Are you overriding Czarcasm’s decision that the discussion in this thread not continue then?
No, I am not overriding his decision. I am saying that frequently, moderators get reports on posts, and don’t want to wade through multiple pages of a thread. His decision is his decision. And my reaction to the post in question, and the thread as a whole, is strictly as a poster. If I think that his decision needs to be overruled, then I’ll send a letter through the mod loop, asking everyone to read and weigh in.
I am way too personally involved in this subject to make an objective ruling. I’d want other input. However, I do know about post reporting procedures, and I wanted others to know that when a moderator pops into a thread, sometimes it’s a response to an individual post.
Okay, thanks. I’ve gone to the Great Debates thread to further discuss this subject.
Bolding mine.
Dude, you’re being facetious here, right?
Man here. I read this entire thread and at the risk of sounding insensitive, it was a real eye-opener and informative.
I guess as a guy, I take for granted that my safety, and especially my sexual freedom, isn’t a common target for violation. From my perspective, if I get hurt walking through a dark alley, or in a fight at a bar, it’s my fault. Too many guys here seem to be thinking from that perspective.
I don’t know how many women around me live in fear or have such horrendous things happen to them, and it sickens me to think that some of the guys I know might have been willing participants in this oppression (because that’s what it really boils down to, I think). It makes me question a lot of things.
For the record, I do see our culture as having some tendencies towards rape, though I don’t know if I would go so far as to call it “rape culture”. Maybe simple oppression is what it is, and it manifests in sexual form because the oppressors can get sexual gratification out of it as well as the oppression thing. I don’t know.
When I got up to Der Trihs’s post, I feel ashamed that I actually agreed with him somewhat. But further on in the thread, it somehow became clearer for me that while this thread and this topic might be of simply academic curiosity for me, it’s real life to a lot of people. I saw it from **Der Trihs’ **point of view because it’s never happened to me and I don’t think about it. If I can imagine that it has happened to my friends, or relatives, then it puts a whole new spin on things.
I’ll also say that as a man, I have a bit of hesitation to comment on such things when it deals with women. I can say shitty things about any number of topics (and I have) and not give a damn about how people view me. But I admit to hesitating before posting this because I’m afraid I’ll feel emasculated. But why do I feel that way? Is it the same reason why women feel ashamed when they are raped and why they are treated not like a victim but as having it coming to them? It makes no fucking sense! I can defend gay rights without giving a damn about other people calling me gay, or defend minority rights without caring if people call me black. But I’m afraid if my manhood is called into question if I voice public support for women? I don’t get it. But I’m resolving to post this and try to not give a shit like usual, because I feel that somehow even if I don’t get it, it’s not reason enough not to support women.
There is something in the culture, something about it that makes such things not ok to talk about. If you’re robbed, beaten up, stabbed, defrauded, its ok to cry victim. But not about sex and rape? Fuck that, why should it be so? Why should people be ashamed about it? Because maybe if we start feeling unashamed, it will be easily to catch these assholes and lock them up. That’s the kind of world I’d want a hand in creating, not this perpetuating of a stupid stigma.
In that case…
I’ve found the stories in this thread very disturbing and the uncharitable responses even more so.
'back to lurking.
YogSosoth, thanks for that, very much.
ETA You too, Sanders.
Seriously, I’ve been in arguments where it’s been put to me that somehow my arguments about Queer issues are less valid because I’m Queer and therefore I have a dog in the fight, whereas heterosexuals don’t, as if heterosexuals lacked a sexual orientation.
Much the same way that women in this thread are seeing their arguments and experience dismissed by certain men who, precisely because they have less at stake in the issue, are tacitly applauding themselves as being more impartial and more able to take a detached view of the situation, when their disconnection from the issue at hand is precisely the problem.
That’s the empathy moment I’m speaking about: I suddenly realized that the way that women are being treated in this thread in many ways mirrors the anger I felt in analogous circumstances of having people discuss my experiences and oppression as though it was high-school debating class rather than real things happening to real people, precisely because their situation as non-members of the oppressed group gave them the luxury of doing so.
This thread has reminded me of an usher at a church I’ve visited occasionally, with a large college population. When he’s ushering, the people he picks to take up the gifts are always college girls and he always touches them excessively… hand on the back, hand on the shoulder, hand on the elbow leading them when it’s obvious they don’t actually need to be led…
He could easily argue that none of the actual touches were inappropriate.
I have never seen any of the girls outwardly express discomfort and I do not know any of the people involved, but I’m very confident, whether his behavior is right or wrong, that a conversation with the pastor would put a stop to it. Should I?
Talk to the usher. Tell them how his habit my come across to others. Tell him that it may make someone uncomfortable.
See how he responds. If he shuts you down, then consider talking to the pastor.
I would, but I would go straight to the usher. No need to accuse, but it does need to be brought to his attention. It may be purely innocent. It may be a lack of understanding. And perhaps you are right and nobody has a problem with it. But it’s ok to raise the issue. How he reacts may be all you need to know about whether you should raise this to your pastor.
Yeah, but if you read the actual post you have the relevant quote about dogs. Are you saying that mods don’t have to read an actual post before making mod commentary about it?
