posted August 27, 2012 03:57 PM            

May you be blessed for all eternity.

posted August 27, 2012 04:33 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by cathy:
I saw when this was first posted, I was 16 and a virgin, he was 22, my mother made him marry me, or he would be charged with statuotoy rape, we lasted almost 7 years. I found out he was unfaithful alsmost the whole time. he ruined me for a long time after we broke up. I became promisuous. sp? Im only writing this as I've had a few drinks.

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posted August 27, 2012 04:39 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Randall:
A lot of women take on the safety precautions that every man is a potential rapist. As a man, I don't take it personally, because it's not intended that way.

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AMEN.

I don't even bother arguing with men who dispute this, as there's no point.

A woman NEVER knows which men will rape her, or would rape her if they could get away with it. She must be careful at all times.

I assume that any man would rape unless and until I get to a point with one where I feel very safe. There are very few men that I am that comfortable with, especially since I've been harassed and assaulted (non-violent: coerced touching and being touched, as well as pressured and bullied into things that I did not want to do; looking back, I am very lucky that I did not end up raped, because I very well could have).

No one has any right to criticize us for being afraid. If they want to solve the problem, they need to first take their anger out not on us, but on men who rape, make rape jokes, or otherwise support rape culture. Then, they need to organize and fight back by sending the message to other men that it is NOT acceptable to rape. They need to work actively to get rid of rape.

posted August 27, 2012 05:21 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by RegardesPlatero:
AMEN.

I don't even bother arguing with men who dispute this, as there's no point.

A woman NEVER knows which men will rape her, or would rape her if they could get away with it. She must be careful at all times.

I assume that any man would rape unless and until I get to a point with one where I feel very safe. There are very few men that I am that comfortable with, especially since I've been harassed and assaulted (non-violent: coerced touching and being touched, as well as pressured and bullied into things that I did not want to do; looking back, I am very lucky that I did not end up raped, because I very well could have).

No one has any right to criticize us for being afraid. If they want to solve the problem, they need to first take their anger out not on us, but on men who rape, make rape jokes, or otherwise support rape culture. Then, they need to organize and fight back by sending the message to other men that it is NOT acceptable to rape. They need to work actively to get rid of rape.

Frankly, men don't have a right to have a different opinion on this issue (i.e., that women should just trust them and not be afraid and just assume that their intentions are good). They don't get that privilege. (And I'm talking about adult men; children are sadly very vulnerable given their lack of knowledge of the 'real world', their inability to fight back and in some cases inability to fully understand what is happening, etc).

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posted August 27, 2012 11:10 PM            

I personally don't know many women who do, certainly not enough to warrant this amount of defensiveness. I think I'm more cautious than a great many women (for example, I insist on paying my own way even on dates if I don't know a man well enough to trust him), but I've never been rude as described above. The only exception I can think of offhand was when I was in a very bad mood in a store when a guy very obviously stared at me that felt like he was undressing me and I snapped at him, but that's the only time I recall, and who hasn't snapped at someone while in a bad mood? I've certainly endured more hostility and yelling from guys who were offended that I wasn't interested in them.

I even spoke up in defense of a guy who was staring at a woman, though only because he was trying (if failing) to not be noticed at it AND the woman was dressed for attention (very skimpy, night club attire, have no idea why she got on a public bus in the day dressed that way, I can only assume her day wasn't going so well) and when she yelled at the guy for staring and I said out loud that if I ever dressed that way he'd BETTER look. (If he'd been aggressive, menacing, or obnoxious about it rather than just looking from the corner of his eyes then I'd have come to her defense instead.)

I have known as few women who are hyper-defensive, but they seem the exception rather than the rule. I can sympathize with them to a point but I think they get silly about it. I'm cautious, not paranoid. If a strange man gets on an elevator with me at 3 AM I'll be on alert, but I won't get off the elevator without a reason and if he asks me for coffee (just a note to guys, it's bad form to ask a woman for anything like that when alone with her on an elevator at 3 AM and I understand why some women get bothered by it) I'd just politely say no and figure his judgment was affected by the lateness of the hour and/or alcohol and not hold it against him (if I did accept the coffee then it would be at a public place and I'd be sure to get my own drink and not allow him any chance to slip any drug into it, not because I think he would as if I did then I wouldn't be with him, but an ounce of prevention is far better than a pound of cure, and I'd be polite the entire time).

