No, this thread is just an example of the ongoing and long-standing mob mentality we get around here sometimes. It’s been discussed very heatedly before, and I honestly didn’t mean to get it started again, but it sickens me when it happens in society (lynch mobs out for blood), and it sickens me here. Of course I don’t agree with that doofus, but why, WHY can’t someone have a different opinion on this board without being crucified for it? Why does it matter to some of you so much what one guy thinks? Maybe he’s a pig. Maybe he’s crazy. Maybe he’s very young and has ill-formed opinions on such things. My neighbor thinks he works undercover for the DEA when he’s actually an unmedicated Bipolar on Disability, but I’m not going to go stand in his yard and scream at him that he’s wrong. I’m going to say, “Yeah, whatever, dude”, and get on with my life.
Isn’t that exactly what the Pit is for? To rant about things & people that piss us off? Why of all threads are you picking this one to defend? Sunrazor’s comments were some of the most disgusting things I’ve ever read on this board. He basically said it’s no big deal if teenagers force an 8-year old to perform oral sex on them.
It’s not a “different opinion,” it’s an offensive insult to the mother of a (child) rape victim.
I ask you again, do you think people on a message board should ever say they find any kind of behavior objectionable or should anything go?
If you wanted to complain about “lynching,” you should have chosen an example that wasn’t provoked by such patently offensive remarks. This thread is about bad community behavior, not a dissenting opinion.
More than that, he told the mother she was “overeacting,” and that she was wrong to report a sexual asssault on her own child to the police.
Right. The little girl was only sexually assaulted. It wasn’t as if somone had called her a “cow.”
If this were about an article on a website somewhere that described the same thing happening to a stranger, you’d have a point. But norinew is a member of this board who some of us know very well, and those of us who do know her consider her a good friend. Heck, I was there when mudgirl got her nickname.
The thread wasn’t about outrage or improving anything. It was offering support to a friend and her daughter who are going through a difficult time. For that reason, Sunrazor’s post was all the more dickish, and that’s why we’re reacting this strongly to it.
Robin
Have you never been in a situation where you had an opinion, and thought to yourself, “y’know, self, I might strongly disagree with certain people here, but now might not quite be the time to express it”? You surely have. Because I’d say that if ever there is such a situation, talking to a mother whose child has just been sexually assaulted is it. He’s not being crucified for having a different opinion (at least, not solely for that); it’s because he expressed it in a completely inappropriate place. If it had been a GD thread on the ethics of parenting in sexual assault cases, this pit thread wouldn’t exist. But it wasn’t, was it?
People who say this sort of thing then fall back on their “right to an opinion” remind me very much of the sort of people who say, “if I’ve got a problem with someone, I’ll tell them to their face. That’s just the sort of person I am.” And funnily enough, those people have problems with a lot of other people. That’s because they’re usually dicks. Sometimes your opinion makes you a dick; and sometimes it’s not the opinion, but your insistence on broadcasting it. If you were an atheist, would you stand up at a Christian funeral and loudly pronounce that the person is not in heaven, but rotting in the ground? If challenged, would you cry, “what? It’s my opinion, man!”
First, because many of the members here have met this little girl and know her personally. Second, because the little girl’s mother is a long standing member here whom we know and care about.
Sunrazor came into a thread where norinew needed support and love more than anything else, and he took a big, steaming dump in the middle of it. He implied her daughter made it up. He outright dismissed the seriousness of the crime and said she was a great, big meanie for calling the cops on those boys.
Apparently, it Sunrazor’s world, it’s a very bad thing to take a tranquilizer and drink a glass of wine after your eight year old daughter tells you she’s been raped, but it’s perfectly acceptable to actually commit the rape.
This is not some anonymous forum where an invested emotional reaction is completely out of context. While the names are not the same as the ones on our driver’s licenses, we are recognized by them. Many of us have been here for years and have created meaningful relationships. In some instances, those relationships are as strong as anything found offline. In addition, we have met offline and in person, so we are not “anonymous” by any definition of the word.
There is no lynch mob. If there were, the boys who raped her daughter, and the man who declared it was no big deal would be dead, hanged from the nearest stout tree. As there have been no death threats, no threats of any sort, the accusation of a lynch mob is ridiculous.
It astonishes me that you, Alice, and Sunrazor are so incapable of basic empathy. Her daughter was raped. Her eight year old little girl. If you are actually unable to put yourself in her shoes and experience her emotions, I feel very sorry for you.
It should also be noted that norine already has one daughter with major issues. What happened to mudgirl should not be shrugged off and allowed to fester within her. If it were my kid, I wouldn’t feel she was safe until some kind of legal barrier was set up between her and them.
And those boys will offend again if no one intervenes. Either mudgirl or someone else. They’ll keep escalating until the law prevents them. Why shouldn’t it stop now? Does someone have to die before it’s “bad enough”?
I’m sure I could work up a good head of steam here and spout off some vitriol. Hell, I thought about starting this thread myself. Then I didn’t, because that kind of vitriol just sucks the energy right out of me. And right now, I need my energy to take care of business here on the homefront.
So, for those of you who are supporting me (and to those of you who don’t support me but are just keeping your mouths shut about it because maybe now is not the time), thank you. For those of you who’ve sent me PM’s of support and emails, thank you.
