Putting our feet forward

Much like the warring Fyre Festival documentaries that came out a couple years ago, the Titan submersible is the hottest topic on streaming right now, with two films delving into its demise. If you’d rather be doing anything else, I’ll summarize them for you: a rich white man with unresolved daddy issues doggedly pursues an unattainable dream, ignoring every warning sign until he kills himself and 4 innocent people, one of which is a teenager.

It’s infuriating to watch this moneyed moron continuously fail upward, especially in an era in which his entire ilk is ripping apart our country and feasting on the innards. But it is not, surprisingly, the worst part of the Implosion documentary. That would be this guy.

Dude. Karl. Why in the name of all that’s holy aren’t you wearing shoes? I’m assuming that when a documentary crew showed up at your house to interview you on camera, you reasoned that it was necessary to put on shorts and a shirt. Hell, you put on two shirts. But this logic bafflingly stopped at your feet. 

Karl didn’t go the newscaster route either, hiding his naked flippers under a desk. No, every single interview clip of him in this 90-minute film is this posture. And he’s in it a lot. If I wanted to hear his opinion on the shoddiness of the Titan submersible —and I did! He’s an expert! — I had to hear it with his nasty-ass feet staring me in the face.

This, my friends, is the very definition of taking up space. This is the Mount Everest of manspreading, the apotheosis of aggro, the white male psyche writ large upon the screen. Can you imagine being this full of swagger, this confident in your place in the world? I cannot. But I want to. Man, do I want to.

Taking up space with our bodies is not something women do particularly well. We’ve been trained not to for various reasons, but a pretty big one is that putting our bodies front and center makes us easier targets for violence. At least that’s what they’ve told us. Because if we don’t put ourselves out there, if we cover up enough and cower in corners, then men won’t be tempted to assault us. 

I was mugged in a grocery store parking lot twenty years ago, and the after-effects were wide-ranging and lasted far too long. One interesting result that I didn’t notice until several years later was that it affected how I dressed; that I made a conscious effort to wear the most unremarkable, bland clothes available. In hindsight, it’s easy to see what was happening. I was trying to disappear myself. To blend into the woodwork so completely that no one could find me to harm me. The opposite of taking up space, I was attempting to delete myself.

The thing is, friends, there is not a damn thing we can do - or should have to do - to stop men from assaulting us. There are psychopaths in the world and wearing more beige isn’t going to erase their existence. Blending into the wallpaper hasn’t gotten us very far, and, I would argue, has only helped foment the patriarchy. The people who are going to resent you for speaking up and taking space had already planned to do so no matter what you said. So you might as well loom large. 

Let’s follow the lead of our friend Karl here and remove our metaphorical shoes. Put yourself front and center and force people to look at you, to hear you. What would you say? What subject do you feel so confident in that it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing? Pull up your voice notes app, talk away, and send me the transcript. I’ll turn it into something.

Just this morning, I was reading a little ditty about how all we do these days is listen to millionaires talk. Let them play footsie with each other. Let’s hear from the rest of us.