Export thread

This review shocked the hell out of me: The Invisible War

I had no idea there was such a problem in our military. Obviously I knew this happened, but at such a high rate, and for it to be so ignored is disgusting. Some choice quotes:

One of those stories involves Kori Cioca, who served in the Coast Guard and was hit in the face by her rapist so hard that her jaw was broken. She will require some bone replacement but has been refused treatment by the VA hospital system because her term of duty was not long enough to qualify her for medical care. Five years after the event, she is still on a diet of liquids and soft foods.

The film's implication, quite starkly, is that a strong military doesn't favor crybabies, that a certain degree of rape is unavoidable — and inevitably, that some women may have been asking for it. One hearing noted that the victim was dressed provocatively. In her official uniform.

Click to expand...

Jesus Christ. I want to watch that.

Sigh... I know I'm going to watch this, even though it will ultimately make me very angry.

This thread alone makes me very very angry.

I can't even make it through the reviews of this film. Jesus Christ.

Support our troops

Charlie Don't Surf said:

Support our troops

Click to expand...

Eunuchs are just as good soldiers as fully equipped males. Better, if they don't go around friggin' raping colleagues and/or the ones they're supposed to protect.
"She was asking for it" can, in some cases be true - of course- but "dressed provocatively" in uniform? Dude...

She was asking for it only applies to literal cases of someone asking for consensual sex.

Just so we're on the same page.

phil said:

She was asking for it only applies to literal cases of someone asking for consensual sex.

Just so we're on the same page.

Click to expand...

Yes, but I've known rape cases where she DID ask for it - and was ruled that, because she was drunk, she wasn't responsable. Even though I think it's pretty low to abuse girls so drunk they don't know what they're doing, that's still not *his* fault. Usually. Roofying someone with alcohol without them knowing it would see m hard to me, and it's usually not considered illegal.

Bubble181 said:

Yes, but I've known rape cases where she DID ask for it - and was ruled that, because she was drunk, she wasn't responsable. Even though I think it's pretty low to abuse girls so drunk they don't know what they're doing, that's still not *his* fault. Usually. Roofying someone with alcohol without them knowing it would see m hard to me, and it's usually not considered illegal.

Click to expand...

Holy shit, you are slime.

Don't have sex with people that can't give consent

Bubble181 said:

"She was asking for it" can, in some cases be true - of course-.

Click to expand...

'of course' - rape apologist

The reality is that there are far too many cases of rapes not being reported because of the repugnant military culture in the OP or terrible and hurtful viewpoints that blame the victims, say they were asking for it, say things aren't reaaaaaly rape, etc etc

CDS, if you're going to argue at that level, I'll jsut put you on ignore right away. It's not because I say it's obviously unacceptable, that I'm suddenly an apologist.
As Frank said, I'm refering to
a) girls being perfectly willing at the time, and crying "rape" afterwards to protect themselves of the condequences of bad choices; or
b) the grey zone between "she has had 2 glasses of wine, her inhibitions have been weakened a bit and she's willing" and "she's had two bottles of whiskey, I carry her to her bed, and she's incapable of saying no so I take advantage of her". The first is a clear case of not rape; the second, to me, is a clear case of rape. If you're going to be stubborn-miknded and claim there's no moral grey area somewhere in between those two, you're an idiot. And be glad I don't use harder words than that - you're preeetty much hitting all the wrong buttons here at the moment. My ex was raped by her stepfather; I've been there holding her hand and standing by her side. I've never been there myself, luckily, but you don't need to protect anyone from me. Calling me a rape apologist is a very sensitive thing for me, so take your eternal white knighting and go offend GasBandit or something.

Stop saying shit like 'she was asking for it'. There is no way to say that in any conversation about rape and not be the biggest asshole there.

Charlie Don't Surf said:

Stop saying shit like 'she was asking for it'. There is no way to say that in any conversation about rape and not be the biggest asshole there.

Click to expand...

Stop being so judgmental that everyone who thinks there's some grey area somewhere, possibly, anywhere, is automatically an evil bastard and has to be slandered and insulted. Rape apologist ranks far above nazi or murderer in my book, slime isn't exactly nice either.

