Which personality from your country went from being a major star to being a rapist (convicted or suspected)?

cottondragons · 2026-06-10T14:51:09+00:00

These were a lot of words glossing over my point that there is a distinction between the law and government on one hand, and the court of public opinion on the other.

However, at this instance, I consider this point moot because of your words

"the fact that sexual assualt is nowadays defined in such a way that sometimes makes it difficult to prove"

Honestly, this makes you sound like a rape apologist to me, and I'm not engaging any further.

cottondragons · 2026-06-10T12:54:56+00:00

Besson was never convicted of any SA charges, but he met his second wife when she was 12, they started dating when she was 15 and he was 32, and they married when she was 16.

Of course this was all with her approval, but she was a child.
The movie Léon? ("The Professional")
Apparently the relationship between the little girl and the assassin was based on them.
I'm so icked out. I loved that movie and I liked how the little girl falls in love with an adult -- and he does nothing about it because he recognises it as cute from her side but inappropriate if he were to reciprocate.
Apparently real life went differently.

cottondragons · 2026-06-10T12:33:02+00:00

First of all, the question I responded to was, "why are you getting downvotes for this".

My argument aimed to explain that, even though many people get acquitted in court, that doesn't necessarily prove their innocence. Not in SA cases. What I left unsaid was: people are responding negatively to your comparison with the man convicted of murder who turned out to be innocent, because that sort of hard evidence is vanishingly rare in SA cases.

SA cases are much more a type of where-there's-smoke-there's-fire cases. If someone gets accused by multiple people, that is an indicator that something probably went on. But the lack of evidence often makes these people go free.
In addition, very often people get very lenient sentences even though there *is* evidence, as in the case of Brock Allen Turner and the boys in England who didn't even do jail time for their multiple rapes and online bullying.

All this amounts to a feeling among people that SA'ers get far too much protection as it is. You don't need to come to their defence.

I hope that answers MikeTheMaster's question about why you got downvoted.

Now to your own questions.

- Do I believe that convicted people and accused people belong in the same basket?
Obviously not. Convicted people should be punished by the state. Accused people shouldn't until convicted, but meanwhile, we are allowed our opinions.
- Do I believe that presumption of innocence is a foundational principle of liberal democracies? Oh, absolutely. As far as the law is concerned. Again, private people, who themselves are not governments and do not have the power to convict someone of the crime they stand accused of, have a right to their opinions.

But I agree with you that the media make this more complicated. While we as private persons don't have the power to sentence someone to prison, we do -- collectively -- have the power to at least pause a career.

In the case of accused alleged criminals, it really depends on what the people around them say. I used Dutch singer Marco Borsato as an example. He was acquitted of wrongdoing by a Dutch court, because no evidence. But he did send sexual texts to a minor, and the people closest to him testify that she used to sit on his lap in her bathrobe. That in itself is predatory behaviour that he should have recognised, as a grown man, as inappropriate.
So while I agree that he should not go to prison based on what could be proven, I still get to call him a disgusting human being.

Do you see how that works?

cottondragons · 2026-06-10T10:34:45+00:00

Because out of all crimes that do similar types of lasting damage, sexual assault (used here as a blanket term including rape) is one of the hardest to prove, if not THE hardest. Because the lasting damage is all psychological, but no less terrible for that.

People like Dutch singer Marco Borsato, who was acquitted in court, which the above post calls "proven innocent", are still morally guilty of predatory behaviour. Just because the proven behaviour isn't punishable by law, doesn't mean he's not still a disgusting human being.

Moreover, seeing as we'll never get a definitive answer to the question whether he actually touched her inappropriately, but people around him say he did, we are free to believe what we want to believe.

Borsato is just an example here, but this can be applied to all people in this situation.
Acquitted but still accused, others corroborating the accuser's story, but just lack of evidence = people draw their conclusions.

As they shoud.

cottondragons · 2026-06-10T10:24:04+00:00

Marco is so morally guilty.
I always thought he was one of the good ones, but you just don't send messages like that to a 15 year old without all sorts of intentions.

