SS 241: Men, We Need To Talk.

Hey fellow men... Dylan here. I want to take a moment to express a little sympathy. It can be incredibly hard out there to be a man. We're living in an age inspired by the speed of the internet. Our goalposts of acceptability and common respectability on social issues and on how we relate to others in the world change what seems like weekly at times. Our perception of our gender as a responsibility hasn't kept up with the evolution of gender as identity and of sexuality as more fluid than we were ever told was possible.

We are being forced to resolve the changes in the world with what we think of as our masculine role, equality means a shift in power, equity means a shift in resources, and the things we've always been taught to be afraid of are popping up all around us.

It doesn't mean we have to be dicks about all of it.

So.

Coop and I spent the last hour talking a lot about how women experience harassment and navigate rape culture and I'm 100% conscious about how a couple of dudes talking about women can come off... but out of 241 episodes... I thought we could take a little time to sit down with our fellow men and level.

Women largely get ignored by men and it sucks. Nothing Cooper and I said should be eye-popping or a surprise but... I guarantee we might have turned a few of your heads or noses while we chatted, gender notwithstanding and I'm hoping that some of that coming from us might make it more likely for some of you to help others listen to women. The women of the Swingset are putting together an episode (or two) to discuss topics from this episode... and probably point out how a couple dudes talking about women's experiences got it wrong. That's ok, we'll own that. Until that comes out I wanted to put a spotlight on a few people. Writer and Filmmaker De La Fro posted an article titled "No, You Are Not a Nice Guy" that really disassembles the male entitlement / transactional nature of what some guys call "being a nice guy" There are some damn wonderful people on everydayfeminism.com and I found a three minute spoken word piece by contributor Desiree Dallagiacomo and Mwende Katwiwa aka: FreeQuency titled "American Rape Culture" that illustrates just how insidious the language of rape culture has been in popular music. Our own Crista Anne, our rainbow-colored pleasure revolutionary, through her mission to reclaim her orgasms ended up enduring an intense and sustained amount of harassment for daring to speak loudly and unapologetically. She writes about that harassment at cristaanne.com/harassment. Ella Dawson has dared to write and speak about her experiences navigating sexuality with herpes and how as a result of that she's also endured sustained harassment. She posted an article, "Everything 2015 Taught Me About Harassment" that really puts a fine point on it. We spend a lot of time on the Swingset breaking out our experiences so you can learn from the journey. We aren't filtering what we're going through and neither are these women and there's value in it. They're unapologetic, they're strong, they deserve to be listened to. That they're speaking uncomfortable truths and they're laying the raw filth of mysogyny out for all of us to see. It doesn't make it complaining... it makes it necessary You know you can always write us at contact@lifeontheswingset.com and leave us a voicemail at 573-55-swing, that's 573-557-9464.

We introduced today's fireside man-chat with Varien - Seduction.

Cooper S Beckett Dylan Thomas