First of all, you don't need to convince anyone - I'm pretty sure I've been in closer contact with rape victims than you have, I'm perfectly aware it's one of the worst things to do in life, right up there with pedophilia (which, you know, tends to be just an even worse form of rape). You're doing more harm t han good to your own cause.
Secondly, no matter what, just slinging insults isn't going to help anything. It's just angry antagonism; trying to goad me into saying things that can be ever-more misconstrued or interpreted as "defending rape". I don't. Rape is wrong. Rape is evil. Let me restate that so maybe it'll get throguh to you:

I do not, now nor ever, condone, approve of, apologize for, or want to minimise, rape.

Okay? Got that? Thank you. Now go read my post again, and, perhaps, open your mind far enoughto allow the possibility that, in some cases where a victim cries "rape", something else happened.

Rape is wrong, and you don't approve of it, and we get that, sure. When you start talking grey areas, though (in particular, grey areas that are more common on soap operas than in real life) that's when eyebrows start to get raised. When you start trying to break out the metaphorical breathalyzer to determine if someone was blackout drunk or just barely drunk enough to fuck someone they wouldn't ordinarily fuck, that's when "rape apologist" gets broken out.

If someone wouldn't ordinarily fuck you and you have to get them drunk so that they will, it doesn't matter how drunk you get them! If you have to alter their perceptions with a foreign substance to get them into the bedroom, that's when it's rape! It doesn't matter if you have to out-and-out drop a roofie in their shit or feed them six Miller Lites until they're all stumbly and woozy, it is the same. This is black and white. The one "grey area" you mentioned -- the one about a girl having sex that she regrets so she reports it as rape -- does that EVER happen? (And no, "A friend of a cousin of a neighbor of an acquaintance," does not fucking count.)

Do you know how many cases of rape and sexual abuse are never, ever reported? I'm an abuse survivor, myself, and I went to the fucking support groups and to fucking therapy and I have MET THESE PEOPLE and I have no fucking problem painting you with "RAPE APOLOGIST" if you continue along these lines of thought. If your "partner" cannot give consent, ever, or if they have imbibed enough to where a "yes" might not actually BE a "yes," it is rape. Plain and simple.

Bubble181 said:

First of all, you don't need to convince anyone - I'm pretty sure I've been in closer contact with rape victims than you have

Click to expand...

I'll bet you have.

Honey Isn't Vegan said:

I'll bet you have.

Click to expand...

You don't need to bet, he explicitly stated the case of it and the details besides.

Guys, this is getting well into trigger-word territory, and while this doesn't bother me personally, maybe everyone should take a step back and let it drop (or return to talking about the movie). There is no way this conversation is going to get better.

Yep, I want no part of the conversation.

Honey Isn't Vegan said:

I'll bet you have.

Click to expand...

