Museum of Toxic Masculinity

This weekend, I decided to adventure a little bit. What's the point in living in the greatest city (NYC) in the world if all I ever do is work. So I walked through Central Park, had my music on and enjoyed myself. Then I thought, what the hell, I should go to the Museum of Sex. Every time I've been there, it has been a treat-and-a-half. And what's better is that since I write erotic stories/books, I would be inspired, and I could write the trip off on my taxes at the end of the year. There is an exhibit they have going right now that is called "The Female Gaze." Since I had learned about the "Male Gaze" in Film class (Thanks, Prof. Kendall!), I was interested to see what they were going to do with it from a female's perspective. I learned that and a whole lot more.

There was this douchebag, and believe me, I do not use that term casually. He was with a female, who I pray was not his girlfriend because that would just be horrible. This guy had an opinion on everything. When you walk in, there are pictures of men in traditionally "female" poses. He thought that was disgusting.

"No one wants to see a man's dick. No one!" He cried out. It took all of my willpower to correct him. There was a picture of a lady on a couch, to which he said was gross because "she's fat, and her boobs don't even look real." When I tell you that this man was no Taylor Swift (i.e. very thin) you should not be surprised.

The worst and most egregious offense though came near the end of the exhibit. There is a statue of a lady, who is naked. He again complained about the woman being overweight and how unattractive it is. His female companion (playfully) said something like, "you're just mad because she wouldn't have sex with you." Yes, I cleaned up the language a bit. His response sent chills down my spine.

"Any one woman would be lucky to have my seed in them. They need to do what I tell them to." WHAT? The security guard, who happened to be a female, and I exchanged looks. I don't know what happened after because I rushed to the next exhibit.

Why did his statement upset me so? It seems to be a trend with young men under a certain age now. They think they are God's gift to women and they should be worshipped for just being alive. A former friend of mine told me once that he expected his wife to be barefoot, pregnant, and waiting on him, hand and foot. When I told him that this wasn't the 1950's and things had changed, he informed me that if she wasn't, she would not be his wife for long. It was an ominous statement, one that I wondered but never asked what he meant. Why would any self-respecting lady want to be a part of that? The females in my life, I know for a fact would not put up with that.

After a drunken night out on the town, I decided to look up what exactly I had encountered during my trip to the museum. Was it just typical douchebaggery? A one-off thing, where maybe I was just being a little too sensitive? After all, the female companion didn't seem bothered by his comments. After going through many, many of Google's suggested pages, I learned that it was toxic masculinity. A concept that men don't have emotions, that they should be in charge, etc. There's no denying that this is exactly what I witnessed on Saturday.

How prevalent is this? I started to keep an eye and ear out for this. It permeates almost every aspect of life. On the subway, a guy in a suit was on his phone and these actual words left his mouth, "What does she know? She's a woman for God's sake!" He realized that he was being listened to and changed the subject. Another man bragged about the degrading things he "made" his wife do the night before. Sorry dude, I don't want to hear about your sex life, even secondhand, before I've had my first cocktail. And even then, I cannot imagine any time when it's okay to brag in public about those things.

To the men reading this, it's okay to treat a woman as an equal. In fact, if you want a decent relationship with a good lady then I suggest you do that. There's no reason to treat them as a slave or sex object unless you want to be treated that way.