# Here's a shiny new thread for pitting ZPG Zealot. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 14, 2011, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868 "2011-05-14T03:21:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/21 "2011-05-14T12:07:14Z")
And she claims we’re the ones pushing our beliefs on her. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/22 "2011-05-14T12:47:07Z")
But we are! Didn’t you know that **Ellen Cherry** and **Czarcasm** go to **ZPG** ’s house and force her to read the Dope? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/23 "2011-05-14T13:41:45Z")
_And_ she thinks that women who do shake hands are kind of slutty. Pure nutjob, here. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/24 "2011-05-14T13:47:28Z")
> [@flatlined](#): > > On Sunday, I got gang hug raped. That’s hot. ---
**Author:** ![wintertime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c68b51/32.png) [@wintertime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wintertime)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/25 "2011-05-14T15:13:12Z")
What do you think do you accomplish by ridiculing someone who seems to be deeply traumatized\* and consequently somewhat disturbed and who is apparently therefore not capable of a rational approach in such matters? If I were to name dopers who need help, she were one of them; of course, a forum has neither any obligation nor is it qualified in any sense to provide support. But I’m a bit ashamed to see behaviour that is more appropriate for high school students than mature adults who might, no, should have learned a bit about compassion in their life. If you think what you do might help, give her a bit of perspective, challenge her view with alternatives or something similar, alright, but that’s not what a pitting is about, isn’t it? added: I have seen Sarahfeena have kind words for so many people, that I’m not implying that the pitting shows malice in any way; not, not at all. I guess, ZPG really got to her. * * * - whether her state of mind is due to experience or imagination I cannot judge. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/26 "2011-05-14T15:22:59Z")
I don’t see any evidence that **ZPG Zealot** is deeply traumatized. She seems like a plain garden variety crank to me. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/27 "2011-05-14T15:23:21Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > Not that I’m not saying that ZPG is a nutbar. Cos she totally is. But I think that the whole handshake = rape thing is way overblown - a combination of her not phrasing it well and people deliberately interpreting it to make her seem even nuttier. > > Look at it this way: > > 1. For cultural reasons, she will not generally shake hands with men. > > 2. When men offer to shake hands with her, she declines. > > 3. She has had men who will not take “I don’t shake hands, thank you.” for an answer, and even attempted to force her to do so. This is an invasion of boundaries by any definition. > > 4. It’s documented (see A Gift of Fear) that one of the things that rapists, etc do is to attempt a milder invasion of boundaries first, and see how the potential victim reacts. > > therefore > > 1. She sees men who \*\*\*don’t take no for an answer \*\*\*in the matter of shaking hands to be **along the same continuum as, and at higher potentiality to be** the same men who commit sexual assault. Therefore, she is wary of them. She never said that all men who shake hands with women are committing sexual assault; she just said that if someone doesn’t respect your boundaries in one matter, it makes them more likely to disrespect your boundaries in other matters. > > To me, this seems perfectly logical. However, because she _is_ a total nutbar about other things (adoption, other aspects of male-female relationships), and because this statement was made in the course of her defending one of the other things that she’s insane about, it got blown out of proportion. > > Saying “ZPG thinks that all handshakes are rape” is along the lines of the “Al Gore claimed he invented the internet” or “That lady got millions and millions of dollars from McDonalds for spilling coffee on herself” - a distortion at best, a lie at worst. There’s plenty of legitimate things to mock her for, but at the very least make sure you’re mocking what she actually thinks, not your straw man version of it. Uh, no. She’s said that men just /offering/ a handshake are forcing themselves on women. It’s rape. She thinks that it should be the woman who offers handshakes or that a man should ask, “May I shake your hand?” ignoring that offering the handshake is fundamentally doing just that. In the original thread where she discussed her, ah, views, she said that women should refrain from shaking mens’ hands because they might get the wrong idea. And it gets worse: She isn’t just saying how things are in “her culture” (I’m pretty sure she was born in the US), she’s expecting /us/ to be culturally sensitive and abide by her ridiculous fairy land rules. You’re suffering from hype backlash. You see people constantly dogpiling her and think “She can’t possibly be /that/ bad.” Yes, she is. People aren’t exaggerating her beliefs as much as you’d think. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/28 "2011-05-14T16:00:43Z")
