indulge me if you will

[phil]

So my friend posted a story with a link to a video on her facebook wall and a bit of a heated discussion popped up from it. I'd like to post a link to the video, and have you watch the segment in question and post your thoughts about it. I want to give as little information, aside from context, about it as to not sway opinions.

Also, to avoid other responses from swaying opinion I'd like that your initial response be posted in a spoiler tag. After that feel free to post normally but I'd like to see how people's unbiased and initial gut reaction to this video is.

context: An improv group is asking people to come to the mic and tell a story. The story in question starts at 38 minutes in.

Video:
http://www.yowie.com/show/4eq

 

[figmentPez]

Spoiler

Was I supposed to watch the comedy bit afterwards? That was a rambling pointless story and I hate you for asking me to watch it.

 

[phil]

Interesting first response. Thank you for following the guideline.


I'll clarify that no, you don't have to watch the comedy bit after. I'm personally interested in the story itself and what came to mind while listening.

 

[Tress]

Spoiler

I heard about this on another site. I would say it's incredibly bad. It starts out fine, and then the guy basically confesses to rape. Or, sort-of-rape. It's really ugly, that gray area. He didn't say he forced her to do anything physically (as in he didn't hold her down or use physical violence). But it's not up for debate that he did take advantage of a woman who was not capable of coherent decision making, and he did it despite the fact that she said no and told him to leave. The fact that he thinks it's funny adds to the creepy factor. I find it interesting how the group went from laughing along to becoming antagonistic to hostile.

I heard the guy was confronted after the show and seemed surprised that other people perceived this as rape. It's amazing how he doesn't seem to get it. Blech.

 

[figmentPez]

Interesting first response. Thank you for following the guideline.

Further thoughts:

Spoiler

Frankly, I couldn't decide if the guy was making up a story or if it had really happened. He's a moron and an asshole either way, but just what kind of stupid and what kind of evil depends on if he's just bad at making up stories or if he's bad at life in general.

 

[Tress]

Further thoughts:

Spoiler

Frankly, I couldn't decide if the guy was making up a story or if it had really happened. He's a moron and an asshole either way, but just what kind of stupid and what kind of evil depends on if he's just bad at making up stories or if he's bad at life in general.

Spoiler

Supposedly the guy swears it really happened and never understood (or still doesn't understand) what he did was wrong.

 

[Philosopher B.]

Spoiler

My impressions:

Hella creepy story, told in a hella creepy way. It was like he was talking about a rape, but he was inserting details that presumably were intended to make it seem *okay*, like the fact that she was supposedly 'stronger' than him.

On the improv bit afterward, I had two thoughts:

1) I don't know much about improv, but those guys seemed pretty talented/disciplined. As someone who writes everything down meticulously, I can't imagine coming up with/performing comedy in that manner.
2) There's nobody in the world talented enough to come up with comedy around that story and not keep the creepy vibe going. How can one laugh at 'speed-bagging' with the thought that they could've just heard a story about an actual honest-to-Zod rape?

I don't know how they should've reacted. Clearly they were perturbed before going into improv mode during which they made a valiant effort to slag off the guy and his story while also being amusing. But the whole thing in general ... just eugh.

I feel like a good wash.

 

[Dave]

Spoiler

Wow. What a creepy douche.

 

[Dirona]

Spoiler

The story is what everybody else has said so far - creepy, and utterly douchy. And rape is never funny. What I found the most uber-disturbing was not just that this guy is telling the story, but that the crowd is laughing and (presumably) approving of it. That creeps me out.

 

[Dave]

Spoiler

The story is what everybody else has said so far - creepy, and utterly douchy. And rape is never funny. What I found the most uber-disturbing was not just that this guy is telling the story, but that the crowd is laughing and (presumably) approving of it. That creeps me out.

Neither the crowd nor the comedians on stage were laughing with this guy. In fact, pretty much everyone there was creeped out as well and they were all making fun of him.

 

[Tress]

So phil, care to share the story behind you making this thread? What were your thoughts?

 

[Dirona]

Neither the crowd nor the comedians on stage were laughing with this guy. In fact, pretty much everyone there was creeped out as well and they were all making fun of him.

