I know you weren't. But Cringelord's initial post implied it would be better if women were to be blamed more, that that would somehow make it more fair.
Ahh. I hadn't caught those undertones from Anaximander, so I thought you were referring to my response.
EDIT: I keep forgetting and referring to him as Anaximander (his old username). Oops.
I do think that when figuring out what is going on in such a delicate situation such as... dead bedrooms (or sexuality at all) it would be helpful to first and foremost not approach it from a POV of
"Okay, whose fault is this one? Who is to blame?" - a lot of the knee-jerk 'downvoted to oblivion' responses Anaximander mentions seems to stem from that- from assumptions and the need to blame. Assigning blame purely off ... societal stereotypes instead of the facts of the matter is simply not factual/objective, though I had somehow missed that it would also be a morally and emotionally cruel thing to do. Ah, me.
(If I thought about it, I would come to that conclusion, but it's not what comes to mind first.)
I don't think that going for the jugular (especially when not based off the facts of the actual situation) would be fair. Tying this to a quote which I unfortunately could not find- it is one that explains the essence/spirit of Feminism, which is
not to invert the power structure, but level the playing field. It's not about
"Women should be allowed to punch men too, and if women can punch men, men can punch women too, thus making it fair," - when you do so, you just burn both parties. I don't think the view that someone should be torn down (especially violently or in an antagonising manner) to level the playing field is fair.
That, and can you blame someone for ignorance? How far can you? That is another can of worms in entirely. Buddhism says ignorance (of any and all kinds) is a sin- especially wilful ignorance. I think a more judicious stance would be something somewhere in the middle; you can understand and forgive where they came from and understand that you two were failed by your school, your parents, your society, and ended up hurting each other. It remains that this is an extremely unfortunate aspect of life where mistakes can hit really, really personally and really, really hard, leaing people to aggressive and at times, even intolerant states. Such as blindly downvoting people who disagree in Reddit threads as well, I suppose.
Even if we had all that, it can still take time for people to figure out who they are and want they want. In addition, those things can change. The world isn't perfect.
It can only help. It won't prevent pain, but it would lessen it, as well as hasten the progress at which one discovers who they are, even if it does change later.
There really is no reason for people to stay ignorant anymore- no reason to not teach them and no reason they shouldn't know that these things exist. I'm not counting people who are ignorant not by choice but by circumstance- I remember I was a teen before I found out about gay people and
even then it took me longer than it should for it to register that
"Oh wow. This isn't some clown joke/edgy shock meme. These people actually exist." There was no hatred, but my puzzlement was something like if I heard someone chose to eat giant African snails and only snails and raw and only at 2AM when the tide is high.
"What?? But why?????" - it was so novel and alien.
(Warning to not google giant African snails)
Thank hecking god I didn't end up a bigot. More like
"This is so weird. This is so strange. How would that even work?" and even then it would've still been an insensitive way to react to someone who is gay. I shiver at the thought. I
wish it was something I had been introduced to sooner.