Y’all niggas got me hot.

I watched an interview of the person that plays Aimee on Sex Education, and she was talking about the bus scene where a man self-pleasures onto her. She talked about how a similar thing happened to her when she was much younger— a man who’s smile she returned on the train because she thought he was older and friendly, then continued to touch himself, and then follow her off the train, touching himself. She says her mother told her what to do in such a scenario was to find a family and act like she was with them, but for some reason at that moment, she could only see men. The same men that looked on as another man touched himself to the young girl he was following.

Quick detour: last year, we all saw the news of Keke Palmer’s baby dad abusing her, and of course there were men that came to his defence. I saw a tweet that said, ‘Keke Palmer may never see these disgusting tweets, but you know who definitely will, your sister, your friend in an abusive relationship’

But do men even care? To be a safe place, I mean.

I’ve had men who were ‘friends’ say to me under no coercion, ‘I don’t believe in sexual assault’, ‘Yes, the woman may not want to in the beginning, but if you keep going she’ll eventually start to like it.’

A friend was telling me about how men on Twitter were making jokes about how the patriarchy saved them from chores over the Christmas holidays.

What I really want to know is when men say, ‘not all men’, what men do they mean? If even the men in our lives are failing us, what men?!

Anyway, if ever at all during this read you had this thought, ‘but Ramona, you want these men, friends, to walk on eggshells around you, in fear of offending you?’— absolutely, I do.