That's not how I read the crowd/guys on stage... at least initially, they seemed to be egging him on somewhat. That that changed later... well, fine... but to me that it even occured is creepy.

 

[Dave]

There's no doubt the creepiness shined through. That dude was seriously unbalanced and thinking what he did was cool.

 

[Gryfter]

Spoiler

Wrong, so wrong.

 

[GasBandit]

Spoiler

This is the very definition of Unreliable Narrator. I'm not saying the story "didn't happen," but I bet there's a whole lot more or different that happened in that story than what he relates.

 

[Tress]

Spoiler

This is the very definition of Unreliable Narrator. I'm not saying the story "didn't happen," but I bet there's a whole lot more or different that happened in that story than what he relates.

Spoiler

I agree that his details may have been altered. What concerns me even more is that he may have gone the other way and made himself sound better when relating this tale. It could have been much, much worse... and he altered the story enough to sound like a dumbass instead of a predator.

 

[GasBandit]

Spoiler

I agree that his details may have been altered. What concerns me even more is that he may have gone the other way and made himself sound better when relating this tale. It could have been much, much worse... and he altered the story enough to sound like a dumbass instead of a predator.

Spoiler

Yes, I agree. From this guy's rambling, um, vague, um, ever-changing, you know, recitation of events... the actual event could have been anything from a horrific, physically forced rape, to a lesser degree of sexual assault ("fingerhooking" a woman who has said no about 6 times to that point), to a complete fabrication.

Really, the way I wanted this story to end was he showed up at the hotel and it turned out to be his mother.

 

[HCGLNS]

Spoiler

First gut reaction was that everything after she said no at the door is a work of fiction

 

[Tress]

Hey phil, you never did give us an explanation as to why you started this thread, or your thoughts on the video.

 

[phil]

Well, my friend posted this to Facebook with an article talking about how this guy might have kinda, you know, when you stop and think about it, totally rapped that girl. Of course there was someone who commented saying how he didn't see this as rape. It got to like 40 comments back and forth between a bunch of people and this one guy saying nothing close to rape happened assuming the story is true.

I'd also heard about how this guy was confronted and had no idea where people were getting rape from in his story.

So I wanted to post it here and see what people thought. I was going to post the article my friend posted but I remembered the Wikileaks helicopter incident video and how people argued that because the doctored video with explinations was presented first it allowed more people to come to the conclusion of devious intent. I wanted to present the video with little more than strait context without the idea of possible rape already in the air. Thus the request for spoilers for people's first response.


As for my own thoughts it basically comes down to the fact that in this guy's own words it sounded like he committed some form of sexual assault by the simple fact that he never accepted her multiple "no's" And if you can't make your own funny story about a time you scored not kind of sound like rape then you probably did something wrong.

 

[figmentPez]

I kinda wonder if this guy has read a lot of erotic fiction or watched a lot of porn in general. I used to read that stuff when I was younger (text is low bandwidth on dial-up) and the percentage of stories that involve reluctant participants is pretty damn high. In most of those type of stories, the person saying "no" is doing so because of sexual repression and they secretly want to be convinced to have sex. The coercion is usually played up as a sort of liberation, not the abuse it actually would be in the real world.

In many ways we are what we read, what we set our minds on, changes the way we think. Spend enough time dwelling on something, and it's going to shift your perspective.

 

[Tress]

The line between reluctance and rape may be thin, but it's not hard to spot. To use a random example, "No, we shouldn't because someone might hear us [or whatever]" is worlds apart from "We shouldn't at all/I don't want to." It irks me that so many guys don't see the difference.

 

[Rovewin]

Spoiler

Well that was a little bit creepy. The guy seemed like a sleazeball who was pretty callous in how he described her but at the end it sounds like she would probably be a little callous in describing him too. Now I assume the discussion arose around the part where she told him to leave. You'd probably have to be there to tell if he crossed the line in how long he stayed after she told him to go or hear her side of things. That forcing the kiss thing though seems wrong. In the end it sounded like were both ok with having sex, so lets hope that's how it was.