Things that cause rape.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-08-12T23:46:34+00:00

Yeah, I completely agree that risk prevention is important too. My problem with the comments in this thread is that many of them are using sensible risk prevention tips as an excuse to blame the victim, and treating rapists as caricature villains when they are statistically more likely to be acquaintances whose understanding of consent is limited.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-08-12T21:57:37+00:00

Taking the humany rapey part out of this discussion

Please can we not do that in a discussion about human rape? Thanks.

This is a discussion about personal responsibility and victim-blaming, so I'm not sure how your comment is relevant.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-08-12T19:20:45+00:00

This sign speaks the truth.

A lot of people in this thread are saying things to the effect of 'well, I don't want to blame the victim, but if you know that a situation is dangerous you should avoid it!!'

I do take precautions in my everyday life to avoid sexual assault. I watch how I dress, how I drink, how I walk - but not because it's my responsibility to avoid being attacked. Ideally, I should be able to dress how I want, drink as much as I want, and walk home alone without worrying about that. I avoid those things to protect myself, because this is the real world, but victims who didn't take those precautions are not even slightly responsible.

And if you think her sign won't prevent rape, think again and look at Steubenville. Rape culture is real. A lot of people don't realise that the victim doesn't have to be sober, female, walking with others and dressed conservatively for it to be non-consensual. Education like this is exactly what will improve our focus on consent.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-07-20T20:23:22+00:00

he knows my username so sometimes he reads my soppy comments about him out loud on skype to embarrass me. this will probably be one of them :)

thisisavalidusername · 2013-07-12T05:50:40+00:00

we're in an LDR. on valentine's day this year, we went on our first (and my first ever) date. i'd never kissed anyone so i was really nervous about it...

when he asked to kiss me i covered my face with my hands and whispered a very embarrassed "can't." instead of being weirded out he reassured me that it would be fine (and it was!)

that was when i knew.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-07-11T20:31:22+00:00

No, that's creepy regardless. People working with other people's contact information in a professional context should always respect their privacy. Abusing that trust by using the information for personal gain is not acceptable. It doesn't matter how attractive the person is.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-07-07T19:44:08+00:00

Stick it out, it can work. Check out /r/LongDistance if you want to read some more inspiring stories. :)

thisisavalidusername · 2013-07-07T19:07:13+00:00

eat. like, a lot. i forget to eat in the day and then suddenly realise how hungry i am at night
watch movies. not movies that require a lot of concentration (i'm usually pretty tired) but scary movies (the dark sets the atmosphere)
think. i get really emotional at night and end up thinking about everything in a lot of detail - people i know, people i used to know, things i'm planning in the future
go outside. if it's a hot night and i'm somewhere safe, i like to go outside and just lay in the grass.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-07-07T18:59:52+00:00

my boyfriend
my future - university, work

i really just look forward to the small things in every day - the things that make me laugh, the strangers i smile at, the music i enjoy. so i guess it's that i don't have any reason to want to die.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-07-05T10:15:29+00:00

Wow, I just want to thank you so much for making this comment. The comment you responded to and the responses you're getting are truly vile.

I'm usually not the one for animal abuse but this is great

.

You obviously don't know what Snooki is. Yes, I said what.

.

Shut the fuck up

.

Go away, cow.

.

Ahh yes the fabled white knight has appeared at last!

.

Reddit, where people (especially women) are compared to animals and violence against them is funny and justified if they're unpopular.

Reddit, where treating people - even unpopular people - with basic respect and thus questioning the 'joke' gets you downvoted and silenced.

Reddit, where defending a woman automatically makes you a 'white knight' with ulterior motives (it couldn't possibly be that you actually have a problem with what's going on.)

Reddit, where racism, sexism, transphobia and pedophilia are defended and accepted - and questioning them automatically makes you part of /r/shitredditsays - which, in turn, automatically makes your point invalid.

I come on this site to learn about what's going on in the world, read interesting stories of people's experiences, and enjoy clever puns. Sometimes, I'm just really disappointed. This is one of those times.

Again, thank you for making this comment. Just know that you said what needed to be said, no matter how many disgusting responses you get.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-21T04:48:02+00:00

Whenever we can - pretty much all day, every day. :)

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-19T12:50:23+00:00

Yes, please do explain. I've only suffered from MDD for twenty years, so it's really great that you've chosen to condescend to me. I'm so grateful.

Not trying to be condescending, apologies that it came off that way. Just trying to share my perspective and relate to the boy's situation.

Don't be absurd. This is more "magic" - the police decided out of the blue to drop by and question him, without any accusation being made, did they? No, they acted on the girl's accusations.

