Best Of Vivek Shraya's "I'm Afraid of Men"

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from I'm Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya.

I’ve also witnessed gay men grabbing women’s breasts many times on the dance floor. When asked to stop, some have responded “Don’t worry, I’m gay. I'm not into girls.” […] Where is the line between supposed “playful touching” and grabbing women’s body parts as manifestation of hatred, if not exclusion? Why is this different or more acceptable than violence enacted by straight men? [...]This is because queerness is associated with freedom from boundaries. Thus, any boundary is inherently un-queer.

p.35

Despite my fears, I have often wished for male friends, a symptom of my enduring desire for kindness from men.

p.43-44

Even worse, I’m afraid of the necessity of eliciting pity in order to generate concern or to galvanize change.

p.59

Why is my humanity only seen or cared about when I share the ways in which I have been victimized and violated?

p.61

The pressure to be “good” is not exclusive to one gender, nor is it applied equally to all genders. To be clear, the stress on girls to be “good” far surpasses any stress men might feel to be “good”. This disparity is perhaps best exemplified by the fact that when a girl does something “wrong,” few mourn her goodness. We rarely hear, “I thought she was one of the good girls.” Women who behave “badly” are ultimately not given the same benefit of the doubt as men and are immediately cast off as bitches or sluts. 

p.62

Parsing and taking these specific characteristics, as oppose dot clinging to “good” as a universal and aspirational qualifier, proved to be instrumental. First, it allowed me to se that one of these characteristic didn’t necessarily cancel out the others, unlike “good” that must be relinquished if one does something “bad”. Second, letting go of “good” restored Nick’s humanity, as he was no longer forced to sit upon a superhuman pedestal. Third, it returned agency to me. Some “mistakes” are unforgivable, some are not. It was up to me to decide whether to forgive this time, and to act on my decision.

p.66

Although I pushed against traditional gender roles even when I was male, I still expected and accepted feminine labour even in my most intimate relationship.

p.69

The history and current state of Western masculinity is predicated on diminishing and desecrating the feminine. Therefore, a healthier masculinity must be one that honours and embraces femininity, as many non-Western cultures have long prescribed.

p.78