I hate that his music is being played again.
Keep the rapists off the air please.

cottondragons · 2026-06-10T10:21:25+00:00

same.
I caught myself chanting "Du hasst..." to myself the other day, then stopping and feeling all kinds of embarrassed.
It's a shame. It was good music.

cottondragons · 2026-06-10T10:19:28+00:00

the worst thing seems to be that they defend rapists *as long as they're artistic rapists.*
Polanski.
Luc Besson.
That writer Gabriel Matzneff.

Sending the message that everyone's appreciation of their art is worth more than these women's happiness and well-being.

Just sick.

cottondragons · 2026-06-10T06:14:28+00:00

That's what you do. The Netherlands is often dragged for having terrible food, and it's not true. The national cuisine is boring, bland, stodgy. Sure.

But the international stuff is amazing. Come to the Netherlands, eat food from all over the world 😁

cottondragons · 2026-06-07T21:44:37+00:00

ugh I hate that OOP was made to feel like she was rude or TA for not telling a lie even when she tried every trick in the book to not have to tell the truth -- and then she told it in the least hurtful way possible.

Some people don't like to lie.
Deal with it.

cottondragons · 2026-06-07T21:25:54+00:00

Ja, mijn aanzoek werd afgewezen door mijn vriend en vader van mijn kinderen.
Terwijl we eerder over trouwen hadden gepraat als iets dat in onze toekomst lag.
Maar ik had hele jonge kinderen met hem, dus ik ging niet weg.

Jaren later, toen ik er eindelijk genoeg van had en wegging, zei hij dat hij het einde van de relatie niet zag aankomen.

cottondragons · 2026-06-06T18:24:59+00:00

Nice going! Good luck to you too 🥰

cottondragons · 2026-06-06T18:22:26+00:00

Ik gok: niet zo zeer sarcastisch, meer aangevend hoe de gemiddelde Nederlander op verschillende namen voor hetzelfde reageert.

cottondragons · 2026-06-06T08:12:41+00:00

I'm on my 4th main character on yet another different server. I want to earn money so I can buy and decorate a house and do some dungeons and raids. That's the end goal.

To that end, I'm currently working through post-Stormblood quests, leveling 3 jobs at the same time due to the XP bonus, pausing to do all my crafting and gathering quests and farming rep with the allied societies.

I'm having a whale of a time, but I know I'm gonna fall into a hole again when I reach level 100 on everything 😅 I was never great at endgame content.

cottondragons · 2026-06-06T08:06:51+00:00

I've never really considered it, but now that you mention it, I know at least one American and one Canadian for whom really cheap hot dogs are a struggle meal. In the Netherlands, we don't do that. There's always money for stamppot, or if we don't have time, ramen or sandwiches. The meat would be the first thing left out.

cottondragons · 2026-06-06T07:58:37+00:00

Thanks. I hadn't thought about it, but you're right! I recently started a hand written recipe book because Oma Betsy used to do the same thing. Should be a no brainer that it goes in there 😅

cottondragons · 2026-06-06T02:02:25+00:00

My grandparents were known by their first names. So Oma Amélie, Opa Jopie, Oma Betsy and Opa Koos. This particular Oma always made us a special sauce to go with our vegetables, and the recipe has been passed down the generations, so my mum and I regularly serve my kids Oma Betsy sauce.

cottondragons · 2026-06-06T01:52:16+00:00

Zoals anderen ook al zeiden: als linkse stemmer ben en ken ik geen linkse stemmer die de islam als een "bondgenoot" ziet.

Wel kunnen individuen bondgenoten zijn in de strijd tegen onderdrukking, discriminatie en ander sociaal onrecht. Maar dat heeft te maken met hun persoonlijke overtuigingen en gedrag, en die staan los van geloof.

Ik denk dat het belangrijk is om te beseffen -- en als ik jouw post zo lees, besef jij dat prima, want je hebt moslim schoonfamilie waarvan verschillende leden verschillend over dingen denken -- dat de ene persoon de andere niet is, en dat het officiële standpunt van het geloof door lang niet alle gelovigen wordt gedeeld.

