As long as you recognize the prejudice you’re showing.
Yes, Sauron, I’m abundantly aware of the prejudice manifested by the concept that a poster who has been registered for only a month and has only 49 posts may in fact not be sufficiently well acquainted with someone to judge him “dangerous” and a “paranoid fuck.”
Look, you know iampunha. That’s fine. Simply saying “I know the man, and he isn’t as you characterize him; you owe him an apology” would have been sufficient.
But you’re now doing the same thing you’re complaining about. You’re zeroing in on one aspect of a person (their post count on this board) and using that as an attack against them. Why? You know the person is wrong about iampunha. But you’re running the risk of having your message obscured if you engage in personal attacks.
Maybe the fear of being raped (and the subsequent cautionary behaviors and habits that said fear induces) is what causes the fear of rape vs. the liklihood and/or actual incidence of rape to be so far out of proportion to each other. A simple case of cause and effect.
Ok. I feel like I’m taking a risk jumping into the middle of this, but here’s a question for all of you who are “afraid” or “cautious” of most men.
It seems that the concern throughout this post is not about strangers, but male strangers. My question is, what if this stranger had been a woman? I’ll understand that rape would probably not be so much of a concern (I may be wrong, but I’ll bet that statistically a man is much more likely to be a rapist than a woman), but what about robery, violence, drugs, or whatever else you could think up. Are these not concerns? Are you afraid of this strange man stealing, or threatening with violence more than you would be of a woman?
This is not meant as an attack at all, and I hope no one takes it as such. Just a question. As for myself (I am a man), I definitely admit that I am more nervous around strange men than strange women. Not that I am very nervous. But I would bet that a lot of you all share this increased warriness of men as opposed to women, and I wonder how truly justified that fear is.
I wouldn’t discount that as a possibility, Deej–it’s probably a big factor, but I would also doubt that it’s a simple cause and effect situation. Violent crimes relies on such a combination of factors – population, population density, demographic diversity, socioeconomic status – that it’s hard to ever pin it down to one thing.
Also, from browsing the FBI reports, it appears that rape has hovered around a pretty constant 0.7% of all reported violent crimes since at least 1995. Given that, it would be difficult to say that precautionary measures or increased vigilance by women has an effect either way.
(And FTR, I do realize that the FBI reports rely on reported crimes and I accept that rape is an underreported crime, but I’d hesitate to believe that it’s underreported by enough to affect that 0.7% proportion significantly.)
As far as custard dragon, if you read the posts, making insulting assumptions has been the norm. Not only was the term “dangerous fuck” used, but I myself was labeled a woman hater who got off on taunting women’s fear of rape and violence. If this is how someone deals with those will a different view than their own, I would certainly like to question what custard dragon “gets off” on.
I wouldn’t base my opinion on her assumptions on her post count, I know my own number is less than the century mark. I would base my opinion on the fact that she is wrong.
Asking AoTL if she was going to check on her roommate, and if her roommate had been raped yet was not a taunt. It was a reference to the fact that, if this situation and the legitamite fears involved were so great, than why wasn’t the rant directed to someone who could actually do something to improve her safety, and the safety of the roommate.
Of course the weekend has come and gone, and as far as we can tell, with little or no negative results.
Is this man still a stranger? Has the possibility that he is a rapist gone down at all? Will he be returning, and if so, will the situation be just as uncomfortable, or fear inducing?
Ack. Sorry. A resolution might have been nice…
Well, he stayed in the room during much of the day, but he did stay at a motel room that night. “Much of the day,” extended until 2, 3 AM in some cases, although I’m usually awake then anyway. There was one morning when I woke up to see them both sitting on her bed, but as it was early, a grunt and a rolling-over sufficed to solve the problem. They did, however, do “things” at the motel. That, in my opinion, is another level of stupid, but I’m not even going to touch upon here out of respect for my roommate.
I still don’t want the guy coming here. However, this is now based less on the fact that he might be a criminal, and more on the fact that he’s just fucking annoying (reading my AIM messages while I run to the bathroom, looking over my shoulder as I type, hijacking my pizza order, offering to “help” with my Spanish homework with what he learned on Sesame Street).
Through all of these posts I must say it is good to hear that nothing bad happened. No, I did not mean that in any sarcastic or taunting or I told you so kind of way. Seriously it is a good thing.
I suppose a whole new debate could be started on Which is more risky, the dorm room with the guy, or a hotel room. I, however, don’t even want to go there.
For the record, being raped was my primary (and, some may say, egotistical) fear. It was also the one that best fit the situation. If he wanted to clean out someone’s house/apartment, he would have probably chosen someone a little more well-to-do than a couple of college kids. We don’t even have a TV. If he wanted to OD on crack…well, I really wouldn’t care (other than the abstract sense of loss and helplessness that always accompanies the untimely death of another human being). He could have done that back home. It would have been inconsiderate, it probably would have taken up my time. It would not have threatened my personal safety.