First of, the implication of the way you post that is a pretty low blow.
Secondly, I was student advisor and person of contact for people with issues that didn't dare go to an authority figure (teacher etc). Quite a few of the stories I heard there drove me straight up the wall; I convinced some to go to the police and/or therapy, others were too ashamed/scared/under control of a perpatrator at the time to do anything about it. In one case I informed a principal because it was just too horrible.
Obviously I didn't exactly have hundreds of girls at my school who were all raped. It was mostly smaller stuff; though plenty of that was bad enough as it was. One of the earliest things I was confronted with and chose not to handle myself was a 12 y/o girl who apparently had no-one at home to turn to to ask questions about her period (I supposed just what you learned in Sex Ed didn't exatcly help answer all private questions and I understand not wanting to talk about it in a classroom full of 12 year old boys - but going to a 17 year old boy to ask about it struck me as weird - I handed it off to a female teacher). Some were confused about their sexuality (It's great fun having the girl you have a crush on tell you in fullest confidence that she thinks she's lesbian after having tried boys for a while; though I guess that may have been just to let me down easy ).
Some had experimented with sexuality in ways they shouldn't have (niece/cousin), some had had a bad first time (amazingly, a first time can hurt if you're 13 for a girl. I still don't get how people do so much things without thinking about them! [this is being sarcastic]). From that period, I can remember three or four rape cases - dependingon your personal point of view on what constitutes rape. She didn't want to name it that, but it was another one of those grey areas CDS seems to think don't exist. "Not daring to say no" doesn't necessarily mean the other one literally forced you - not even that the other one took advantage of you and is fully responsible. Perhaps the other didn't know any better either - boys' minds can be warped just as much as girls' minds.
Thirdly, while I didn't have any official reason for doing so, I still got to listen to a lot of women's problems. I had - and still have- the "shoulder to cry on" vibe pouring off me in waves. Fraternity life in Belgium is mixed; quite a lot of contact with drunk girls - and since I'm one of those eternal "good guys" and eternal friends and whatever (though, lately, I've found out there were actually quite a few girls who did at one point or another have a crush on me - I just never dared to react and/or never picked up the signals...oh well); especially when certain girls were slightly drunk in the not-happy way, but in the melancholic/sad/drama way, some of them poured out their hearts to me.
Besides my ex girlfriend (beaten by her drunk father, abused by her stepfather, gotten into drugs, ended up with involuntary-but-too-doped-to-react gangbangs,...she crawled out of a VERY deep hole. That she still had too many issues for me to live with in the end, well, can't blame her fully - though she did refuse therpay when I offered to pay for it for her...Oh well, I'm better off with my current girlfriend, and last I heard she got her life back on track as well), I can name at least one girl raped by her grandfather, one who prostituted herself to her foster father and friends to protect her baby sister (they'd been placed in foster care together because their mother was a drunk and their father a drug abuser), one who was molested by all three of her brothers for years and several who were in several degrees of abusive relationships, from the "my boyfriend lends me out to his friends" category over the "I'm not allowed to enjoy sex because it's all about him" to the "I live for him and he treats me like dirt" categories.
To pay for my last years at uni, I worked in a hospital, as security; mostly in the psych ward. There, I met quite a few people who had been on the other side of the rape fenomenon - mostly not the malicious type, but people who didn't know any better, were severely mentally ill,... and of course, some more girls (and a boy) who ended up in the psych ward of the hospital (or in the children's psych ward) as victim. Some real gems of stories there, too - but I don't know any real specifics of most cases there, since I wasn't directly involved. Only know what nurses or psychiatrists deemed necessary to interact with them.

Anyway, yes, for someone who hasn't been personally involved in one way or another, and isn't working in the sector professionally, I've been in contact with rape victims and the fall-out surrounding it a lot.

All rape cultures are terrible, it's true.

Interesting hot-button issue we have here. Let's keep the personal attacks and insinuations behind, though, shall we? Guess I have to surf for a bit to keep an eye on you louts.

...I just want to say my sister cried rape after having consensual sex.

It does happen.

I'm sorry I have distracted everyone from the real victims of rape.

Men falsely accused.

It's a shame some of our nation's freedom fighting beacons of honesty and loyalty are going to get hurt as a result of this documentary, when they had been doing a great job keeping those lying women down. They are the real rapists, when they rape the reputation of men.

I'm glad you're back to posting contentless trolling, Charlie. I was a bit worried when you came back and said you were going to make an effort to contribute to conversations instead of this.

Real rape is horrible. I believe there is a rape culture in the world.

However, there will always be those that are willing to abuse something horrible in their favour. I don't see why that is hard to accept.

There's just no point in bringing it up in these discussions. It's statistically irrelevant and adds nothing to any rape discussion. That's what I was trying to get across.

Charlie Don't Surf said:

There's just no point in bringing it up in these discussions. It's statistically irrelevant and adds nothing to any rape discussion. That's what I was trying to get across.

Click to expand...

On this, we can 100% agree on. Are there men in the world falsely accused of rape? Yes. Is it relevant to this topic? No.

It's akin to talking about the evils of the Ku Klux Klan, and then saying well, you know, there are some criminal negroes out there.

And that's fine, but the reasonable response is to say that, not "LOL YOU SUPPORT RAPE" or whatever it was Charlie and the new person said.

Vrii said:

And that's fine, but the reasonable response is to say that, not "LOL YOU SUPPORT RAPE" or whatever it was Charlie and the new person said.

Click to expand...

Exactly.

Vrii said:

And that's fine, but the reasonable response is to say that, not "LOL YOU SUPPORT RAPE" or whatever it was Charlie and the new person said.

Click to expand...

No one ever claimed that Charlie was good at discussion. He treats every attempt at such like a politician, reaching for high charged, emotional rhetoric.

