Interesting comments, I appreciate you taking the time and effort to articulate all this.

Apologies I won't be digging into your actual points and the value you brought, due to my own current limitations in energy. Please accept my thanks and respect for engaging in the dialogue to such a degree. Keep trying to move things forward.

I am responding to make a counterpoint. I hope you'll not use that to draw erroenous or sweeping generalizations about me. I'm attempting to expand the scope to *all harms people cause each other*.

You clearly see a world of toxic patriarchy and misogyny.

I'm writing as a fellow human being, transcending the Man-Woman dichotomy. As far as possible. Because I love humanity, men and women.

As a single father I've been the victim of horrific psychological/emotional/social abuse by my ex. I've been blessed and fortunate to get my daughter back into my care and raising her as a single father for 7 years now. But the legacy of the abuse has caused me to be tortured by physical illness & psychological wounds for years. And the impacts on my daughter and immense: both through my own limitations and challenges and suffering, the resultant behavioral failures, and overall the severely diminished extended family life and adversarial relationships (and many other factors).

You write "The fact is, men cannot/will not take accountability. In truth, as a mother of a son and someone who loves and often defends men, I CARE enough about men to call them out. Not out of spite, but because I hold them to a higher standard than they seem to hold for themselves."

There is 100% equal truth in this: "The fact is, women cannot/will not take accountability. In truth, as a father of a daughter and someone who loves and often defends women, I CARE enough about women to call them out. Not out of spite, but because I hold them to a higher standard than they seem to hold for themselves."

My ex-wife, while we were still married, in her early twenties, argued - out loud, explicitly, in her own words - that responsibility, accountability, integrity, and honesty (perhaps others I forgot) are "not for women" and therefore not for her.

For trying to hold her accountable - in love, for the sake of each other and our child and our families and our dreams and everything - I was labelled toxic, and then abusive.

She begged me to beat her. She wanted choke-to-blackout kink. She wanted daily spankings, at least weekly, to the point of bleeding. I did not do these things. When we were dating she was prostituting herself - classified ads selling sex, and fulfilling on those deals at least a handful of times in hotels. In the name of "sacred intimacy" and healing. She also spoke to spirits, and identified at her core as polyamorus. I suggested these indicated unresolved psychological issues. Her parents didn't care. They are Progressive, Democrats, educated, successful, charismatic, charming, and pillars of the community.

She told me she had a hard time telling right from wrong, and she believed her conscience never fully developed.

I share all of this to make my point clear and hopefully help you bring healing to the men-women divide more than before - by trying to make very clear that your position is heavily biased. Did you already know your core position statement are equally valid for both sexes?

It became quite clear to me there was a fundamental issue with my ex around responsibility, empathy, and the moral virtues of maturity. For her, they were associated with "The Patriarchy" and the same kind of toxic masculinity you seem so focused on (and hey, don't get me wrong, it's a huge problem!). But ironically, the same kind of attitude you espouse may be the kind of thing that inculcated her and set her up to be a narcissistic, entitled and immature young woman (whom I loved deeply) who actively denied any faults, any shadow, any issues to take responsibility for; and thereby perpetuated intergenerational traumas, and in practical terms cost her family(s) tremendous, immense, incalculable devastation.

Like your closing line "It's mind-blowing that men don't get this. It blows my mind every time. The entitlement and lack of empathy are deeply disturbing. Open your eyes. Please. Where is your humanity?"

Well, on that note - I've almost given up on life too many times with a similar refrain in my heart or on my lips. But it was women who did it, primarily - my ex-wife, my mother, my mother-in-law. I didn't stand a chance with these three women arrayed against me. Power? You think I had the power in that situation? I have bled and sacrificed my life & desires & opportunities in order to be a present, devoted father to my daughter - in order to raise her into a strong, aware, caring, intelligent, responsible and capable woman.

Again, I hope you don't take this the wrong way. You're hyper-focused on one issue - men committing sexual violence, and the relevance of porn in this - and I'm not addressing that directly. I'm attempting to expand the scope to *all harms people cause each other* and deliberately sharing personal experience and insight to try to make an argument that brings men and women closer to unity on values and standards.

Clumsy writing here for sure, but I'm not at my best and wanted to take a stab at it.