I Don’t Think We Fully Understand the Risks Women Take to Date Us

As men, we need to step up our awareness of the dangers women encounter in just about any romantic context.

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TW: Gender-based violence, intimate partner violence, rape, sexual assault

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I once was on a date with someone who told me: “I thought to myself: ‘I could continue dating men, or I could date women and not be abused. So, I was a lesbian.” 

I was the first man she went on a date with since deciding to only date women for several years following significantly traumatic experiences with past male partners.

First off, I was truly honored that someone would even choose me to be this person (regardless if it was a Bumble swipe). Secondly, I thought what she did was incredibly brave just to meet me, let alone be interested in going home with me, given what she had shared. 

But her statement wasn’t hyperbole. Her experience wasn’t an aberration—especially for college age women. Even someone who didn’t have the same prior relationship abuse and trauma with men in their past is still taking an immense risk in the future just to go out on a date with a man. According to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, 35% of US women between the ages of 18 and 24 experience rape and sexual assault on dates. That means over three for every 10 college-age women in your class, commute, or job, experienced some kind of unwanted, non-consensual touch, some kind of force to do something that they did not want to do. In some cases, this may lead to lifelong trauma that shows up in all kinds of ways. Moreover, when all forms of abuse are considered, that figure jumps to over 40%. 

Of course, as LNBT cofounder

Stanley Fritz

wrote: men can be survivors of sexual assault, too. This piece is not to invalidate that truth. This is to bring specific attention to a situation that predominantly affects women. 

Think about it—just focusing on dating in general. If you are a college-age man, and I told you:

“Hey so, I know you’re going out. Just FYI you’re about to go on an activity where  35% of other dudes were sexually assaulted.” 

(And for the purpose of this piece, being that, regardless of the survivor’s gender, men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of sexual assault, let’s say assaulted by another man). 

Iight. Just a thought. Have fun tho.”

You would probably just not go out and do that shit. 

But women who date men do that shit. Every. Single. Time. 

Never in my life have I worried about being assaulted on a date. Now, me and my friends in the group chat, which is the ultimate safe space for the boys, know there are other things that concern me, piss me off, confuse me, about dates. But straight up being assaulted by the MF I bumbled with? Nah. 

These are the stakes. And this fact has nothing to do with absolving women from general accountability, as somehow I find these discussions get mixed with “men have it tough out here, too.” Oh trust me sweet summer child, I know. 

Women can absolutely perpetuate patriarchy, gendered expectations, and just be straight up shitty people on a date or otherwise.

I’ve had women legit not look away from building their goddamn LinkedIn profile on a date; another didn’t look up from her phone for nearly five minutes since the second my ass hit the seat—to help her roommate find the remote. I got a MF haunted house from the ghosting this damn place seen on my DMs; all “one night stands” were news to me after the fact. You’re talking to a man who was once stood up for nearly two hours in IRVINGTON and then BLOCKED the next day; someone who once saw a woman’s face fall, as I stood up. Because I committed the cardinal, body positivity exempt, sin of being ‘far too short’—while having no issue with height difference myself.

I have felt, acutely, the disappointment, the frustration, and yes, sometimes, the hypocrisy, that exists for anyone who put TIME in walking these dating streets.

It’s just about perspective.

We can get ‘curved’ or have a shit date, have truly legitimate frustrations, from the personal to ones that tie into the broader ways patriarchy, gender constraints, and expectations continue to be validated in our society, including by women. Then vent it all to the group chat in much less refined language. 

And then there’s femicide. 

Women in México protest against their government’s inaction to stop femicide.[Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP]

Then there’s the chance of being sexually assaulted the second their date locks the car or apartment door.  

Our anecdotal, personal experiences as men can be valued and recognized alongside the global phenomena of gender-based violence. This shit’s bigger than us. 

We gotta have more appreciation and understanding of the objective risks women take everyday as a foundation for any conversation we have with a woman—and discussions on gender and dating overall. We must operate within the same context.

For, we’ll never get on the same page with women if we don’t read from the same book.