Funny, my wife and I read that review last night. She was a Victims Advocate when she was in the military for the record. This means she trained people about these issues and people could come report these issues to her. Her take on the review was that it's probably 90% right on but that there were a few things in the review that made her raise her eyebrow and go "that... doesn't sound right". We are very interested in seeing it despite it making us angry I'm sure.

I kind of want to say "fuck off" to the rape jokes, but it's the Internet. I feel that's Like trying to tell the sun not to rise.

SeraRelm said:

I kind of want to say "fuck off" to the rape jokes, but it's the Internet. I feel that's Like trying to tell the sun not to rise.

Click to expand...

Are you implying that rape is a matter of perspective, like the sun rising, which is not true on, for example, the moon? are you saying it's all relative? Because that's ALL WRONG.

Also, sorry I got wound up. Didn't mean to.

I think it's problematic at best to bring up your "gray area" scenarios when talking about such a serious and widespread problem. It gives the impression that your priorities are dealing with a minority occurrence (guys falsely accused of rape) as opposed to the much, much more common occurrence (women being raped). That's not to say the problem of false accusations aren't an issue; it's just so infrequent compared to cases of sexual assault. So when people discuss the problem of rape, bringing up an outlier makes it seem as if you don't care/deny the main problem.

As someone else pointed out, it would be like a discussion about the evils of the KKK being interrupted by comments about one time when a really, really bad black guy was lynched and he supposedly deserved it for his crimes. Okay, I could see that happening in theory, but it's so rare that it's odd to even bring it up. It distracts from the real discussion, which could be very good, to focus on an oddity or anecdote.

That's what CDS was upset about. He's just so fucking terrible at communicating with people he would rather sling insults and smugly imply that you're somehow a rapist as well.

I kind of agree with Sara on this one. I think the conversation could have some merit so I'm not locking it. But as the ambassador of not allowing any fun, I'm removing a few posts.

Tress said:

I think it's problematic at best to bring up your "gray area" scenarios when talking about such a serious and widespread problem. It gives the impression that your priorities are dealing with a minority occurrence (guys falsely accused of rape) as opposed to the much, much more common occurrence (women being raped). That's not to say the problem of false accusations aren't an issue; it's just so infrequent compared to cases of sexual assault. So when people discuss the problem of rape, bringing up an outlier makes it seem as if you don't care/deny the main problem.

As someone else pointed out, it would be like a discussion about the evils of the KKK being interrupted by comments about one time when a really, really bad black guy was lynched and he supposedly deserved it for his crimes. Okay, I could see that happening in theory, but it's so rare that it's odd to even bring it up. It distracts from the real discussion, which could be very good, to focus on an oddity or anecdote.

That's what CDS was upset about. He's just so fucking terrible at communicating with people he would rather sling insults and smugly imply that you're somehow a rapist as well.

Click to expand...

Yes. But I genuinely hate people who compartmentalize the world in white and black, then pretend grey doesn't exist.
Obviously, some 95% of all rape cases are men raping women, for example. Ignoring the specific needs of men raped by women (or women by women, or men by men) because they're a fringe, is just as bad as pretending rape isn't serious.
Claiming there's NO case in which, perhaps, the person accused of rape isn't at fault, is calling for mob justice - lynch whoever rapes and be done with it! If a woman claims you raped her, you deserve to die!
Moral issues are never - never- NEVER - black and white. Insisting they are and ONLY paying attention to the largest and most common group is a recipe for disaster. It's the mentality that led to "acceptable" losses, it's the acceptance of sacrificing good people to bad causes, it's - and now I'm goign to get CDS's feathers up again I expect - the type of thinking that leads to racism and discrimination.
Simplifying the world into black and white may be nice and easy and you can stop thinking a lot earlier - but it's dangerous, and wrong, and bad. It's the type of thinking that means that, for example, if you're accused of assaulting the nanny, no matter what really happened, your political career is over. It's the type of thinking that mezans that the media are judge, jury and executioner.

"Oh, that's a statistical outlier, that's rare, you do'nt need to have contingency plans for that"? No. Absolutely not. Never.

