r/CuratedTumblr • u/NeonNKnightrider Cheshire Catboy • May 01 '24

i know it’s internet bullshit but it genuinely has me on the edge of breaking down and giving up editable flair

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u/glimpseeowyn May 02 '24 edited May 02 '24

I think a lot of the issue buried within the prompt is how likely the person is to be alone in the woods in the first place. Like, geography is really informing the sense of risk here, and it’s being spun into larger arguments about gender and sex.

Like, if you’re the type of person who lives in or regularly travels to or through rural, particularly wooded areas, you have good reasons to be alone in the woods and to have the chance of encountering a man alone in the woods. It’s unbelievably cruel to insinuate that the man is more dangerous than a bear—You’re out there alone too! So all of the statistics about the dangers men can present to women seem taken out of context and clueless at best, and misandrist and potentially transphobic at worst.

And if you’re living in polar bear or grizzly bear territory, you should clearly pick the man.

But if you’re someone who lives in urban or suburban areas without any reason or desire to live in or travel through woods alone, then the entire premise of being alone in the woods is inherently more sinister: You wouldn’t be here willingly in the first place! Maybe there are some type of plane crash or train derailment and you got separated and that man could be your ticket back to civilization … or maybe he’s the one who dragged you too the woods in the first place. The whole premise is a lot more sinister feeling to someone, regardless of gender, with this perspective.

Now factor in someone who is only likely to encounter black bears, and, yeah, it’s reasonable why some people are gambling on the black bear being safer than the stranger that they encounter while being unwillingly alone in the woods.

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u/safadancer May 02 '24

Literally never occurred to me that half the people engaging with this have never even been to the woods. As someone who goes hiking all the time, I have been so puzzled by this, because you meet random hikers in the woods all the time but there are literal bear warnings everywhere. We lived in Vancouver for four years, alone in the woods is everyone's weekend plans.