Why sexual abuse should be taken seriously...

Seth,

Maybe I could work on it. I am not perfect, though I suspect you believe that you are.

It is easy to see the threads that I post on. Mostly they are to do with health and especially skinny/refluxy babies. Some are also political and financial. They are areas where I feel that I either have some expertise myself or have been lucky enough to speak to real experts in the field (top paediatricians for example). I actually like to help people where I can.

Since my last post on the feminism section (until this thread where Tabouleh admitted she invited me on) about a month ago, I have not contributed in that section and never will again. I accept it is not my place.

I have actually seen some of your posts in other areas and find they are full of good advice and common sense. However, I do find you super aggressive towards any male who has an opinion of his own which disagrees with yours.

nope, don't have a problem with men being on Mumsnet, some of my favourite posters are men.
And some of them I regularly disagree with in the feminist section and elsewhere.
I think it's a shame if someone is so blind to the way a large number of MNers use the site and the support they get out of it, that they go blundering into conversations where they don't understand what is going on, and not only distract but also post offensive and upsetting things.
If you had the perception to see, as many male MNers do, which are the threads for intellectual discussion and which are the threads where something else is going on which you are not in a position to contribute positively to, I would hope you would stay, because there are places where opposite viewpoints can be a positive contribution. It's about you not having this tact and sensitivity. Maybe you could work on it.

Seth,

I actually feel sadness at the situation the OP is in. I saw the thread at the very start and decided I had little to add so decided not to post (I will beat you to it in anticipating your reply of "that was your only sensible thought"). It was after a full day or two of the cheerleading that I thought that it just was not right to bully someone into making a very important decision (right or wrong) and someone had to say hang on a moment, the SS may not be the panacea most think it to be.

I do not know why you think personal abuse is acceptable to dish out but you are remarkably sensitive on the other end.

Leningrad,

Where does support end and an unhealthy interest begin? There are a lot of posters. Some are clearly supportive. Some, in my opinion, are emotional rubberneckers.

Swallowed,

Where on earth do you get the fact that I hate opinionated women. I love all opinionated people. I hate boring people with no opinions. However, that does not mean I cannot passionately disagree with their viewpoints. Since when did "countering" an argument become "hunting"? I think people do need to be careful how they advise others in desperate situations, though.

Seth,

I suspect that you think men should not be on MN, especially men who disagree with what you would consider the majority viewpoint. MN have chosed to be a "parenting" website rather than exclusively for women. If that changes, I will leave. I do not think that is your call to make.

do you feel Schadenfreude Larry? Or excitement? After all, it must be fun to have another chance to tell all these silly women why they're wrong.

Larry, you saw words on a screen. Your interpretation of them is way off. I suspect this is because many people are quite different from you and use the internet in a different way.

You see it as a place for intellectual discussion (though I suspect there is more emotion tied up in your responses than you would like to think). Other people make emotional connections, they talk about things they haven't talked about elsewhere, they communicate and they help each other, often practically.

Some of the people who said they would be thinking about the OP all weekend will be doing that because her experiences have tied in to related experiences of their own, often experiences involving being abused and the abuse being ignored.

I don't think you understand very much about abuse if you think it's either untrue or wrong for people to say they will be thinking about the OP all weekend. But then it's clear from your posts you see sexual abuse as something relatively trivial.

Mumsnet really isn't the place for you because after so much time on here you still don't 'get' it.

oops too many "on them"s

When you see people posting over and over again and asking repeatedly for updates from the OP, that is not healthy IMO. If the OP wishes to leave MN for a while and consider her problem in private, I think that is a valid and sensible thing to do.

AnyFucker, it is not "us wimmin" I am countering (not telling, it is mostly you who do the telling), it is a small but vocal minority. At the start of that thread there were many women who took a view more like mine. They were drowned out and insulted and generally apologised and retreated.

And, yes, I did find some of the posts overexcited and I did find it horrible.

I can't see larry talking anywhere about the girls and what the impact on them of various courses of action would be on them.

LG...he saw "excitement" at the family's predicament

Horrible thing to say

I don't get why you use Mumsnet, larry

Just step away if it bothers you so much. You ain't gonna change a thing...you just put people's backs up.

If this is your project, to tell all us wimmin how we should be doing stuff, you are failing miserably. Give it up. Find another project.

laryy,,,we live in that "interventionist" state

to try and circumvent it (in this particular miserable situation), is madness IMO

I also think you are jumping the gun re. an awful outcome of intervention. The boy is staying with his father, for now. I expect there are other times the boy has stayed with his father. The family is not "split up". Tbh, if there is a real problem with the boy, I hope the family is split up.

Also, there is no quick solution is there ? Who knows if this boy will grow up to be an offender, or whether it was experimentation gone too far ? We can't know that in a couple of days, nor even a couple of years.

So, I cannot agree with you smugly sitting back and saying "see?, I told you stoopid people it would go belly-up!"

What I really found disturbing was what I felt was close to schadenfreude on the other thread. It was the excitement this rather sad family's predicament was generating.

All those posters who claim that they will be "thinking about you" all weekend to various posters just make me want to vomit. Most have their own families and their own lives (and if they don't, they have a problem). Let's be a little realistic. MN is an internet board. People should give nuanced and careful advice to others, not cheerlead. Within a day or two, they will have stepped aside but those with real problems will have to live with the decisions that they have made (and sometimes been virtually coerced into).

Anyfucker,

There is one thing we both agree on.

It is a thoroughly miserable situation.

As you can see from my numerous posts, I never suggested "sweeping it under the carpet".

Let's see how the alternative plays out for all the participants. I am just a little (well, a lot) more cynical than most about what will happen with the state interventionist route.

There are no good solutions at all.

of course the woman in question will be having a thoroughly miserable time of it

it is a thoroughly miserable situation

what is the alternative ? Sweep it under the carpet and hope things sort themselves out ? Or lock him in his bedroom for the rest of his life ?

her son won't be thanking her...but her daughters will, one day...and so will her son if some help now prevents further problems

larry...I just don't understand why your "do nothing, tell no-one, keep-it-in-the-family" approach is helping anyone