So, a male-identified person writes a private message to a person perceived to be female on FetLife. The message contained “five paragraphs of sympathetic empathizing in response to a piece I [the female-perceived person] wrote […] and ended with an offer to be there for me if I ever needed anyone to reach out to. And was then followed by a paragraph—and then another message—hitting on me, telling me that I got his panties wet, and asking me out on a date.”

If you need to be convinced that this happens a lot, don’t bother reading further. If, on the other hand, you can already recognize that this interaction paradigm is emblematic of (and active cooperation with) rape culture, you might be moved to write about how angry that makes you. Perhaps you’d write something like this:

[The message I got] was a really perfect encapsulation of casual rape culture as it plays out in flirting—assumptions that I wanted to hear all about how I turned him on, unsolicited advice, suggesting when and how we might meet (next week, and dinner), and exactly zero regard for how I might feel about all of this. And, frustratingly, this came from a person who seemed geeky, educated and submissive—someone I might actually want to get to know.

So I wrote him back. It’s not the most polished response, but I was angry, having recently had a lot of discussions around this exact subject in real life. I’m not publishing the original message because I don’t want to violate this person’s privacy, but I do quote it in my response.

Then, since you wrote it on the Internet, the person who you never identified directly writes to you again and asks you to remove your writing because you “violated” their privacy:

I’m being asked to take down the thread “On Flirting and Rape Culture”, because the person who corresponded with me originally feels their privacy was violated. Can I ping you for some advice? My instinct tends towards conciliatory and wants to take it down, but I’d really appreciate hearing your thoughts.

How should you respond? This is actually a question I get a lot. It’s also one I’ve faced, myself, a lot since I tend to write things on the Internet that call out oppressive behavior and that make the people who have behaved in those (even unintentionally) oppressive ways very uncomfortable.

That’s the point. Whenever this happens, the person you’re writing about (but not identifying) is probably feeling pretty bad, which is actually how they should feel after doing something that cooperates with systematically indoctrinated cultural norms that are responsible for the sexual assault of billions of people. So, lacking an ability and desire to take a hard look at what just happened, they just want the awful feeling to go away. They reach for the first thing they’re familiar with that they think will make that happen: the “my privacy was violated” trope. They do this to silence you.

They try silencing you even while you’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. You didn’t even publish their message (something I do routinely, because I have the [male] privilege to stay relatively safer while not being a nice person). The post you wrote is not about the other person, but they know who they are.

This is the equivalent of an interruption of oppression that makes the person feel bad for being oppressive. Think of it this way:

• Person A uses busted language.
• Person B says, “When people use busted language…” instead of saying “Person A used busted language.”
• Person A, in an in-person scenario, would know that Person B is referring to them, but would not say anything about it because the moment has passed and they can’t “undo” what was done. However, because this happened online, they want to have an “undo” and, since even though none of the people engaging in the discussion know who they are, Person A feels like they do know. The fact that there is not enough information from the reader’s perspective to correlate that data is irrelevant to the emotional impact from Person A’s point of view. Therefore, they ask you to take down your post, erasing the record of what happened in the eyes of future others.

That’s where the motivation to ask you to take such writing down is usually coming from. However, the only language most people have to express that motivation is to use the framework of “privacy violation.” In fact, that’s an inaccurate interpretation of what happened, even while it’s certainly a valid emotional response in many specific cases.

Therefore, if I were feeling especially generous (which is rare in such examples), I’d respond to the request with something along the lines of the following text:

I understand you feel as though some information about you has been revealed to others and you think I am the person who revealed these facts or behavioral traits. The fact of the matter is that the commenters to my post do not know who you are because I did not provide salient identifying details in my post about our exchange. I was, in fact, careful to protect your privacy.

So while I hear your concern, I invite you to consider that it is an unfounded one and not one that will have a direct negative impact on you, personally. Moreover, since my post was about my own response to our interaction, not about you or your message, it is not acceptable to me to be asked to remove my post. I have the right to publicize what I feel and I am choosing to exercise that right. If this makes you uncomfortable, perhaps taking a closer look at why my post makes you uncomfortable would ease your discomfort.

Sincerely,
-maymay

I’d then also create a backup copy of the thread in case other people intervene in a way that would remove the post. And yes, I’d then republish it elsewhere if The Powers That Be choose not to let your post stay published in their jurisdiction.

The bottom line is that, if you were waiting for permission to speak out, you have it. And you do get to break The Rules to do it. In fact, if you never break the rules, whether those are terms of use contracts, social niceties, or other codes of conduct, you’re always going to remain silent because The Rules are not there to protect you, they’re there to shut you up.

So, break the rules. Don’t let anyone (even and perhaps especially yourself) guilt you into feeling bad about it. And if someone does try that shit, tell them to take it up with me, ‘cause I’ve got your back.