I’ve long given my mom mad props for the way she raised me in the context of sexuality, respect for others/partners in all the ways, etc. Yet I used to have some nontrivial criticism of her work, because in my adulthood I found certain aspects of sexuality difficult to navigate, specifically relationship dynamics that required/presumed the male to take charge, be dominant and aggressive in all the ways, that sort of thing. (Ya know, that whole social pattern of “Go club her over the head and drag her phone number back to the cave.”)
Then #MeToo happened, and most men found themselves on the backfoot. For me, however, it was like the world suddenly became a lot more similar to the one my mom had trained me to live in. And hey, maybe that stuff I was whining about in the previous paragraph had as much to do with those other partners’ expectations about male lovers than my own psyche.
So yeah, it can be done. And she did it while married to a psychotic drunken misogynistic nazi-adjacent Marine who wasn’t exactly supporting her efforts, except as a highly visible counter example.
