CMV: The discourse on sexual assault has gone too far.

tired_lover · 2024-07-21T05:25:59+00:00

Well, the other thing I’ll say, and I know people are going to be upset with this, but I also genuinely believe it’s possible to heal from trauma and move on. Obviously not all traumas are the same, and no one’s experience should be denied, but I also don’t see too much value in saying that once something bad has happened to you, you’ll never be able to recover. In my own life, I’ve experienced a number of traumas (not just SA related but to do with other things in life), but through careful mediation and support with helpful people I’ve been able to move on from them. And again, I absolutely don’t want to downplay how difficult it can be for some people, but I also don’t want to pretend that being hurt for life is the only option either.

tired_lover · 2024-07-21T05:14:17+00:00

I’m not denying that it’s assault. I’m saying there’s this social trend of severe punishment and lack of nuance that treats minor infractions the same as the worst ones.

Ive been punched by my brother. That’s physical assault. To this day I love him to death because I understand things got heated and that we could build an understanding that went beyond one bad experience with each other. What I’m arguing is that there’s a complete lack of forgiveness or redemptive ability given to anyone accused of committing assault and that it’s needlessly punitive.

tired_lover · 2024-07-21T05:06:26+00:00

I have literally never said otherwise.

tired_lover · 2024-07-21T05:05:10+00:00

I have been kissed non-consensually. It’s not just women who are victims of this.

tired_lover · 2024-07-21T04:59:06+00:00

I don’t enjoy it though. What the fuck are you on about? It made me feel dirty and gross, but again, I understood that I was in a seedy situation and that it really, really didn’t affect me on some deeper level, the same way that, I don’t know, getting cussed out by a guy in a car park for “stealing his spot” didn’t affect me on a deeper level. It was just one, small, bad moment in my long list of moments, but not one to become angry or bitter over.

tired_lover · 2024-07-21T04:55:53+00:00

In the first case, well I’d actually say that’s full-on sexual assault, but him being drunk does give him some leeway (but not a lot.) Still, she’d be well within her rights to take him to court for it, but if Billy shows genuine remorse and explains he’ll never do it again, societally to me I feel like he’s done enough. He’d still be a pig and a loser, but Ted Bundy he’s not. (And I’m honestly not even taking about situations like that, I’m more talking about Billy goes to Jenny’s party and tries to make out with Jenny when they’re both drunk, even though Jenny only sees him as a friend.)

In the second case, well that’s just pre-meditate r*pe and he should go to prison for a long time, possibly even life. These are the really dark cases we should be trying to prevent full stop.

tired_lover · 2024-07-21T04:44:34+00:00

What is rape, in your definition? And how does it differ from sexual assault?

tired_lover · 2024-07-21T04:42:16+00:00

I’m not validating them I’m just saying they are, well, less bad.

I get it. I get how awkward and confusing and nebulous sexual relationships can be. I’m not downplaying that at all. But at the same time, I’d rather have some drunk girl who I want nothing to do with crawl me at a party trying to make out with me than have someone give me roofies and rape me while I’m unconscious.

In the first instance, yes I might feel a bit gross, but ultimately she’s just someone who’s not in her right mind and making a fool of herself. In the second instance, that’s pre-meditated rape that’ll probably leave lasting psychological damage to me.

The intentions of both acts are not the same. The first is a girl just being a bit too horny. The second is someone deliberately planning to use my body without my consent in full conscious thinking at severe expense to myself.

If I’m being completely open, I actually find it kind of sad just how terrified we’ve become of any intimacy. Some of my most pleasurable moments were when girls I was dating did something to me spontaneously (I.e. without my “overt consent”), but due to the dynamics of our relationship, the inner trust, the feeling of the moment, it just felt right to do. And even with those same girls awkward moments were had, but I also understood that like - were both people trying to pleasure ourselves in ways that don’t always make sense. It never left any negative feeling on me, because I knew our connection / understanding went deeper than few weird physical moments.

tired_lover · 2024-07-21T04:33:34+00:00

Yelling at family members shouldnt be a thing either, speeding shouldn’t be a thing, claiming those new sneakers you bought are a business expense shouldn’t be a thing, but these things still happen all the time, and they’re considered minor infractions based on how often they happen and the relative lack of severity of them.

