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Here is a portion from one of the blog posts: After emerging from the Imagination Chamber, maybe you say: “Well, if somebody’s offended by something I say, that’s just because they’re too sensitive. If I were them, I would take it in stride.”
Would you? I’m not sure you would. But even if that were true, it doesn’t matter. You are NOT them. And you demonstrate a shocking lack of empathy and imagination by being unable to place yourself in their shoes, to feel what it might be like to be them, to be subject to the torrents of abusive crap somebody like Jen, somebody like your girlfriend, somebody like your sister, somebody like your mom, has to put up with on an hourly basis.
If you find yourself saying “You’re too sensitive” a lot then it is entirely possible that you are, in fact, being a jerk.
You have exactly zero control over how “sensitive” other people are. But you have one hundred percent control over how much of a jerk you are. You do not have to share absolutely everything that is on your mind.
Not sharing absolutely everything that is on your mind all the time does not make you “not true to yourself” or “a pussy.” It makes you a human being. It makes you a citizen.
But let’s say you DO say something to a woman and she finds it offensive, so you say, “Hey, cool out, I still think you’re hot!” Or some variation on that theme. This is not a compliment. In fact, it is hard for me to think of a scenario in which this wouldn’t end up being more insulting than whatever the initial jerky thing you said was.
Essentially what you’re saying is, “The insulting thing I just said to you is NOT insulting because I still want to have sex with you. I still hold a low opinion of you, still feel the way I claimed to feel by insulting you, but I would also put my penis in your vagina, and so you’re not not allow to feel the way I caused you to feel.”
If I need to explain why that is an awful message to send to another human being, then you are lost, my friend.
Would you? I’m not sure you would. But even if that were true, it doesn’t matter. You are NOT them. And you demonstrate a shocking lack of empathy and imagination by being unable to place yourself in their shoes, to feel what it might be like to be them, to be subject to the torrents of abusive crap somebody like Jen, somebody like your girlfriend, somebody like your sister, somebody like your mom, has to put up with on an hourly basis.
If you find yourself saying “You’re too sensitive” a lot then it is entirely possible that you are, in fact, being a jerk.
You have exactly zero control over how “sensitive” other people are. But you have one hundred percent control over how much of a jerk you are. You do not have to share absolutely everything that is on your mind.
Not sharing absolutely everything that is on your mind all the time does not make you “not true to yourself” or “a pussy.” It makes you a human being. It makes you a citizen.
But let’s say you DO say something to a woman and she finds it offensive, so you say, “Hey, cool out, I still think you’re hot!” Or some variation on that theme. This is not a compliment. In fact, it is hard for me to think of a scenario in which this wouldn’t end up being more insulting than whatever the initial jerky thing you said was.
Essentially what you’re saying is, “The insulting thing I just said to you is NOT insulting because I still want to have sex with you. I still hold a low opinion of you, still feel the way I claimed to feel by insulting you, but I would also put my penis in your vagina, and so you’re not not allow to feel the way I caused you to feel.”
If I need to explain why that is an awful message to send to another human being, then you are lost, my friend.
“But,” you say, “I didn’t mean the first thing I said as an insult! IT WAS A JOKE.”
There are jokes and there are “jokes.” And the thing that separates jokes from “jokes” is that “jokes” aren’t jokes, no matter what your intention.
There are jokes and there are “jokes.” And the thing that separates jokes from “jokes” is that “jokes” aren’t jokes, no matter what your intention.
I have in no way experienced the volume of awful things slung my way that many (or, I honestly have to assume, all) of my female colleagues have, but I’ll get maybe three or four mean things said to me on the Internet a week. Which, now that I just wrote it down, sounds like that one day of World War I where they didn’t fight, they just played soccer in No Man’s Land because it was Christmas. But it happens to me occasionally.
-D.C. Pierson
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