“There is no evidence that predatory and abusive men have ever had to pretend to be anything else to carry out abusive and predatory behaviour.”

[ArabellaScott]

I know this was years back.

It's just struck me again what vacuous bullshit it is.

Every man who has abused and predated has pretended to be something else.

How many men wear T shirts saying 'Hi, I'm a rapist', or state their intent to abuse children when applying for a job or meeting a prospective partner, or signing up for a dating app, or going out for a drink with someone, or spiking said someone's drink, or 'love bombing' a target, or stalking someone, or abusing their position of trust in their job, church, social group?

Every predator and abuser 'pretends' to not be a predator and abuser, surely?

Deception, manipulation and lying is a fundamental part of abuse.

It's quite chilling that politicians got to the point where they would make a statement like this.

It's effectively saying that men will openly warn us before abusing and predating. It's the direct opposite of the truth. In other words, it's a huge, blatant lie.

www.holyrood.com/news/view,shona-robison-must-resign-over-gender-reform-comments-alba-mp-says

Absolutely. Dangerous lie made for her own political gain. Abuse is frequently all about pretending to be trustworthy when you are not.

I can't even imagine a scenario where a man would pretend to be so good that he's holy, and then go on to abuse - obviously that would be far too much unnecessary pretending!

Quite! Mohammed al Fayed 'hid' his behaviour in plain sight - but because of his power and great wealth - people were frightened to act on their knowledge - and even became complicit in it.

Jimmy Saville hid his utterly reprehensible behaviour behind a smokescreen of charity work and his celebrity status protected him for years.

Countless gurus and spiritual leaders have used their role to abuse women and girls. Most cults, when dissolved, reveal sexually abusive men in positions of ledership and power.

The braver these abusers become - due to haveing got way with with it for so long, the more brazen they become. Until the point when the abuse is happening in plain sight but people still pretend they cannot see it.

And the bloke who's "just John". "Oh, that's just John, that's just the way he is, you need to treat him differently and change your boundaries and requirements for funny/lonely/disadvantaged characters like him".

He might not be pretending but society is pretending his oddness means he's harmless.

Not that there's anything inherently wrong with being an oddball. It's just people shouldn't abandon their boundaries or safeguarding practices because of it.

I think there is something to be said about how much of this "hidden in plain sight" that people accommodate and let slide, for sure. But that doesn't mean that abusers don't pretend.

Grooming is the process where someone persuades another to lower their boundaries or loosen their defences.

I had exactly this conversation with a Labour canvasser last night, there was an "oh" moment on his face when I spoke about sacred castes...

Additionally, why is the notion of 'pretence' made central here? Many, many Catholic priests, scoutmasters, pop stars, TV presenters who used their positions to abuse were fully sincere in their occupancy of those positions. The preists believed in God, Rolf Harris really loved kittens, the scoutmasters genuinely wanted to help boys build campfires, etc. And they wanted abusive sexual gratification too.

Their sincerity didn't eliminate the possibility that they would exploit those positions to abuse. It isn't necessarily about pretending at all (other than pretending not to be a rapist). It is about remembering that none of these statuses reduce the relatively high propensity that males have to commit sexual abuse. So we mustn't let any of those statuses justify gaps in safeguarding.

(Edit for clarity)

Yes. It's not that they are 'pretending' to be a priest or a scout master, although I suppose Robison's suggestion is that they were being insincere, because their motivation was to access vulnerable people and victims.

So what she is saying is that men are genuine in their intent when they seek positions of power and responsibility, and the raping/abuse is just a sort of unfortunate accidental thing that they fall into by chance having found themselves inexplicably in a position where they have easy access to victims?

When abusers are professionals or status holders in a position of trust - teachers, doctors, scout leaders for example - the pretence is that they fully embody what that role is expected to be, with all the boundaries and duties of care that come with it.

If we didn't expect these boundaries and duties of care to be upheld, we wouldn't necessarily be happy undressing in a room alone with them or with our child spending all day with them behind a closed door.

It's showing a staggering lack of awareness of how predators operate. There are opportunist predators, sure, but even those generally require a bit of planning and malice aforethought. I really cannot grasp her thinking process, here.

I suppose she thinks that predators are sort of monstrous outsiders, 'others' who aren't part of society, aren't part of families or social groups or any kind of network?

Yes, and again: vulnerable doesn't necessarily mean harmless.

Who was it that originally said that?

It is also related to the (deluded imo) view discussed elsethread earlier that rape/abuse is about power and not about sex. For some men, sexual enjoyment comes from the exercise of power - the two are intertwined. A consenting partner is less fun.

Exhibitionism, frottage, voyeurism, invasions of private space - they are all sex acts, and the non-consensual element is a key component.

Predators stalk their prey and become adept at noticing and targeting weakness, defencelssness and vulnerability.

I strongly suspect she doesn't think at all. She's fully subscribed to the gender bollocks, which requires that people actively don't think. If you allowed your brain to engage with the issue even for one short moment, you'd quickly see how nonsensical it was.

Shona Robison, Nicola Sturgeon also said it iirc. Link in OP.

Virtually all the paraphilias centre on non-consensual participation. And people often have a 'cluster' of paraphilias.

I think it comes down to boundaries. Pushing them, over-coming them, transgressing them. People who are into S&M always go on about boundaries too. The thing is once you push a boundary and it gives way - you tend to keep pushing more. The transgression of boundaries becomes the dopamine hit. The thing you are addicted to.

Exactly this.

There was a really interesting interview last week, on Radio 4 ( My Cultural Life), with the artist Marina Abromovich - whose 'art' is predicated on pushing the boundaries of her own body and inviting others to do the same. She ended up in some very extreme places.

Just here to repeat two very key and pertinent words in the OP:

vacuuous bullshit.

Yes, I suppose there's the chance it was just thoughtless waffle to try and argue against a view Robison/Sturgeon didn't want to support.

I just can't help feeling they were actively railing against safeguarding. It feels to me that they were somehow bamboozled into actively supporting and colluding with predators and abusers. I'm pretty sure they didn't do that intentionally, but how, how the fuck do qualified, moderately intelligent people get so hoodwinked that they end up in that position?

It's the Emperor's New Clothes, isn't it?

You go along with something because you think that is what everyone else is doing; even better if you've been told there is virtue in it.

Can't the desire of a male to commit rape be a pure paraphilia in itself? Sex and power.