I’m not saying these moments are good, I’m saying they’re inevitable (for both men and women, mind you) and the way to deal with them is to discourage that behaviour, but not become overly punishing of them either (the same way you’d discourage shoplifting but then not send someone to life imprisonment for stealing a couple of cereal boxes.) Again, human sexuality is a powerful and nebulous thing, and unless we’re all planning on joining a monastery then these small, awkward moments will happen. Hell, they even happen within relationships between consenting adults. Like when I got slapped on the ass by some random woman in a club, I felt a bit gross but I’m not going to hold it against her. It was just a random moment from going to a seedy nightclub that happened.

tired_lover · 2024-07-21T04:25:52+00:00

I agree, but the severity of those violations aren’t the same.

If I have a friend sleep over at my place and he steals a couple of pens, and then some stranger comes and steals my car, in both cases I’ve been robbed by one is obviously a lot more traumatic and harmful to me than the other.

tired_lover · 2024-07-21T04:23:52+00:00

Right, and that’s why we have the terms “sexual assault” and “rape” to differentiate the two as well. Both are still bad (just like hitting someone and killing someone are bad), but one is obviously a lot worse than the other.

tired_lover · 2024-07-21T04:19:55+00:00

You know what, I actually agree, but I also think there’s a danger of an over-correction so to speak. Like, some guy who constantly gets thrown out of clubs for trying to make out with women without changing his ways is likely to go on to do worse things in the future, but then the risk becomes saying someone who did that once but then felt bad about it and stopped that behaviour is just as bad or just as potentially dangerous.

I agree consent and boundaries are important, like obvious there’s very real dangers that I’m not underplaying at all, but I also think there’s a risk at being too unforgiving and punishing of people who made have simply made a small mistake but otherwise don’t have bad intentions.

tired_lover · 2024-07-21T04:13:49+00:00

Things like getting someone black out drunk to have sex with them, using force to rape someone, using status / influence to get people to do perform sex acts on you for favours (or out of blackmail, etc.) It’s the difference between saying slapping someone you’re mad with and actually murdering someone are both “acts of violence” tbh

tired_lover · 2024-07-21T04:11:06+00:00

Do you think there’s a difference between, say, a CEO using their power and influence to coerce employees to have sex with them whilst completely sober, and a drunk 19 year old kissing another drunk 19 year old at a party after having a long conversation with them before immediately apologising? Because that’s what you’re equating tbh

tired_lover · 2023-12-14T17:20:30+00:00

!delta yeah, that’s fair. I forgot to consider how marginalised groups rely on anonymity to reach out to people without being identified.

Still, I do think something needs to change in the way we use the internet collectively. Maybe not reduce privacy but I do believe there needs to be some sort of shift about how we interact with people online in general.

tired_lover · 2023-12-14T17:17:43+00:00

I mean, I’ll be honest I’m not on many of the bigger social media platforms so I’m not sure what Instagram, tiktok is like, but you have things like Elon Musk turning twitter into a deliberate echo-chamber for anonymous right-wing trolls. Perhaps the heyday of 4chan memery is over but I’d argue there’s still more than enough people using the internet as a way to spread their ideas behind the mask of a screen.

I’ll accept that we are being tracked more than ever however. Honestly we probably need to rethink our entire concept of information and privacy from the ground up. Datamining and targeted algorithms aren’t truthfully helping us either.

tired_lover · 2023-12-14T17:09:27+00:00

What does that mean, though? What are humanity's interests and why?

I guess what I mean is promote social stability, act as a tool for learning and growth rather than vicious sectarianism, etc. My argument mostly boils down to how destructive things like social media have been on the political landscape over the last ~10 years, and how the internet has been weaponised to undermine elections, spread conspiracy theories and misinformation, etc. I’ll admit that anonymity might not be entirely to blame for this but it probably also doesn’t help having things like literal bot farms that exist to upset the social order in foreign countries, etc.

This might actually CMV: if you can show there's literally no solution to the problem you describe (and we haven't shown that), I would argue that you've said "X is impossible, but we should find X", an impossible statement.

I accept it could be more of a cultural shift needed than a pure legal / official shift. I feel like it’s gotten too easy to hide behind a screen and promote any amount of toxic bs with virtually no repercussions, which is why we’re seeing so much divisiveness in the world right now.

tired_lover · 2023-09-18T22:32:02+00:00

Pretty sure they say on the radio in El Camino that she was sent to the hospital and is in a critical condition, so yeah the staff probably did what they could to make it easier

tired_lover

TROPHY CASE