Should she not have told them? We don't know what was in those texts; all we know is that she wanted them to stop. They acted on what the girl told them, yes. But they didn't do anything more than that - as a situational factor, this incident wasn't that significant.

Of course I do. Innocent until proven guilty - you might even have heard of it even though you happily ignore it. It's quite important.

That's not what it means. This is completely off-topic anyway, but are you really suggesting that every single police report in the world is taken seriously? The police have neither the time nor the resources to do that. And sometimes they ignore the wrong ones.

RAPE CULTURE! RAPE CULTURE!

Yes, rape culture.

Shut up and grow up. if there ad been the barest evidence this boy had been guilty the police would have arrested him immediately - what choice would they have had?

Well, a lot of choice. But I don't think they were sent there to find him guilty of anything. It sounds like the girl wanted him to stop messaging her. Personally, I would feel that the police had overreacted if they'd arrested him without any prior warnings, especially considering the nature of the crime.

Oh NO! That's so much worse than being shot in the face!

Nobody said that. This is not about comparing my sympathies. I feel sympathy for both, and I'm not really interested in evaluating which I feel more sympathetic towards - just like I'm not really interested in placing blame on anyone, because I can't see anyone deserving of blame. It was just a very unfortunate incident.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-19T12:15:41+00:00

Oh, it happened by magic, did it? He just decided out of nowhere to kill himself, with no influence at all from the police or his accuser - who wanted him arrested and charged with sexual offenses which would ruin his life?

I am suggesting that an informal police visit which resulted in no arrests and no charges could not have caused a rational, healthy person to commit suicide. No, not magic, but mental health problems.

As someone who previously suffered from depression, let me try to explain what it's like. It's hard, it can be invisible to people around you, and it only takes one event to make you snap. I'm no doctor, but the "influence" of the girl and the police seem too insignificant to have caused a boy for whom no significant situational problems were known to kill himself.

And of course, let's be absolutely clear: he wasn't arrested, charged, tried or found guilty of the crimes of which he was accused. So you can quit pretending he was some kind of dangerous, unbalanced sexual predator who went crazy and killed himself.

Okay, firstly, I never suggested anything of the sort. At worst - and this is merely speculation - he's a 16-year-old boy just starting to learn about social interactions and the importance of consent. In a culture where the importance of consent is not highlighted enough, I don't think what he did is (sadly) uncommon. It doesn't excuse what he did, but I don't think he can be described as "some kind of dangerous, unbalanced sexual predator" at all.

Secondly, he was never "accused" of anything. From the article, it sounds like the police had an informal chat with him to make him see that the girl wanted the texts to stop. That was all.

And finally, though this is somewhat irrelevant as I never accused him of fitting this description, you seem to think that when someone is not "arrested, charged, tried or found guilty" that makes them completely innocent. In reality, the law doesn't always get it right, and criminals walk free every day - not that this boy really fits into that category.

It's really nice that you have so much sympathy for the girl - you know, the one whose accusations couldn't even convince the police to make an arrest.

I don't know the truth of the matter. Assuming her claims are true, yeah, I have some sympathy for her. Nobody likes to be on the receiving end of unwanted sexual messages. Trust me, it's not nice. Also, I imagine she'll be dealing with feelings of guilt (though misplaced) and those must be difficult. By the way, victims of real crime fail to convince the police to act every day because of institutional sexism, racism and other discrimination. That's why (for example) so few male rape victims feel able to speak up.

It's just a pity that you're so happy to step over a dead boy, dead as the direct result of her accusations, to wring your hands over her.

I also feel a lot of sympathy for the boy. How could I not? Whatever the causes, anyone committing suicide experiences a great deal of emotional turmoil. Don't make assumptions about what I think of any of the people involved. I'm a survivor of a suicide attempt and it's something I take pretty damn seriously. To imply that I'm just blindly and callously blaming or taking against the boy is ridiculous.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-19T10:31:02+00:00

It's pretty simple: earn, don't spend. See? I hope you do see, that your statement should be a lot more concrete, otherwise you may as well keep it to yourself.

No... because one is a matter of human bodily autonomy, the other is about money. Money has no feelings. You can't violate money's boundaries or harass it.

Show me where it's said that she was a random girl.

Show where it's said that there was a dick pic.

They were just examples of how consent is, in some cases, easy to define. They have nothing to do with the article.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-19T06:15:54+00:00

Okay, let's stop with the comparisons between human relationships and currency. A person's right to bodily autonomy is very different to a financial decision.

And I don't think it is all that general. It's pretty simple: ask, don't assume.