I'm so far on the other side of being a rape apologist, that I genuinely can't think of someone not beign against rape. For me, the moral baseline is "rape is bad, and all rapists deserve to have their balls cut off and stuffed down their throat" (except for female rapists. Err, cut off their outer lips adn stuff them down their throats? I dunno.). That, to me, is a given. Not "sex is good and perhaps it can be OK to push yourself a bit if the other one's isn't too unwilling, sometimes you misinterpret, you know, oh well". That's sick and sickening. From that point, it IS necessary and ok to say that, somewhere, sometimes, there *are* cases where "rape" was called unjustly. Just like there are cases where, say, the police is in on it. Or cases where it's the daughter raping the father (to go for a really extremely rare fringe case). No matter what - you'll be able to find an instance, somewhere, sometime, of it having happened.
I'm not saying it's frequent. I'm not saying it "justifies" anything or anyone. I'm not saying that you should always look at things that way. Far from it. I am saying you have to be open to the possibility and allow for such cases in the law (not as in "it should be allowed" but in "the law should be written in such a way that it's applicable in such a situation as well". Good example of law gone bad? The old (now long-changed, abandoned, etc) idea of "it's not porn if you don't see any pubes". Yeah, I can see how you'd get there in another era - but it also pretty much opened up waaaay too many options for child pornography. Unthinking can destroy more than you want to save. Another law gone horribly wrong that used to exist - "it's not rape if she doesn't clearly and explicitly states she doesn't want it". Which, of course, led to clobbering her unconscious beforehand, or taping the mouth shut, or whatever, so that she couldn't say no.
And heck, I'm doing it myself, right here and now - by constantly referring to the victim as "her" and the perpatrator as "him". That's stereotyping. I'm willing to bet (though I do'nt know of it) that, at least somewhere at some point in time, a law was written against rape that was worded in such a way that raping a man wasn't technically illegal, because it assumed it would be a woman being raped.

I'm having trouble expressing myself as well, here, but I hope to have made myself somewhat clear....I doubt it though.
Let's try again.

1. Rape is bad.
2. Rape is always bad.
3. Even rape isn't always as black-and-white as it seems.
4. There needs to be a LOT of protection of the victim.
5. There also needs to be some protection for the perpetrator.
6. No matter what it may look like at first glance, you have to be open minded enough to accept that he's not necessarily Evil and she's not necessarily an Angel. Closing off your mind to possible alternatives is short-sighted and certain to cause enormous distress to innocent individuals in the end.
7. Thinking every case is one where mitigating factors apply, where "he didn't mean it that way", where "you have to consider the other point of view" and whatever is just as despicable as the opposite, if not more so. In the vast majority of cases, the situation is unfortunately exactly what it looks like.

FWIW, Bubble, I think that was extremely eloquent. The problem in many instances is that it's HARD to take contingencies into account and much easier to just see things in black and white. But easier doesn't mean better. In fact easier usually means that more mistakes are made.

Let's take a look at Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" and how it can relate to this thread.

Person A: Guys, there's like a shit-ton of birds out there. They're flapping around and killing people and shit, it's a real problem.

Person B: Yeah, but some of those birds are migrating swallows.

Person A: Ok, yeah, but there's still a lot of fucking killer birds out there.

And then someone gets called a bird apologist, I guess? The analogy kinda falls apart there.

Ravenpoe said:

Let's take a look at Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" and how it can relate to this thread.

Person A: Guys, there's like a shit-ton of birds out there. They're flapping around and killing people and shit, it's a real problem.

Person B: Yeah, but some of those birds are migrating swallows.

Person A: Ok, yeah, but there's still a lot of fucking killer birds out there.

And then someone gets called a bird apologist, I guess? The analogy kinda falls apart there.

Click to expand...

Person A ate the last Dodo

Ravenpoe said:

The analogy kinda falls apart there.

Click to expand...

Just like this thread!

I understand where you're coming from, Bubble. For what it's worth, I never once thought you were an apologist for rapists, or a rapist, or slime, or whatever other fucking overreaction got tossed around. I get what you're saying. I'm just saying that your message, though valid, suffers from questionable timing.

EDIT: I just re-read the first few posts, and I now I see where the "Let's go apeshit!" button got hit. I think Bubble's "sometimes they ask for it" statement got misconstrued to mean "sometimes they ask to be raped" versus (what I think is) the intended meaning of "sometimes they ask for sex when they're not able to give full consent due to being drunk/high/whatever."

Blech. That's ugly. It's like a damn minefield.

