@TxTom oof the amount of cases I could point you to in regards to what certain men do to women would make you squirm. I would much rather die then go through the abuse I endured by some men and what other women I personally know have gone through. Being sexually assaulted/raped while being stabbed, cut up, drugged, tortured, peed on, defecated on and soooooo much more…. Yea, give me death….
It's always Bear.
How every woman reading this thread doesn't immediately change her cuddling preference to women only, I don't understand.
Perhaps this thread should be stickied.
@TxTom I can’t speak for every woman, but the reason I love doing this job is because there are still amazing, cozy respectful men out there. And honestly, I’ve spent my whole life being catcalled, hit on, man handled, disrespected and treated like a piece of meat by men so when I get messages from men sending dick pics or saying disgusting sexual things to me, it’s just a regular Tuesday to me…. A lot of women are just naturally used to being treated like we aren’t humans in front of a lot of men. For the women who don’t deal with this or feel this way, I wish I could have that mentality where I don’t need to fear men. I wish. But the majority of women spend a large portion of theirs lives being groped, grabbed at, and straight up assaulted just for existing. So dealing with a handful of shitty gross men here is just a normal day to me.
@Sheena123 Most of us realize that you aren't saying all men are bad. You are speaking a truth that is not a reality for most men, so it is often dismissed and minimized .
peed on, defecated on
eww...
@pmvines 🌸💕🌸💕🌸
@Mike403 Lol!😊 I appreciate your "EW" response but the stories that I have read about here and elsewhere will make you go "double EW". Did you know that The Hillside Stranglers were injecting cleaning fluid into some of their victims (which were women😏) just to "see what would happen?". Seriously?😳 They just couldn't finish them off by stabbing them! Or shooting them!😒 No, let's inject ammonia or bleach into her instead! Smh...🙄🤦♀️
LOL! Bear please!👍
@Sheena123
Most of us realize that you aren't saying all men are bad.
Exactly THIS!^^👍 @pmvines And I appreciate you (and a few others) who are reading and realizing that. I was even a little hesitant when YOU FIRST MESSAGED ME over a year ago...Remember?😉😁
You didn't say or do anything wrong (or inappropriate) in your first icebreaker message, (Lol)but I still had my guard up with you.😁
there are still amazing, cozy respectful men out there.
I understand that. And I agree. There are a few good men out there.
If women only cuddle men they've already had successful cuddles with, that makes sense to me.
However, the premise of this thread is that women are literally better off encountering a 500-2000 lbs. wild bear that might maul them, and possibly kill them. While it's also been established that encountering a man will almost certainly result in a fate "worse than death."
So why would any woman who's aware of the aforementioned statistics ever risk a fate "worse than death" cuddling a strange man?
Any woman who reads this thread and then decides to only cuddle women, in my opinion, is making a completely logical decision.
@TxTom - I don't think cuddling a bear ever went well.
@TxTom I’m willing to cuddle men regardless of those statistics because I get to choose my environment. I meet them in public first. I have their name and picture. They are aware that I have safety contacts that have the address where we will cuddle. They know I have close relationships with police officers and have done my homework to ensure my safety. There’s a difference. Cuddling has a planned future while the statistics of men coming after women and doing horrible things is mostly unplanned, unexpected and in a sneaky way where we have no say.
We’re at a club, dancing with our girls. Someone spikes our drink. Or maybe we head to the washroom and suddenly get grabbed and pulled out the back door. Unexpected.
We’re going for a jog broad daylight. Can pulls over and quickly throws me in. Or someone shoves me into bushes and has their way with me quickly. Unexpected.
Staying the night at a family members house. Wake up in the middle of the night being raped by said family member. Unexpected.
With my cuddling, I have plenty of time to get my safety in check and make sure I’m not walking into traps and the person I’m cuddling knows my safety is important.
@TxTom Well I recall reading some women's comments, from other past discussion posts who DO choose to cuddle women only (WAY BEFORE this discussion post existed). 😊 They commented they prefer to cuddle women due to their deep traumatic past (as well as present) experiences with men as being the reason they choose to cuddle women. I can't recall which threads they were said in, but I remember seeing those comments. 😊
I get notices like this sent to my school email. It's baffling how common it is.
