I’m Doing My Job If I Challenge Your Preconceptions
By: Elle Beau
Tags: Debate, Society, Writing, This Happened To Me

But that still doesn’t mean that it’s an easy role to play

Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash

My profile description says that I “dispel cultural myths with research-driven stories,” and indeed that’s what I spend the vast majority of my time on Medium doing. Quite often we, as a society, are still bought into old concepts of how the world works that are demonstrably off-base. I like to take a look at those, research them from a variety of sources, and see how much is actually founded in facts, reality, truth, or something in that neighborhood. Then I share my findings.

For instance, there’s a widely held perception that if a woman has been raped, she will do everything in her power to avoid being around her attacker again. The reality is, this often isn’t the case at all, due to the complexity of how the human psyche deals with trauma. It’s counterintuitive, and it doesn’t fit the narrative of how we imagine someone with agency and self-responsibility behaves in our society, but in many, many instances, people who have been raped continue to have a relationship, and at times, even a cordial relationship, with the person who raped them. It’s a way of compartmentalizing the attack and pretending that it never happened, which is a coping mechanism. That’s just one example of how the cultural narrative of something can be flat out wrong.

What I’ve discovered over several years of looking into many of these “everyone knows” kinds of beliefs is that a large percentage of them bear little relation to how things actually fit together in the world. They’re just cultural narratives, and because our society is created in large part by the stories that we tell each other about how things are, I think it’s important to challenge some of these erroneous notions. Of course, some things are up for interpretation and have no objective truth to them, but quite often the real story is definable, and there is a consensus among subject matter experts about what that is. This is the sort of thing that I love to research, learn about, and share.

The fact that quite often our stories about something are wrong may be due to the might makes right aspect of living in a dominance hierarchy, where those at the apex of the power pyramid control the narrative. Some of it is from a sheer lack of curiosity and a desire to make the world in one’s own image, enshrining existing biases or misinformation because that feels more comfortable. And some of it is because science is always uncovering things that are new and quite often very different from how we used to believe they were. Even if this new data is widely publicized, it may take time for the different point of view to supersede the old one, if it does at all.

Twenty years ago scientists and nutrition experts began to try to steer the public away from eating eggs, citing concerns about cholesterol. Today, eggs are largely considered to be an efficient, low-calorie source of protein and vitamins. Women have long been considered to be less sexual than men, and more interested in monogamy and relationships. The stories around that are pervasive, even though recent research indicates that this isn’t necessarily true. Cultural beliefs about what is “proper” for women play a much bigger part than any natural inclinations, but for the most part, the new stories about female sexuality have not yet replaced the old ones.

When I write things that rattle these set notions about the world and our society, I’m aware that it may be difficult for some people to accept them right out of the box because they poke at their assumptions, and that’s OK. I don’t mind that as long as the other person is coming from a place of respectful discussion. I love when somebody says to me, “I didn’t know that before.” And even if they push back a little at what I put forth, that’s OK too, as long as it’s done in the spirit of discussion and not a thinly veiled attempt to tell me that I have no idea what I’m talking about (usually with no supports or citations to counter mine). That sort is harder to stomach, particularly since I get them on a fairly regular basis.

I had a fairly detailed conversation the other night with someone who put forth a theory that I considered to be somewhat fanciful. Still, I listened and responded for a while, in a civil adult manner, trying to determine if there was possibly anything to what he was saying. I eventually came to the conclusion that his theory wasn’t based in any verifiable facts, and was simply somebody’s pet idea that couldn’t really be supported, but because he interacted with me with decency, I did the same. It really wasn’t that hard.

Yes, I realize this is the internet. And I realize that some people go into a kind of cognitive dissonance when they encounter something that challenges what they’ve always believed about the world, but none-the-less, the level of antagonism and rudeness is sometimes a bit shocking. A woman recently scolded me in the comments of a story of mine that was filled with quotes from anthropologists and sociologists, “I hate that Medium let’s just anyone share their uneducated personal opinions, instead of FACTS and SCIENCE.”

Um, the entire story was filled with facts and science. She also decreed that I was a “sad, sick, twisted individual” for presenting those facts and science in such a way that it made her feel bad about herself (her assertion, not mine). I know, I know, there are a lot of unhinged people on the internet.

Sure, I get a bit annoyed at having someone tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about after I went to the trouble of not just researching my position, but thoroughly documenting that research. And maybe it comes off as a bit combative when I bluntly reply, but it just means I’m not going to roll over for that kind of treatment. I’m going to stand my ground on my subject matter unless they can actually rebut it with something of similar substance.

Maybe some people, and certainly many women, won’t fight back in these situations. They’ll just figure it’s not worth wrangling with another antagonistic commenter and simply not answer. And that is certainly their prerogative. For some people, that just feels like wasting their time, and I get that. For me, setting the record straight and calling out attacking behavior is worth my time and effort (at least for a while). Although if they are really aggressive, or really cuckoo they get blocked, or sometimes they just get their comment hidden with no response.

Not that long ago I had to block a guy who was so mentally unbalanced that he wanted to quibble with me over the meaning of the word “purpose.” As in, “the human cervix doesn’t have a purpose, because it doesn’t have free will” — something that I had never asserted that a cervix has, although it most certainly does have various functions. When someone is at that level of remove from reality, there’s no point in going much further with them.

The upside of all this has been that I get a lot less of these attacking comments than I used to. Perhaps I’ve gotten a bit of a reputation as someone that you can’t just bully with no consequences, and I hope that is the case. If you want to debate something in good faith, I’m all for it, as long as you can bring something other than just your say-so to the table and you can do it like an adult.

The other day, I did actually get an apology from someone who had been rather, shall we say, skeptical, of many of the things in the story I’d written. After going back and forth for a while, he realized that he’d come on a bit strong and apologized, which prompted me to apologize for being a bit combative in my responses to him. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I’m more than happy to start afresh on a more cordial footing. We’ve had several reasonable exchanges since then on other stories of mine.

I’ve spent the past couple of years learning a lot about a lot, and much of it doesn’t fit in with what many people believe about how American society works; about how female sexuality works, about how our ancient ancestors lived, and about how those three topics intersect. You don’t have to like me. You don’t even have to agree with me. In fact, if I’ve rattled you a bit, I guess I feel like I’ve done my job to perhaps get you questioning what you were so sure that you knew.

© Copyright, Elle Beau 2020

Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story appears anywhere but Medium.com it has been stolen.

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