Weaponization of Awkwardness Title: “The Weaponization of Awkwardness” ‘Don't make a scene. Look the other way. Social discomfort has long been used to maintain the status quo” Bottom of Form “Young women say yes to sex they don’t actually want to have all of the time. Why? Because we condition young women to feel guilty if they change their mind.” That was the writer Ella Dawson, in her essay reacting to “Cat Person,” theNew Yorker short story that went viral, and indeed that is still going viral, this week. Kristen Roupenian’s work of fiction resonated among denizens of the nonfictional world in part because of its sex scene: one that explores, in rich and wincing detail, the complications of consent. Margot, a 20-year-old college student, goes on a date with Robert, a man several years her senior; alternately enchanted by him and repulsed by him, hopeful about him and disappointed, she ultimately sleeps with him. Not because she fully wants to, in the end, but because, in the dull heat of the moment, acquiescing is easier—less dramatic, less disruptive, less awkward—than saying no. “After all,” as Dawson notes of the real-world implications of Margot’s decision, “you’ve already made it back to his place, or you’re already on the bed, or you’ve already taken off your clothes, or you’ve already said yes. Do you really want to have an awkward conversation about why you want to stop? What if it hurts his feelings? What if it ruins the relationship? What if you seem like a bitch?” Consent, concession, the blurred lines between the two: The work of fiction, and the analysis of it, are each in their own ways deeply true. And they struck a cultural nerve this week—Dawson’s essay, titled “Bad Sex, or the Sex We Don’t Want but Have Anyway,” went viral along with Roupenian’s story—because they highlight, together, something that is widely recognized but rarely talked about: the version of sex that is bad not in a criminal sense, but in an emotional one. The kind that can happen, as Dawson suggested, partly as a result of cultural forces that exert themselves on women in particular: the demand that they be accommodating. That they be pleasing. That they capitulate to the feelings of others, and maintain a kind of sunny status quo—both in the immediate moment of a given social situation, and more broadly: Wait for the raise to be offered. Put in that extra minute of effort with the eye makeup. Nod. Smile. Once you’ve consented, don’t make things weird by saying, out loud, that you’ve changed your mind. “Cat Person,” on top of everything else, is an exploration of awkwardness as a form of social coercion; the conversation it sparked, accordingly, in “Bad Sex” and Facebook posts and essays and tweet threads, has been a consideration of that kind of awkwardness as a condition—and a chronic one. That these conversations would be occasioned by a work of fiction is both ironic and revealing: The world itself, the one that is .

1. Weaponization of Awkwardness
Title: “The Weaponization of
Awkwardness”
‘Don't make a scene. Look the other way. Social discomfort has
long been used to maintain the status quo”
Bottom of Form
“Young women say yes to sex they don’t actually want to have
all of the time. Why? Because we condition young women to
feel guilty if they change their mind.”
That was the writer Ella Dawson, in her essay reacting to “Cat
Person,” theNew Yorker short story that went viral, and indeed
that is still going viral, this week. Kristen Roupenian’s work of
fiction resonated among denizens of the nonfictional world in
part because of its sex scene: one that explores, in rich and
wincing detail, the complications of consent. Margot, a 20-year-
old college student, goes on a date with Robert, a man several
years her senior; alternately enchanted by him and repulsed by
him, hopeful about him and disappointed, she ultimately sleeps
with him. Not because she fully wants to, in the end, but
because, in the dull heat of the moment, acquiescing is easier—
less dramatic, less disruptive, less awkward—than saying no.
“After all,” as Dawson notes of the real-world implications of
Margot’s decision, “you’ve already made it back to his place, or
you’re already on the bed, or you’ve already taken off your
clothes, or you’ve already said yes. Do you really want to have
an awkward conversation about why you want to stop? What if
it hurts his feelings? What if it ruins the relationship? What if
you seem like a bitch?”
Consent, concession, the blurred lines between the two: The
work of fiction, and the analysis of it, are each in their own
ways deeply true. And they struck a cultural nerve this week—
Dawson’s essay, titled “Bad Sex, or the Sex We Don’t Want but
Have Anyway,” went viral along with Roupenian’s story—
because they highlight, together, something that is widely

