A well meaning friend sent this to dd- I have to share it or murder someone! And why should I suffer alone?

Sausage in terms of support it's not a choice between this passage or nothing is it?

The problem is that however well-meaning this isn't a passage that says that you didn't deserve the abuse you suffered. It is saying that either you are easy pickings (and so deserved the poor treatment) or that you should be grateful that a man (any man) made the effort to reach your amazingness, because there won't be many other men who will do that. It's not actually a passage about women who have experienced abuse - it's about women who "can't catch a man"

I imagine his motive for choosing it was to say, 'You deserve better.'

It may be awful and clumsy, but it was undoubtably sent out of love and concern for somebody he cares about.

I recon I'm an apple that dropped of rotten and got pressed in to cider, I'm all the more interesting for it, next stage caldvados.

Dad you have never been emotional abused by a partner I would guess. When you have been made to feel like a microbe with no right to breathe... picking yourself up from there may involve drinking lots of wine. And if friends gave you messages that you are better than that you are not going to look at them in the same way as people on here are making out. But its okay I am sure thousands of women don't need any support to get through being abused.

How would that message cheer anyone up? If there was a sexual relationship it's saying you were dumped because you were easy.

Exactly. Probably he does not imagine it was a sexual relationship at all, he imagines she was a 'good girl' dumped because she would not cave in to provide sex the boy demanded.

At 19 I don't know that I had a philosophy. I think I would just have felt a bit miserable without knowing how to say why!

At 19 my philosophy was that line from Fiona Pitt- Kethley , who on being criticised for being promiscuous and " cheap " said "I'm not cheap, I'm free". Free in that context being the very antithesis of cheap.

So actually it might cheer me up as it would give me something to be angry about.

I know, right?!

It's awful.

How would that message cheer anyone up? If there was a sexual relationship it's saying you were dumped because you were easy.

Oh, bollocks is it Sappho.

Honestly.

It is easy to laugh it off here but how many women need a message like that to help get through seeing themselves as someone who is unwanted?

sausageeggbacon11 you raise a lot of good points but the problem I see is that things like this are not like a crutch that allows a body part to rest so it can heal, its like attempting to cure an ill by drinking copious amounts of gin, ironically even in situations where that ill is liver poisoning due to alcohol consumption.

I'm looking at Sappho's Greek as saying that unseen isn't necessarily unwanted - it's simply out of reach.

I'm not sure the Sappho quote is much better. It's still referring to the better quality fruit that hasn't been picked.

I get the point that it's meant to be words of comfort.

I think what it might be trying to say is " it's his loss, not yours/ you deserve better/he was a waste of space anyway/ you're well rid of him" but it's a terrible way of saying it.

Sappho.

Must correct my autocorrect one of these days.

Sapphire was saying the opposite.

The Sappho doesn't say it's about women and certainly not being plucked by boys(well, she wouldn't would she?) or that nasty rotten apple stuff.

Ahh, I see. He is a true gentlesir and would encourage your daughter to become a m'lady. Does this man have a beard, perchance?

Well it gave me a laugh. I'm sure it was sent with the best intentions.

As a rotten apple on the ground type of gal... I'd say bollocks to that.

I thought I was alone in having an Uncle Dickhead.

Sadly, I'm not

That 'ditty' is beyond awful.

Patronising bollocks

It's Sappho. www.sacred-texts.com/cla/usappho/sph91.htm

A truly awful translation (hell, not even a translation, a seventh-rate garbling) but, still recognisably Sappho.

I've decided to read that as heartening. Best part of three milennia old and almost torn apart but still able to connect somehow.

Indeed. I can see no comfort in the implied blame that horrible thing gives women. We should comfort women by raising them up, not by telling them they got a shite one for being sexual beings.