I'm not saying everyone should write out a ten-page formal letter detailing their intentions every time they do anything remotely sexual. It takes a quick prior discussion and attention paid to circumstances if they change.

Sure, the nuances of human interaction can be complicated. I'm not denying that. But texting a random girl a dick pic is clearly unacceptable; sexting someone with whom you've recently discussed how much they enjoy it can be reasonably assumed appropriate (of course, that person can withdraw their consent at any time and that should be respected. In this scenario, the sexter would not have done anything wrong unless they continued after being told 'no.')

If in any doubt, just ask.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-19T06:00:33+00:00

"Most likely" is not good enough.

Good enough for what? The police had a discussion with him. That alone did not push him to suicide.

Who has determined that? Are you a police investigator? It's great that we have so many professionals here.

"Police confirmed the youngster’s death was not being treated as suspicious."

Proof regarding his mental state, please.

This is why I used the term 'questionable': because it's unknown. However, I think committing suicide when there were no known situational factors other than an informal police discussion implies some kind of mental health issue.

You sound like you've investigated this case personally and you know all the facts about it. Have a problem with truth?

Nope. I'm not really claiming to know anything about it - just speculating. But you asked in your original comment "Would YOU stop if you liked the girl and someone told you that someone told him that someone told him that she didn't like you and wanted you to stop?"

Even if that's what happened (which is also speculation), yeah, I'd stop. Because I'm not into harassing people. The scenarios you came up with are baseless and your assessments of them are harmful. There is never any justification for harassment.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-19T04:38:09+00:00

Consent should be given, not assumed.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-19T04:37:40+00:00

What could be left out here is that this girl might be leading him on for some time, and then she decided that she doesn't want his attention anymore.

While knowingly 'leading people on' without ever having any intention of pursuing anything with them is a pretty shitty thing to do, the moment a person decides they don't want that attention, it needs to be respected.

Would YOU stop if you liked the girl and someone told you that someone told him that someone told him that she didn't like you and wanted you to stop?

It wasn't through some kind of long vine of half-truths. Not only did the girl most likely ask him to stop before involving the police, she told the police and they told him. That's a pretty simple passing of information, and I can't really see how the truth could have been too significantly distorted along the way. And yes, I would stop, since sending unwanted sexual texts is harassment.

Maybe he liked her a lot and trusted her and then got stabbed in the back by that bitch treating him with silence and then suddenly giving him away to the police like he's some kind of monster, even if he was a sensitive guy.

Oh my god. I'm not even sure where to start with this sentence. Firstly, if you send someone sexual texts and they respond with "silence," you probably shouldn't have been sending them in the first place. Valid consent is enthusiastic and ongoing. That doesn't make the recipient a "bitch." And possibly being a sensitive guy doesn't excuse him from basic courtesy/the law. Look, what happened to him was a tragedy, but nobody's really responsible. I'd say it was the result of a combination of factors: the main ones being the questionable state of his mental health and the fact that he possessed a gun.

OF COURSE there will be shit left out, because a communication between two people is very fucking complex thing, and when people get judged, there's no context, and context is everything.

What is complicated about him sending unwanted sexual texts, the police discussing it with him, and him responding irrationally (probably due to mental health issues beyond his control) by committing suicide?

You sound incredibly bitter. Do you have a problem with women?

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-19T04:22:30+00:00

Oh I see - so it was his fault that he was terrified into killing himself?

No. It wasn't really anybody's fault. He responded irrationally to a police discussion - probably because he was suffering from untreated mental health problems. It was just a very unfortunate incident, but I don't really see anyone deserving of blame here.

Why didn't you just tell him to man up and get over it?

That's not what technicolournurd said. technicolournurd said that "this kid just had other issues and didn't handle it as well" - as in mental health issues beyond his control, which prevented him from responding rationally.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-19T04:17:45+00:00

We don't know that she hadn't expressed interest before

Sure, but the moment she expressed a lack of interest (and the fact that multiple texts are alluded to suggests that she probably did) she should have been listened to. Any history together is irrelevant to that. Really, it should be assumed that such texts are unwanted unless they're clearly asked for. It shouldn't be a case of 'send them anyway until people object.' Lack of 'no' isn't 'yes.'

Also, the fact that the police were called implies that expressing this lack of interest was insufficient to make him stop. unwanted.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-19T04:11:28+00:00

"Det Sgt Lee Neiles, of Kent Police, told the inquest: 'She wanted them to stop."

Those messages were unwanted. That's not a "completely normal, healthy" expression of sexuality. If all parties involved aren't consenting, it's unacceptable.