This thread will run forever. Because this argument will run forever. Because some men will never understand what it’s like to be vulnerable. To be completely at the mercy of another human, where a decision by them can change your life forever whether you like it or not. They will never get that concept.
There are no points in this game. There are no winners. Every woman that is raped drags all of us further into the abyss. But they will never understand because it will never affect them, the ‘not all men’ brigade.
Let me tell you something, it is the responsibility of EVERYONE, okay, including ALL men to identify and eliminate this cancer in our society. Do not absolve yourself of responsibility by ignoring the very real problem. In fact, I would say, if you can’t see the problem, you ARE the problem, because everyone not fighting is useless. If you remain silent, you are useless.
Sorry if that seems angry. Maybe more men should get angry at the men that rape. Maybe we should cry out, maybe we should kick, maybe we should be enraged at them for separating us from love in the minds of women.
@Mike403
I've been thinking a lot about this with the current big trial happening and the fact that so many men supported a person who made such disgusting comments and laughed them off as "locker room talk"
This is a very interesting comment. I would respond this way.
However, the "locker room talk" guy's support didn't have anything to do with his locker room talk, but instead with his projection of national strength, along with his unpredictable loose cannon persona on the world stage. These two things kept rogue nations, criminals, and terrorist organizations largely at bay.
For a few years there was relative stability on the world stage, unlike now with wars and lawlessness breaking out all over the place.
War, civil unrest, and lawlessness have the most detrimental impact on women and children. In the years since the "locker room talk" guy departed the scene, two wars have broken out. And sex trafficking in this country has increased by a hundredfold, at least.
Locker room talk is one thing. But willful negligence leading to thousands, if not millions, of new rape and assault victims is a whole other thing.
While I'm still catching up on this thread, I highly recommend folks take a wander over to X/Twitter and read some of the comment sections that happen as a reaction to women posting about this topic. THOSE are the real reason why this conversation is happening/needs to happen. It's not about the bear.
Edit to add as I catch up:
This TikTok creator breaks this concept and it's societal explanation down much more eloquently than I ever could:
https://www.tiktok.com/@brightblackhoney/video/7360800468110511392?_t=8m3LpxNlZFb&_r=1
@Runawaycuddles thank you for sharing this and explaining it. Sadly, it looks like several have let it fly over their heads.
It remains baffling to me that many men refuse to see the bear for what it is: rhetorical, and instead continue to try and argue about the logistics and relative encounter rates of men vs bears instead of listening to the lived experiences of women and validating those experiences by reflecting on their own actions and the actions of men they know and vowing to do and demand better.
@natickben what's even more frustrating to me is a) the women who invalidate other women's experiences because they haven't had the same, and b) the men who clearly know what the discussion is about but twist it to try to derail it towards their own agendas. Both of those groups I expect more of, I suppose unfairly, because I know they are capable of critical thinking and empathy and yet are actively choosing to turn them off for a topic that impacts a large portion of society.
Ooooo I have to bring this up because tiktok was metioned: A Black woman brought a question to black women: If you were a conference room/meeting, who would you choose to be stuck with, a white man or a white woman? (WM vs WW instead or M vs
Majority of black women picked white men And of course(at least for this particular comment section) the majority of white women became quickly hypocrites to a cause they were already pushing 😅
The reason I brought this up! Life is easier when you realized the overall humans are so uniquely hypocritical.
Have cuddles and cake instead 😋🍰
I've long known that the most dangerous animal on Earth walks on two legs (read "Starship Troopers" for an in-depth study of this). It's why I'm armed most everywhere that I go - I don't expect to encounter dangerous people everyday, but I know they're out there, and I've run into a few of them in my lifetime. Being armed made the difference a couple of times, at least long enough for police to get there and deal with the scumbags. In contrast, EVERY single encounter that I've had with a bear in the wild resulted in the bear turning away and leaving - sometimes frightened, sometimes just not interested. To be fair, the bears didn't surprise me, I could see them before we got close. Could be very different if the bear snuck up on me.
So, TLDR, I too would honestly rather encounter the bear in the woods vs a man. If nothing else, I could shoot the bear and not worry about being prosecuted for a crime.
But this brings to mind a related issue. My daughter and I use the local rec center quite often - it has workout rooms, swimming pools, etc. There's locker rooms for changing clothes & showering, and there's also a few private 'family' changing rooms. An incident involving an adult biological male going into the womens locker room prompted me to have my kiddo start using the private changing rooms (I stand outside the door to ensure nobody goes in there with her).
