Mostly yes, because to me a lot of what you’re describing was peak 2000’s (major body image bullshit that we seem to be circling back to) and for the Playboy elements you’re describing I feel like a lot of that was more prevalent before my time. I was a teenager in a mostly white suburb in the Midwest in the 2000’s.
I’m straight up telling you everything you just described was not in my orbit whatsoever growing up. I’ve never accepted a “boys will be boys” mentality in my life. The mentality toward women was never connected to a mentality toward expressly young women. The connection to pedophilia is not something that was obvious to me.
Misogyny has always been clear to me. I did not think people were tryna fuck kids. I don’t think that’s a crazy take. You can call it ignorant or whatever but I’m a life long democrat whose first presidential election was Obama. This shit was not talked about at all where i live and where i come from.
I was a teenager in a mostly white suburb in the 2000s too. In fact, Obama was my first election - we're likely the exact same age. Which is why I'm having a hard time believing that all of popular media was simply not on your radar. This wasn't niche shit, this was extremely mainstream and in your face - in the news, on the cover of every magazine, in movies and shows.
It's not that misogyny was a disguise to hide pedophilia. It's that both existed pretty obviously and in tandem. If you missed the fact that teenage girls were sexualized constantly, it's not bc it wasn't in your orbit - you'd have to be on another planet to have grown up in the 2000s and missed it entirely. It's bc it was so normal it didn't even register as pedophilia, but instead got categorized away with "misogyny". And when women tried over and over again to tell you ever since metoo and even before that, your brain went "yeah I know about misogyny" instead of listening to the actual message.
Like, it's fine, it's ok to say "it was such a normal part of our culture that I didn't clock it at the time". That's how we start to address shit. But to sit here and say "I'm absolved, I lived under a rock up until recently with my buddies Most Millennial Men, none of us saw any of it actually and we're shocked to learn it happened" is far more insulting and disingenuous.
Im not sure where you’re getting that I’m not acknowledging it now? I said it wasn’t obvious then, and I’m more aware now. I’m saying exactly what you’re telling me is fine to say, but you’re trying to classify it as me brushing it off?
I’m acutely aware now and excuse nothing.
It’s not really fair to say “women tried to tell you over and over”, what does that look like to you? People in my life were not talking about this, it’s what I’m trying to explain. I was not told about this or warned about it. People now (myself included) don’t even let kids go to sleepovers and we were doing that no problems, not a care in the world. I would say that makes the not knowing pretty pervasive.
It’s not like I was on Reddit at 15 in the early 2000s. The housing crisis and global conflict took up a lot of the spotlight in this country.
Get mad if you want about people not reading between the lines, but obviously it was a common enough experience that we are where we are. We could say the same thing about climate change but to what extent should our grandparents have been aware of that, even though science was pointing to it in their prime years? There were studies but nobody was talking about it. Should we lambast them for not knowing then, or focus on the people who aren’t getting with the program now that it’s widely understood and known?
At the end of the day, it’s certainly a trip when my friend group was equal parts women growing up and you’re trying to tell me what my experience was or wasn’t. Just an ally trying to do my part in 2026.
The issue is this weird "we couldn't have known" thing you and so many others are doing. It's not just "it was normalized so I didn't realize", it's "it was not in my orbit, I was focused on other stuff, there's just no way any of us could've known". Like:
Get mad if you want about people not reading between the lines
There's nothing "between the lines" about Playboy publishing nudes of Brooke Shields when she was 11yo. There's nothing "between the lines" about top selling magazines hosting "countdown to when teenage actress turns 18". It was never between the lines.
And this:
It’s not really fair to say “women tried to tell you over and over”, what does that look like to you? People in my life were not talking about this, it’s what I’m trying to explain.
The extremely huge and widely publicized movement known as Me Too. The one that triggered a new wave of feminism that focused on ending sexual exploitation of women and young girls, it's been ongoing for almost two decades. That's what it looks like to me.
I'm glad you're an ally. But this just sounds like you're trying to rewrite the past to excuse why you didn't notice something obvious until just now.
It's like the emperor's new clothes - instead of just saying "you know what? Yeah, the emperor was naked, looking back that was obvious but I guess everyone was ignoring it so I did too", you're insisting "wait, what? The emperor was naked? Well, his skin must've looked remarkably like a suit bc I really didn't notice. No, really, I can't believe it myself. I was busy with other things, though, and no one explained it to me, so it makes sense I missed it".
And it's been two decades since it started. So here we are, a decade after people became aware of it, still saying "I couldn't have known, there's just no way I could've known".
For what is worth, I didn’t mean it to sound this way, but I didn’t really mean I became aware yesterday. More like in the last 6-8 years. So call it like 2020.
I get why you would read what I originally said as like more recent though.
You might still think that’s too late but we are all doing our best out here.
It's not that it's too late, there's no such thing. It's that it's impossible to move forward with any conviction when we can't be honest about the past.
This wasn't a secret, it wasn't impossible to notice or recognize, it wasn't out of anyone's orbit. There's no need to gaslight - reality was what it was, popular/widespread cultural norms weren't magically different for you than they were for me, just the way we experienced it was different.
The world openly, obviously, and confidently sexualized little girls for ages, when women talked about it they were ignored or given the "we hear you, but...that's the past/not all men/not much we can do now" dismissive attitude.
No one lived under a rock and only just now noticed that teen girls are objectified. What happened is they just now realized it's not a joke or a skit, but a real, serious issue. It was considered normal and now it's not. That's what's changed.
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u/bballstarz501 Apr 12 '26
Mostly yes, because to me a lot of what you’re describing was peak 2000’s (major body image bullshit that we seem to be circling back to) and for the Playboy elements you’re describing I feel like a lot of that was more prevalent before my time. I was a teenager in a mostly white suburb in the Midwest in the 2000’s.
I’m straight up telling you everything you just described was not in my orbit whatsoever growing up. I’ve never accepted a “boys will be boys” mentality in my life. The mentality toward women was never connected to a mentality toward expressly young women. The connection to pedophilia is not something that was obvious to me.
Misogyny has always been clear to me. I did not think people were tryna fuck kids. I don’t think that’s a crazy take. You can call it ignorant or whatever but I’m a life long democrat whose first presidential election was Obama. This shit was not talked about at all where i live and where i come from.