Facebook supports rape?

[MotherPanda]

Have we a thread on this yet?

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/04/facebook-hate-speech-women-rape?newsfeed=true

I am really shocked.

I really didnt, and dont, want to be part of a percieved pile-in. Though for the record I really didnt see it as one, although can well imagine rhubarb felt pretty bruised.

BUT...i dont think its accurate, acrtually, to say that rhubabrb was just expressing the same point in a different way. For me, personally, I found it very unpleasant that she (sorry rhubs to be talking about you in the third person) kept repeating that those who disagreed with her were basically calling all men rapists.

So, so, so not true. And the kind of line that is often used to shut up any feminist discussion.

SGM, I thought it was rather illiterate of me, but that happens on these days

The problem with this idea of "piling in" - what do you do if you feel strongly that someone is very wrong and putting forward very damaging arguments? Not post, because lots of other people are going to post counter arguments? Play devils advocate to even it out a bit?

Lots of people disagreeing with one or two other posters, isn't always a symptom of internet bullying, or people "piling in" or, some such nastiness. Sometimes, it's just that the make up of that thread means that you will have a few people thinking oen thing and then most thinking something different.

Doubtless if you went on to another section, you'd get a lot more people agreeing that rapists are mentally ill or socially inept, or whatever it was that some people were saying. They would be wrong, but they would probably be in the majority and whoever was asserting that, woudln't feel quite so beleaguered. S/he would still be wrong though.

Sorry am now doing a stream of consciousness posting. I've been a feminist for ages, have been posting and reading round here since it's started and it never even occurred to me until the other day, that this guy actually raped me.

Sorry to keep harping on about it - but this guy is (or was) a rapist and he did not fit any of hte profiles Rhubarb described. And just the very fact that he was a rapist, kind of stuns me, because I thoguht I knew about rape from this section and yet I hadn't clocked about this guy. And I think that proves either a) that I'm extremely forgetful or b) that our culture really has whitewashed rape to such a degree, that even women who get accused of being extreme and man hating feminists (whcih I have been accsued of on this board, along with most others) don't recognise the rape that has happened to them in their own lives.

And this FB page (which after all is what this thread about) is part of that rape culture. Laughing at women's experience, when it is so common and so under reported and so lacking in any justice.

And then people say we don't need feminism. Surely that FB page alone, tells us it's not out of date and old hat?

Uppity- that is such a powerful illustration of everything that is wrong with that Facebook page. I'm so sorry that this has brought up stuff for you though.

Oh I'm OK. It was years ago and tbh I wrote it off at the time as just bad sex and slightly resented the fact that he had shagged me instead of letting me sleep. The thing is, it hadn't even occurred to me that I had the right to have words with him about it, to tell him that what he'd done was wrong, the way Amor did with the guy who raped her. I was so brainwashed that I didn't even think he'd done anythign wrong, I just accepted it as something women had to put up with if they ever got drunk and went to bed with a (male) friend.

I'm talking about it here and now because I think it is a very useful illustration of very common attitudes to rape. Both he and I, were oblivious to the idea that I should have any sort of choice in whether the penetrative sex which occurred hours after the first flush of going to bed with him, should take place or how. I resented him waking me up, but not once did I think "that was rape". Not until the other day. And I'm absolutely suer he didn't. I just want lurkers out there, to understand that rapists are not a race apart, they're not sociopaths or mentally ill or anythign like that, they're normal charming, self-deprecating (in his case) men, who rape because they feel entitled to and don't necessarily understand that that's what they're doing.

And that was the one thing I agreed with Rhubarb about - the sense of entitlement being the root of the problem. Without it, you just couldn't get that scenario. ah ah and something else I picked up on - she's not here now and I'm not sure if she's comgin back so will do this in third person, but this idea that now schools are teaching about consent etc., so there's no excuse for any young man not to know it's wrong, that there's no reason for that entitlemnet - well, that may be true, but in that case, why are young men still opining when asked in surveys, that rape is a woman's fault and that if she comes back to your room, you've got the right to have sex with her, etc. etc.? This implies to me, that we may be teaching consent issues in theory, but we're not teaching it with any conviction and the message isn't getting through. So what are we doing wrong, and how can we put it right?

Sorry for the essay btw.

I don't want to post on this thread again but just to clear up a few things.

I have not said that anyone thinks all men are rapists, I have said that Elliott's sentence could be construed as such.

Uppity - I am against rape and such facebook groups and would hope you believe that. I am sorry about what happened to you and I understand you disagree with profiling but that does not change the fact that many people do still use it.

This is my last word, yes it's a blog. I felt so strongly about this, because I am mortified that some people could actually think that I am dismissive of rape victims and that I blame some rape victims for their own rapes.

