There’s an episode of Poirot wherein he says something like ‘most people have a policeman inside their heads’ the ones we have to fear are those that don’t.
But how do we see inside another’s head? We can’t.
We look for patterns, we feel our discomfort.
But women are told, endlessly, be kind, be polite, be demure even.
One self defence mechanism is to urinate, defecate or vomit to break the fantasy - so we have to actively debase ourselves to avoid rape? Call ‘fire’ because calling ‘rape’ elicits less of a response?
But what of those who think they are smarter than using overt violence?
Listen to the laughter of the nation when Matt Lucas made fun of the confused messages of the nation’s Prime Minister - do this, but don’t do this, do that, but don’t do that.
We laugh because we see the absurdity and hypocrisy, even at the seriousness of potential illness or death, but we stay at home, we wear masks, we forgo meeting family, we alter our work habits.
But for sexual assault? We tell ourselves it doesn’t happen to people like us, we tell ourselves we would not be so stupid, we tell ourselves we are safe because we are, well, not victims. We tell ourselves NAMALT. We tell ourselves we would fight back.
We tell ourselves we can never be victims, and so, those that are victims are lying, or stupid, or crazy.
Here is a heads up. My abuser started with family. And no one challenged him. He drugged women at events where they could be blamed for being ‘drunk’. He targeted lonely women by ‘being a nice guy’ and visiting women alone, making tea, laced with his drugs to ensure they did not remember, or could not testify against him.
He made money from filming his attacks, he made money from selling videos - and the bodies of those women he rendered unconscious to his friends and strangers.
But he is, to all outward appearances, a kindly man who took close care of his female family, his gf, the local elderly women he visited.
He had protection from family who could not admit what he had done to them, from a gf who hoped if he was hurting her, he would not hurt others, from his friends, including police, who benefitted from his depravity to indulge their own. He had protection from the elderly women he attacked because he was ‘kind’ to visit them when no one else did.
Because who would believe it?
NAMALT
BULLSHIT
Predators survive and thrive because those adjacent to them have motive enough themselves to excuse, encourage even, their depravity.
Even when we know he has done these things, he is a man, he had a bad childhood, he couldn’t possibly have done this to us - because we are not those sort of people who abusers would target
NAMALT.
EVERY MAN HAS THE CAPACITY TO BE LIKE THAT IF THEY BENEFIT IN ANY WAY.
And even those who claim not - if you do not actively condemn them - you benefit.
And if you benefit from the mistreatment of women - YOU ARE JUST AS CULPABLE.
Family, partners, friends, acquaintances, we may have been groomed to believe NAMALT - certainly not the men we know - but that is precisely how abusers escape detection - because NAMALT gives their grooming and lies weight.
NAMALT
So why do Not All Men Unlike That, why do Not All Women Unlike That, not want to stop the Men Who Are Like That?
And why are All Women Who See That And Speak Out the ones who are ostracised and condemned?
50 mins or so of crime drama finds and punishes the culprits - crime tropes common from millennia - but here we are.
Excusing the men that abuse, fearing any deviation from the narrative NAMALT, and yes, even scared to admit we cannot trust our fathers, brothers, husbands, sons - not just your male relatives, but our own
NAMALT.
No, not all are, but if not all men, or not all women, are willing to speak out against, rally against, organise against, those men that are - what have we? But a society that says it’s ok to treat others as things and not as people.
That’s not a society I wish to live in. And indeed one I tried to escape - not by the easy means of unsubscribing to an internet board, not by avoiding reading opinions I disagreed with.
But by trying to take my own life. Because how else could I avoid all men? - not being able to easily see which would abuse me, or being able to avoid reading, or experiencing those men who are dangerous, or those men, and women, who would excuse abusive behaviour.
But I am still here, still alive, still fighting, still giving my opinion because who would benefit from my death? Only the men who’s actions made it an option.
NAMALT.
Anyone who uses this to shut down victims voices deserves to know they are either culpable or collaborators in the devastation abusers inflict.
NAMALT - FUCK OFF