My fear of flying helped me understand why some women are so afraid of men

Photo byAI image, generated by the author

I’m a 6’3, 210 lb man. I’m covered with muscles and have a tiny bit of combat-sport experience to boot.

The last time I got in a fight, the other guy got his jaw broken in three places. I can walk around like a big gorilla among smaller gorillas and feel safe because of it. I can go about in public, walk alone at night, and all the while not have to worry about being attacked or kidnapped.

This is what it means to have physical size and strength.

I enjoy this sense of safety whenever I’m on the ground. However, when I get onto a plane, it’s a very disarming experience, and my fear of flying immediately kicks in. When I’m packed into that seat, where my size is less of an asset and more of a liability, and I’m awkwardly pressed in on all sides, it feels like something switches.

What will all that strength I’m accustomed to walking around with do in this situation? I’m completely powerless here. If this plane ends up plummeting to the ground, I’ll have no recourse but to grip tight to my seat in a panicked and helpless way like anyone else.

My dad is the bravest person I’ve ever met. He’s been to prison and in gunfights out on the street, and I’ve seen him cow down guys half a foot taller than him, but he, too, shares my fear of flying. It goes to show you how much confidence, bravery, fearlessness, or whatever you choose to call it, depends on real-world power.

When we’re up there, we’re stripped of the sense of control we normally experience on the ground. We’re as helpless as a newborn. This teaches me just how these feelings really work, where they come from, and how privileged we are when, as men, we have both feet on the ground.

I don’t think anyone would accuse the comedian Dave Chappelle, at least in recent years, of being an activist. If anything, his tiresome tirades against the trans community has earned him the label of being something of a counter-progressive.

Still, in his standup special, The Bird Revelation, he made one of the most illuminating arguments about what women go through that I’ve ever heard. (I’ve pasted his words below and inserted the audio version of them below that.)

Well, you ladies were right. Be honest with you, your lives look terrifying to me. They do. Man, I know nothing about being a woman, but I know fear. Yo, I used to live in New York when I was 17. I couldn’t even pay my bills. You know what I did to make money? I used to do shows for drug dealers that wanted to clean their money up. One time I did a real good set, and these motherf**kers called me in the back room. They gave me $25,000 in cash. I was probably 18, 19 years old. I was scared. I thanked them profusely, I put that money in my backpack, I jumped on the subway and started heading towards Brooklyn at one in the morning. Never been that terrified in my life. Because I’d never in my life had something that somebody else would want. I thought to myself, “Jesus Christ, if these motherf**kers knew how much money I had in this backpack, they’d kill me for it.” Then I thought, “Holy shit. What if I had a p*ssy on me all the time?” That’s what women are dealing with. I’m going to tell you right now. It’s real talk. If them same drug dealers gave me a p*ssy and said, “Put this in your backpack and take it to Brooklyn,” I’d be like, “N*gga, I can’t accept this.”

As a heterosexual man, I can personally speak to how intensely desirable some women are, and I can also attest to firsthand testimony by other men that has gone a magnitude beyond what I personally feel. It would not be an exaggeration to say that most men live their lives almost entirely in the pursuit of the opposite gender and sexual fulfillment.

Many men get dressed, pursue career ambitions, and engage in healthy behaviors with only that end in mind. Sexual value for men can make or break their confidence. For some, women is just about all they talk about.

Whatever value money has to heterosexual men is largely attributable to what money can bring them in terms of female attention. All of this is to say that you cannot overestimate the value that sex with a woman has for the average man, and every woman is constantly walking around with the means to this valued end for them.

Their very bodies are the thing being sought after. What a despicably prey-predator relationship to find one’s self in. Thankfully, women do indeed reciprocate this attraction at times, but for the bulk of the men that are interested in them, they do not.

And would I pit the morals of the average person — man or woman — against such an intense drive? At these times, I am thankful for society and whatever social progress it has achieved.

Fear

I can’t say I’m ever exactly happy to find myself in a situation that makes me fearful, but I am often grateful in retrospect. I remember as I dragged myself to the boxing gym for the first time, and the unease I felt upon entering.

My coach is 6’7, and ranked 3rd in the world in his weight class — how immediately I was made to feel like a child after walking in! I remember the fear I felt when I first started publicly speaking in college, and I remember how it died down over time. Both were valuable lessons in hindsight. Flying, likewise, has taught me what I’m like when physically helpless.

I wrestled for a few minutes with my 13-year-old sister the other day, as it was her chosen method of deciding which anime we would watch together, and she told me boldly that she could leg press 100 lbs.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I can leg press over 600 lbs. I felt sad knowing that she’d grow up into a world where her body is an object of desire for half the population, and that she was sadly not gifted the physical strength to resist many of those who might be motivated to pursue her.

I’m grateful to know this, though. I’m hopeful that other men will read this and take up the call. If you’re a good man, your job isn’t to avoid doing harm. Your job is to prevent harm. It’s to be aware of any insinuation of harm. It’s to proactively guard not only the actual security of women but the feeling of security.

Nature was callous in this design. Nature is beautiful and complex, but unfortunately, also unconscious. She writes her plays without consideration for the characters therein. It is our job as conscious and considerate individuals to do what we might to rectify these natural injustices.

Conclusion

I sit here on a plane writing this. I’m dismayed that it’s one of the small ones, maybe 30 passengers total, and there’s a storm brewing over head.

Currently, we’re delayed from leaving as it blocks our path. I look down at my arms, big and strong, veins rupturing the surface, and an ironic smirk comes to my face. I speak to them in my head:

We trained so much, and what can you do now but grip the arm rest, calling out for help in your own way, as I silently try to maintain my composure, even though my eyes have sparks of fear flying from them, and everything from my twitching muscles to my overactive sweat glands signal panic.

This is what it is to be powerless and to be scared because of it. It’s perfectly justified. My 12 lb cat jumps at every noise because she’s constantly surrounded by giants; I try to pacify her because I know she’s safe, but how can I expect her to feel safe?

Women are often scared to walk alone at night; they know that half the world is constituted by men who are drawn to them sexually and that the vast majority of these men can physically overpower them. I try to pacify them, but how can I expect them to feel safe?

Many men walk around, on the ground, feeling secure. They cannot understand why anyone else would feel on edge. Like a warm blanket, they’re embraced by their power.

Strip them of it, and all of sudden they feel the biting cold of powerlessness and vulnerability.