Why sexual abuse should be taken seriously...

[tabouleh]

There is a thread at the moment where a MNer has discovered that her DS is abusing her DDs.

Very very sad.

What is fucking shocking is posters trying to trivialise this abuse as "doctors and nurses" and suggesting that the behaviour is more innocent that it seems.

I don't want that support thread de-railed.

So I have linked to here.

So yep I have form for thread about threads lets debate it here.

I don't get why you use Mumsnet, larry

Just step away if it bothers you so much. You ain't gonna change a thing...you just put people's backs up.

If this is your project, to tell all us wimmin how we should be doing stuff, you are failing miserably. Give it up. Find another project.

LG...he saw "excitement" at the family's predicament

Horrible thing to say

I can't see larry talking anywhere about the girls and what the impact on them of various courses of action would be on them.

When you see people posting over and over again and asking repeatedly for updates from the OP, that is not healthy IMO. If the OP wishes to leave MN for a while and consider her problem in private, I think that is a valid and sensible thing to do.

AnyFucker, it is not "us wimmin" I am countering (not telling, it is mostly you who do the telling), it is a small but vocal minority. At the start of that thread there were many women who took a view more like mine. They were drowned out and insulted and generally apologised and retreated.

And, yes, I did find some of the posts overexcited and I did find it horrible.

oops too many "on them"s

Larry, you saw words on a screen. Your interpretation of them is way off. I suspect this is because many people are quite different from you and use the internet in a different way.

You see it as a place for intellectual discussion (though I suspect there is more emotion tied up in your responses than you would like to think). Other people make emotional connections, they talk about things they haven't talked about elsewhere, they communicate and they help each other, often practically.

Some of the people who said they would be thinking about the OP all weekend will be doing that because her experiences have tied in to related experiences of their own, often experiences involving being abused and the abuse being ignored.

I don't think you understand very much about abuse if you think it's either untrue or wrong for people to say they will be thinking about the OP all weekend. But then it's clear from your posts you see sexual abuse as something relatively trivial.

Mumsnet really isn't the place for you because after so much time on here you still don't 'get' it.

do you feel Schadenfreude Larry? Or excitement? After all, it must be fun to have another chance to tell all these silly women why they're wrong.

Leningrad,

Where does support end and an unhealthy interest begin? There are a lot of posters. Some are clearly supportive. Some, in my opinion, are emotional rubberneckers.

Swallowed,

Where on earth do you get the fact that I hate opinionated women. I love all opinionated people. I hate boring people with no opinions. However, that does not mean I cannot passionately disagree with their viewpoints. Since when did "countering" an argument become "hunting"? I think people do need to be careful how they advise others in desperate situations, though.

Seth,

I suspect that you think men should not be on MN, especially men who disagree with what you would consider the majority viewpoint. MN have chosed to be a "parenting" website rather than exclusively for women. If that changes, I will leave. I do not think that is your call to make.

Seth,

I actually feel sadness at the situation the OP is in. I saw the thread at the very start and decided I had little to add so decided not to post (I will beat you to it in anticipating your reply of "that was your only sensible thought"). It was after a full day or two of the cheerleading that I thought that it just was not right to bully someone into making a very important decision (right or wrong) and someone had to say hang on a moment, the SS may not be the panacea most think it to be.

I do not know why you think personal abuse is acceptable to dish out but you are remarkably sensitive on the other end.

nope, don't have a problem with men being on Mumsnet, some of my favourite posters are men.
And some of them I regularly disagree with in the feminist section and elsewhere.
I think it's a shame if someone is so blind to the way a large number of MNers use the site and the support they get out of it, that they go blundering into conversations where they don't understand what is going on, and not only distract but also post offensive and upsetting things.
If you had the perception to see, as many male MNers do, which are the threads for intellectual discussion and which are the threads where something else is going on which you are not in a position to contribute positively to, I would hope you would stay, because there are places where opposite viewpoints can be a positive contribution. It's about you not having this tact and sensitivity. Maybe you could work on it.

Seth,

Maybe I could work on it. I am not perfect, though I suspect you believe that you are.

It is easy to see the threads that I post on. Mostly they are to do with health and especially skinny/refluxy babies. Some are also political and financial. They are areas where I feel that I either have some expertise myself or have been lucky enough to speak to real experts in the field (top paediatricians for example). I actually like to help people where I can.

Since my last post on the feminism section (until this thread where Tabouleh admitted she invited me on) about a month ago, I have not contributed in that section and never will again. I accept it is not my place.

I have actually seen some of your posts in other areas and find they are full of good advice and common sense. However, I do find you super aggressive towards any male who has an opinion of his own which disagrees with yours.

so you say you feel sadness. But it might look like Schadenfreude and excitement to someone else. Likewise, your belief that you see Schadenfreude and excitement is equally subjective.

For me larry what I find bewildering is how very often you come on to post in scenarios where rape or sexual abuse is the issue at hand, with the attitude that you are providing "balance" by casting into question the feelings/statements of the victims. I don't know how many times I have heard you question whether a poster on MN is telling the truth about her own experiences, advise against reporting to the police or other authorities, or try to excuse the man involved or make us see things from his perspective.

Do you realise how this paints you? You may be lovely in real life but your pattern of posts on this issue is pretty distasteful.

Elephants,

I don't think I have ever advised against reporting bar this thread, which involved a child.

All those threads were in an area where I have ceased to post. There were a couple of threads where I thought there was a different perspective and one where I got confused between two threads and my posts were out of order (please do not provide out of context links to that thread). I apologised unreseservedly as soon as someone pointed it out. In addition, as you can well see, I judged that my input was not wanted and gracefully withdrew.

I don't really care how it "paints" me. I and my RL friends know who I am.