I have a fear of sharks.
Let me amend that for accuracy: I have a completely irrational fear of sharks.
It’s all Steven Spielberg’s fault.
After seeing Jaws as a child, I became fully convinced whenever I was in the water, that a massive, dead-eyed Great White was certainly seconds away from dragging me beneath the surface and tearing my torso in half. This, inexplicably included swimming pools—even our own. At night I couldn’t open my eyes while under water, afraid I would see the approaching silhouette of my demise barreling toward me from the blackness of the deep end. At times I’d find myself leaping out of the pool, just to safe.
Forget the actual odds of a shark attack in my Central New York subdivision back yard. This was never useful information for my now-tweaked psyche. My fear wouldn’t let a little thing like probabilities get in the way of a good, cleansing panic attack.
No one around me would have known this, of course. Realizing that my terror wasn’t based in reality but merely a monster manufactured in my head, I kept it well hidden from my swimming companions. I certainly knew better than to scream bloody murder and chase everyone from the pool. I knew it would be wrong to subject them to my grossly oversized phobia.
There are likely no sharks in our public bathrooms either, and I wish we could all admit it.
Over the past few months there’s been a myth perpetuated by fearful folks who would have us believe that peeing in a public place is one of life’s more dangerous endeavors; that whenever we relieve ourselves we do so in shark-infested waters. It’s a lie these people need to be true in order to buy and sell the narrative that our young girls need saving and that so-called “bathroom bills” will save them.
Never mind that under these laws, predators will have the very same access to public restrooms that they have always had.
Forget the fact that women and children are in exponentially more danger of being assaulted by a relative or family friend than by a stranger in a bathroom.
Pay no attention to the reality that policing public bathrooms and enforcing these laws is practically speaking, an impossibility.
And don’t worry that Transgender women are not in fact, “men in dresses”.
Never mind that at first glance some women simply appear masculine and some men, more feminine.
And forget that the rare times men do prey upon people in public restrooms, they are usually not at all disguised.
These things are all largely irrelevant to those determined to be afraid. Remember, fear doesn’t need data or facts to sustain it, nor will it allow them to diffuse it. Fear simply wants to thrive, and it will fill in the gaps of reality in order to do so.
This really isn’t a fight even though it appears to be one. We’re all on the same side here. No one is disagreeing with the notion of keeping our girls and women safe. Many of us just realize that danger isn’t proportionate to the hysteria being generated, nor does it properly address the issue in a way that would protect anyone anyway.
We all have our irrational fears; those things that terrorize us without really existing. If yours includes armies of nefarious men prowling public restrooms, you’re welcome to it—but don’t expect me to agree with you or to endorse it at the expense of our greater humanity. I can respect that fact that you fear something while still seeing it as largely imaginary.
Yielding to your nonsensical worry is not my responsibility.
It’s not our government’s responsibility either.
When our irrational fears negatively affect other people’s realities, we become the problem. We turn into the danger.
As for me, I’m a bit better at swimming in the deep end of the pool now. Oh, sure, every once in a while I could swear I see a slick dorsal fin breaking the surface and my adrenaline spikes briefly, but then I remember I probably don’t have anything to worry about and I going on swimming.
I’m trying to be an adult. Part of being an adult is recognizing what is real and what is make-believe, and to learn to only fear the former.
There’s a good chance there are no sharks lurking in the pool—or in the bathroom.
They’re probably all in our heads.