And when I went to a free FIST class (Feminist in Self-defense Training, IIRC) I recall getting annoyed at how we got a speech that all attackers were men (not true in my experience) and that half the men were dangerous and that we were most likely to be attacked by men we know (IOW, fear all men, especially the ones you know) and gave vague reasons (like “power” and “control”) when they promised to show a pattern we could recognize (as most legite self-defense courses for women do, most such courses taught with men, btw, unlike this FIST class) and I had support from other women when I pointed this out (and plenty laughed when I said at one point, “I'm glad this class is free”).

But in my experience such women are the exception, not the rule, and I can't help but suspect that if a man is constantly having a hard time with women being frightened of him that he's doing something wrong, not that there's something wrong with women.

And men can be just as hyper-defensive as some women, like the photographer who managed to start a storm with this pro-gun ad:

I took it exactly as he intended (and knew him from a message board), and so did many others (men & women). But plenty of men (no women that I know of) claimed it was an ad promoting women killing men on the first date. It's so very hard to take men like that seriously. And I can't help but wonder if something just as silly is going on here.

posted August 27, 2012 11:22 PM            

Interesting enough I gobsmacked some men who complained about gay men sexually harassing them when I said, "Welcome to girl world." That is, that's something we know very well, but they didn't connect gay men treating them the same way as straight men treating women (of course even if they did they generally have the advantage if the gay man gets aggressive whereas a woman with a straight man does not).

In any case, this thread crossed a line by asking people to share some of their most horrible experiences (which, thankfully in this case, most victims would NOT), and then use it to start a ******* contest and dismissing those other experiences in the process. That is completely and totally unacceptable.

I've ran with runaways who fled the most horrid sexual abuse, been locked up with kids (boys and girls both) who often had been sexually abused, been with women who's lives had been defined by male violence & rape at some point (and sometimes continually through their childhood which often led to more of the same as an adult), been to a PTSD support group that included many trauma survivors (many women and a couple of men dealing with PTSD from rape) and I've been to multiple self-defense groups geared to helping women who have been raped to defend themselves (of course it was open to those who hadn't been but most women won't bother to learn until they've been a victim) and NEVER has anyone been so obnoxious as to start a ******* contest over their experiences with other survivors.

Heck, the one I mentioned who was sodomized when he was 4 compared notes with a little girl who had been raped and had abortions forced on her at 12-14 and both were surprised when the other sympathized as they couldn't imagine what it was like for the other, nor imagine even surviving it. They didn't go, “Oh, I had it rougher than you, so you better be nice to me or I'll show you no mercy” like in this thread. And the girl was something of a sociopath, too, and she still didn't get that obnoxious.

posted August 27, 2012 11:39 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by PixieJane:
Maybe I'm missing the proper context for this thread. Given that I try to stay out of Aquaguy's threads (and typically skim over his posts at most) this is entirely possible. So I'll ask, what posts indiscriminately bite off men's heads?

I personally don't know many women who do, certainly not enough to warrant this amount of defensiveness. I think I'm more cautious than a great many women (for example, I insist on paying my own way even on dates if I don't know a man well enough to trust him), but I've never been rude as described above. The only exception I can think of offhand was when I was in a very bad mood in a store when a guy very obviously stared at me that felt like he was undressing me and I snapped at him, but that's the only time I recall, and who hasn't snapped at someone while in a bad mood? I've certainly endured more hostility and yelling from guys who were offended that I wasn't interested in them.

I even spoke up in defense of a guy who was staring at a woman, though only because he was trying (if failing) to not be noticed at it AND the woman was dressed for attention (very skimpy, night club attire, have no idea why she got on a public bus in the day dressed that way, I can only assume her day wasn't going so well) and when she yelled at the guy for staring and I said out loud that if I ever dressed that way he'd BETTER look. (If he'd been aggressive, menacing, or obnoxious about it rather than just looking from the corner of his eyes then I'd have come to her defense instead.)

