"Fear" of men

missing friend

"In the example I mentioned, it is akin to seeing me reading cosmo or diary of a call girl on the train and being frightened that I would kill or rape you. "

NO it isn't. He had what was probably porn and an article about anal sex on his work computer. He broke the rules. He got sacked.

You obviously like the bloke and it is blinding you to the fact that he broke the rules and he got sacked.

Has it occured to you that the real reason for the witch hunt was probably that his colleagues simply didn't like him? A more likely explanation than them all being stark staring mad I'd have thought.

"I do think we have to be honest, that we are terrified of men and see them all as potential madmen. "

This is patent bollocks. As is the idea that male sexuality and violence are inextricably linked. Why would you even say that? It's an appalling thing to say.

Um, you might missing.

Most of us don't actually. We're scared of the ones who show the warning signs that they might tunr into crazies, but even then, most of us are trained from an early age, to ignore our fear and to give the potential madman the benefit of the doubt, because "it's not fair" to tar all men with the same brush just because a minority might hurt us.

I think the two are inextricably linked, actually, there is a stereotype of man's 'true' nature being working class, violent, facinated by danger, dirty, agressive, bestial etc despite the fact that polite society was largely created by men too. I do think it is terrible that decent, polite, sensible men who are open about their sexuality are equated with the dangerous marginal deviants. In the example I mentioned, it is akin to seeing me reading cosmo or diary of a call girl on the train and being frightened that I would kill or rape you. I do think some women have built up a fear of men that would allow them to think like that. I have read American Psycho but I don't expect people to think I am therefore a psycho, but I have seen nudges and jokes when some men read it.

I do think we have to be honest, that we are terrified of men and see them all as potential madmen. This is dangerous.

oh bugger spelling

Am turning into Cod

Missing I don't think you should confuse fear of male violence with fear of male sexuality.

The two are not synonmous.

I think you are being somewhat blinded by your liking for this bloke TBH.

He had what was probably porn on his computer and an article about anal sex. He got found out, he got sacked. These things happen.

The point I was making is that there is a fear of men and male sexuality that is causing some rather odd behaviour from people I would normally think of as sensible, and that is an example, a perfectly decent bloke made to feel like a paedophile because he watched an amusing video. He was witch-hunted for it. Its disgraceful, I have had to support him throughout as his view of himself crumbled, all because of a knee-jerk fear that he was a risk.

I know, Dittany.

The men I know who have got done for stuff at work have all been shocked, amazed, and sometimes spluttering indignant. Because they haven't done anything wrong, and they haven't done anything that everyone else isn't doing.

OK well read your employment contract, then see.

He had what was probably porn and an article about anal sex on his work computer.

What are you not getting here?

He had what was probably porn on his work computer and an article about anal sex. That is not appropriate for work and no doubt contravenes their usage policy. Which may have something to do with why he is in trouble.

For crying out loud.

Beachcomber I have no frigging idea what it has to do with anything it's all very odd. Apparently this one example is to show how men's lives are being ruined daily by peeeeedo hysteria, which is absolute tosh, frankly.

What has this bizarre tale of some man's employment issues got to do with women's perception of men as a potential threat?

I'm not getting the connection. A tale of possible flouting of employment law isn't going to be of much help to me the next time I find myself in the position of wondering if that male stranger is a normal guy or someone who is going to flash at me/verbally abuse me/follow me/assault me.

The only information used to start the investigation was a) tiny jpeg of painting b) amusing video.

What? The article about anal sex was just like ones in marie claire, cosmopolitan and the Metro newspaper (I first heard about 'pegging' from the Metro!). I am sure that those of us who have discussed anal sex on here hardly feel that is synonimous with being a paedophile.

Erm well there you have it

They found what was probably porn on his work computer and he had been reading articles about anal sex.

Wildly inappropriate and I am sure counter to their internet usage policy. He's not being sacked for looking at a "you've been framed" style joke vidoe once, at all. There is far more to it than that.

The fact that you didn't mention the possible porn and the anal sex in the first place is wrong - you are looking to imply that Kafka-esque things are going on when they are not.

"As I say he was the only male working there, and immediately pegged as a pervert." He had an article about anal sex and something that was probably porn on his computer. That's why he was pegged as a pervert, when women looking at photos of their own children were not.

btw they refused to look at the video because it was described as 'a video with children in it' and 'distasteful' so they made the judgement on the description only.

And to give you a perspective of the effects, sometimes when I visit him, he obviously hasn't done the dishes or tidies up for weeks, has loads of drink cans lying around, he was paranoid that looking old was what made people think he was a pervert so he dyed his hair black and went to the disciplinary hearing looking really strange, he has lost confidence dramatically. He hides it very well to the outside world but it has really destroyed him. He has stopped seeing his nephew and neice because of it.

So what happened is that the video was combined with knowledge of his interest in Art and a tiny picture of a painting by a friend of both of us that was a female nue - that was described as pornographic, then there were four investigations that found an article about amanda holden and simon cowell, an article about 18th century language, a magazine-type article for women about anal sex, and a death metal band. This was all used to 'show intention' of a will to view pornography. His defence - ' I know how to use the internet, if I had wanted to browse pornography I would have just browsed pornography' wasn't perhaps the best. After even more trawls they found less than 30 seconds of a video clip that looks like it could be pornography, that would take (yes he has done the calculation!) ?

Have to go to bed now.

My thing of "he's not telling the whole truth" is to do with maybe he was already on a warning, maybe he was looking at youtube 6 hours a day instead of working, maybe his work was shit, and this was the final straw. I don;t know, I don't know the bloke.

What his colleagues thought he was lying about is a more interesting question. He has told you that he watched an innocent video once, and that he was not in any other trouble and it's fine to watch youtube that is unrelated to work, at work. Then because he watched this video, everyone said he was a peeedo. he said "no I'm not a peeedo - look it's no worse than you've been framed!" and they all said "liar! you're a peeeeeedo" and he got sacked. That is preposterous, sorry.

You say that I think he is lying. On what you have told me I think he is not telling the whole truth. I think there is something else going on.

That does not tie in with your comment though.

People thought he was lying and that is why it was escalated. What did his colleagues think he was lying about?

No organisation in the world will be able to make it stick that looking at a jokey video once on youtube = unhealthy interest in children = sacked.

Either there is more than he is telling you
Or they wanted him out for another reason and this is all they can think of

I think if they are really drumming him out on the basis of one youtube viewing, they are skating on thin ice.

I strongly suspect there is something else going on here. People in the UK are not generally insane, no matter what some people would have us believe.

Its interesting that you instantly think that he must be lying though, that is exactly how everything got escalated internally.

I don't mean I doubt you, I mean that one defence is that 'other similar organisations' wouldn't dismiss in these circumstances, so it would be helpful if I could find examples for him

What do you mean "do I have evidence"?

I knew the people involved, and I knew what they were sacked for.

One man went to prison for fraud.
One man went straight to final written warning as he had a porn site open and minimised on his PC all day.
Three or four for circulating pornograpic pictures including some altered to depict their managers.
One for indiscriminate and inappropriate shagging.

Off the top of my head!

I don't understand your point. What I am getting at is that most of the people ^ up there didn't see that they had done anything wrong. They had rather selective memories, thought "everyone is at it", and generally misled themselves as to the severity of what they were doing. Bar the embezzling man, of course, I'm sure he knew very well that he was way in the wrong.

whats a snopes story?