You might disagree with me, but for god's sake you cannot surely think that of me? Because if you do then I am clearly doing something very very wrong.

And as I have apologised over and over again, this time I hope you don't mind if I call it quits.

Oh sorry something else occurred to me. I don't mean to imply that lots of rapists don't understadn what they're doing is wrong btw. I think they do understand that they shouldn't do this, but they don't make the jump to calling "this" rape. They hide behind "assertive" "masterful" "passionate" "a bit forceful". But never rape, because very few men actually think of themselves as rapists, even though lots of them very obviously are, otherwise you wouldn't be getting 1 in 9 women being raped.

Particularly when they are young. Once they get past a certain age, I cannot believe that they haven't discovered enough about sex, women etc., to not know that this is rape, but I don't know... it might be worth more discussion on this thread or another some time.

Oh i don't for a moment think you're in favour of rape or rapists or the FB page Rhubarb, I didn't get that impression from your posts.

I don't know whether I'm for or against profiling either, maybe for some of these very rare rapists, the fewer than 10% who are the stereotype ones (strangers in dark alleys, breaking into your house etc.) it may be a useful technique, I don't know enough about that to comment. I would simply say that for the other well over 90% of rapists, the common or garden ones, profiling would be unlikely to be very useful. Even if their crimes were ever reported.

Actually SGM yes you did but it has been deleted.
Do you understand how hurtful it is as a woman to be told that my views imply that I blame victims for their rapes, oh that comment with the that I don't believe in rape - who was that again? Someone said I claimed to be an expert and so on. Everything I said was torn apart and used to make accusations that offended me as a woman, as a feminist and as a mother.

I apologised as I realised I had upset SQ and Amor. But because I believe in criminal profiling I am dismissive? Offensive? I have not mentioned anyone's experiences so that also makes me dismissive? I do not feel qualified to mention the experiences posted and would not presume to even address them - because you know what? I feared more attacks if I did mention them so I kept quiet.

I would like to know what I have said that is a rape myth and why it is so, but I would like to leave this now as enough damage has been done all round.
Thanks to those who have seen my point of view, it helps to know that I am not going mad.

Rhubarb, why are you more concerned about getting people to say "you're right" than understanding the survivors' POV and experiences?

I don't get it.

This isn't an attack, please don't construe it as such. I'm just confused and probably in the wrong state of mind to be dealing with this thread atm.

Thank you Uppity and I hope you don't think I was dismissive of your experiences.
I think profiling is useful as the Met Police said, for raising awareness, to prevent and to instruct. And if we thought that rapists were no different to our partners, our sons, our brothers and our fathers then that makes for a depressing world.

I have said until I am blue in the face frothy that I do not set out to be proven right and neither do I think I am wholly right. I came on here for a debate and I was accused of vile things like not believing rape victims. That is so upsetting that I cannot let it lie. It has nothing to do with being proven right and everything to do with my character and reputation.

OK if you genuinely want to know what might be construed as a rape myth, I guess the idea that rapists are somehow different from your average joe in the street, is a rape myth IMO.

the problem here I think, is how people are defining difference. It seems to me that you Rhubarb, with your pin pointing of entitlement, don't have such a massive yawning gap with what I think actually. My big problem with what you seemed to me to be saying (and I'm being careful how I phrase this because I don't wnat to put words in your mouth) is that you seem to be saying that that sense of entitlement is rare. I don't think it is, I think it's quite common. And the reason I think that, is that 1 in 4 women are either sexually assaulted or raped in their lifetimes and although sex criminals are repeat offenders, it is nto the same tiny handful of men doing this, it must by definition be quite a large pool of them. (I read somewhere 1 in 60 had been estimated but I don't know how accurate that is.)

And so by definitiion, that's a large number of men in society, it's not some marginalised little group. And that group is expressing ideas which are not a million miles away, from the ideas many men who are not rapists, have - and indeed, many women. So the "othering" of those men, as if they are somehow very different, as opposed to being on a continuum, seems dangerous to me.

Lenin yes they are, I accept that, but I do not accept that everyone's father, son, brother, partner is not particularly different to a rapist. Call me an idealist but I just can't believe that. If I did then I would not want to bring my daughter up in such a world or live in it myself.

'And if we thought that rapists were no different to our partners, our sons, our brothers and our fathers then that makes for a depressing world.'

It is a depressing world. It is sad and horrible. But rapists aren't usually strangers - we used to believe that myth and now we don't - and they're not lonely, unmarried men we can just 'tell' are 'not right' - and they're almost certainly not all like the men who're profiled by forensic psychologists, because we know most rapists are not caught.

It is horrible but IMO it is worse not knowing the reality, than accepting the reality is depressing.