I have known as few women who are hyper-defensive, but they seem the exception rather than the rule. I can sympathize with them to a point but I think they get silly about it. I'm cautious, not paranoid. If a strange man gets on an elevator with me at 3 AM I'll be on alert, but I won't get off the elevator without a reason and if he asks me for coffee (just a note to guys, it's bad form to ask a woman for anything like that when alone with her on an elevator at 3 AM and I understand why some women get bothered by it) I'd just politely say no and figure his judgment was affected by the lateness of the hour and/or alcohol and not hold it against him (if I did accept the coffee then it would be at a public place and I'd be sure to get my own drink and not allow him any chance to slip any drug into it, not because I think he would as if I did then I wouldn't be with him, but an ounce of prevention is far better than a pound of cure, and I'd be polite the entire time).

And when I went to a free FIST class (Feminist in Self-defense Training, IIRC) I recall getting annoyed at how we got a speech that all attackers were men (not true in my experience) and that half the men were dangerous and that we were most likely to be attacked by men we know (IOW, fear all men, especially the ones you know) and gave vague reasons (like “power” and “control”) when they promised to show a pattern we could recognize (as most legite self-defense courses for women do, most such courses taught with men, btw, unlike this FIST class) and I had support from other women when I pointed this out (and plenty laughed when I said at one point, “I'm glad this class is free”).

But in my experience such women are the exception, not the rule, and I can't help but suspect that if a man is constantly having a hard time with women being frightened of him that he's doing something wrong, not that there's something wrong with women.

And men can be just as hyper-defensive as some women, like the photographer who managed to start a storm with this pro-gun ad:

I took it exactly as he intended (and knew him from a message board), and so did many others (men & women). But plenty of men (no women that I know of) claimed it was an ad promoting women killing men on the first date. It's so very hard to take men like that seriously. And I can't help but wonder if something just as silly is going on here.

But if there's some context (in another thread) I'm
missing then maybe that will help me make sense out
of this thread.

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posted August 28, 2012 12:55 AM            

Wtf. You have zero idea what being actually raped is. What the hell am I trying to reason for.

posted August 28, 2012 04:18 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by YoursTrulyAlways:
Yeah. You have no idea what being outsized is. Being scared is having to defend yourself and your white fiancé in the middle of the ghetto, being outnumbered ten to one, with the opposing force with daggers, fighting off the enemy and keeping your fiancé safe until the 5-0 arrive, being massively fearful your life is ending, and having the two cops with guns declare that they are afraid of the hoods

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Just for the moment I'm going pretend this is the truth AND this was a reality you faced on a daily basis (if it wasn't, then what does this have to do with what women rightfully fear every day?). You'd still be cautious as hell of the residents, and everybody in the wards (or ghetto, whatever you wanna call it) would understand and consider you foolish if you didn't, including the good guys who live there. If you acted like they were all trustworthy then the good guys would tell you to wise up (I know, I've lived in rough areas, including one area called "the combat zone" with the infamous "elimination zone" nearby). So you should understand, not be hostile to the idea, even though this is an apples vs. oranges thing (though it sounds like your fiance was the target which should further increase your sympathy for those of us who don't have an internet tough guy to protect us rather than angry that we worry about our safety from men we don't know).

quote:

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Originally posted by YoursTrulyAlways:
You have zero idea what being actually raped is

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Actually, I think it's you who has zero idea what being raped is. You sure don't act like anyone I know who has been raped. Even your throwing a snit comes off wrong as the actual victims of rape direct their anger at those who raped them, not at others for being scared of being raped themselves.

And news flash, most of us (such as myself) who have been raped don't show off the scars that cut to the core of our very being with strangers unless we feel we're with those who understand, certainly not just for the heck of it, and many can't even when there's good reason, not even with the people they love & trust the most and/or other victims. The way you lured people to share about their experiences just so you could ambush them certainly shows you're not a safe person to share with.

quote:

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Originally posted by YoursTrulyAlways:
All I have been asking to for basic human dignity and respect to be accorded, but if that is to much to expect, then so be it. Whatever.

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If you really wanted to help and cared about human dignity and respect you'd say things like how you overcame it and express sympathy and agree it's one of the most horrible things that can happen to a person, something that can destroy who they are and everything they believe in. But no, you just had to be badder than everyone else again, make it all about you, and that's not according other victims of rape dignity and respect. Instead of showing people who suffered more pain than you'll ever understand dignity and respect you set up an ambush and turned a deeply personal traumatic experience into a ******* contest to once again show why you're better than everyone else as well as attack them and even say their experiences were trivial next to yours (I won't quote that part beyond "none" as it's too offensive).

