Roe: On Trump and Locker Rooms, and on Open Relationships

By now, you, like most of the Western world, will be aware of Donald Trump’s infamous remarks made in 2005 while on a press bus.

Trump, speaking to now-suspended NBC host Billy Bush, bragged about kissing and groping women without their consent – otherwise known as sexual assault. He bragged about the privilege that let his actions remain unpunished, and started objectifying women as Bush laughed along and agreed.

The tape was released, and the world pretended to be shocked that a man who has repeatedly and explicitly demeaned women, as well as shown the most extreme prejudice against people of colour, Muslims and people with disabilities, could say such things.

In a statement during Sunday night’s second presidential debate, Trump characterised his comments as “locker room talk”. Immediately, professional athletes, politicians – both Republican and Democrat – and individuals on social media all started objecting to this, stating that their “locker room talk” never includes threats of sexual assault.

Men across the globe rushed to defend their gym changing rooms, promising that they just talk about back aches and football in this sacred space.

Now, to state an obvious point, Trump wasn’t in a locker room. He was on a bus. And you know, out in the world every other goddamn time he made a sexist remark.

By using the phrase “locker room”, he was pretending that while there are certain physical spaces where some men engage in misogynistic language, that these comments and attitudes don’t move beyond the threshold of those spaces, that they stay there. This is a lie.

But the faux outrage that a known misogynist made misogynistic remarks, the pretence that what he said was unique and unimaginable, and the rush to defend literal locker rooms, as if that’s the issue? These are also lies.

American Republicans and Irish anti-repealers who support anti-choice legislation; professional American athletes who work in an industry riddled with rape and domestic violence; the Democratic candidate who slut-shamed a 22-year-old woman to the point of suicide, but protected the husband who had sex with her; anyone who has ever laughed – even uncomfortably – while you listened to misogynistic language?

You do not get to pretend to be shocked, and you do not get to pretend that these sexist conversations only happen in locker rooms – but not YOUR locker rooms.

I wish I didn’t have to state the obvious, but this isn’t about Trump, it’s not about America, and it’s not about your bloody locker room.

“Locker room” is a stand-in for how some men talk and behave when women are not there. It’s a metaphor for a truth that was widely acknowledged before this week: that men-only spaces are more likely to be homes to overtly objectifying or misogynistic rhetoric, because the men are not being monitored or censored or held accountable for their words by women.

It’s “boys will be boys”, the implication being that men around other men will be stupid or misogynistic or violent – and will not be held accountable.

The “locker room” is the opposite of the Hawthorne effect, which is that people will change their behaviour because they know they are being observed. In the “locker room”, men don’t think they’re being observed, so act more freely.

If you think that that definition means that any space in the world could become a so-called “locker room”, you would be right. And this is the problem with all the outrage over literal locker rooms and our belief that Donald Trump is somehow unique, and thankfully contained in America.

The truth is that the world is men’s locker room. It’s brimming with men like Trump and Billy Bush, and pretending it’s not isn’t helping anything.

Boys get to be boys every day, everywhere, in Ireland too, because – and I’ll print it big for the cheap seats in the back – WE LIVE IN A RAPE CULTURE WHERE THIS SHIT HAPPENS EVERY GODDAMN DAY – and pretending to be shocked by Trump is letting us ignore this.

Does that sound extreme? I don’t care. Because you know what sounds even more extreme to me? The fact that one in four women will be sexually assaulted within her lifetime.

The fact that I’m one of the one in four.

The fact that I’ve literally lost count of how many female friends of mine are ones of the one in four.

The fact that most of these women didn’t report their attacker, and I never even considered it, because we knew – not thought, knew – that nothing would come of it.

We knew that because of the fact that in Ireland, a man can confess to rape, like Magnus Meyer Hustvit, or sexual assault, like millionaire Anthony Lyons, and still walk away with only a light sentence.

The fact that if a man is convicted of sexual assault in Ireland, people might line up in court to shake his hand, and let the victim know they don’t believe she deserved justice.

The fact that last year, my ex-boyfriend’s friend rated two women out of ten in front of me. I called him on it, and was later told that this guy was “scared of me”, as if being a woman who openly criticizes men for objectifying other women in front of her is scarier than they fact that he felt comfortable doing it did in the first place – or that my ex-boyfriend stayed quiet.

The fact that within the past year, I’ve been followed home by a strange man, my heart pounding, with 9-1 already dialed on my phone – and that this wasn’t uncommon.

