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I Had a Chance To Call Out a Man…And Failed
He stopped mid-conversation and I recognized the look of stupor on his face.
I cringed when the words came out of his mouth.
“Those are the amazing pair of tits I’ve ever seen.”
I’m not sure if I rolled my eyes enough for him to see, though I suppose even if I had, he wouldn’t have seen because he was so distracted.
“Turn around, look,” he said. “See for yourself.”
The fact I did is why I’m posting this piece.
I’ve covered enough ground in this space to articulate my thoughts on my friend’s behavior: it’s boorish, misogynist and socially unacceptable.
His comments, and the many more that followed over the course of our hour together, were disgusting, inappropriate, strange. They felt childish and immature. And made me really comfortable. I was taken aback by how much his words bothered me.
But his words bothered me far less than my own silence. As someone who has been thinking about and writing about the way men need to change their behavior, in actions and words, not just towards women but to each other, I was — am — embarrassed at my non-response.
My tolerance of his comments is just as socially unacceptable as the comments themselves.