My reason for doing this is the same reason that women would rather encounter the bear.
I guess I would say, @TxTom re:
However, the "locker room talk" guy's support didn't have anything to do with his locker room talk,
That men-and I mean this not only in the political sense of this individual but in all contexts-who are willing to overlook the sexualization and endangering of women because they like something else about the person exposes their values.
There is a person in my mom's neighborhood. He regularly uses the "N" word, and even says that people of color are something less than human. He'll also help people take in groceries or whatever, so people in the neighborhood say "well I don't like it when it says that but he's really a good guy" and still invite him to cocktail hours and neighborhood parties where he continues to make racist comments everyone ignores.
That exposes their values.
When men say they will assault women and we still support them, we are exposing our values. When men sexualize women without their consent and we remain silent or worse engage and support, because that guy is a really good tax attorney or racquetball partner or TV show host, we expose our own values.
And those values almost always perpetuate the systems that lead to the choice of bear.
@natickben 👏👏👏
For the men complaining about how many threads "bash" men:
Start showing us that it's safer to not be one of you, and they'll disappear.
If it suddenly became socially unacceptable to express misogynistic views or to harass women; if men got shut down immediately by other men every. damn. time.; if it were no longer cool or funny to joke about violating consent; if victims were no longer treated like a problem and instead the violators were always the problem, held accountable, and the victims given proper support; if every conversation centered around women didn't have a flurry of "I see, but...." comments to follow from men who clearly did not see; if power imbalances were addressed and equitable treatment made a priority of group dynamics; if disagreements centered on topic and didn't turn to bad faith or brute force arguments; if men put their energy into learning and practicing social-emotional skills, critical thinking, gender dynamics, women's history, or heck even just active listening skills, instead of telling women how much we "bash" them....
Then absolutely, we'd be delighted to shut up. We'd actually be freakin ecstatic. The past 60+ years have been exhausting (100+ if we count since sufferage. Millenia, really, but let's just focus on the more recent "bashings", shall we?). We would love for men to finally step the eff up to the plate and stop acting like the victims of their own consequences.
if victims were no longer treated like a problem and instead the violators were always the problem, held accountable, and the victims given proper support;
I agree, that is defiantly an issue in this country in general: Squatters for example
I have to say, prior to popular belief. I don’t believe being wary of men is taught necessarily, I feel it’s a learned behavior. Sadly the amount of creepy men, or men who don’t respect women/boundaries outweighs the men who aren’t that way. So I understand why a woman would choose the bear. It’s based of not what she was “taught” but was she has EXPERIENCED. Don’t make the woman pick the bear, be a good human and she might pick the man one day.
This subject is everywhere 🫠 Online tab hopping and read some FtM perspectives
@JessArt88 not gonna lie, your posts sound like you’re saying that we should care more about the men seeing the woman flinch as opposed to the woman and her reasons for flinching. You are one of the reasons why it’s so hard for people to truly understand what MOST women go through.
I can see why men hate being seen as something to be feared, but the true men out there (like a good amount of men in these comments) understand that it isn’t an attack on men. That women flinch and have that fear because of experiences. You don’t have those experiences to give you those fears? Great. I’m happy for you. But the men that choose to victimize themselves right in the middle of a HUUUUUGE majority of women screaming out in pain is really pathetic. And you aren’t helping.
If we agree (and I do very much agree) that trans women are women, and trans men are men, all men carry the weight of the bad men.
Yes, for those of us who would never hurt anyone it can sting when people are suddenly afraid of us.
Forgive the coarse vernacular, but tough titties. I'm a BIG dude. When I encounter women like this, it is an Incumbent on ME to realize those reactions come from lived experience at the hands of people like me. Instead of taking it personally, I work to eradicate the conditions that cause that fear.
I mean, what a terrible take to think how much it hurts our feelings when women experience actual fear in our presence instead of taking simple steps like crossing the street, slowing down, popping into a store for a minute to create space, or other small actions that could help lighten that load.
Maybe we personally didn't cause it. But it doesn't negate it.
Do sharks get to feel sad in the ocean when everyone runs out onto the beach? Most sharks have never eaten a person after all.