The fact that within the past two months, Irish male journalists I know have asked famous men if looking at their female collaborators gave them erections, and they all laughed – safe in the knowledge that there were no women in the room, but unashamed enough to know their comments would be public. Again, my criticism of this was met with anger, and defensiveness, and assertions that “other people thought it was funny”.

The fact that literally last week, I went on a date with a man getting a PhD in psychology. He started laughingly telling me about his “weird” friend who sends his mates photos of him having sex with women. When I spluttered on my drink, and pointed out that I doubted all the women knew and consented to having these photos shared, my date shrugged. Shrugged. It hadn’t even occurred to him.

The fact that in San Francisco, the supposed city of enlightened liberalism and sex positivity, I experience catcalling roughly 10 times a week. It’s literally a part of my daily routine. When I have the energy to confront the men, they usually fob me off with insincere apologies just to get me to leave – and as I walk away, there’s invariably a mumbled comment made among the group, and their laughter follows me.

The fact that I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been called a whore and a cunt by men on dating sites when I don’t respond to their messages.

The fact that I am an outspoken, unabashed feminist, the people I know, work with and date know this, and still I see and hear these constant forms of misogyny constantly. Pretending that this sexist rhetoric doesn’t exponentially increase when people aren’t aware of my presence would be naiveté of the highest degree.

And so pretending that because you and your close friends haven’t said anything as explicit as Trump has means that rape culture and misogyny aren’t actually as bad as his personal iterations of them is a lie.

It’s a lie that can only maintain itself by ignoring the constant, never-ending chorus of women telling you that this shit happens to us every day, that men degrade us and objectify us and touch us and rape us every goddamn day. If you need an introduction, here: it’s a link to thousands of women who shared their stories of being assaulted.

What the women who shared their stories illustrated is that we have a choice of what to do with the conversation that has been started by the Trump bus tape. We can actually start talking about how misogynistic language, rape culture, apologism and Billy-Bush-style complicity continue to permeate every inch of our culture and affect women’s lives on a daily basis.

Or we can continue to deny this by pretending that Trump’s comments were uniquely disgusting and rare, lap up the media coverage of one man and his “locker room” talk, and feel oh-so-good about ourselves.

Dear Roe,

I recently fell in love with a man for the first time in my life, and as luck would have it, I really saw myself spending the rest of my life with him. Seven months in, and he basically sits me down and says that he is madly in love with, knows we’re perfect together, but isn’t done “being single”.

From my time spent with him, he had always surrounded himself with friends who were in open relationships. One of our biggest issues over that time was that his very best friend was someone who was a regular fuck buddy, and my ex had partaken in three ways with him and his partner on occasion.

From the very beginning I’d always stressed that I would never be capable of being in an open relationship – no judgement on my behalf, I’m just not mentally equipped to deal with one – but since the break up, the number of guys on dating apps who say they are in one is startling.

Is this just the way of the gay community is now? If I love someone with all my heart, do I have to be prepared to share from the get-go?

I feel if I’d been willing to try one out with my now ex, things might have gone differently, might have lasted longer, but I know I wouldn’t have been happy. Getting over the break-up is proving to be very difficult, and the apparent lack of monogamous men out there is making it even harder to think about the prospect of starting again in a potential new relationship.

Darling Reader,

I feel for you.

Dating today can be a Scooby-Doo-worthy series of men in masks, haunted houses of emotional baggage, and, of course, a creepy janitor or two. Just this weekend I bemoaned to a friend that I just wanted a spoiler for dates: this guy will be boring, this one will cheat, this one will do the fuck-and-fade, this one will be worth all the others.

I also feel for you because loving someone feels like it should be enough, but often, it isn’t, and that feels so unfair. Loving someone doesn’t make them the person you’re meant to be with forever.

But, importantly, a relationship ending doesn’t your time or love was wasted. It’s a cliché for a reason: you always learn something.

You learned that you’re ready and willing to fall for the right person and commit to them, and that’s a glorious thing. You know what you want in a relationship, and what you’re capable of giving.

It sounds like you ex learned something too: that he still has limits for what he’s ready to give to a relationship, in terms of time or commitment. And that’s okay too.

I know you wanted your lessons to line up in a more synchronistic fashion, and it hurts like hell that they didn’t, but even that is another lesson. The guy you end up with forever? He’s going to be a guy who wants to end up with you forever.

Which makes me wonder if you were ignoring some flags in your relationship.

First of all – and forgive me if I’m interpreting this wrong – but it doesn’t sound like your ex left you to be in an open relationship. He left you to be single. These are not synonymous, so I’m not sure why you’re conflating the two.

