I can now say that I completely understand what it is like to be a woman. After what I have just seen online, I feel the fury, the humiliation of the often-objectified. As a man, I have always wondered what it’s like to feel like a piece of meat, candy for the lurid and leering eye. During my life, there have been many, but only brief instances where I was the object of the male gaze.
Once, in my mid-twenties I was whistled at while rollerblading along Isabella Avenue. At the time I was a little shocked by this unwanted cat-call, and to this day I am adamant about the kind of signals given off by rollerblades.
A few years later, just before a trip to Indonesia, I was hoping to get a free Hep-B vaccination at the Hassle-Free Clinic downtown. While in the waiting room another patient told me that I had rather “nice legs”. At the time I was a little annoyed. I thought to myself, “doesn’t this gentleman know that my legs, though rather nice, aren’t here for his entertainment?”
Now I could go on giving you other examples of myself as the unwilling sexual object, but I don’t want to come across as being vain… but I really should mention the time I stayed at a hostel out west.
After showing me my room, the owner patted me on my left bosom, remarked that I “had a nice chest”, then quickly left the room. I was aware that the owner was married and so thought nothing of the incident. Until the next day when he asked myself and a group of young guys if we had ever been “skinny dipping”. It was only then I realized I had been molested!
But what could I do? He was the owner of the hostel, and I was merely a young, straight male, strapped for cash. He had the power.
It is precisely this situation that led me to my recent discovery, and the revelation that ensued. You see, though I am making a lot more money these days, a healthy disposable income always seems to be just out of reach. And though I am no longer young, I am still straight, male, and pretty much strapped for cash. After an exhaustive but fruitless search for jobs online, I decided to try a shot in the dark and google the three adjectives that describe my situation. And lo and behold what misandry did I find!
I won’t give the owners of the website the satisfaction of more hits; its name already says enough:
Broke Straight Boys.
If that name alone doesn’t resonate with many of my male artist friends, just read the “testimonial” of one its powerless victims:
“End of the months are hard! After i pay my rent, my cell, and gifts for my girlfriend…I got nothing left for me! So well…i gotta do what i gotta do!!”
You are reading correctly. Poor straight men coerced into performing lurid acts for the delight of thousands of gay men. The manly cadence of the victim’s words and the fact that he admits to having a girlfriend should dispel any suspicions that he is just a gay actor, pretending to be a helpless straight male off the street.
I had always thought my personal experiences with sexual objectification were isolated incidents. After all, I’ve always been taught it is men who hold the power in society. It is men like me who wield the “male gaze”, and it is women who are the sole subject and object of all the amateur cameras filling the internet with porn. But with my discovery of popular websites like Broke Straight Boys, Straight Boys Caught on Tape, and derogatory slang words like “moose knuckle”, I as well feel the heated gaze burning through my clothes. I too have to ask my better half if my underwear line is showing and if my jeans are too tight.
You see, now I understand what Susan Falludi and Gloria Steinem were going on about. And so, I’ve told my wife that I’d better not find any pictures or videos of lithe young males on the computer, and that she shouldn’t make any more misandric comments about Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt, who are after all, just poor, powerless victims of the Gay-Triarchy. Besides, it is me she should be gazing at!
Men, burn your boxer-briefs!!