> [@wintertime](#): > > What do you think do you accomplish by ridiculing someone who seems to be deeply traumatized\* and consequently somewhat disturbed and who is apparently therefore not capable of a rational approach in such matters? > > If I were to name dopers who need help, she were one of them; of course, a forum has neither any obligation nor is it qualified in any sense to provide support. > > But I’m a bit ashamed to see behaviour that is more appropriate for high school students than mature adults who might, no, should have learned a bit about compassion in their life. > > If you think what you do might help, give her a bit of perspective, challenge her view with alternatives or something similar, alright, but that’s not what a pitting is about, isn’t it? > > added: > > I have seen Sarahfeena have kind words for so many people, that I’m not implying that the pitting shows malice in any way; not, not at all. I guess, ZPG really got to her. > > * * * > > - whether her state of mind is due to experience or imagination I cannot judge. Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt. 🙂 Truth be told, I’m not interested in pitting **ZPG** , nor ridiculing her. I did call her a nut in my OP, though given the very unkind thing she said to me in the other thread, I think that’s pretty mild. The reason I started this thread was because I thought the mods should close my other pit thread (and still do). The purpose of the thread is moot at this point, and it was being kept alive only because **ZPG** got involved and it turned into a pitting of her. So…I thought I’d start a thread to continue the discussion with/about her, so that the **Annie** thread could be closed or at least die a proper death. ---
**Author:** ![wintertime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c68b51/32.png) [@wintertime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wintertime)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/29 "2011-05-14T16:20:03Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I don’t see any evidence that **ZPG Zealot** is deeply traumatized. She seems like a plain garden variety crank to me. Then I understand why you don’t feel sorry for her; and maybe you’re right because the threads I read and the ones she posts in do not seem to overlap, so I might be totally off. Still, it just doesn’t sit well with me seeing a circle of people pointing their fingers at the weird kid in the middle. Guess, I’m not pit-fit. > [@Sarahfeena](#): > > Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt. 🙂 My words were more directed to some statements by other posters in this and the other thread but it sounded as if I meant you and you alone. I didn’t mean to insult you, **Sarahfeena**. If you pitted me, I’d read all my posts carefully to see where I went wrong; that you might be wrong would be a subordinate assumption. Initially. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/30 "2011-05-14T16:20:34Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > 1. She has had men who will not take “I don’t shake hands, thank you.” for an answer, and even attempted to force her to do so. This is an invasion of boundaries by any definition. I think most of your post is wrong - go back and re-read her actual words. However I think the above is a lie. It goes against all logic. For her to claim it has happened numerous times is just plain coocookery. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/31 "2011-05-14T16:37:05Z")
> [@wintertime](#): > > Then I understand why you don’t feel sorry for her; and maybe you’re right because the threads I read and the ones she posts in do not seem to overlap, so I might be totally off. Still, it just doesn’t sit well with me seeing a circle of people pointing their fingers at the weird kid in the middle. Guess, I’m not pit-fit. > My words were more directed to some statements by other posters in this and the other thread but it sounded as if I meant you and you alone. I didn’t mean to insult you, **Sarahfeena**. If you pitted me, I’d read all my posts carefully to see where I went wrong; that you might be wrong would be a subordinate assumption. Initially. 😉 Oh, no worries, I didn’t feel insulted and I totally got your meaning. I just wanted to be sure my OP was clear. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/32 "2011-05-14T16:49:35Z")
Even the browser is getting in on the pitting - when I logged in on the thread, the adverts above the log-in box were all from families wanting to adopt kids, or agencies advertising their kids they had to adopt. 😃 My one real question is why the fuck \*\*ZPG \*\*is even here? I mean, she disagrees with reality on a pretty basic level, not many people seem to like her, and everyone (even those who don’t seem to actively dislike her) appears to agree that she’s a nutjob. Why hang around? Has she actually converted anyone to her nutjobbery? Is she a mental masochist? I don’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/33 "2011-05-14T17:35:21Z")
ZPG Zealot comes across as a very scared, selfish, and cold individual. I can’t imagine many people find her pleasant at all. The most absurd thing about her is that from what I have read in her posts, she hated her parents, so her aunt essentially adopted her, and her nephew’s parents died or abandoned him or some combination of the two, so she actually took legal guardianship over him, yet she still rants and rails against adoption. ---
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/34 "2011-05-14T17:48:34Z")
> [@wintertime](#): > > Still, it just doesn’t sit well with me seeing a circle of people pointing their fingers at the weird kid in the middle. Guess, I’m not pit-fit. Yeah, but the weird kid keeps coming into our conversations and telling us that our friends and relatives who adopted babies are narcissistic kidnappers. Oh and she’s a fucking charlatan, who’s defense for being one was “but other people are charlatans too!” ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/35 "2011-05-14T19:08:21Z")
I see her more as the saddest of creatures. She clings to Roma culture, while living and earning in the West, with no plan to return to the fold. How painful must that be, no wonder she’s so out of step with the world. She longs for a time, now gone, when men dared not reach out and shake a woman’s hand for fear of offending. A time that really only existed in romance novels, not reality. That’s just so sad, she will never feel at ease in the culture where she lives. She admits to earning income being a seer though she admits to no special gift. She takes their money in exchange for her ‘advice’, so sees it as anything other than the exploitation of the ignorant that it clearly is. I mean how deluded/ignorant would you have to be to take advice from someone so disconnected from reality, trying to cling to a culture they no longer live among, and the superstitions and manner of a time, now long past. She admits to being raised