We're coming to the end of September, and while I've always been a fan of autumn and autumn light and weather, I just can't look at this year and feel anything other than exhaustion and something that's uncomfortably close to despair. Some of that is (of course) the political and economic world around me. But some of it is a sense that everything I wanted to write about here has been blighted over the last decade and a half.
A friend told me that he was going to buy some high-end version of Meta glasses. He sees them as a self-defense measure. My understanding is that the glasses feature a blinking LED light that lets people know that you're recording, and that the feature was built in to prevent covert recording by sex pests. My friend is fine with people-- meaning desirable young women --knowing that he'd be recording, and he sees that as a measure for his own safety.
He's afraid that women will falsely accuse him of harassment or attempted sexual assault. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever accused him of any such thing. I've known him since grade school, and to the best of my knowledge, he's never tried to coerce anyone into sex or override consent. But as of this week, he's told me that he will not be alone with a woman unless he can record her actions and she's clearly aware that she's being recorded. He wants, he tells me, to put any woman he's alone with on notice that he's protecting his own interests.
I have pointed out to him that there are women who might-- very plausibly --regard the glasses themselves as harassment. I've pointed out that telling a potential partner why he's wearing the glasses isn't likely to make her feel like going to bed with him. But...for whatever reason, he's terrified that women are dangerous and likely to make false accusations just to show straight males how much they despise both straight men and straight cis male sexual skills and desires. I'm at least clear on that much-- he doesn't believe that women would make false accusations for any sort of financial payout, and he's not in any career-rivalry situation. He believes they'll do it for...sport, really. He believes they'd do it just to show how much they despise men.
Again, I've been his confidant and best friend since we were both six years old. He's probably quite mad, but he's not stupid and he is well-educated and remarkably well-read. He has a post-graduate degree in English Lit, and he's done graduate work in critical theory and psychoanalytic thought. He's quite capable of explaining his fears in long, well-constructed essays. Yes, written essays. I have a stack of letters from him about these things. Yes, he's quite mad, but my own particular fear is how rational he can sometimes sound.
Please do note that he's not always...grounded. He did go through a phase of telling me about the Lesbian Vampires were stalking him. It took me a while and several long phone conversations to realize that "Lesbian Vampires" wasn't some kind of metaphor. When he says Lesbian Vampires were stalking him, he means it very literally: actual lesbians who are actual vampires. Which is a pity, since when I thought he was being metaphorical, it was all a lot more amusing.
However crazy he may be, he can sometimes come near to a point. He doesn't actually get to a point, but sometimes you can see it in the far distance. I am afraid that he may be partially right-- partially --about how women despise male sexuality and male sexual skills. I can at least point to online essays and tweets and videos where women say those things. I'm not disposed to giving 100% credence to someone who makes Tik-Tok reels, but I'll grant that at least some women, somewhere, feel a deep, cold hostility towards male sexuality. And it is disturbing to think that you don't know where and how and when you might run into someone like that, even if the odds are very much against that.
I'm not about to buy Meta glasses and film anyone I'm on a date with so I could defend myself in court or in front of an HR review board. But I would like to think that there are ways to either avoid that kind of hostility or at least understand what I, as a mere cis straight male of the Paler Persuasion and a Certain Age, could do to avoid being judged by the standards of social media in the blighted year 2026.