The rest, I think I’ll just kind of ignore for now so I can focus on other stuff.
But Rilchiam, you are absolutely right. This kind of behavior escalates if it’s not stopped. One of these boys isn’t allowed in the local supermarket any more because he was caught shoplifting. Maybe they should have waited until he stole something more valuable than a $6.00 toy before kicking him out? Well, that would be silly, wouldn’t it. If he had gotten away with the small stuff, he’d have ramped it up until he couldn’t get away with it anymore.
Sure, I can keep the kids off my property, and I will. Then whose property would they be on? Then whose little girl would they be assaulting? Am I supposed to just turn a blind eye because, hey, it’s not my kid?
If I didn’t press charges, how could I explain to mudgirl that her assault wasn’t serious enough for me to be bothered? More, how could I explain that to the next victim who maybe isn’t educated enough about stuff to call “Time Out” like my baby did? (How far would it have gone if she hadn’t been level-headed enough to do that? I don’t even want to think about that part.)
I did what I think I had to do. I would feel more peaceful, in my heart, if I thought that adequate help existed for these boys. I know the system is seriously flawed and don’t believe they’ll get the help they need. But I sure as hell wouldn’t be helping anyone by letting the behavior continue and escalate.
I think it’s partially true: people here seem to be competing for more colorful language to outdo the other posters to be the most righteous poster.
In doing so, they not only manage to make the situation in the other thread seem worse than it actually was, which hardly seems possible at the present time of high emotions, but in doing so make light of others who really endured much worse.
I mean really. “Violated”? “Raped”? Why even use the first word, when it could only lead to (further?) psychological traumatization of the victim? As for the second, if I were the parent I’d certainly be using that word, knowing that it’s a loaded word designed to evoke extreme emotions in order to accomplish my goals. In that case my desire for revenge would trump good use of the English language.
People using it here are also using it in a political manner, to be holier-than-thou with Sunrazor.
Make no mistake, adults who did this should get at least 5 years in jail, and Sunrazor’s poo-pooing attitude is execrable, but let’s not pile on more fuel for the lynch mob mentality.
He has sons.
I haven’t got the energy to join in on this pitting. Anger tends to make me tired and sad more than rile me up. I’d rather just ask Sunrazor to please rethink this. Please.
Perhaps it did need a Pit thread, because this kind of dismissal is so fucking common in our society-even nowadays. “Oh, it’s no big deal-don’t call the police, they’re just kids!” It makes me think of how, even today, people will STILL blame the victim, and say “she/he was asking for it.”
Last time I checked, people around here are pitted all the fucking TIME for things they say that others don’t agree with. Why is this somehow so special?
And to turn your own attitude around, if YOU think the Pitting is so silly, why are you here?
(As for Sunrazor, I hope that norinew remembers that he’s simply an AIDS infested tampon lying at the bottom of a shit covered outhouse.
And THAT’s scary. One wonders what kind of values he’s passing on to them.
(Note-I do NOT think he’s turning them into rapists-just that they may not understand the seriousness of this kind of thing, or how to treat women with respect.)
Hey-I wonder what Sunrazor’s reaction would be if one of his sons’ had come home and said he had been sexually assaulted as mudgirl was!
Because forced oral sex IS rape. What the hell else would you call it?
And it’s incredibly unlikely that the little girl in question is reading this message board, so your concerns about her psychological health seem disingenuous to say the least.
I didn’t think I had to point out that it was that attitude that was dangerous.
Ya know, I’ve been thinking in the last couple of days that the Supreme Court didn’t go far enough when they ruled that the death penalty is too harsh for child rapists, but I couldn’t quite grasp my full feelings on the topic. I want to thank Sunrazor for helping me put my feelings on the subject into words.
Child rapists shouldn’t be put to death- their parents should just deal with it. Why didn’t I think of that? It makes perfect sense. Studies show that the death penalty is not a deterrent, but has anybody done a scientific study on the deterrent effect of a stern talking-to and being sent to bed without dinner? I bet not. How about armed robbery? I bet a week’s grounding from their cell phone would nip that shit in the bud.
In case you can’t tell, Sunrazor, I’m being sarcastic, and you are a complete tool.
In the original thread, I was slapped gently for using a variant on the word “asshole”.
I feel freer here.
Asshole.
I don’t see any indication that Alice lacks empathy. Say whatever else you want about how her comments about Sunrazor were in the wrong, but there’s no need to imply she’s some sort of empathy-less monster. It doesn’t logically follow.
Sunrazor’s post was totally unnecessary. If norinew wanted to put puppies on spikes to help her deal with what happened, I’d hand her both puppy and spike.
It is reasonable to question what an eight-year-old means by “forced”. Physical force? “We won’t play with you anymore otherwise!”? However, I would never think to bring that up, much less accuse mudgirl of lying, when it’s something that just happened to somebody who is telling me/us about it.
Commenting on events in a Doper’s personal life comes with totally different rules than commenting on some linked news story. Too many people around here seem to forget that (or don’t believe it.)
Forced oral sex IS rape. That’s not a “political” use of the word, it’s what the word means. Some jurisdictions define it as “rape” by statute. If you think it’s not “good use of the English language,” could you please explain why?