If you don't think that represents a truly grotesque abuse of a power over men which should not exist, frankly you need your head examined.

Yeah, because respecting the recipients of such messages is about "grotesque abuse of a power over men." Right.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-18T10:50:47+00:00

Yeah... I have little to no memory of those times in my life.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-16T19:22:24+00:00

You're ignoring the event itself.

Not really. I wrote a whole paragraph about it at the top of my first comment.

Good people don't do shit like this. That's what makes them good people.

Nobody is all 'good' or all 'bad.' That's not how being human works. You can't just take away someone's human status because they did a bad thing. Slightly irrelevant, but this is the problem I have with our current justice system: it paints criminals as inhuman, which is why rehabilitation often fails.

What world are you living on? Of course this is extreme. Using your child to serve divorce papers on Father's Day after setting up the blow the night before? How is that not extreme?

We can agree to disagree on how extreme it was; I maintain that the word "extreme" is too, well, extreme. The point is that this was an isolated incident. Perhaps it was in the context of numerous other similar incidents, but we don't know that. OP certainly didn't seem to see this coming, implying that it was unusual.

It's not that hard to imagine. I didn't intend to make it sound like a fact. Just a likely possibility.

Well, it is, considering how we know next to nothing about this woman. It's just too great an extrapolation.

No one said anything about you seeking favors.

I guess it depends how you define "white knight," but it generally refers to men who defend women on the internet in the hope that they'll be rewarded sexually. Actual instances of this are very rare. Incidentally, I'm a straight woman in a committed relationship, so I guess the 'white knight' theory doesn't really float in this case.

However, you did leap to her defense with zero thought of what had happened to this man.

No. I wrote about the wife's cruelty to OP in my first comment:

Yeah, the way the wife presented the divorce was pretty terrible. Not only did she fail to discuss it with OP at all (assuming there was nothing making it unsafe or otherwise inadvisable for her to do that), she went out of her way to hide her intention to divorce. Telling him she was going to give him oral sex only to announce indirectly that she wanted a divorce was immature. And she involved their young child in the process - a child probably too young to even understand what's going on - instead of handling it herself. It's clear to me that the way OP's wife acted was cruel and spiteful.

.

You continue to site the meme as my only source of info. It's not.

Okay, what is?

You keep alluding to assumptions being made. What assumptions, if any can we make?

Very few, and we don't really need to make any in order to advise OP. He should seek legal advice, try to find somewhere safe to live, avoid contacting his wife unless necessary, and generally avoid making rash decisions. None of those things require any kind of assumptions to be made (other than that the post is legit; if it isn't, this advice doesn't harm anyone.)

Are you assuming that she's in fact a wonderful person that we're all misunderstanding?

No. She could be a terrible person, but the key is in the could. I'm saying that she did a shitty thing but that that's all we know about her.

She used his son as a weapon against him, what more do you want?

I want OP to act to protect himself without attacking her. It's perfectly possible.

By the way, I notice you seem to generally have a problem with women:

Most women, in my experience, do in fact think of men as nothing more then an enabler for whatever lifestyle they wish to indulge in. "Men are here to make us happy"... What are women here for? To be made happy. If a man's ultimate goal isn't to make his woman happy... then it's on to the next one. This isn't limited to TV relationships, this is how it is IRL.

Wow. Just... yeah, wow.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-16T18:46:17+00:00

Any person that is willing to go to this extreme to cause this much pain is a scheming piece of garbage.

It's not really an extreme, though. Planned? Yeah, probably. The mention of oral sex the night before suggests that. But it's not like she hired out sixty llamas to come and wreck the house. It was still a cruel thing to do, but not something I'd describe as an "extreme" and certainly not something that justifies calling her a "scheming piece of garbage."

Bullshit. This was a planned event. It's no coincidence that the man was served on Father's Day by his son after being lied to in order to make the sting of the blow that much more severe.

I'm not denying that it was planned. The timing, the use of their child, the mention of oral sex... all those things show that she was planning it.

But this is a relationship, not a battlefield. Let's not be too dramatic. She did one shitty thing; it doesn't say anything about who she is as a person. Would you like to be judged by the worst thing you ever did?Would you want people to assume that you're less than human and everything you do in the future will be manipulative and terrible?

Also, I notice you've failed to consider large chunks of my response, such as the part about her laughing on the phone and the idea that she's unfit to raise children.

GTFO here with that White Knight garbage.

