Are all cis straight men afraid of being effeminate? And if this were the case wouldn't they also be terrified of womyn? I find it attractive when men are effeminate because it shows their "don't give a f*ck about gender norms" attitude, and puts their solidarity and alliance with womyn into practice. I think men are terrified of me, not because I'm a womyn, but because I check their privilege, with no reservations. Their tears of emasculated pain and humiliation fall into my chalice that I demurely sip on, sitting at the edge of my thrown. I'll just leave a picture of Sade Adu (a true goddess) here for visual stimuli/reference.

In my years of adulthood I've learned a few things here and there about exchanging energy with men. Most of them have a tragic perception of what they think amuses me and other womyn. Taking up space and giving me unwanted compliments doesn't impress me, it disturbs me. Male privilege is disturbing, it's a disturbance that can't be muffled or neutralized. UNLESS..you ALSO take the same amount of space. Men have to be checked, but it's also not my job to tell a man when he's being problematic. Men should be checked by other men. I don't want to go through the labor of explaining to every single man who is quasi-woke that he is still a poser because he is still practicing patriarchal agendas within organizing spaces; because he's not doing his job as a feminist ally to check the men in his own community.

Assata Shakur knows what I'm talking about: "A REVOLUTIONARY WOMYN CAN'T HAVE NO REACTIONARY MAN"

Male privilege is like a ticking time bomb; reactionary, self-righteous, and dangerous. This is where I started thinking––is male privilege a symptom of arrested development? Or is it a mutation? Is it convenient to settle in a repressed state of infancy to dominate space in this world as a man? I don't know but this virus is deadly––infesting every facet of our human interactions, disrupting the feminine essence of life itself. Just playing. My round, brown & angry feminine essence is thriving as a result of all of this hetero-patriarchal mess. This is a *turning pain into power* edition of bashing back at patriarchy that one time I was asked to "rack back balls" after playing a game of pool at a local chum bucket dive bar in West Oakland called Merchant's Saloon.

Some dude was doing us "a favor" for letting me and my homegirl Vicky play a quick game of pool before his friend came back. We played at our pace, on our terms, and we are NOT professional pool players––we just play to have fun. We both understand the bar rules, but mansplaining was still oversaturating the air, unwanted glances still pierced our hands paralyzing their skills to shoot colorful balls into dark holes with fancy wooden sticks. Bummer.

During this time, a new player (male) put his coins down and I told him he was up to play me after I won (by default when Vicky scratched after she made the 8 ball in). Then the guy who "did us a favor" said it was his turn and that I needed to rack up the balls for him and his friend. So I did it, thinking we would be playing them doubles. But I was wrong. I felt embarrassed that I let this man puppet me around because he was also being pressured to enforce his masculinity and power by his friend who sat with his back facing us, arms crossed, on the verge of tears because "we took his table". My blood started to boil––I crossed my arms, assessed the situation, smiled and said: "I guess we have no business playing here anymore, you can have your table back before your friend starts crying." and walked out. I felt a sharp tingle in my backbone for disarming these men––bashing back, reclaiming space and collecting male tears is self-care.