And I quote your "respectful" words:

"The gloves will be off. And I shall show no mercy whatsoever."

posted August 29, 2012 09:52 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by frankie2912:
i've never, ever assumed a man was a rapist and have never, ever been afraid of a man in that sense. even total strangers. i do, however, assume that most men are pedophiles in some way and i can't really explain why.

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I am sorry for anyone who has had rape happen to them as well, and I also want to agree with frankie's statement. Well, I dunno if agree is the right word or say I sympathize with it.

I was hanging out with a guy my age (20's) and he was talking to me about how this little girl who couldn't be more than 10 or 11 would be "hot" when she grows up, and went on to talk about how it is usually much younger girls who looked good to him.

It's not the first time it's happened. A lot of my college age male friends pursue high school girls. I don't mean the seniors, either.

I remember when I was 14 all I was preyed on by was 19-21 year olds...and it was definitely not because I looked good. Developed, yes, but I feel like they could smell my low self-worth.

posted August 29, 2012 09:57 PM            

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Passion, Lust, Desire. Check out my journal

posted August 29, 2012 11:45 PM            

Example: a woman in her late 20s did exactly as Ian said women had BETTER do if we don't want him to “take the gloves off” and trusted a man and let him into her home and even got him a glass of water as it was a hot day and in return he beat her, bit her, and raped her savagely so that she had to be sewed back together. Injuries in the rape meant she had to visit the dentist multiple times to get her mouth fixed as well from the savage beating and the dentist asked on a return trip, “Been raped again lately?” She could never tell her parents and her brother supported her in not telling them. She lost her faith in her religion. Hell, her priest blamed her for having been nice to him (that is, that priest disagrees with Ian and thought she should've treated him as a potential rapist). And her Christian friends abandoned her when she needed them the most because she was proof that God let terrible things like that happen to good people who had faith. So she wasn't only raped, exposed to STDs and pregnancy, but her entire life and her beliefs were utterly shattered, she lost her friends, couldn't live in her home anymore, is tormented by hellish recollections of the experience every time the "anniversary" approaches, and she blamed herself.

Because she did what Ian said women like her had better do and not worry that a man might rape her.

Worse, Ian then implies that because she wasn't a 10 year old that her experiences were somehow "lesser" compared to his (can you imagine a rape crisis counselor telling a victim, "At least you weren't 10!"?) and that she still doesn't have the right to be wary of men and that if she does then “the gloves will come off” and he will “show no mercy.” After all, unlike many men he considers his feelings more important than a woman's safety in a dangerous world.

The woman in my example who shall remain unnamed believes in astrology and I know she visited LL a few years ago (I think she may have even posted), and maybe she still does. If she saw this thread she'd likely cry, LITERALLY cry, and I doubt she'd ever return to a board with a thread as vile as this, especially if you call me out on it but not him for his behavior.

And there are countless women like her...and more women will be like her if they do as Ian says. For that matter, Ian not only failed to show basic human dignity and respect for women (and also proved himself beyond a doubt to not understand what it's like to be a woman in this thread, but I'm not going to go into that in this post), but also boys who were molested but not raped, and even for you unless yours was as traumatic as he claims his own experience was. Seriously, Ami, how come you're not calling him on that?

I suppose you won't, but I have compassion for the victims and for those who can still be victims so I will stand up for her and the countless others like her, and to prevent them from being even more of them I will also promote the opposite of what Ian insists we must do and be wary of potential rapists.

posted August 30, 2012 07:37 AM            

Pain is not a contest.

posted August 30, 2012 07:46 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by scorpy_oh:
^ I commend you for keeping yourself calm and collected while trying to get your point across. I just felt that I should say that because I find it admirable especially with topics like this that can stir a lot of emotion.

I sympathize with anyone who has survived such ordeals, including the OP. I just have to ask.. To the OP, what were your intentions in posting this? I'd hate to assume.

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posted August 30, 2012 08:57 AM            

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Passion, Lust, Desire. Check out my journal

posted August 30, 2012 09:50 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Faith:

Pain is not a contest.

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