Man admits to multiple sexual assaults on R4

It’s no bloody wonder I ended up with depression! It becomes very ‘abstract’ when you’re dealing with these cases day in and out, but when you read it back it really makes you reflect on the abject horror of what many people go through.

To qualify that statement, I used to work for a digital forensics contractor who held the metropolitan police contract. Our company was responsible for retrieving evidence from suspects’ phones, computers, etc, so I got a certain insight into the relationship between the attacker/victim in many instances. This included lots of horrible crimes like rape, incest, child abuse, paedophilia, murder, kidnappings, GBH, terrorism, etc.

Derval.

I’ve always been fairly confident that most rapists understand that what they’re doing is horrendous - like a form of sadism/domination.

I feel a bit stupid regarding my initial post calling this "positive" now. The more I think about it the less comfortable I am with it. I'm most concerned the impact on the women and girls concerned is being lost amidst the attention for the man and his own revelations about what he's done. I do think it vital men challenge other men and raise awareness but wonder how it would feel if to be one of those who was subject to one of those instances and reading the piece.

His latest post is quite positive I think but I can very much see where others are coming from.

I do not respect his candour, and here's to why: All this article demonstrates is how much self-awareness a sexual predator actually possesses. If he knows how and why it's wrong now, he knew how and why he was pushing and breaking boundaries before.

It's pretty much written in law and been codified culturally that sexual assault is a moral/ethical violation. The only gray area surrounds what can and cannot be proven in a criminal court. I translate the whole article as reading "Holy shit women might be taken more seriously now, I was only going to assault them when I thought I'd deffo get away with it, now that it's clear that isn't the case I'm going to overcompensate to try and escape any real responsibility."

I think for any self aware contrition to exist there would need to be a pledge to any woman who came forward that he would plead guilty to any charges and not drag her name through the mud, and be willing to pay his debt to society such as was decided in a law court.

One final parting question, if he's a blogger, and made media appearances he's presumably getting paid, making money or at the very least raising his profile so in essence his abuse of women will make him richer and more powerful won't it?

This is horrific.

I hope this scumbag is prosecuted and locked up.

IfNot

That’s horrid and I’m sorry to hear it.

Good reply @IfNot

I would also bet that there are incidents on here that he didn’t mention.

Horrible minimizing article.

"why this was gross"!?

How about
'why this was assault'
Or
'why this was terrifying'
Or
'why this was violating'

Sexual assault isn't gross, or icky. It's abhorrent.

walpurgist
I sort of don't care. It's not my job to worry about how men who "suddenly" realised it's not ok to molest and rape women atone.

Yes, the vast majority have. There was a thread on here about it recently. My first thought was "no I haven't" until I thought about that one time when a group of boys grabbed my breasts in the park, and that other time when a man on the tube put his hand between my legs. And the couple of times I was grabbed walking home and the men tried to force me down an alley ( luckily i got away but I assume the motivation was assault. Or murder. Who knows) and so on. Most women will have several stories, not just one incident.

Have the majority of woman been sexually assaulted? I’ve read statistics indicating that it is 1 in 5 (still a horrible figure) and also that the study producing this figure was brought into question, with the authors themselves saying that the study shouldn’t be used as ‘evidence’ as many of the woman in it weren’t actually aware they had been sexually assaulted by the definitions used.

Not in any way trying to diminish the gravity of this but am interested in how prevalent it is.

So Ifnot, how are men in this sort of situation supposed to proceed from this point?

If we are able to correctly state that there are cohorts of the guilty that are suddenly waking up to how horrendous their behaviour may have been in the past with their sense of entitlement towards women in their teens and twenties through toxic culture then what, realistically can they do to atone for the past assuming that they have suddenly woken up to it now?

why this was gross
Well, duh...
I hope all the women he assaulted press charges.
That'll learn him.

He should have put this line up front imo

And it was because I just didn’t think women are people. Not really.

Google the title, that's what I did.
I don't know, I'm glad he wrote it but just yuck.

Been watching all this unfold on Twitter and seen several men tweet along the lines of "well neither i or any of my friends, father, brothers etc acts like this or harrasses and assaults!" - how the fuck fo they know!

But I think what he has just done would make that very difficult for them as they risk becoming involved in a public situation.

That's a good point, it could be said to be almost policing their response due to receiving praise for being enlightened and recognising the assaults he committed. Perhaps it'd have been better done anonymously or without so much detail about specific situations.

If the majority of women have been sexually assaulted it would follow that it's more than a small number of men that have assaulted them.

But I can't see many men holding their hands up and saying it was me. It's all 'look at your brothers, your friends' etc when I think the first thing men should be doing is looking at themselves and what they have done.

Though I found a lot of it quite difficult to read (or maybe unpleasant is the right word, I shuddered at some not least the "pick up artists" targeting galleries), I think it's relatively positive. Not that these things happened of course but that he's at least recognised how awful this behaviour was (though should never have felt otherwise) and has addressed it and hopes to communicate with other men and boys to do the same. I think it's vital men challenge other men on this, so one admitting to things he's done and explaining why it was so horrific is something.

Of course, it may well not help the women and girls who fell victim to what he's confessing to. It is I would think not nice at all to feel someone who did these things to you is being widely lauded. Given this, I don't want to praise him too much so am probably being inconsistent here. There are certainly no excuses but maybe more men speaking up on this will help prevent some men and boys from perpetuating this culture - though it's enraging it takes them to talk about it for this to happen, when women and girls are often ignored or dismissed for doing so, when it's us it happens to.

The majority of men don't know that grabbing a woman between the legs is a sexual assault? Really? Or that grabbing a stranger and trying to make out with them is an assault?

He's setting himself up as a 'great bloke' who's seen the error of his ways and we should fall over ourselves to be thankful is the general gist.

As much as I don't like his excuses (there are no excuses) I think he's right in saying the majority of men do not know what constitutes sexual assault and therefore believe the problem lies elsewhere when really they should be looking inwardly.

Thanks Assassinated, that's worked.

It's definitely still up, it's the second most recent post on the blog so you could try going to www.patheos.com/blogs/leavingfundamentalism and navigate from there.