Brilliant article on Epstein by Helen Rumbelow in the Times TW Distressing content

In my experience many men find it easy to dehumanise and objectify women that they don’t know, and sometimes when they do.

According to witness statements yes they very much did. They racially abused the girls as part of keeping them in line/making them feel worthless. It also probably helped them justify their behaviour.

Or, if you want to fry your brain completely check out some of the comments on Adult Works (actually don't really don't). Lots of men cheerfully reviewing women like meat, complaining that they didn't seem that enthusiastic or appeared strung out on drugs. Or read some of the stories about American soldiers in Vietnam and how they talked about prostitutes there (yellow meat). Or watch the film Whistleblower (don't). Dehumanisation seems to be a big part of it, and othering women/children because of their race, religion, social class or merely the fact they were female is as well. So it's really common to see racial slurs etc. It's why I feel uncomfortable with some people online zeroing in on Epstein's use of the word "Goyim" as proof it's connected to his Jewishness. In the same way people zeroed in on the (horrific) dehumanising and racist language/abuse used by the Muslim grooming gangs. It is horrific and vile but not unique to specific groups unfortunately. It's a very common pattern of sexual abuse.

At the end of the day all those involved were making a conscious choice. There is nothing that is forcing men to act like that so in a sense wondering if it's something in all men's nature is ignoring the fact that even if men's sex drive is super powerful the men involved were still quite happy to destroy another human beings life to temporarily scratch an itch. Urgh.

I’ve had to stop reading about this issue - it fills me simultaneously with rage and despair. I look at the men around me at work, on public transport, in shops and restaurants and amongst my friends and family and wonder if they’d be capable of behaving like this too.

Very probably

Indeed.

Ha yes there are definitely analogies there!

@JuliettaCaeser I'm wondering, where IS the 'let them eat cake' moment?
Melania's film?

I think the world has shifted. Seeing all this laid out the curtain has fallen. Did you see the crowds demonstrating outside Trump tower ? The people got very angry in France in the 1700s with their corrupt leaders and look what happened there…Hopefully this will not be that drastic but will usher back in decent leaders.

I also don't think it will work eithet. Especially because the people involved are so blatant, and very confident in their wealth and power. And because there are demonstrable ways in which it hurts men too - the very obvious corruption (also the very real possibility little boys were also victimised). Plus, very few people are OK with the tape and torture of children when it's pushed in their faces.
However, I predict they will TRY. It is based on an assumption other people (by which I mean men) are either as evil as them or stupid sheep.

Yes. They did. They used offensive dehumanising and graphic language to refer to those girls and young women.

I'm not going to muse too far down the route, but I well recall my religious grandmother saying that the concept of 'shame' can be a 'good' thing in a civilised society, because it provides a check on behaviour that ought to be checked.

Now, obviously, religious shame has led to diabolical outcomes- girls being shunned for extra marital sex comes to mind. But i have had cause to think of her words in a variety of settings recently.

That’s the sadness. If men have no breaks on their behaviour (fear of the law/religion/ no limit financially/shame) this is what they choose to do? Poorer men do the same but can only afford to do so online grok / porn etc rather than in person on an island.

They really do hate us don't they? This is a cabal of impossibly rich powerful men, but I do wonder if all men (or most of them) would be like this if they could get away with it.

I think what @flyingbuttress43 is saying (and correct me if I am wrong) is not blaming 3rd wave feminists for what has gone on regarding trans, but pointing out that what they have done has not helped to stop it.

It's the moral difference between stealing something yourself, and seeing the theft and not telling the shopkeeper.

There are many reasons why well-intentioned young women have fallen into the performative idiocy of wearing she/her name badges, many related to female socialisation, the ongoing male domination of society, the desire to avoid standing out from the crowd and making yourself a target. In that sense it's not their fault, but I wish they'd wake up and smell the roses.

One of my DC is like this. Intelligent, good-hearted and yet, despite my best efforts, completely clueless about the wider implications of the trans movement. The propaganda these young people have been fed is widespread, clever, and deeply manipulative (be kind, it's about human rights, women's rights and trans rights are the same thing, right side of history, prevent trans suicides, it's like gay rights). It's sidetracked many young people from more useful forms of political action. I just wish they'd fully engage their critical faculties, but that requires awareness, courage, independent thought and a degree of humility.

