On Saturday night members of my rugby team headed to Portland, MO for the 4th annual street dance hosted by my second cousin’s bar. I mean, you probably know this bar is called “Holzhauser’s Bar and Grill,” and it’s pretty much been owned by a Holzhauser for 80 years.

Anyway, the rugby team has been coming to Portland pretty steadily for about 9 years. We sometimes have a bonfire in my parents’ back yard. We always drink too much and sleep in tents in the yard.

More than 50% of team happens to be made of women who date women (or Non-binary people who date women).

Of course, being from such a small place,  I always hesitate to bring my friends. We are a large group: some of us are black, brown, or present more masculine than Portland might be used to. The only reason I feel comfortable there is because of my last name. Holzhauser’s fight for their own, even if their own is, you know, a little queer. Without my family there, I wouldn’t be there.

But the story goes like this: a large group of the team was playing pool. The end.

As I was leaving, an old acquaintance of mine walked out beside me and said something like, “my son really enjoyed watching your friends play pool. He was like, ‘all those lesbians. It’s so hot.'”  Since I was tired and ready for bed I just said, “Gross.”  To which she replied, “Well, he is a boy.”

*record scratch*

I kept walking and didn’t say anything else.

Because I figured this is the best way to say something about it:

One extremely upsetting thing to me is when men think that lesbians are made just for them. I can’t tell you the amount of times some dude has looked me straight in my eyes, licked his lips, and asked me to kiss my girlfriend so he can watch. Or has asked me to kiss a random fucking woman. Or he’s asked me to come home with him and his girlfriend/wife so we can have a threesome. Or just fucking asked if he could watch while I had sex with my girlfriend (I won’t touch you, I promise). In those moments, I felt threatened. I felt scared. It’s hard to express how violating that is, how I have to worry if he might try something, or try to hurt me if I say no impolitely. When that’s happened, I’ve had to try to use my wit to get out of the situation instead of just punching him right in the dick.

So, here is this teenage boy at the Portland bar watching my friends play pool and acting like regular humans playing pool. And he finds that hot because…he’s watched too much porn. He’s seen anything in the media. He’s been taught that lesbians exist to turn him on.

And his mom justifies this. When I say to her, “Gross.” She defends him with his gender.

I know I’ve yelled about this before. But I have to again.

Cis-Men are taught that all sex exists to please them. They are taught that without a penis, the sex doesn’t count. (If my wife sleeps with another woman, she isn’t cheating). They see two women in a relationship as non-threatening and not real. Many of you have asked, “who is the man?” Because you just can’t fucking deal with the fact that THERE IS NO MAN. And, again, I direct you to a friend from high school who asked me how I had an orgasm if no dude was involved. OR all those people who questioned my virginity because I hadn’t had sex with a dude. “But, like, you’re still a virgin…”

I’ve watched men blatantly hit on my girlfriend when they knew (and didn’t care) that she was with me.

We are invisible and too obvious all at once, depending on the desire of some man.

So, women of the world, just fucking stop defending cis-men like their brains are too infantile to learn compassion or empathy.

Parents, teach your sons that no woman’s body is his god-given right. And that when two women are together, they are definitely not doing it for him.