2. recognized but rarely talked about: the version of sex that is bad
not in a criminal sense, but in an emotional one. The kind that
can happen, as Dawson suggested, partly as a result of cultural
forces that exert themselves on women in particular: the demand
that they be accommodating. That they be pleasing. That they
capitulate to the feelings of others, and maintain a kind of
sunny status quo—both in the immediate moment of a given
social situation, and more broadly: Wait for the raise to be
offered. Put in that extra minute of effort with the eye makeup.
Nod. Smile. Once you’ve consented, don’t make things weird by
saying, out loud, that you’ve changed your mind. “Cat Person,”
on top of everything else, is an exploration of awkwardness as a
form of social coercion; the conversation it sparked,
accordingly, in “Bad Sex” and Facebook posts and essays and
tweet threads, has been a consideration of that kind of
awkwardness as a condition—and a chronic one.
That these conversations would be occasioned by a work of
fiction is both ironic and revealing: The world itself, the one
that is all too real, has long provided its own stories of perilous
awkwardness. As revelations of sexual harassment and
assault have come to light in recent months, awkwardness and
discomfort and embarrassment and, in general, Americans’
deeply ingrained impulse to avoid involvement in an “awkward
moment when” have also shown their darker sides. Harvey
Weinstein, on the tape recorded by the model Ambra Battilana
Gutierrez as part of a New York Police Department sting
operation, told her, “Don’t embarrass me in the hotel.” And:
“Honey, don’t have a fight with me in the hallway.” And:
“Please, you’re making a big scene here. Please.” So many of
the other men accused of predation, it has now become painfully
clear, have in their own ways used those soft but crushing social
pressures as weapons, both in moments of abuse and
beyond: Don’t be dramatic. Don’t make a scene. Please.
It’s a microcosm, in some ways, of the broader-scale betrayals
that have been revealing themselves in this latest #MeToo
moment. Awkwardness, after all, is supposed to be cheerful. It’s

3. supposed to be harmless and lighthearted and laughable, a joke
made at the expense of society itself. Funny-awkward.Painful-
awkward. Relatably awkward. (Even the word, as written—the
multiple ws, the jarring angles—is, yep, awkward.) So pervasive
has awkwardness become in its collective self-deprecation—the
age of irony colliding with the age of social media, all those
interactions ripe for comic misunderstandings—that some have
dubbed this moment a “golden age of awkwardness.” There it is
in our language. There it is in our literature. There it is in our
entertainments: Seinfeld and then The Office and then The
Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and
then Insecure. Juno. Junot. All those BuzzFeed gif-ticles. All
those delightful/horrifying entries into the Awkward Family
Photos database. All those times that Taylor Swift was so
very Taylor Swift. No wonder Curb Your Enthusiasm made
its return this year: The era practically summoned it.
But “Cat Person” and “Bad Sex” and this #MeToo moment at
large—the stories about that moment both fictional and
tragically real—are reminders of how easily the stuff of pop-
cultural whimsy can be twisted in ways that are malignant to
those who navigate that culture. When Harvey Weinstein told
Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, “Honey, don’t have a fight with me
in the hallway,” he was attempting to turn centuries’ worth of
cultural conditioning—gendered conditioning—against her. He
was weaponizing the mandate against scene-making, against
disruption, against unruliness. He was grossly blatant about it;
often, though, the pitfalls of awkwardness, as a negative
imperative, reveal themselves more subtly. Last month, Sarah
Wildman, formerly of the New Republic, published an essay in
which she describes an encounter with the magazine’s literary
editor at the time, Leon Wieseltier: He cornered her in a bar
during an office outing, she writes, and kissed her without her
consent. When she refused him, she recalls, he made a joke of
it.
Wildman reported the incident; the report went, she writes,
essentially ignored: another instance, as the magazine’s then-

