When sexism comes from a friend

Hello everyone, my name is Carolina and this is my first post here. I’m 19 years old, I’m Italian and I’m currently studying Journalism at City University, London. I came to know about Feministing.com after a competition at my University, where some friends presented Jessica Valenti as their journalist idol. That made me read “He’s a stud, she’s a slut” and check out the website.

I’ve always considered myself a feminist and there are many ideas about women in my country that just drive me crazy. This is why I’ve decided to write this post. Caitlin Moran, British journalist author of “How To Be A Woman” ( read it if you haven’t done that yet, it has become my Bible!) , wrote in her book that we should realise when there’s some sexism going on by asking ourselves the question: “Are men doing this?”, “Is this done to men, too?”. Well, something happened to me that made me wonder. My answer was NO.

I’m really angry because what I’m about to write really hurts. And it hurts because it comes from someone I really love, my best friend (a guy). Well, one is supposed to talk about everything with his or her best friend, right? Well, apparently not. Not in my country at least. Because when my male best friend talks about his sex adventures (quite in detail) I’m not THAT interested. But I listen, because he’s my best friend. However, if I dare to talk about MY sex life with my best friend, his answer is: “It’s just horrifying, the way you let yourself get fucked”. EXCUSE ME???

Why it really hurts? Because not even a guy who should love me, a guy who knows who I am, doesn’t understand that sex is something made by TWO people. It’s not something DONE TO YOU. How naive of me to think that women can enjoy sex as well! Instead, we just get fucked.

It’s really selfish of him to make me listen to his sex life but to be horrified about mine (which is not that interesting, I assure you). His comments are offensive. But what makes me even sadder is that even his great mind has been overcome by our culture. Our wonderful, classic, millenary culture says that women can’t enjoy sex. That they’re not equal to men, that they can’t look for “no strings attached”. Because if they do, they’re either being used or being fucked, hence, they’re whores. Girls can’t have fun.

Now, I’m not the kind of girl that just whines about what’s wrong without looking for a solution. That’s why I wrote this post: because I am angry and sad, but also because I want people to know that something wrong happened. I want people to get angry like I am now and do something about it. Personally, I’ve already started arguing with my friend. Hope it will help!

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

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