by persons easily proven unfit by Eastern European social workers, on what grounds, one can only speculate, but that’s how she got to be her nephew’s legal guardian. Not because she wanted to, she freely admits she didn’t, but because she was the hardest to prove unfit. Not that she was any fitter, you understand, it was that she was the most difficult to prove anything against. If that doesn’t make you shiver, for the boy, you’re made of tougher stuff than I. It’s beyond sad, it’s tragically pathetic. Willful ignorance is not to be excused, ever, but this borders on nut house crazy. She’s unlikely to change any of these views, she’s very attached to these insanities. And she’ll still be screaming the ‘truth’ all the way to the nut house. And, make no mistake, that’s where this will end, in my opinion. She’ll get older, it’ll get odder, the anger/bitterness and not being able to bend the world to her view will fester, and someone, somewhere, sometime in the future will think to themselves, ‘y’know she’d be better off…’, and that will be that. Saddest creature on the Straight Dope, in my opinion. Her opinions are definitely worthy of the heaps of scorn she gets, but in the end it all comes back to sad, sad, sad. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/36 "2011-05-14T19:10:05Z")
In the past it was worse – men actually KISSED a woman’s hand! Don’t forget keeping her nieces and nephews extra close to her when she goes out, because any “adopters” might steal them! (Yes, she actually said that. I’ll try and see if I can’t find it) ---
**Author:** ![Meyer6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/37 "2011-05-14T20:24:25Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > 1. She sees men who \*\*\*don’t take no for an answer \*\*\*in the matter of shaking hands to be **along the same continuum as, and at higher potentiality to be** the same men who commit sexual assault. Therefore, she is wary of them. She never said that all men who shake hands with women are committing sexual assault; she just said that if someone doesn’t respect your boundaries in one matter, it makes them more likely to disrespect your boundaries in other matters. She doesn’t limit her view just to men who don’t take no for an answer, ant man who dares to offer his hand is implying that the woman in question is a prostitute, and moreover she is more than wary of them, she has serious violent thoughts about them: > [@ZPG Zealot: A troll too far](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/zpg-zealot-a-troll-too-far/567621/92): > > putting out you hand is often a highly visible act that MANY people can observe, not just you and the other person involved. You don’t have the right to damage someone else’s reputation by your actions regardless of what that act means to you personally. > [@ZPG Zealot: A troll too far](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/zpg-zealot-a-troll-too-far/567621/177): > > Why do you think I was so offended by the gesture? I was not a prostitute, but they were treating me like one. It was highly insulting. That’s why the gesture is so disgusting. You can be a perfectly respectable woman but some asshole comes around sticking out his dirty hand and someone can see it and wonder if you are for sale. It simply not right. In retrospect, I sometimes wish I had stabbed some of those men, but the past cannot undone. I also just don’t buy her claim that there exist all these men who refuse to accept that someone won’t shake hands, or who are highly offended by a polite refusal to shake. I actually agree with you that it would be reasonable to be wary of such a man, but I really can’t imagine that men like that make up anything more than a incredibly tiny fraction of the population. And yet she wants us to believe that they are so common that she has lost multiple jobs because of them, and she knows multiple women who are practically suicidal because their lives are made so miserable by these type of men: > [@ZPG Zealot: A troll too far](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/zpg-zealot-a-troll-too-far/567621/149): > > I have been fired from several jobs because I refused to compile with assholes sticking out their hands and said quite politely, “My religious beliefs do not permit me to have physical contact with the opposite sex.” > [@ZPG Zealot: A troll too far](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/zpg-zealot-a-troll-too-far/567621/282): > > I have had many women confide in me how uncomfortable, humiliated and threatened, they have felt by men forcing to shake hands with them. I have known women that have quit their jobs and redrew from public and some who have become dangerously depressed over the lack of respect they have had to work under. This is clearly pure, unadulterated, bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/38 "2011-05-14T21:08:36Z")
That practically SCREAMS a demand that the question be asked: With what would one adulterate bullshit, were one dissatisfied with the prospect of presenting it neat? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/39 "2011-05-14T22:20:02Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > That practically SCREAMS a demand that the question be asked: With what would one adulterate bullshit, were one dissatisfied with the prospect of presenting it neat? Politics, obviously. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2011, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868/40 "2011-05-14T23:19:14Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > That practically SCREAMS a demand that the question be asked: With what would one adulterate bullshit, were one dissatisfied with the prospect of presenting it neat? Horseshit tends to add an interesting piquancy. Other possibilities include plain old bull, malarkey, or if you’re feeling really exotic, poppycock or horsefeathers. Poppycock is probably your most expensive option; you wouldn’t believe how many poppies you have to pick to get a pound of cocks out of them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heres-a-shiny-new-thread-for-pitting-zpg-zealot/581868.md?page=3)