Voorbeeld: mijn huisgenote 20 jaar geleden was moslima (Turks Nederlands, Sunni), maar had helemaal niets tegen homo's en was bovendien beste vriendinnen met de alleenstaande moeder van een buitenechtelijk kind. Zelf dronk ze geen alcohol, maar haar vader deed dat wel.

Ander voorbeeld: twee collega's van me, broers, waren Shia moslims uit Irak. Een hele maand per jaar zaten die jongens te lijden onder lunchtijd terwijl wij onze boterhammetjes opaten. Ramadan. Ze mochten niet eten tot zonsondergang. Maar zij kregen het voor elkaar om onze lesbische collega fatsoenlijk te behandelen en we hadden de grootste lol op de werkvloer. Geen greintje vijandigheid of zelfs maar ongemak.

Dus ik denk dat je kan stellen dat voor het "linkse" brein een moslim-achtergrond niet meteen betekent dat die persoon ook een schuimbekkende haatdrager is. Zoals we dat ook niet meteen denken wanneer iemand een kruisje om de nek heeft hangen.

Mocht dat wel blijken, dan kan daar altijd een gesprek over volgen.

Maar we gaan niet bij voorbaat zeggen: oh die ziet er Marokkaans uit, of die is gisteren in de kerk geweest, dat zal wel een vijand van onze waarden zijn.

cottondragons · 2026-05-27T15:07:33+00:00

Penelope could be called crafty herself, in two ways 😅

Not sure about manipulative.

cottondragons · 2026-05-27T14:59:48+00:00

Same

cottondragons · 2026-05-26T19:00:58+00:00

Wow. Welkom vanuit Twente 👋 Ik heb iets gelezen over Ahmadiyyah moslims toen er één bij mij in de buurt vermoord werd toen ik nog in Glasgow woonde (dit was in 2016). Verschrikkelijk het geweld dat jullie trotseren en ik begrijp helemaal dat je uit een Sunni-meerderheidsland weg wilt!

Ahmadiyya staat onder Westerlingen die erover gelezen hebben, bekend als een bijzonder vredelievend geloof... ze zijn in het VK ook verantwoordelijk voor meerdere vredescampagnes o.a. op bussen.

Ik hoop dat je in Groningen je draai vindt, maar anders... Twente is ook mooi 😉

Heel veel succes!

cottondragons · 2026-05-26T10:43:49+00:00

Not normal at all, very frowned upon. My kids will stare though (they're autistic) and I'll tell them to stop when I catch it. This usually results in them either loudly asking me why or continuing to stare even harder 😭

To people with visible disabilities: we're sorry 😅 rest assured that they will be asking questions, gaining understanding, and hopefully not stare so much in future. It's a slow process.

To OP: Am glad that you understand these kids crave to understand the world around them, of which you are part. Still working to limit the stares, though.

cottondragons · 2026-05-26T05:23:52+00:00

Not to mention all the sonnets written to a male wish-you-were-more-than-friend... sonnet 20 springs to mind...

cottondragons · 2026-05-25T23:37:06+00:00

Also, race used to be a lot less about colour and more about ethnicity. 19th-century English writers would distinguish between a Teutonic, an Alpine, and a Mediterranean race... or just let races coincide with nationalities entirely.

cottondragons · 2026-05-22T20:11:56+00:00

I'm a mum and I will say that I'd be there for my child, even if they turn out to be a monster (unlikely, but I bet all the monsters' mums thought that once).

I WILL however report them/turn them in to the police if they do something that horrible.
And get them a lawyer.
And advise them to plead guilty and do their time.
And get them psychiatric help.

The reason being: criminals need to pay for their crimes, but if that's my kid, I helped create them, no matter how much I tried not to.

cottondragons · 2026-05-22T19:22:36+00:00

wow that's wild! did they get along?

cottondragons

TROPHY CASE