That’s still a pretty big deal. Just acknowledging. I think it’s the same case with white privilege in the US (oh god help me if I run this thread off in another direction – and I mean all this in a general way, no idea about your ethnicity). Just acknowledging that your experience is not everyone’s, that you may be spared some hassle where some people find it every day, is a pretty big step. It’s when people get defensive right off the bat and refuse to budge – because that would mean acknowledging that you might not live in a meritocracy, that however hard you have it you may actually have some privileges, that despite progress we still have a ways to go, that some fun somewhere might be spoiled, even if it’s not being able to use a certain word or tell a certain joke without feeling like a jerk. It means change, and change is hard. And, like you said, when it comes to everything from groping to rape it means acknowledging that people you know and respect may be douches, and it’s just so… disappointing.
Kyla thank you for starting this poll and thread. I’m bowing out also.
I’m really touched by the acknowledgment I’m seeing on this last page. I can’t speak for the others, but all I really want is acknowledgment – for the men in this thread to say, What happened to y’all isn’t right and you didn’t deserve it. No one deserves to be abused.
We all have a dog in this fight. Whether you’re male or female, you can’t live in this world and not be touched by this subject – it affects us all. Whether you’ve been betrayed and raped by someone you thought you could trust, attacked by a stranger, comforted a friend after an assault, or seen a woman flinch away from you, you are part of this.
It has taken me about four days to read this entire thread, and my girlfriend and I have discussed it off and on during some of that stretch.
I don’t think of myself as being an insensitive male, and I will admit that I have struggled a bit with the idea of being a potential threat to every woman I encounter. It makes me incredibly uneasy. Being both black and male, I really, really don’t like the idea of being perceived in a negative light just because I belong to a group of people where there are individuals who have done bad things.
And yet, I’m aware that the women who feel this way have reasons for feeling this way. Good reasons. I was aware of it before in a vague sense, but this thread, as much as it depresses me, has made me hyper-aware of it. So many people with so many harmful experiences. I feel for all of you here who have shared your stories (and for the many whom, I’m sure, have read this thread but have not shared for various reasons).
I’m 34. My mother told me for the first time back in February that she was sexually abused as a child by an uncle of mine, and that others knew it was happening but ignoring it, and that she was told by the uncle that everyone would think she was crazy if she tried to tell anyone. Which, I’m sure, is true. And I think about that in the context of this thread, and how helpless my own mother – one of the strongest women on this planet, in my eyes – must have felt. It’s so difficult to reconcile. I don’t want to think that the world can be such a shitty place for women to live, but that is the reality.
So, while I will continue to think about all that has been said in here by people with many different perspectives, I just wanted to thank all of you for being willing to contribute.
The poll results are pretty depressing. It is worthwhile to share these stories, too much of this happens out of sight. I really think this kind of thing should be dealt with in sex education classes, consent is even more important than sexual health.
I know I’m late but I wanted to add my stories.
My stepfather, the man my mother married when I was four years old and who was the primary male presence in my life from that time on, started molesting me when I was nine years old. Sometimes he even did while my mother was drunk in the bed next to us. He stopped when I was 14 and he thought I would tell. When I did tell a year after that (because a friend of my mother was planning to stay with her young daughter in our house with him…and I didn’t want that little girl to be around him). Mom believed me and divorced stepdad. But she still threw me out of the house a year later because she was moving in with her new boyfriend and he didn’t want kids.
A starting high school football player forced me to give him oral sex in his car because I was young and stupid and scared. I said no, but he said he’d leave me in there in an unknown neighborhood in the middle of the night.
I lived with friends of my mom for a few months so I could finish high school. I left suddenly when the male part of that married couple came into my bedroom when I was up late reading a book and kissed my neck. I was uncomfortable as hell and outta there the next day.
I drank too much with someone I thought was friend. We’d never even flirted, there was no attraction between us. Imagine my surprise waking up with my underwear pulled down. (I never remove clothing when I’m asleep. I knew this wasn’t something I did) I know he wasn’t able to do anything because I didn’t wake up, I always fought in my sleep because of my past (imagine that) and I had a tampon in at the time. He also NEVER came around to visit after that. Hope I kicked him in the face.
Been asked for my number countless times, and called a bitch for declining even after I was married. Been groped many times.
Because sexual assault, whether verbal, physical, subtle or blatant, is neither mundane, nor pointless.
So, I’m not sure how to put this. Your story is not the exact same as mine, but it’s the closest of anyone I’ve ever encountered to what I went through. The stepfather in question married my Mom when I was 10, and she didn’t believe me when the truth came out at 17, but I was already out of the house by that time anyway, living with my Aunt and trying to finish high school as a full-time waitress. When you lose a chunk of your childhood like that, when you skip over the ‘‘coming of age/celebration of adulthood’’ part and just move straight into the ''life is hell and no one cares, just pay your damn bills ‘’ part of life, you feel (or at least, I felt) fundamentally different and separate from others. You know, I was just a kid play-acting at adulthood. It’s a decade later and I still struggle with feelings of alienation and freakishness, as well as a tremendous sense of loss.
I don’t know what I’m trying to say, I guess I just… find it oddly comforting that there is someone else out there that may know what it’s like.