Tress said:

EDIT: I just re-read the first few posts, and I now I see where the "Let's go apeshit!" button got hit. I think Bubble's "sometimes they ask for it" statement got misconstrued to mean "sometimes they ask to be raped" versus (what I think is) the intended meaning of "sometimes they ask for sex when they're not able to give full consent due to being drunk/high/whatever."

Blech. That's ugly. It's like a damn minefield.

Click to expand...

Hmm, yes, I can see how that could easily be misinterpreted. As you might've guessed by now, I'm not in the "women with short skirts are just begging to be raped" crowd.
Though, to continue my habit of baaad timing, I do think that girls in mini-skirts/with deep cleavage/walking anywhere but the beach in a thong are asking to be looked at/given attention. Which is not an excuse for staring, either - there's still politeness and general creepiness levels to take into account.

That horribly timed aside aside, I do think we managed to avoid most of these, so hey

I once read an analogy, on these very boards if I recall correctly, that leaving my car in a bad neighborhood, unlocked and with the keys inside, means it's probably going to get stolen. That doesn't mean it's ok to steal my car. That doesn't mean it's my fault my car gets stolen, or that I - the victim - am somehow to blame for the crime. But it does show a bit of a lack of common sense on my part.

And now, having made my little insignificant comment in this minefield of a thread, I shall run like hell.

I don't think there are that many super evil 'pro rape' people sitting around going 'rape is awesome!!!'


But people perpetuate the culture and make things worse by victim blaming, making prison rape jokes, saying 'I raped that noob' on xbl, etc etc

Which Bubble clearly wasn't doing.

There are so many points I want to respond to in this thread, but essentially this is going to boil down to me just saying, "Y'all motherfuckers are dumb," so I'll just skip ahead to that point:

Y'all motherfuckers are dumb.

And Bubble is just bad at articulating what he is trying to say. After he's diverged off-point to touch on a thousand other topics, his initial point is as dull as a butterknife.

What really gets my ire is even mentioning the tiny, little, insignificant outlying specter of false rape accusations being used to hurt men when many, many more actual cases of rape are ignored and mocked or otherwise discounted every day! "Bu-but... think of the men being hurt by false accusations!" Fuck you.

Honey Isn't Vegan said:

Y'all motherfuckers are dumb.

What really gets my ire is even mentioning the tiny, little, insignificant outlying specter of false rape accusations being used to hurt men when many, many more actual cases of rape are ignored and mocked or otherwise discounted every day! "Bu-but... think of the men being hurt by false accusations!" Fuck you.

Click to expand...

Well, fuck you right back if you think a man or woman, you sexist bitch, being falsely accused of rape, losing their job, their family, all their friends, in extreme cases their life, is is "tiny and insignificant". It's not as bad as being raped, and I'm not claiming it is. You're coming off in here high and mighty and your pain and experience can't be minimised or trivialised (which I'm very explicitly not doing - rape is worse than murder in my book), but at the same time you're perfectly fine saying someone else's life being ruined is "tiny, little and insignificant".

I don't know what you've been through. I don't claim to. I do think I can at the very least express that it's a whole boatload and then some worse than anything I've ever been through - and I'm still struggling with depression. If I had ever been subject to (sexual) abuse and/or rape, I'd more than likely have killed myself long ago. But that's besides the point. You're going so far in your need to claim your pain and suffering as the very worst in the entire world (I'd say it's definitely amongst the worst possible things that can happen to a person - I don't know, nor do I care to know, what exactly happened in your case*) that youy are minimising and rtrivialising anyone else's pain and suffering, and in doing so, you're becoming exactly the person you don't want to be: an apologist for horrible and unaccepptable behaviour. You're quite literally saying "who cares if someone's life gets destroyed by a false accusation, I don't care, kill all men that even look wrong at a girl and we'll be in a better world". You're saying falsely accusing someone else of rape isn't horrible.

I'm well aware I won't change your mind. You'll more than likely just despise me and ignore at this point. Well, tough.

Last point: you're confusing dumb with not able to relate to something you haven't experienced fully. If you think we're all actually of lower intelligence, fuck right off. If you think we're being blasé, you're clearly not reading what I write but reading what you think I'm writing. If you think we're cynical and psychopathic - you're still wrong. I haven't experienced rape. Nor have I experienced, say, giving birth. Or having a near-death experience. Or a truly religious experience. Heck, I've never made the winning goal in a championship match. Doesthat mean I can't/don't know what people going through that are going through? Yes, yes it does. I don't know what childbirth feels like, and I never will. That doesn't mean I can't use my own experiences to try and comprehend the emotions - it'll never be perfect, it'll always be incomplete, it'll always be an attempt. That, however, is part of human life - you don't know, and can't know, what it is like to be me, either - for better or worse (to be fair, my life is objectively speaking pretty good). If you can't accept that, I can't help you.


