Facebook supports rape?

Sorry am now doing a stream of consciousness posting. I've been a feminist for ages, have been posting and reading round here since it's started and it never even occurred to me until the other day, that this guy actually raped me.

Sorry to keep harping on about it - but this guy is (or was) a rapist and he did not fit any of hte profiles Rhubarb described. And just the very fact that he was a rapist, kind of stuns me, because I thoguht I knew about rape from this section and yet I hadn't clocked about this guy. And I think that proves either a) that I'm extremely forgetful or b) that our culture really has whitewashed rape to such a degree, that even women who get accused of being extreme and man hating feminists (whcih I have been accsued of on this board, along with most others) don't recognise the rape that has happened to them in their own lives.

And this FB page (which after all is what this thread about) is part of that rape culture. Laughing at women's experience, when it is so common and so under reported and so lacking in any justice.

And then people say we don't need feminism. Surely that FB page alone, tells us it's not out of date and old hat?

The problem with this idea of "piling in" - what do you do if you feel strongly that someone is very wrong and putting forward very damaging arguments? Not post, because lots of other people are going to post counter arguments? Play devils advocate to even it out a bit?

Lots of people disagreeing with one or two other posters, isn't always a symptom of internet bullying, or people "piling in" or, some such nastiness. Sometimes, it's just that the make up of that thread means that you will have a few people thinking oen thing and then most thinking something different.

Doubtless if you went on to another section, you'd get a lot more people agreeing that rapists are mentally ill or socially inept, or whatever it was that some people were saying. They would be wrong, but they would probably be in the majority and whoever was asserting that, woudln't feel quite so beleaguered. S/he would still be wrong though.

SGM, I thought it was rather illiterate of me, but that happens on these days

I really didnt, and dont, want to be part of a percieved pile-in. Though for the record I really didnt see it as one, although can well imagine rhubarb felt pretty bruised.

BUT...i dont think its accurate, acrtually, to say that rhubabrb was just expressing the same point in a different way. For me, personally, I found it very unpleasant that she (sorry rhubs to be talking about you in the third person) kept repeating that those who disagreed with her were basically calling all men rapists.

So, so, so not true. And the kind of line that is often used to shut up any feminist discussion.

Hully, no. Carry on reading here. May I suggest that you do a read of the stories posted by the survivors on here. Hell, you can use my name if you want. The experts can only post effectively if they truly understand what the victim has been through, IMO. I'm not trying to discredit anyone, but until empathy is practised, a lot of people run the risk of upsetting a lot of victims. And no, I don't mean the feminists. In fact, I owe a lot to the feminists, such as SGM, Lenin, Dittany, LRD and many more who've helped me come to terms with my own ordeal more than the likes of Women's Aid did. For all the discrediting the FS gets, people seem to miss the way that a lot of people genuinely are helped. It was only through posts from the feminists that I managed to start seeing that what two of my exes put me through wasn't my fault. How can posters keep discrediting the FS, when there's so many more people out there this section has helped?

Yes, there is a massive doublethink in our culture about rapists; on the one hand, they are supposed to be these awful monsters and yet otoh you can go on FB and set up sites that are only half-ironic.

Some of the people posting on those sites are going to be rapists, aren't they? Almost certainly. And they are in a public site, supported by advertisers, used by employers, companies, individuals, boasting about how funny it is that they either rape women or think it would be OK to do so.

And in a country where we have a 1 in 4 chance of being raped or sexually assualted, with practically no chance whatsoever of our attackers being brought to justice for it, we are supposed to simper and smile and not be humourless feminists and find it OK that that FB page exists. And then people tell us that the rape culture is a hysterical invention of our own fevered imaginations.

Although I think it backfired to some extent because there are loads of feminists there posting on it now from waht I understand, getting real information out there.

I don't understand anything any more.

As I said, I'll stay off here, it never goes well!

I'll try and have the discussions elsewhere instead and see how that goes.

elladee, how can you measure the absent? if people aren;t posting here. please do not reduce my first measured post to a sweary insult.

Lenin - I don't know what you mean either.

Look, I'll stay off these boards, it'll be simpler. I'll have the discussions elsewhere.

can i reiterate that we should be absolutely clear about the seperation of

point of view and opinion

and

the delivery of that point of view or opinion

Of course different povs are wonderful, informative and educational, they make me think, research, laugh and cry... if delivered correctly. if not they can be seen in an unkind light.

it is the absolute method in which the argument was delivered which is crucial.

Uppity - I think she started off kind, tryiong to express herslef and feel her way through what she was trying to say. And then got so heated and confused by feeling misunderstood and trying to answer lots of posters at once that it all went quite off the rails.

*(Tht's a genuine question btw, I haven't read the first bit of the thread as it's too long and I can't be arsed to go back and do so. Am slightly weary and puzzled by this)

DontCall Me - reading what? Have I really got to defend myself from writing posts that I didn't?

Really?

Wow.

You know hully, people are very kind on here, if people ar kind to them.

But no-one is obliged to be kind to people who aren't kind to them.

Was Rhubarb kind?

EllaDee - I'm really sorry but I don't know what you're on about.

Moving on.

What I took from Rhubarbs' posts was the idea that if you rape, you set yourself outside the (ideal) norm, because a decent person doesn't. Much as there is the interesting debate about what constitutes madness, is a killer automatically insane etc.

This is of course totally separate from the fact that there is nothing de facto different about rapists.

it all seemed to get unnecessarily confused and unpleasant.

Hully, don't accuse EllaDee of lying please. The rest of us are capable of reading.