'That' thread....

[Janos]

You probably know which one I'm referring to.

I have found it very upsetting to read because I have been in an almost identical situation to the OP :(

I was raped by a so called friend - it happened several years ago. I won't go into the details because I find it too upsetting to talk about. Suffice to say it was a bloody horrible experience.

I have been so distressed by some of the attitudes on that thread on that thread, but also heartened (if thats the right word) to read the comments from Rhadegunde, Dittany, IngridBergman, Blinder and others (sorry if have missed anyone out).

I don't feel able to post on there but wanted to say a heartfelt thank you. I'm glad there are women like you out there.

There are lots of fab women here

Sometimes it's a bit like a tag team - when some are exhausted from one of these threads, another group will tackle the next one.

I am also always really heartened to see a lot of very powerful comments from women who do not post in feminism - that makes me really happy.

I hope everyone is feeling OK though that thread was bad.

think I concur now that Lazzer is definitely a bloke...

The lovely thing was, though I don't know if it was directly related, that I posted for help on the chat thread and you lot all turned up and joined in.

I was losing the will a bit before that.

There is definitely something to be proud of in this bit of MN.

"I honestly think that a lot of people who post this stuff aren't really aware of what they're saying. If women just have some self esteem then rape will stop? Come off it."

I haven't said anything of the sort.
I've said that self esteem and being assertive will stop women having sex that they don't really want with horrible, manipulative men and stop them feeling that they can't say no. Is that really so radical?

Rape won't stop until men stop raping women, children and other men. Some date-rape may stop with the changing of mens' attitudes however.

Malificence, the problem isn't women not being able to say no.

The problem is men feeling entitled to enter women's bodies unless they say no.

If men felt that they needed to hear a yes, rather than not hear a no, assertiveness would be irrelevant.

But I have read women saying that they have said yes when they really didn't want to , because they didn't feel they could say no. That's where self esteem comes into play.

The type of entitled men you write about will never have their attitudes changed unfortunately.

"Many women find it impossible to say no in any situation"
That is so true dittany. I find saying no hard in other areas of my life too.

I think a lot of women on that thread recognised that type of situation as one they have been through - I certainly did and I feel I am a confident, successful women with very few self-esteem issues. They probably felt that they could have done something about it to have prevented it from happening and felt the onus was on them to have said something at the time. Perhaps they could have changed the situation if they had said something but the fact is that they shouldn't have been put in that situation in the first place.

It was very hard reading and I had to back away in the end as it really upset me. I admire all of you who spoke out on the thread and thought your comments were great.

mal my comment there wasn't just about your post it was a frustration at a whole bunch of posts on the other thread, with your comment as a sort of culmination of frustration.

I think it is wrong to say that if only women were more assertive there would be less date rape. Many women aren't assertive for fear things will escalate. When you are alone in a situation with a man who is much bigger than you, some women feel frightened. And how assertive do we need to get? Say no once - if that's ignored, then what? How far are women supposed to go to get their point across - and what does it mean for the women who do't feel able to take it that far?

TBH I think the original "no means no" campaign was maybe about stopping coercion and persuasion.

Thinking about it, many teenage boys think that coercion and persuasion, begging and "mild" threats are a reasonable means to an end when it comes to sex. No means no in the context of a boyfriend who asks/trys and a girl who says no - meaning don't keep on at her, let it go, seems reasonable. Somehow it has been changed to mean that if you haven't said no strongly and loudly then it can't have been rape. All teh while the idea that women say no when they mean yes abounds (someone said it on that other thread).

"That" thread has really made me think, I couldn't sleep last night, thinking about it. I did post argumentative things, not about the OP[I feel for her] but to posters like you on this thread.

I was initially so shocked that anyone would say the OP had been raped, when she felt she hadn't been. Having had no real life experience I thought how ridiculous this assumption was, based on the limited amount of info everyone had.

I now realise that I was wrong and I think that although the man involved may not have thought he was raping her, he probably did.

I have changed my mind because of all the awful personal stories you lot shared. It made me realise that a lot of woman have not been as lucky as me. [The only time I changed my mind about having sex, whilst in a bedroom, the man involved was pretty peed off but he stopped immediately, said ok and left].

I hope I haven't upset anyone by posting on this thread, I just wanted to say thank you for educating me, and sorry from the bottom of my heart for upsetting anyone about a subject I knew nothing about.

I suppose I (wrongly?) assume that the fear of being raped is much stronger than the fear of physical violence for all women, the thought of being raped is far worse for me than being assaulted violently.

I lived with violence and the (veiled) threat of sexual assault in my early teens from my BIL, it culminated with me telling him that if he ever touched me I would slit his throat while he slept, this was after he'd kicked me down the stairs for having a boyfriend at 14.

It seems to me that the OP was faced with a split second decision to resist or not resist rape. Resistance might have scared him off, but it might have provoked additional violence. When someone has already shown that they can easily overstep the boundary of acceptable behaviour by completely ignoring a clear "I'm not interested", who knows what the hell else they might do.

Gah, x posted. What dittany said.

Thank you for posting quicklookbusy, it is nice for the people who post on those threads, presenting a different POV and challenging rape myths, often using personal experiences, to know that what they have said has made someone stop and think

It was good to see even non-feminists challenging rape myths on that thread.

QLB - thank you so much for posting that. However difficult personally I found 'that' thread, I'm really heartened to know that some of what was posted has made a difference.

It is a really difficult subject and one in which the status quo is so ingrained in all of us, I think it's something that needs a lot of deep thought to come round to a different way of thinking.

(apologies if that sounds at all patronising)

Thank you forposting QLB :)

Malificence that situation with your BIL sounds hellish.

QLB, that was brave of you and very good of you to post.

I'm really, really pleased about what you have just said - it means an awful lot, in fact it's fairly critical to hear that sort of thing because like yesterday, when you're fighting a massive flaming for daring to speak the truth as you see it - with no grudge to bear or agenda to enforce - it can be very stressful and very difficult to continue in the face of people who reject everything you write.

So it does mean a great deal that it changed your mind.

Thankyou.

Thank you for all your kind comments