*Not wanting to go off topic too much, I decided to take this out of the main text. You're thinking I'm going to name, say, murder as "also horrible"? No, murder isn't that bad. How about the ar crimes in Ruanda, though? People ther made a habit of sleeping in each others' houses. Not because they liked their neighbours so much, but because it became a perfectly acceptable and normal thing to do for armies when they raided a village of the opposing tribe, to force all men to rape their daughters/mothers/infants, in front of their wives/other daughters/etc' eyes. They literally took to sleeping in each others' houses so that they'd "only" be forced to rape/be raped by their neighbour. People were forcced to rape and kill their pets. To eat each other while still alive. You think "mother forced to eat her own baby alive" doesn't deserve to be up there in the top, oh, 3 or so, of worst possible things to have happen to you, well, no offense, but you're probably psychopathic. Note that almost all of these have some form of rape inherent in it; I'm well aware. That's because, guess what, rape, no matter what shape or form, is always enough to put anything leaps and bounds ahead of almost anything else in the table of "horrible things to live through".

Honey Isn't Vegan said:

There are so many points I want to respond to in this thread, but essentially this is going to boil down to me just saying, "Y'all motherfuckers are dumb," so I'll just skip ahead to that point:

Y'all motherfuckers are dumb.

And Bubble is just bad at articulating what he is trying to say. After he's diverged off-point to touch on a thousand other topics, his initial point is as dull as a butterknife.

What really gets my ire is even mentioning the tiny, little, insignificant outlying specter of false rape accusations being used to hurt men when many, many more actual cases of rape are ignored and mocked or otherwise discounted every day! "Bu-but... think of the men being hurt by false accusations!" Fuck you.

Click to expand...

I think I like the new poster. S/he can stay.

Also, Bubble needs to calm down, because he keeps having a completely separate conversation.

Clearly what needs to happen us for more of us to see this film so we can actually discuss it. Maybe I can get a hold of it when I get back home.

Ravenpoe said:

Also, Bubble needs to calm down, because he keeps having a completely separate conversation.

Click to expand...

You may be right. I'm white knighting and projecting just as much as CDS on a bad day, and overreacting as a result of it. My apologies.

Still, I maintain this thread deserves to end in a ball of flame, instead of in a shower of crappy .gifs

I think I've said what I wanted to say. I'm out.


PS: rape is bad. And I haven't seen the movie yet, but if the US army culture towards rape is anything like the Italian view on such things, it needs to change and fast. People who think "rape" is just one step further from "just fooling around and joking" can all go and get chemically sterilized as far as I'm concerned.

Bubble181 said:

Well, fuck you right back if you think a man or woman, you sexist bitch

Click to expand...

sexist

Click to expand...

bitch

Click to expand...

sexist bitch

Click to expand...

sexist

Click to expand...

bitch

Click to expand...

rethink your language choices in light of your strong stance against sexist behavior

While not on the level of some of our other epic flame wars, and while it hasn't completely devolved yet...I think I'ma lock this one down.

My reasoning is simple: We have on this very board those who have been victims of rape or sexual assault. I can see how it could be a touchy subject. I personally know both those who are victims and those who have cried rape for a myriad of various reasons. Both actions are totally wrong and ruined lives, just in different ways. Having said that, rape is far more prevalent than those who use it wrongly as a tool. I agree whole-heartedly with Charlie on that point. I think Bubble has some good points, but also has a language barrier that prevents him from parsing words exactly as needed to straddle the line between propriety and seeming apologism - a word which I just made up, which is awesome.

For those who have been victims, I rather don't think that anyone here was downplaying what you've been through. We acknowledge that your ordeal was horrific and should never have been allowed in a modern society to exist or be tolerated. So I'm closing the thread in deference to your feelings on the matter.

To everyone else who thinks I'm closing this a bit prematurely, I don't know what to tell ya. I made my call.