4. editor now describes it, of individual moral compromise made
systemic at the publication. But it was not merely management
who averted their eyes from the awkwardness. “No one knocked
on my door,” Wildman puts it, “though I know now that at least
one other editor had some idea of what had happened. I told a
couple of my fellow writers, but no one spoke to me much at
all. Likely no one knew what to say.”
No one knew what to say. It’s one of the simplest and most
widespread mechanisms that helps open secrets to stay secret
for so long: the impulse to avoid making scenes, to avoid
making things weird. Women bear the brunt of these forces;
men, of course, experience them, too. The people around her,
Wildman suggests, felt awkward talking about harassment; as a
result, her claims about her own experience—and she herself—
got ignored. Awkwardness became a cyclical force, weaponized
not through malice, but through the convenient delusions of
benign neglect. Here is Franklin Foer, the former editor of
the New Republic—and now a national correspondent for The
Atlantic—speaking, with admirable candor, about his reaction
to hearing some of the comments Wieseltier seems to have made
about women at the magazine:
When I heard a comment like that, I think my response was
probably shame or extreme discomfort, wanting to hide,
changing the subject pretty quickly. To be clear, it wasn’t like I
heard these types of comments every day, every month. It was
things that would be scattered over the course of many hours,
many months of conversation.
Confrontation is hard is part of the grand moral of this story. I
wish I shrouded myself in the right thing and being
confrontational in those kind of instances, but really I was just
profoundly uncomfortable.
It’s an extremely familiar sentiment—a very specific strain,
essentially, of the bystander effect. And it’s extremely
understandable, in a Relatably Awkward kind of way. No one
would want to be in Foer’s position—just as, indeed, no one
would want to be in Wildman’s. But here, again, in the case of

5. the New Republic, was That Awkward Moment revealed not as a
funny banality, but as a threat: Wieseltier, after Wildman’s
report, stayed at the magazine (and thenbriefly joined The
Atlantic as a contributor); Wildman, eventually, left. The
awkwardness-aversion helped to insulate Wieseltier; it helped to
alienate Wildman. See something, say something. Except.
Last month, New York magazine ran an article headlined, “5
Men on Why They Didn’t Stop Harassment at Work.” One of
those men, Steve, a software executive, described a situation in
which a woman colleague had told him about feeling
uncomfortable because the men she worked with were testing
projects by streaming porn, and taking customers to strip clubs.
“She had to fit in,” the executive said, “not make waves or get
labeled as ‘difficult,’ so she asked me to keep quiet.” As Steve
now recalls, “I didn’t say anything. It’s easy to come up with
reasons not to get involved, so in some ways she simplified
things by telling me not to talk. Plus, I was friendly with the
guys and I knew it would be really awkward if I confronted
them.”
Again: a twist. A betrayal. One of the ironies of awkwardness
exerted in this way—as the trusty aide to the open secret—is
that awkwardness itself, as a passing circumstance, can be a
great equalizer. None of us, oooooof, cringe, , is immune to it.
(“It is civilization that makes us awkward,” Benjamin
Disraeli once noted, “for it gives us an uncertain position.”)
Awkwardness is a form of “embarrassment,” in the sociologist
Erving Goffman’s sense: a deviation between expectation and
reality. A disturbance in the force. Amisreading of the cue.
And Americans, in particular, have long written easiness and
chattiness and pleasantry into our shared scripts.Many other
cultures are perfectly content with moments of silence in the
midst of a conversation; Americans, on the other hand—we who
reflexively append awkward to silence—tend to rush to fill the
void with idle, but blessedly voluminous, chit-chat. We have
“real talk,” with the qualifier revealing as much as the
conversation itself, and, relatedly, a deep and dedicated

6. aversion to conducting what human-resources departments
euphemize as “uncomfortable conversations.” Several years
ago, The Atlanticcoined the term phaking—and also dodge
dialing, and also the cell phone side step—to describe the very
common act of pretending to be on one’s phone to avoid in-
person interaction with others. Urban Dictionary’s top
definition of awkward explains the word as the situation in
which “no one really knows what to say, or choose not to say
anything.” It advises the reader, should she find herself in such
a wretched circumstance: “Just back slowly away.”
But these skillful evasions and willful aversions have come at a
cost. They have allowed for injustice. They have abetted
impunity. They have encouraged people to turn the other cheek,
and to do so in the name of the mandate that so many will
understand, implicitly: Don’t make it weird. They have helped
men like Harvey Weinstein to leverage the pernicious power
of Please, you’re making a big scene here. And the dangers
stretch far beyond matters of sexual harassment and abuse: Just
as embarrassment can negatively affect people’s health
outcomes (the physical body is so often a metaphor for the body
politic), it can impede the health of the culture at large. So
many conversations that are desperately necessary—about sex
and gender, yes, but also about racial justice, about economic
inequality, about the politics that affect people in the intimacies
of their daily lives—can be thwarted by Americans’ pervasive
aversion to awkwardness. In 2015, Claudia Rankine gave an
interview to The Guardian. “Why is it so hard,” the paper asked
the poet, “to call out racism?” Rankine replied, “Because
making other people uncomfortable is thought worse than
racism.”
It was a searing indictment. And it will be one of the broadest
challenges of this moment—This Awkward Moment—not just to
rethink the structures of power that have brought us here in the
first place, but also to make Rankine’s insight less terribly true.
It is possible. It is happening. Last year, NPR’s Code
Switchaired a brilliant podcast episode that offered a deep