Secondly – and again, interpretation is at play here – when you describe “the biggest issue” in your relationship, it sounds like your ex’s dalliance with his fuck buddy and the threesomes happened before your relationship, not during, so I’m not really sure why they were causing issues between you and him.

Was your own insecurity and jealousy affecting the relationship even though your ex was being faithful? Or was your ex crossing boundaries during the relationship? If so, this brings us to the subject of open relationships, and my third concern: that you actually had the spoilers all along.

You say you had to “stress” that you weren’t ever going to be comfortable with an open relationship, which indicates that he may have been hinting or openly expressing that he wanted one. I’ve known many people who had open relationships then settled down into a monogamous relationship with someone else and have been happy. And of course there are people who have had monogamous relationships in the past who then tried open relationships.

I know far fewer people who have entered relationships when one person wanted to be monogamous and the other wanted to be open that have turned out well. It marks both a fundamental divide on a core relationship value, and the futile hope that the other will change their mind – or be changed by you.

I think people can change – not completely, but we evolve and grow. But it comes from the individual, not someone else. You can’t control that, and you certainly can’t base an entire relationship on the expectation that you can control that – and expect not to end up heartbroken and disappointed.

So when you say you had to stress that you couldn’t be in an open relationship, I’m wondering if you entered a relationship with a man who told you he couldn’t be monogamous long-term, knowing that you couldn’t be non-monogamous long-term, and are now wondering why it didn’t work out long-term?

So sayeth Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are? Believe them, the first time.”

This, my dear, is a lesson. And it’s not an uncommon one. Who hasn’t been in a relationship where the other person has warned us they weren’t looking for anything serious and then we were heartbroken when they didn’t get serious about us?

We’ve all been there. And we all go through the process of learning (sometimes again, and again) that you can’t make someone love you the way you want; you can only figure out if the way they love you is the way you want to be loved.

And so, to answer your question, no. This isn’t how it’s just going to be from now on. You’re not going to “love someone with all [your] my heart”, all the while “prepared to share from the get go”.

Because the next time a beautiful man tells you that he can’t be monogamous, you are going to take your monogamy-needing heart elsewhere. Or you may take your monogamy-needing heart and wrap it in bubble-wrap for a bit and sleep with the beautiful man a few times, or date him for a few weeks, because that can be fun.

Learn some more lessons, some new ones, some short ones, some fun ones. But once you feel your heart start panging, and he tells you again that he doesn’t want to be monogamous, you’re going to leave. Because you’ve already learned this lesson.

You’ve learned that by telling you he doesn’t want a monogamous relationship, he’s telling you that he can’t love you the way you want to be loved. You’re also telling him that you can’t love him the way he wants to be loved. So, for the sake of both your hearts, you’ll leave.

As for all gay men being in open relationships? No, not all of them. A good few, sure. But there are also loads of wonderful guys looking for a great, monogamous boyfriend.

Finding them means you have to date. And dating SUCKS. It sucks more now because you’re recovering from a break-up. It’ll get easier, I promise. Remember how much dating sucked before you met your ex? You survived that, and found someone you loved. It’ll happen again.

It’ll also get easier as you get a bit older. I’m guessing you’re in your twenties/early thirties, which means that many of the men you want to date may have only been out a decade, less – much less time than most straight people get to explore their sexuality and date.

So a lot of guys your age are catching up. Scholar Judith Halberstam calls this “Queer Time”; a personal timeline for some LGBT people that operates differently to our usual Western heteronormative ideal of “date in teens, sexually explore early twenties, date seriously in mid-late twenties, marriage & kids in thirties”.

Refused the opportunity to openly explore sex and relationships in their teens and twenties because of homophobia, some LGBT people date and have sex casually and have non-monogamous relationships later than straight people, before then setting down.

Not everyone, obviously – many of the gay guys in open relationships now will remain in open relationships, and that’s fine. Whatever works for them.

The issue is that you need to look for what works for you. You have to stick with that, even when confronted with a beautiful man who makes you think, “He doesn’t want what I want, but some day, he COULD.”

The ones who know they could one day be monogamous will tell you. The ones who know they can’t will probably tell you, too. Both of them may change their mind, but because you can’t know that, you can only believe what they say about who they are right now.

Finally, I have to point out that your very first sentence answered the big underlying fear in your question, the question we all ask after a serious break-up: will I find someone to love again?

Your first sentence reads “I recently fell in love with a man for the first time in my life.” The first time. Not the only, not the last. The first. You’ve already given me the spoiler; you have told me that you’re a man who will find love again.

I believe you.