On Twitter I think I’ve managed to cultivate a pretty good reputation. If asked to talk about me, I suspect that those on the platform who know me best would speak of my kind, generous heart and my unwillingness to judge others or even speak unkindly, a general attitude of “live and let live”. Granted, I’d love to be known for my charm and sense of humor, my sexual prowess including but not limited to my skill at locating and pleasuring the G-spot, and my cock; however, I’m more than happy to be thought of simply as a good person, especially given the woeful state of the world in 2020. If I can bring some light to the darkness that’s fine with me.

In addition to being a geeky font of interesting pop culture knowledge and an advocate for mental health who always tries his hardest to see the positive, I’m a die-hard leftist, and an unabashed feminist who acknowledges that such values have probably cost him his guy friends. I’m very pro-representation in entertainment despite – or perhaps because of – the fact that I’m a cishet white male who grew up in the 1980s very accustomed to seeing people who looked like myself on screen and on the printed page. I’m empathetic to a fault and I try my best to always be self-aware because nothing pisses me off like a person who’s managed to convince themselves that they are the only person on the planet who matters.

Beyond that, I talk about the importance of consent so often that you could be forgiven for thinking it’s overcompensation or even just an act, but it isn’t. Obviously there are many women in my life who I love dearly and who I don’t want to imagine being victimized. But that’s not why consent is so important to me; I’ve felt this way since long before I was the father of a daughter, or even married to a woman.

All that is not to say that I’ve always been as decent as I’d like to think I am now. I have benefited from my while male privilege, and I probably continue to do so even without always realizing it. Being part of the dominant cohort on the planet, or at least in this country, has not only paid off for me on a personal level but as also perhaps taken away some of the urgency with which I resist, and in fact actively battle against, the rapidly encroaching fascism that threatens the United States.

I was largely unaware of the concept of institutional racism, and less aware of more covert forms of discrimination (as well as the likelihood that I had benefited from it, if not actively participated in it outright), until perhaps a decade ago. Until then, the only racism I really understood as such was the sort that manifests itself in hate speech and cross-burning. Don’t judge me too harshly for this; the default societal attitude seems to be that white people shouldn’t feel bad about treating people of color like shit as long as they’re not using ethnic slurs or wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods while they do it.

But less obvious forms of racism such as banning dreadlocks in the workplace, assuming Black shoppers are shoplifters, calling the police on children of color selling lemonade and families of colors barbecuing in the park – hell, even gentrification? All of that is probably akin to self-preservation in the minds of the white collective.

On a similar note, I’ve always bristled at toxic masculinity, even before I was aware that it was a thing that had a name. I sometimes wonder why I’ve so easily and willingly adopted the “feminist” label and why most of my friends are women. Is it because of the close relationship I had with my mom growing up? Is it because I consider it a necessary part of my far-left persona or a fundamental aspect of being – pardon the expression – woke? Most alarming of all, could it be because my overactive sexual appetite draws me to individuals I might view as potential partners? Upon closer reflection the reason is because while I’ve had unhealthy romantic relationships with women over the course of my life- abusive, even – the ratio of women who’ve victimized me to men who’ve done so is skewed toward men, and it’s not even close.

As a child I was short, soft-spoken, often overweight, and probably overly sensitive, something that was definitely viewed as feminine back then. I wasn’t particularly into sports, cars, or any of the things a boy was expected to like in the 1980s. I was an easy mark for bullies, and even just for boys who were threatened by non-conformity.

However, there have been times in my life when I exhibited behaviors that came too close to toxicity to align with my current values, or even my values at the time. When I have erred in this fashion I don’t think I did so with malicious intent; more likely it was the result of entitlement, laziness, or acquiescence to gender roles with which, despite their reinforcement throughout my childhood and early adulthood, I never felt comfortable. When the only examples you have to follow walk a very traditional, mainstream path, it can be difficult to ignore what you think is expected of you in favor of what you actually want.

One thing I’d like to believe is that I was always conscious and respectful of consent. I am reminded of a date I went on in my late twenties: Dinner, a movie, and then a drive to Ocean Beach in San Francisco. We didn’t waste much time watching the autumn moonlight reflecting off of the crashing waves before the groping and making out began. We hadn’t been dating long, and while there had been some very basic intimacy, we hadn’t yet had sex. I was looking forward to it happening eventually, but I was never one to rush or force things.

When my hands ventured from her breasts down to the insides of her thighs she asked me to slow it down a little. I did, of course. And while I may have felt bad for trying to take it further than she wanted, I respected her feelings, I appreciated her taking care of herself, and I admired her for not letting me move things outside of her comfort zone. I didn’t get angry. I didn’t try to manipulate or guilt her into letting me do whatever I wanted. That’s never been something I was okay with. As entitled as I may have felt to various things throughout my life, and for that matter as focused as I’ve always been on sex, I will say without hesitation that I’ve never been one to disregard another person’s “no”, certainly not in a sexual context.

For a long time I assumed that most women were annoyed by my propensity for checking in. After all, the sudden focus on consent in the form of the “No Means No” acquaintance rape awareness campaign around the time that I came of age in the early 1990s was met with ridicule from certain corners; as I wrote in 2014:

“I remember my college days in the mid-1990s, when women didn’t seem quite as marginalized as they do today. In this much more politically-correct time, it was drummed into the collective brain of my generation that getting explicit consent was vital, so much so that the phenomenon was frequently satirized in the form of crude cartoons and comedy sketches depicting amorous couples stopping just long enough to have a formal contract notarized allowing sex to take place without legal or criminal ramifications.”

I knew some of the women I dated or even slept with casually were relieved by my attentiveness and appreciated my check-ins, so I didn’t worry too much. However, in the wake of #metoo, and given all that I now know about sexual assault being a near-universal experience among women, I think far more appreciated it than were annoyed by it, even if they acted put off at the time, likely out of a sense of propriety or a desire to reassure my male ego. I hope they felt safe with me.

All of the above is not to say that I’m perfect. I try to be, of course, maybe even harder than I should. It is my intention to always be self-aware and to consider how my words and actions might affect others. And while I think I do a pretty good job, I know I’m not always successful. While I haven’t had sex with someone who didn’t want to (as far as I know), I admit I’ve violated women’s boundaries in other ways. Ways that were perhaps not as traumatic as physical sexual assault might have been, but ways that I should have been more conscious of nonetheless.

I hate to leave you in suspense; Part 2 will look closely at how I’ve failed to respect the consent of others. Please don’t think poorly of me until you’ve read it.