World Eater are you being intentionally ironic??
Also can’t add anything. But my condolences. I hope he is not only banned, but is somehow forced to carry the statement he made about you, tattoed on his forehead. I think he’d get fair results in RL too, then. Lots of love for you, and I hope this doesn’t scar you too much. He’s really not worth that pain.
Hey, now. As big an asshole as Skid Row maybe, there are some things you just don’t do. Telling a woman she’s lying about being raped is one of them. Telling someone they’re lying about being abused as a child is another. That this dickhead did the first doesn’t excuse doing the second right back at him.
I’m right there with the rest of you on him lying about being a prosecutor, though. Even lawyers have their standards.
thanks, Miller - that’'s what I was getting at.
Not speaking for World Eater, but in my post in this thread I was calling bullshit about him beating up his parents, not about the abuse itself. I should have trimmed some of the quote to make that more clear.
Oh, come on, Dooku. Who here hasn’t beaten up their parents? Be reasonable.
Grover Cleveland beat up my parents on two non consecutive occassions.
That’s what I was talking about as well.
But now that I think about it, I retract it. As much as I’d like to do to him what he did to belladonna, I shouldn’t have sunk to his pathetic level.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, and all that.
Meh. I see alot of stuff posted on 'net message boards, some of it I believe, some I don’t. Personnally, I prefer to keep my disbelief to myself for the most part, because calling “bullshit” and attacking somebody’s honesty is IMHO somewhat impolite unless they’ve told a series of outlandish whoppers and deserve to be smacked.
Is belladonna telling the truth? Fuck if I know, I don’t know a damn thing about her, her reputation for honesty, or any such relevant information. Frankly, since no part of my life hinges on discovering the truth/falsity of her claim, I have no need to know more. Belief and disbelief are both entirely irrelevant to my life and the lives of just about everyone on here. But I can’t agree with Miller’s statement that:
Some people do lie about those things, perhaps to get sympathy from others, draw attention to themselves, characterize themselves as a victim, whatever. In some situations, I could see it being appropriate to call B.S. on some attention-grubbing liar, if you knew that was what was going on.
Nobody is automatically entitled to be believed, even on “touchy” subjects like rape, sexual abuse, and so forth. In fact, a prosecutor of all people has to be somewhat skeptical and can’t just automatically believe all accusations, because he’s ethically bound to cease prosecution if he does not genuinely believe from the totality of the evidence available to him that the defendant did in fact commit the crime.
In summary, I see nothing wrong with doubting anything and everything people claim on the net, where anonymity makes it very easy to fabricate details about your life. Whether mentioning it openly constitutes jerkish behaviour should be determined by whether the poster really warranted being called on his lies. Under that framework perhaps this Skid Row fellow was being a jerk. But I don’t see how the fact that the claim questioned was about rape makes a difference in comparison to any other sort of claim about a traumatic experience. IMHO, I wish we would just prohibit any discussion of rape whatsoever on this board, because the topic carries such an emotional charge with so many people that meltdowns are practically inevitable.
Regardless there is still the matter of common human decency whichSkid Row failed miserably at. He’s a jerk for what he said.Not only to her but thru out that entire thread. He’s a hateful little man that needs to learn to be a little more thoughtful when speaking about potentially harmful subjects. I’m not saying stay away from them just THINK
Thanks, I think.
I am also skeptical of his claims, and, were he still actively posting, I might try to frame some sort of question that a criminal lawyer would know, but doesn’t lend itself to research.
But I also don’t think that anyone’s claims about anything are simply beyond question. While I would certainly tread lightly, if the question needed to be asked about the truth of prior rape claims, prior child abuse claims, whatever… I wouldn’t feel it was absolutely verboten to ask it.
Sorry, you’re wrong. Sure, some people do lie about things like this, and it would certainly be appropriate to try and determine the truth of the matter in a scenario such as a criminal trial. However, this message board is a text-based medium, where we have no facial expressions or body language to go on, and where we generally only have access to information about people that they themselves provide us. In the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary, i think that an online community like this requires that we take peoples’ personal experiences at face value.
There was no reason for belladonna to make such a claim gratuitously, and while you may not be concerned about an individual poster’s reputation for honesty, the fact remains that most of us on this board form our judgement about others from the only information we have–their contributions to the discussions that take place here. And belladonna has given no indication of a propensity to lie in order to strengthen her claims on an argument. Of course it’s possible that she, like anyone else on these boards, might have constructed a whole false personality to present to the online community, but i have no way of knowing this, and so choose to treat her online self as idf it were her real self. That’s all we can do. I do think, however, that we should make this presumption of honesty on all issues, not just “big ones” like rape.
Furthermore, with reference to the particular issue at hand, Belladonna’s assertion that she was raped was made in response to a claim by skid row that s/he knew about rape because s/he prosecuted rapists for a living. Having claimed superior knowledge and understanding of the issue of rape, skid row then proceeds to demonstrate precisely the opposite–i.e. ignorance–in response to belladonna’s post. Surely anyone who prosecutes rapists for a living, and who claims to be concerned about the issue, knows that the first step in getting women to come forward is taking their allegations of rape seriously from the beginning.
