Diplomacy

I was thinking about my last post (on the subject of wanting to take pictures of beautiful people), and something occurred to me. The problem with discussions on this topic (and similar topics - that, in a very broad sense, pit male sexuality against women's issues), is that it's just two sides yelling at each other.

On the one hand, you have this perception (because this is the argument being made by the complainants) that there are men blindly following their sexual compasses without concern for who gets "trampled underfoot". And on the other hand, you have women with legitimate concerns about their comfort, privacy, and sense of safety being violated.

The problem is the lack of a middle ground - a bridge between both shores. I sympathize with women's concerns - I truly do. But the argument is usually made in a way that casts men's very instincts (the same instincts that are partly responsible for the propagation of the species) as fundamentally bad.

Like, the fact that anybody would even want to have and to keep a visual representation of an attractive stranger they randomly encountered in public is not only unreasonable, but unthinkable to anyone but a degenerate worthy of utmost scorn. I don't feel that way.

I don't think that instinct is bad. I think that it's worthwhile to consider whether acting on that instinct is a good idea in any particular instance. At the end of the day, I would pursue a compromise between never doing it at all, and doing it always and without any consideration. But I still think the act of consideration is valid.

But at the same time, people shouldn't be made to feel guilty not just for their actions, but also for their unbidden desires and instincts, regardless of the conscious behaviors they ultimately choose to engage in (or prevent themselves from engaging in). That kind of animosity just grows the divide, rather than bridging it.

It creates resentment on both sides - men perceive women as reviling them (and their basest instincts), and therefore they revile women in return. This doesn't contribute to them giving women more consideration, but rather considerably less.

It sucks, and I know it doesn't feel like these kind of people deserve to be met halfway (consider also, though, all the people on the sidelines who are listening to what you're saying, and wondering - worrying - if it applies to them). But that's how diplomacy works.

You appeal to a person's better nature, working with them so they feel that you are on their side, in order to reach a compromise that everyone can live with. That's what's missing in this world today, that we are in dire need of, all across the board. Diplomacy. Not division.

Let's work together. We're all human, and our fates are intertwined.