But Mum is a dinosaur who hates trans people, so I won't listen to her.

Did the taxi drivers and fast food workers in Rotherham etc talk about their victims like that? No one’s going to release 3m pages about them but I wonder if it was similar?

It’s the universality that’s disturbing - professors and billionaires should “know better”’but maybe they’re just the same in the appropriate circumstances.

Late with this reply, but the first two scenarios have no excuses. Women, to retain any self-respect, have to stand up to the obviously horrific male behaviour - which means overcoming all that socialisation around pandering to men. In the case of trans, women can claim to 'be kind'. No need to have to be brave or determined, just go with the flow.

Totally agree @JuliettaCaeser I feel like we can all just totally slack off now, guilt free. Oh I'm not out there abusing women and children at every opportunity, turns out that means I'm basically a saint (although probably lots of saints were doing that too given they're mostly male - too far?!). We all thought we had to work harder, do better and never complain in order to prove ourselves. In fact, simply not being abusive pieces of shit puts us above a significant proportion of the population. What a world.

They can’t though because there is hard evidence. With me too it was one persons word against another. Here it is all there in black and white.

It’s shifted my thinking. I (and pretty much everyone I know certainly the women) are literally angelic in our behaviour over our lifetimes compared to these men.

Next time a woman is criticised in the press for having too many boyfriends/ doing an unwelcome dance at a wedding the response should be REALLY look at what the men are doing!

I think in the backlash to me too there was also some very clever reframing going on.
There were quite a lot of frankly sleazy men in their 30s and 40s with platforms in the media or social media going "of course sexual assault is bad. But with all this talk of male violence... I just worry about the young men. Young men are really getting demonised here.... I think we should back of a bit or young men's self esteem will never recover...we don't want to demonise natural male.sexuality" They didn't give a damn about "young men" or their problems. It was a way to distract from their or their friends bad behaviour.
And young men (actually men of all ages) were being told that they were being demonised in echo chambers and social media algorithms.

Bit of a psyop basically. Look forward to certain people trying to roll out the argument that it's a witch hunt against all men as soon as they think they can get away with it...

I agree in the sense that Victoria's Secret culture is not empowering. And women were sold a lie that it was. Or that escorting is just meeting men for dinner or something. There's a lot of cutesification of the real world.

But, also I don't think third wave feminism is the main culprit in what happened. I don't think the men involved really cared at all about what women/feminists thought or about individual consent. And a lot of the girls trafficked were already very vulnerable (as well as children) so regardless of social attitudes to all that stuff anyway, they would not have had much chance. You can't expect a 14 year old to know what a 30 year old knows. Regardless of whether they are brought up Christian or Muslim or Libfem or Radfem. That's why men prey on children those ages (in conservative cultures as well as liberal societies).

Me too. The constant leering and staring when you are attractive and young. I really don’t miss it - because it definitely ends. It’s all about youth for these men.

I completely relate to this.^^

Reading this article made me think a lot about my past, and the years of teen/20s constant sexual assault, starting around 14. It was 'normal' in the old days. You knew not to say anything.

Then this morning in bed, I read two things on my iPhone news. One about a girl, Emily Doherty, who'd escaped being abducted and murdered by the Ipswich serial killer by cleverly evading him, and had reported it to the police and been ignored - she said they treated her like a 'silly little girl'. This was in 1999. I knew exactly how she had been ignored.

Next up in today's news, 27 years later, Trump dripping with contempt and misogyny over the CNN reporter, Kaitlin Collins, for 'not smiling'. Surrounded by his court of sycophants, bullying this journalist.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/us/politics/kaitlan-collins-smile-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KVA.kOOj.hj-FkKZYRLNL&smid=url-share

Not all men are bad, but I think even the good ones can't understand.

Indeed and much of what their criticism of "evil" women appear to be pure projection, its very telling. I am not sure I will ever trust of look at men again.

I'm not optimistic at all, @TooBigForMyBoots , just hoping for a straw in the wind, I expect things will turn out as you say. Effectively, it would be asking the US judiciary to take these men down, and that seems an unlikely, and big ask.