Rape–or even the near experience of rape–is a huge fear of mine (as should be evident from the OP). I have a reason for this: this summer, I went down to DC for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. My parents allowed me to stay un-escorted in a hotel room with one of my friends who had recently moved to the area, and who I had missed very much. The first night we were there, we didn’t have any food or drink in the hotel room. Not quite knowing where the vending machine was, I decided to go down to the bar to get a glass of soda. I got the glass, watched a few minutes of TV down there, then went back up to the room where my friend was waiting. I don’t remember anything after that. According to my friend, and my boyfriend, whom I was talking to long-distance at the time, I drank the soda, got progressively more looped, and ended up sleeping and/or passing out on the floor. My boyfriend–who by this time was talking to my friend–started screaming at my friend to call 911. My friend refused, hung up on him, and left me to sleep it off. I woke up the next morning not remembering anything of what happened after I went up to the room. Scared the living shit out of me, and nothing even happened (unless my friend is a deeply-in-the-closet lesbian rapist, which I highly doubt)…so, with this having happened fairly recently, I suppose I’m a little more paranoid about these things than the general population, even though I don’t have a much of a reason to be so.
I’m sorry that this thread spawned such a heated debate. I really didn’t mean to make everyone fight like that. I was just sort of blowing off some steam, and expressing my fears in a way that would allow me to keep on getting along with my roommate, who, in every other way, has been very considerate (lets me listen to punk rock, lets me stay up late, etc.).
Maybe the fear of being raped (and the subsequent cautionary behaviors and habits that said fear induces) is what causes the fear of rape vs. the liklihood and/or actual incidence of rape to be so far out of proportion to each other. A simple case of cause and effect.
Don’t know why my post showed up twice…unless it has something to do with stupid cat curling up to sleep on the keyboard, on top of my typing fingers. After closing all the windows that popped up, re-minimizing my active screens, getting a “page expired” screen after which I stupidly hit “refresh” and having the entire keyboard freeze up on me and rebooting…
I couldn’t wait for this thread to open so I could see what I had posted!
What you are doing is taking a chance of being one of 20 shark fatalities; that doesn’t mean that the person who chooses shopping over swimming is being irrational. The non-swimmer is avoiding a situation that causes them legitimate concern – maybe not legitimate to you, pldennison, but they obviously would rather not take the chance of being that one of 20. I see no paranoia in that decision. If you decide to never enter the ocean again because the unlikelyhood of shark attack does not reassure you, again I say that perfectly rational. My choice may be different, but I won’t snicker at yours because being maimed/devoured by a shark sounds highly unpleasant to me. Now, if you ran screaming from a kidde pool …
**
I’m having a hard time equating meeting a rapist with meeting the King of Sweden – one option is far, far less desirable than the other. People don’t take self-defence courses to avoid the King of Sweden. Statistically a stranger might have one blue eye and one brown eye; I wouldn’t have fears or concern over that because that scenario causes me no harm.
**
That’s not what I feel. I feel that rapists may be (not “are”) lurking, a rational concern which shouldn’t make anyone feel resentful because (as your statistics show) it’s a fact. The streets are not choked with rapists and that’s great, but they are out there.
You seem to be severely confused about the nature of the Pit. The Pit is the “say what you want, you won’t get banned forum”. It is not the “say whatever you want; no one else is allowed to disagree with you” forum, and the fact that you expect it to be so marks you as rather childish individual. So more extreme statements have been said. So what? “But all the other kids are doing it!” is the kind of defense I would expect from a four-year-old.
Green Bean:
And yet another poster joins the straw man attack. Can you find one, just one, quote in which a man is offended by AtoL’s refusal to allow a stranger in her room? Or did you just make that up?
yosemitebabe
I’m still waiting for your explanation of how not posting a rant is a “vulnerable position”. And no, repeating the word “stranger” over and over does answer this question, or pretty much any other question, except perhaps “Do you have Tourette’s Syndrome?”
You seem to be severely confused about the nature of the Pit. The pit is NOT and never has been the “say what you want, you won’t get banned forum”. If you don’t believe me, start throwing around racial or ethnic slurs or better, try threatening someone and see how long you last. If you’re going to attempt to be condescending, at try to be accurate.
:rolleyes:
Fenris
Hey, The Ryan? Since you’re still around, can you explain how, in the same post, you said AotL accused this guy of being a rapist, then turned around and claimed you HADN’T said AotL accused this guy of being a rapist? I want to use that brand of logic in the next argument I have with my wife, but I’m not sure how to do it.
[Moderator Hat: ON]
Let me emphasize Fenris’ point, here.
The Pit is the place where you can swear freely, make person insults, and engage in flame wars.