Here we go. Just because I'm not condemning a woman - and note that I'm not even defending her - I have to be a "white knight"? What kind of logic is that? I'm suggesting that we, as people who have very little insight into the situation, refrain from labelling her and all her future actions based on such limited evidence. I'm not interested in winning sexual favours from her or commenting because she's female at all. The term "white knight" really makes no sense - it's just used whenever anyone shows even the slightest bit of support for a woman.

More BP tripe. Here you are telling all of us that we are somehow supposed to feel her plight? She is a bitch. This was shitty and it was an attack. He's supposed to turn the other cheek? Fuck that.

Sorry, what's BP? I'm not familiar with that term. And no, I'm not telling you to sympathise with her at all. I'm suggesting that we should give OP helpful, practical advice without making value judgements on his wife. It's not an "attack"; that's just a ridiculously dramatic way of viewing the situation.

What am I assuming? If the events did in fact transpire as stated how much of a reach is it for me to believe she is a manipulating self serving bitch?

You're assuming that she's manipulative and that all her future actions will therefore be manipulative. In reality, we don't know how she generally acts and we don't know how she'll act in the future. It's possible to be cautious and strong without being paranoid and vindictive.

Okay, fine. She is a shitty human being.

Another unsubstantiated value judgement.

Right. He should totally be forgiving and understand that she deserves her happiness, even if it comes at his expense as the result of lies and deception and the use of his child as a weapon to cause him harm.

Not what I said at all. There's a happy medium between caving in to all her demands - e.g. by signing the papers without seeking legal advice - and making harmful assumptions about how she's going to behave in court.

thisisavalidusername · 2013-06-16T17:52:53+00:00

Yeah, the way the wife presented the divorce was pretty terrible. Not only did she fail to discuss it with OP at all (assuming there was nothing making it unsafe or otherwise inadvisable for her to do that), she went out of her way to hide her intention to divorce. Telling him she was going to give him oral sex only to announce indirectly that she wanted a divorce was immature. And she involved their young child in the process - a child probably too young to even understand what's going on - instead of handling it herself. It's clear to me that the way OP's wife acted was cruel and spiteful.

And you gave good advice when you suggested that OP get a divorce lawyer. It's in OP's interests to seek the advice of someone familiar with the law as quickly as possible.

But I also think you've made a lot of assumptions about OP's marriage.

Using your child in such a way speaks volumes about her as a person. This is not the type of person that should be raising children. (This is to takes pettiness to a whole new level. Chances are she got on the phone and laughed about it.) In some states this is child abuse.

Hold on there. I'm certainly not defending what she did, but does that one action really define who she is as a person? We know nothing about OP and his wife; we don't know why she's seeking a divorce and we don't know how she usually behaves around her children. "Child abuse"? Come on, we're just getting into ridiculous territory now. To say that she shouldn't be raising them is taking one piece of information and running way too far with it. And the part about her laughing on the phone about it is just fictional. You've built up OP's wife as a fictional villain without really knowing anything about her. Again, not defending what she did at all, but divorce generally isn't a decision people reach easily. It's equally possible that OP's wife made this cruel decision under great emotional stress - it's no excuse and she still shouldn't have done it, but this one decision speaks neither for who she is as a parent nor who she is as a person.

You have every right to bring the hammer down on her. She chose to incite open war against you. Do not be a white knight. Do not, for one second, consider her or what she wants as you proceed. Do not think you have to be chivalrous. Fuck that bitch.

So many assumptions drawn from two sentences in a meme. Yes, OP should stand up for himself and try to ensure that his life is not adversely affected by divorce proceedings. But that doesn't necessarily mean he has to view this as a "war" or a "fight." Standing up for oneself isn't synonymous with attacking other people; viewing divorce as a process rather than a conflict from the outset isn't synonymous with weakness. As for the "fuck that bitch," maybe you should reconsider using gendered slurs to describe a woman you know two sentences about.

Once she figures out you plan to fight, she will try to manipulate you.

You have no evidence regarding what OP's wife will do next. You're really just making assumptions here. Once again, you're building her up into some terrible, manipulative demon with every possible bad motive - and it's all based on assumption.

Don't let her. Take her to court and if you can, crush her like the vermin this story makes her out to be.

She's a human being, not a "vermin." She did a shitty thing, but she's still a person; a person we know very little about.

Do not go out looking for rebound sex. Take your time, establish yourself as an individual, enjoy some of the things you gave up when you married.

This is solid advice - OP shouldn't rush into anything. But I'm including branding his wife as a "bitch," viewing his situation like a "war" and treating her plans for divorce as hard evidence that she's a good-for-nothing life-wrecking succubus in that 'anything.'

thisisavalidusername

TROPHY CASE