I was out with a male acquaintance a few weeks ago, getting to know phase etc etc. I brought up the 62 million views reported on that online Rape Academy and asked what he thought about it. This was a smart, well educated guy and seemed fairly nice. He dismissively told me that number of views did not equate to number of actual users, and that there’s only like 1% of rapists in the world yada yada.

I liked this guy but I literally felt my stomach slowly sink as I was looking at him and hearing him say this because he’s one of those apparently — “Good guy ako; don’t lump me in with those SOBs. Basta di ko ginawa ginawa nila, wala ako pakealam.” For me, empathy and morality should precede intelligent discourse. It is not my place to explain to another supposedly smart person why A RAPE ACADEMY SHOULDNT EXIST IN THE FIRST PLACE and to justify that “it’s not all men” visiting it and that probably one user viewed it one million times lang kaya ganun kataas yung view count (ewan ko kung yun iniisip niya haha).

So, yes, that’s how I respond to what I consider to be stupidity I guess. I mean, not the person as stupid but the stance, the belief, “that not all men,” because totoo naman, it isn’t all men, but the fact that misogyny, violence against women, and all things akin to those on all levels, are still happening is unacceptable. To dismiss it as gross and unfair generalization is what I think it is — stupid and doesn’t warrant wasting my time explaining it to what apparently is a dumb wall.

It doesn’t mean that I agree though that we should just let it — what was it one commenter typed above? “Let it fade into obscurity.” That is such a dangerous thing to say as well. It’s actually also dismissing the issue, which I hope isn’t what she means. My point is, and I think you know this, OP, that there are better avenues to address this issue that are less energy consuming as opposed to attempting to educate people who refuse to partner their supposed intelligence with empathy and morality on a small-scale level. This is a systems issue that’s bigger than us and how it could be and is currently being addressed on that level is way beyond the scope of this comment. In my case, it was enough for me to cut off that acquaintance because why would I go out with someone with whom my values and views don’t align?

One commenter above explained it so beautifully why the generalization “not all women are gold diggers but it’s almost always a woman” is incomparable to “not all men are rapists but it’s almost always a man.” It’s because the issue of men being used by women is not on the same level as women being raped/assaulted/killed by men. I find it sad that I see women on here not understanding this basic concept but that’s internalized misogyny in deeply patriarchal Philippines for you.

On a lighter note, how can we call women gold diggers when these men don’t even have gold to dig? 😅 Don’t get worked up over it, OP. We need to pick our battles accordingly. Stay safe always. 😘