While some women might indeed be found to have fabricated their stories, making such a determination takes considerably more effort than simply reading a short paragraph on a message board and deciding that it sounds “a little too convenient.” If skid row makes determinations this way at work, i truly fear for anyone sharing the same coutroom, on either side of the aisle, because this sort of unreflective and self-important attitude among some prosecutors and defence attorneys is the sort of behaviour that leads to miscarriages of justice in which the innocent are imprisoned and the guilty are set free.
And i think your last sentence regarding banning discussion of rape due to its “emotional charge” is a knee-jerk and stupid way to deal with the issue. I’m afraid i can’t envision any scenario in which the best way to deal with a problem is to pretend that it doesn’t exist. YMMV, and if it does then feel free not to participate in such discussions.
Nor do I, Bricker. But he didn’t ask, or wonder, or suggest. He flat out called me a liar. And the fact of the matter is that my rape had zero to do with the discussion at hand. I mentioned it only because he responded to my first post with a “shame on you” tone on behalf of all rape victims out there, which I took offense at in light of my history. And so I responded mentioning said history and, again, instead of addressing my actual argument he went for a personal attack on my credibility in a way that–should his claim to be a prosecuter true–he must have known would be deeply hurtful.
On a more general note–Yes, I’m aware that some women lie about these things. It’s sad and sick but it’s true. However, I still find it personally insulting that someone would claim I was lying for no other reason than to rebut some random putz’s post on a message board. That’s just ridiculous, and to suggest that I’m so lacking in character and intelligence that I’d do such a thing is incredibly rude–especially considering that Skid has had zero interaction with me in the past from which to draw that conclusion. His claim that he could see my lie from “a mile away” is, frankly, total bullshit. So I’m calling him on it. As Drastic posted in the original trainwreck, I’ve talked about my rape here long before I might have ever envisioned it being challenged during some future argument. Skid was wrong. Flat out, no grey areas wrong and it just so happens that he chose to be wrong about something I found very personally insulting. He took that chance when he made that statement, I’ve got no pity for the fact that he’s being railed for it now.
As to Rex Dart’s suggestion that rape simply be a verboten subject…Why? I know I often read the rape threads and I’ve taken a lot of comfort in the knowledge that I’m not alone in my experiences–as I’m sure others have as well. We can talk about politics, religion, money and death around here. We talk about love and hate and child abuse and sexism, and feminism and taxes and war–and we do all those things without, generally, being jerks about it. And when someone crosses that line, well, here we are in the Pit… I like the system we’ve got, and if it takes putting up with a few dicks like Skid to keep areas of conversation open around here I’m willing to pay that price.
Well, on preview I see mhendo beat me to it, and made a lot of the points I was going for more clearly than I was able to. Isn’t that always the way? 
((belladonna))
Missed the original thread. Can’t say I’m sorry.
He’s a putz, and I think he knows it.
I’ve also found the rape threads to be comforting and empowering (as well as hurtful, enraging, depressing etc).
For some of us, we CAN’T talk about it in RL, the boards are an important outlet, and have helped a lot. Preventing discussion would help no-one.
Anyone who doesn’t like such topics can choose not to open the thread.
Keep your head up belladonna, you’re a good, strong, honest woman, and you should be proud.
I rarely need to throw in for a, “hear, hear!” but damn.
Belladonna, keep the faith.
That sanctimonious dirty, dirty, sonofabitchitchingly REPUGNANT, sorry excuse for a carbon based life form has a special place reserved at a front row table in hell so’s he can see the show RIGHT UP CLOSE.
If anyone is lying about things like that, err on the SIDE OF FECKING CAUTION and give the benefit of the doubt. It’s really not for us to decide that. I hope he never becomes a judge. The impartiality judges are SUPPOSED have is nowhere near this…this…
I wonder how many criminals have walked free simply because someone saw “THE LIE” of the victim a mile away?
I have the luxury of being able to scream and call names here, instead of argue rationally, because there is NO rational argument for this punk ass.
I considered adding the caveat, “without any evidence” to my earlier post, but I thought it was too obvious to need to be explicitly stated. Guess I was mistaken about that.
Belladonna, have you received an email apology or anything from SkidRow?
Sometimes, we say things in haste that we regret. I’m thinking he’s truly regretting this now. Of course, I may be giving him way too much credit.
I’m certainly not advocating him by any means. I think he did a stupid, horrible and inconsiderate thing. I’m just hoping he’s shown a bit of humanity afterwards.
I think your giving him too much credit. He has shown that he is of a humanoid subspecies that cares for nothing and noone but themselves. I imagine he will NEVER apologize because he doesn’t think he’s done anything wronge. Unfortunately there are WAAAAY to many of his kind. He is a true :wally
Nada. Although if he’s reading this and wants to go that route, my e-mail’s in my profile. I don’t plan on holding my breath, however.
I don’t entirely agree. First off, what would be compelling evidence to the contrary? Secondly, a medium that offers complete anonymity cannot rquire us to take any of us at face value. We may get a feel for a person given enough posts and enough time and may actually trust that they are presenting the Gods honest truth. But barring that, we have to look at things with just a hint of skepticism because someone could be pulling our legs.
Of course, this doesn’t make it right to call someone a liar without good reason. If you throw that word around, you’d better be able to back it up.
We should assume that we are being told the truth. But I assumed Freak Freely was telling the truth, and it only came to light that he was lying because of the questions he was asked. And I certainly am not ready to take Skid’s claim of being a prosecutor, or anything else, at face value. I don’t believe him, but I’m not yet prepared to call him a liar.
Yet.