I went to see a friend’s band play this afternoon.  One of his bandmates told me it was “dangerous” to wear my [simple summer] dress around him because he was a breast man.  The other one told me I “wasn’t thin enough to be a vegetarian” when I declined the pizza he offered. 

These were grown ass men in their 60s-70s.  This kind of shit is a daily occurrence for me.  I can’t post a basic selfie without getting randos DMing me nasty shit.  Every man I befriend ends up having an ulterior motive. Every. Single. One. 

Let me be frank: this kind of attention does not feel good.  It’s not a compliment.  I’m a human being with thoughts and hopes and dreams and feelings.  Men don’t want to KNOW me; they just want to commodify my fucking body. 

So, YES. ALL MEN. You need to get your collective shit together and STOP. And when women like me say we hate males, shut the fuck up and maybe think about WHY. 

(To be clear, not at any point did I feel unsafe or afraid - and I truly don’t think either of those men meant any harm. But that’s the problem.  The visual consumption of female bodies has been so rampant that I can’t even EXIST in any kind of public space without men assuming I am sexually available to them because of my natural body type.)