7. conversation about moments of revealed racism. The episode,
and a group of essays that accompanied it, were collected under
the title “Hear Something, Say Something: Navigating The
World Of Racial Awkwardness,” and they were just one part
of Code Switch’s ongoing and much broader discussion about
race in America. The latest incarnation of #MeToo, with so
many people sharing frank and unflinching accounts of
harassment and manipulation and assault, has similarly
prioritized progress in the end over comfort in the moment. “Cat
Person,” even as a work of fiction, took things that would
traditionally have been the stuff of classically American eye-
aversion and turned it into an opportunity for open discussion—
not just by its author, but among its many readers.
The conversations and revelations are uncomfortable, yes. But
they are necessary. They are urgent. And they are evidence of
one of the ethics of this particular Awkward Moment: There is
nothing wrong—and indeed there is so much right—with
making things weird. With telling the truth, awkward as it may
be. With standing up and speaking up and, finally, making a
scene.
Intervention Strategies in Military Behavioral Health and
Combat Related Issues
Stigma as a barrier to substance abuse and mental health
treatment
Diana Carter
University of South Carolina
Introduction
Stigma is associated
with substance abuse

8. Stigma prevents soldiers
from seeking help
Stigma is deeply rooted in Military traditions
Association of substance abuse with weakness
The article highlights on stigma within the military, an issue
that is deeply rooted in their culture. The relationship between
stigma and substance abuse is well understood as research
highlights that stigma prevents the military personnel from
seeking help, particularly with substance abuse issues as it is
perceived a point of weakness. The development of stigma is a
systemic issue that is highly evident in the military culture
whereby the personnel are urged on being strong rather than
show any sign of weakness (Mcfarling et.al, 2011). Therefore,
soldiers are conditioned to be mentally tough and strong
physical, an aspect that inhibits them from seeking help as it is
perceived a sign of weakness.
2
Military Policy on Substance Abuse
Policies have evolved over time
Changes resulting in
unintended consequences
Post-Vietnam era was
associated with substance abuse
Increase in Stigma associated with drug abuse
Within the military, policies regarding drug abuse have evolved
over time in response to the changing situational context.

9. Notably, this changes have often resulted in unintended
consequences such as the advent of stigma when seeking for
treatment (Mcfarling et.al, 2011). While the post-Vietnam era
was associated with drug abuse amongst the service men,
military acceptance of drug abuse ceased over time. Through
this, stigma associated with drug abuse within the military
personnel was created.
3
Military Policy on Substance Abuse (Cont.)
Shifting attitudes towards alcohol abuse
Increased concern by army leaders on heavy drinking
Advent of Policies of compassionate treatment and
deglamorization
Substance abuse behaviors used to disqualify members
Rise of stigma associated with mental health treatment
In the mid-1980s, increased alcohol consumption by the service
men elicited mix reactions from the army leaders who wanted to
curb this behavior. Through this, attitudes associated with
alcohol consumption shifted over time (Mcfarling et.al, 2011).
Significantly, Policies of compassionate treatment and
deglamorization were deployed by the military to reduce heavy
alcohol consumption without stigmatization of the affected
personnel. However, during the post-cod war, substance abuse
behaviors were used to disqualify members thereby eliciting
stigmatization. With time, this mitigated the stigma associated
with mental health treatment.
4
Current Military Environment
Need to reduce barriers
on substance abuse treatment
Existing barriers on