There certainly are things that can be said in the Pit that will get you banned. It is possible to be in a flamewar and not be a jerk; I haven’t seen anything here that really aspires to jerkiness. It is possible to question moderator and administrator action without being a jerk, though IPU knows it seems to be getting rarer and rarer in practice.
On the other hand, use of racial/ethnic/religious slurs, starting threads in a campaign of harassment, use of sock puppets- these things will get you just as quickly banned if you do them in the Pit as they would elsewhere. And while the Pit is the place to discuss moderator action, discussion does not pre-empt said action- should a moderator warn you for some action, banning may well result from a repeat of that action even if you’re still arguing that the action shouldn’t have gotten you a warning.
[Moderator Hat: OFF]
It looks like this topic has been about beaten to death, so I’ll just add this: What the hell would a 28 year old want with an 18 year old besides sex?
No offense to AoTL or any other young’ns in here. I’m 25 and I teach Sunday school to seniors at church. Their brains are such on a wildly different plane than mine is, that its unfathomable dating one of them (not to mention pretty gross). Heck, I’m such a different person between when I was 18 and now I should call myself New Slacker™.
Who knows maybe this dude and AoTL’s roomate are some one-in-a-million, but I put my money on him being a sex hound.
What exactly is the quibble here, then? That one of the REASONS a woman doesn’t want a strange man staying over is that he might be (among other bad things) a rapist?
What? WHAT? What the hell are you babbling about? What is this hard-on you have about posting, or not posting a rant?
Oh, I give up. I have tried in every way imaginable to explain it, and yet you all (meaning, primarily the men for some reason) seem to refuse to grasp it. It is bizarre that it is going down gender lines, but to some extent, it is.
Let me break it down. One. More. Time.
“Almost all strange men are potential rapists.” (Perhaps slightly poorly worded, but I think I made myself clear in subsequent posts. I mean, I rambled quite a bit. But, of course, you all ignored all of that. All these little “selective” quotes are quite interesting.) I mean, seriously. Had I seriously meant that ALL MEN are potential rapists, (meaning, no matter who you are, no matter how well we know you, we women in the back of our minds THINK you are capable of rape) I daresay NO ONE would have supported that. Male or female. Anyway, I digress.
Emphasizing: “Almost all strange men (meaning, men we’ve never met) are potential rapists”. Yep, my “stranger” mantra again. Does anyone notice the distinction between “all men” and “all STRANGE men?” Because it’s a HUGE distinction. “Strange” - meaning - we don’t know them, they could be any variety of good or bad things. Not a huge deal if you’re at a party or in a store - but when they want to spend the night at your place, a bit more dicey. And yes, it’s a fear all women face. WE JUST DON’T KNOW WHAT A STRANGER IS CAPABLE OF. The slight, very slight percentage of a chance isn’t worth taking. So, the “potential” (no matter how slight) worries us. It’s a fear we all face. Many of us have friends who have been raped. It happened to them, it can happen to us. Men - how many of your buddies have been raped?
To further the explanation: "Almost all strange men are potential ______________. (Fill in the blank here.)
Other things almost all strange men (meaning, MEN WE DON’T KNOW)could potentially be are: Cowboys. Mormons. Next best friends. Assholes. Shaklee salesmen. Rapists. Park Rangers. Cigar smokers. Vice Presidents. Thieves. Naked One-Eyed Biker Dudes. Tailors. Pony Riders. Male Models. Medical Students. Are you men now terribly offended because I have stated that STRANGE men (meaning, men we don’t know) could also potentially be cowboys, or medical students? Come on. I want to see the outrage.
And I’ll go on. “Almost all strange Girl Scouts are potential______________.” Angels. Seamstresses. Brats. Geniuses. Sneak Thieves. Pony Riders. Future Scientists. Future Vice Presidents. Future Shaklee Salesmen.
“Almost all strange grandmothers are:_____________.” Sneak thieves. Pony Riders. Seamstresses. Vice Presidents. Cowgirls. Medical Students. Cigar Smokers. Park Rangers.
And on, and on.
But oh, wait. Never mind what I actually write here. What’s the point in that? Just selectively quote from previous posts, and interpret them however you will. I mean, that’s what you’ve done up to now - I see no reason why you’d stop now. :rolleyes:
Surely – surely you cannot possibly think that none of us have female friends, some of whom have been raped. In fact, I won’t even entertain the possibility that the thought even crossed your mind, and I will simply attribute the quoted sentence to a mental hiccup.
[qquote]Are you men now terribly offended because I have stated that STRANGE men (meaning, men we don’t know) could also potentially be cowboys, or medical students? Come on. I want to see the outrage.
[/quote]
Yes, because the connotations of “cowboy,” “medical student” and “rapist” are all the same. Why, who could possibly see it otherwise? :rolleyes:
Let’s put it in language even you can understand. How do you react to the following sentence:
“Almost all women who wear revealing clothing and go to bars are asking to be raped.”