A thread for all things Cephalopod

And in the Pit, too. The guy posts in the Pit and complains that people are rude and use bad language.

Terrkrahoma did the same thing. More than one sock, perchance?

I’m from Detroit. Octopi get thrown onto the ice before hockey games.

Dude. You just read a long and thoughtful post from a survivor of abuse about the hell that can come in the aftermath, for days and months and years and decades. And you still think it’s okay to publicly question their motives and honesty, without the slightest shred of evidence of dishonesty?

Because that’s what you did. Someone did that to pretty much every survivor of abuse who has ever had the courage to come forward, and some of them just hid it away after that for the rest of their lives because of responses like yours.

Moore and other accused abusers don’t need your help. If someone is lying about them (and recall that Moore, today, when asked if he dated girls as young as his accusers, said “not generally, no”), they are in the best position to discover and expose it. All you’re doing (when you have no evidence of dishonesty) is potentially adding to the pain and horror of victims, again and again, just for coming forward and telling their story. Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to risk hurting victims, again, at such a vulnerable time as risking coming forward and accusing a public and powerful figure?

for the win.

You’re fucking long-winded, too.

I’m not inside the victim’s head but the most plausible reason I can think of is that she had every reason to think she wouldn’t be believed until this point. Assuming she even could name what happened at the time, and didn’t blame herself, as a fourteen year old likely would blame herself, perhaps she recognized that there was little justice for her and tried to forget and move on. Maybe she got pressure from her family to keep it quiet. Maybe her family found out and told her she was a slut and it was her fault. Maybe she was only afraid that would happen because she was so ashamed. Or maybe it was just too painful to think about. All of those reasons for a victim staying silent are relatively common.

We’re in a strange probably fleeting moment of the media where people are pretending to, or maybe actually really giving a shit about powerful men abusing their power. Lots of people have felt empowered to speak and have come forward. Maybe one of these stories resonated with the victim, or made her see her experience for what it was, and given the current climate she decided to come forward along with all the other women and men. That seems most likely to me.

iiiandyiiii I appreciate your support but given that I just told octopus to ask if he didn’t understand a behavior, it’s not really fair to beat up on him for asking. There’s a difference between reinforcing rape mythology and just trying to understand.

Uh oh, watch that potty mouth!

Keep in mind that she met him voluntarily. He pursued her, but she agree to meet up with him surreptitiously (if I’m reading the stories correctly). So, yeah, she probably thought she might be in BIG TROUBLE, sneaking around to meet up with some 30 year old guy. It does’t surprise me at all that she kept her mouth shut about it.

Hey Dad, I just thought I’d let you know that I met up with my “boyfriend” yesterday and that he might be one of the men in your 4-some on the golf course this weekend. You’re cool with that, right?

I’ll add that trauma psychology expert Judith Herman in her groundbreaking research-based work Trauma and Recovery identified a critical part of healing from any trauma as “speaking the unspeakable.” That’s what I see all of these victims as doing. When we talk about breaking the silence, we’re not only talking about a public act. We’re talking about combatting the muteness inside of us, and the blindness, we are shining light on the stuff that scares the shit out of us until it is too familiar to be scary. I am 34 years old, I have been in therapy for freaking ever, I have rehashed this narrative for years and I have never been able to really look at the actual abuse under that shining light until this year. I still don’t understand it. How can you have the cognitive capacity to define something enough to describe and advocate against it, and yet still have a part of your brain that doesn’t understand? Cognitive dissonance was my default state as a teen and it’s like I’m still stuck there. I’m still stuck there asking “what is this?” And why? And how? A lifetime of studying trauma psychology and it doesn’t matter, I am just struck dumb.

I’m getting emotional now.

A) it’s octopuses
B) it’s behavior like that which will doom us to eradication with no hopes of mercy when the AI takes over or aliens arrive

Yeah. I think it’s ok to not blindly or reflexively accept anything anyone says. I think it’s actually foolish to act otherwise.

Tell me this, iiandyiiii, what specific action or inaction do you take when you hear an accusation? Do you have children? Have you ever had to sort out the truth between conflicting and lying children? People aren’t always honest. Stakes are high and not being in a rush to judgment is actually the real virtue. Virtue signaling on a message board is not.

Spice, maybe you should take a break. You have said alot of words today. Some of them have pulled my heart out, I cannot even fathom what they do to you. Thank you for your honesty.

Also: octopods. On this measure we agree entirely.

I think I shall. I’m supposed to be writing a novel.

I’ve seen it as ‘octopodes’, which apparently follows the correct Greek form. A bit of googling says one dictionary lists that as an acceptable, although rare, plural, and some don’t have it at all.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with anything I’ve said.

If it’s an accusation of sexual misconduct, I won’t attack in any way the accuser, barring good evidence they are lying (and there’s none such evidence in this case).

Again, I don’t care if you’re skeptical or want to wait for more information. That’s irrelevant to what I’m criticizing you for.

I think I’m done trying to explain this, since you keep responding to straw men and ignoring the actual reason behind my criticism. Shame on you for implying dishonesty in women for nothing more than coming forward to tell their story.

Publicly shaming a girl for getting molested when she was 14 is a little bit more than partisan.

Also, the person publicly shaming sex abuse victims is you. Don’t try to hide it by going all passive voice on us; own your behavior.

Who would have imagined that people would disapprove of you shaming 14-year-old sex abuse victims?

What would be the fucking point of lying about sexual assault 40 years later? Or to quote someone more eloquent than I:

There’s no upside to this for Leigh Corfman. Zero, zilch, nada. Her life is most likely filled with anguish, terror, and death threats. Somewhere, you’re trying to ascribe some sort of GOOD TIMES to a victim of molestation opening up about it decades later. There’s nothing good in it, for her, or anyone for that matter.

I have to disagree with E-DUB. You don’t deserve to touch the same ice as national treasures like the Detroit Red Wings. You belong somewhere more appropriate like Quebec - where they just throw trash out there.

For the guy who’s first words in this thread were

Stop whining about civility and go back to the safe space forums, you whiny brat.

Octopus is a dumbass, shithead troll whose time here is probably limited. Trust me, asshole, racist, dickhead posters like him always get banned eventually. I can and have easily predicted the last few posters to get banned–Okrahoma was one of them–and octopus is on that list. A few others are, like HurricanDitka and up the junction. I predict his stay here will not last another full year…if I’m wrong, I will be hugely surprised.

And I’m saying all this as a poster, not a mod. It’s not hard to not be warned or banned on this site. It’s not hard to stay clear of rule-breaking, IMO.
…But see, octopus, you’re such a huge, raging dillhole, fuckface, bigoted, shitsucker…who is constantly whining about everything and being a shitty human being in most all of your posts and in general…that it’s only gonna be a matter of time.

Prove me wrong. I’d love to see it.