they'll take a world where men are too afraid to take a risk than a world where people like Aziz are allowed to act cringe during a shitty date.
Comment by abcdefgodthaab at 17/02/2025 at 16:16 UTC
11 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I'm sorry, I genuinely don't understand how Aziz's behavior was forced on him.
Comment by Spurioun at 17/02/2025 at 17:35 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I think it definitely requires more nuanced discussion when it happens. But, at the end of the day, if you harm someone... you harm someone. Many people who abuse little kids were themselves abused when they were kids. It's not exactly their fault that they got messed up, but they still need to be dealt with in order to protect others.
Slavery has existed for all of human history. Institutional Slavery existed in the United States for hundreds of years before it was outlawed. There were generations and generations of white folks that were raised from birth to believe that subjugating black people was morally fine. Entire industries relied on slavery in order to exist. But that *had* to end. And all of the white people that were raised to believe that black people belonged in slavery, and all of the companies that needed slavery in order to pay their tens of thousands of workers, all had to fail and be punishment for continuing to perpetuate it.
It's not all that different for the relationships between men and women. It's a shame that there are a lot of men walking around thinking that sexual assault is ok. But the information is out there that teaches that it isn't ok. If they assault or rape someone, they still need to be punished and made an example of, even if they didn't know any better. Hopefully a generation in the near future will look back on our current situation as nothing more than an unfortunate, distant memory.
Comment by lowbatteries at 18/02/2025 at 02:42 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
By punishing those that follow the script loudly and publicly. That’s how you destroy the script.
Sure, there is nuance. Does he deserve jail time? Probably not. Does he deserve to sell himself as “not that guy”? Nope.
Comment by ifthisisntnice00 at 18/02/2025 at 14:56 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Stop stigmatizing women’s sexuality. If women are given the unjudged right to say “yes” when they want sex, then there wouldn’t be so much confusion.