There is a peculiar kind of amnesia that grips men whenever the subject turns to sexual violence—an amnesia so convenient, so well-practiced, it deserves its own holiday.

A woman stated online that 80% of women have experienced sexual violation—and right on cue, here came the men:

Not to ask,
Not to sit with the horror,
Not to wonder what it means to live surrounded by so much suffering—

But to correct her.

To lecture her about statistics they have never cared about until it served their comfort.

To nitpick definitions as if the pain of women must first pass through a “male approval system.”

To pretend they are shocked, confused, unaware, and burdened by this “new” information.

Men love to act like they’ve never noticed the smoke, even as they trip over the ashes.

Men Claim Ignorance While Living in the Middle of Evidence

These are the same men who:

• Know which friend you shouldn’t leave your drink around

• Never let their new girlfriend walk home alone at night

• Warn their daughters about “boys being boys”

• Tell their sons to “control themselves” around girls

• Share whispered stories about the uncle no one leaves children with

• Know to keep certain men away from their mothers, sisters, nieces, and wives

• Smirk about the “inside joke” when a girl or woman goes out with the “wrong guy”.
• Hear and see  a man tell everyone how horrifically they treat women and terribly they intend to keep treating women then CHOOSE to openly support him anyway.

But suddenly, when women speak?

They become scholars of doubt.

They demand proof they already possess. They pretend they don’t understand what groping, coercion, harassment, molestation, domination, or assault looks like—when whole industries have had to adjust hiring practices because of male behavior.

• Funeral homes are cautious about hiring men

• Daycares, elder care, and hospitals know what a risk some men pose

• Even animals know what danger looks like—they bite, kick, hide, shrink, and flee

But they look at women like we are crazy?

Women have been screaming into the wind for centuries, and men have had the audacity to respond:

“We had no idea.”

No.
You did. You did. You always did.

And while none of us is perfect, the thing about some of these men is they have no intention of unlearning this pile mess that just keeps on being handed down from one generation to the next. 

The Lie Is Not Ignorance. The Lie Is Innocence.

Men are not “naïve” about men. They study one another. They keep STATS on one another about things that they do in every other area in life. 

They are protecting each other from accountability. And some men refuse to change that.

The myth of “Men don’t know what men do” is the shield that keeps women in danger. It is the lullaby men sing to themselves so they can sleep at night without confronting the world they built.

They know who to avoid. They know who makes women uncomfortable. They know why women and girls are demanding to keep our own spaces. They know which friends aren’t safe to be around children. They know which coworker gives off a chill.

THEY KNOW.
They just don’t care enough to act on that knowledge.

Women Have Carried the Receipts

We have:

• Worked the hotlines

• Held crying teenagers

• Sat in hospitals after rapes

• Responded to inmates who were trafficked before they ever found a cell

• Helped mothers terrified of the man sleeping in the next room

• Watched systems fail women again and again

• Buried daughters, cousins, sisters, classmates

We didn’t get this knowledge from a documentary.
We earned it in blood, tears, lost lives, lost innocence, lost dreams, and sleepless nights.

The Denial Is Violence

Every time men correct women about the prevalence of sexual violence, language, or definitions, they are not defending truth.

They are defending male ego. (Women too)

They are defending the idea that men remain trustworthy by default—even when life and death evidence tells us otherwise.

They don’t challenge the number because the number is wrong.

They challenge it because the number demands responsibility.

The Truth That Terrifies Them

They are not going to be tasked with confronting other men in an effort to end violence. Start wars for material gain like land, property, people, power and stuff sure. But end violence? No. 

That’s the reckoning they run from.

And that is why they gaslight women into silence—because if women ever stopped doubting themselves, the world would finally have to confront who built the violence, who sustains it, and who benefits from pretending not to see it.

We Do Not Have to Play Dumb

Women do not have to explain. Women can return to the ancestral tradition of telling our stories.

We can be done being fact-checked by the very demographic who made these statistics necessary.

We can be done shrinking truth to make male denial more comfortable.

We can be done pretending men are confused about men.

Some of us have survived too much to let lies run the narrative.

Men know exactly what men do.

They always have.

And now?

We’re saying it out loud.