10. mental health treatment
Prevalence of harmful drinking
Determinants of stigma for treatment
Notably, stigma is defined from different perspective to
showcase the current situation within the military.
Considerably, normative attitudes towards substance abuse and
mental health problems has caused has increased the barriers
that deter treatment amongst the military service men. Despite
this, it can be acknowledged that stigma has resulted in
associated problems such as prevalence of harmful drinking
(Mcfarling et.al, 2011). Therefore, the determinants of the
stigma should be identified to enhance the treatment approaches
for mental health problems and substance abuse.
5
Current Military Environment (Cont.)
A significant portion of military personnel does not seek
treatment services
Increased Alcohol Abuse
Elevated levels of stress
Harmful behaviors with respect to Military status
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uCGrsUQeeI
Considerably, a significant portion of the military personnel are
reluctant in seeking treatment services for both substance abuse
and mental health illness. Significantly, research highlights that
when the service men return from deployment, they tend to
abuse alcohol for different reasons including elevated levels of
stress. The prevalence of alcohol drinking in the military
personnel is a form of harmful behavior that vary with respect

11. to Military status (Mcfarling et.al, 2011).
6
Addressing the Issues in the Military
Evaluating personnel at risk
of behavioral health issues
such as substance abuse
Screening of personnel
Planning for treatment resources
Evaluating personnel at risk of developing substance abuse and
behavioral health issues within the military is increasingly
important as this can be used for determining the effective
treatment approaches (Stringer, 2012). To address this issues
within the military, screening of personnel using data from Post
Deployment Health Reassessment (PDHRA) records aids in
determining the risk factors of developing substance abuse and
behavioral health issues. Through this, the military can plan for
treatment approaches and required resources.
7
Use of Focus Group Interviews
Ascertaining the impact of military culture on attitudes towards
mental health issues and substance abuse
Evaluating how attitudes influence treatment
Describing distinctions between
mental health issues and
alcohol abuse
Suggestion of opportunities
to address negative attitudes
Focus group interviews provide significant information that can

12. not only be used to highlight the distinction between substance
abuse and mental health issues, but also ascertaining the impact
of military culture on attitudes towards the behavioral issues
(Mcfarling et.al, 2011). Through the interviews structured
questions facilitate the evaluation of how the attitudes influence
the treatment approaches among the personnel. Additionally,
different suggestions are presented n how to deal with the
negative attitudes (Stringer, 2012).
8
Findings
Soldiers in treatment perceive barriers to care different from
their peers
Soldiers in treatment have lower perception of stigma compared
to their counterparts
Perception of greater stigma due to reactions from their peers
People who need treatment the most tend to seek it.
While the research article does not offer a specific model for
use, the findings are apparent in that soldiers in treatment tend
to perceived barriers to care differently from their counterparts.
Considerably, service men undergoing treatment are associated
with lower perception of stigma compared to their peers who are
yet to seek treatment (Mcfarling et.al, 2011). Alternatively,
soldiers in treatment can have a greater perception of stigma
based on the reactions from their counterparts.
9
The Military Environment and Treatment
Attitude toward treatment
by active soldiers
Negative beliefs about
treatment by veterans.
Inability of personnel to
seek needed care

13. Within the military environment, there is a negative attitude
towards treatment for both substance abuse and mental health
problems by active service men. Additionally, there exists a
negative belief regarding the different forms of treatment
offered, particularly by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan
war. Therefore, this has contributed to their inability to seek
needed treatment (Mcfarling et.al, 2011).
10
Conclusion
Use of Conceptual theories to understand complex behavioral
phenomena
Negative attitudes towards treatment.
Removal of barriers towards treatment
Changing the military culture
According to Mcfarling et.al, 2011, different conceptual
theories and paradigms can be used to understand the complex
behavioral phenomena within the military. For instance, theory
of planned behavior can be used to understand different factors
that contribute to negative attitude towards treatment.
Implicitly, the model highlights that a negative attitude towards
treatment is enhanced by perceptions of how other soldiers will
respond to their status. This call for the removal of such
barriers towards treatment which will also entail change of the
military culture.
11
References
Mcfarling, L., D'angelo, M., Drain, M., Gibbs, D. A., & Rae
Olmsted, K. L. (2011). Stigma As A Barrier To Substance
Abuse And Mental Health Treatment. Military

14. Psychology, 23(1), 1.
Stringer, K. L. (2012). Stigma As A Barrier To Formal
Treatment For Substance Use: A Gendered Analysis. The
University Of Alabama At Birmingham.
12