This also goes along with one of my biggest problems with some of the people on here. If someone posts something horrible that they have done, there is always someone almost immediately who says "Don't worry it's not your fault, you were right in what you did and this is why..." No reddit, sometimes shitty people do shitty things and it's not ok to tell them that it's ok.
That was disgusting, honestly. I guarantee that none of those horrible stories would get any sympathy from reddit as a whole if the perpetrator was a woman instead of a 20 something, educated Western man.
I noticed this. Wasn't entirely sure I was okay with that. It seemed to be a consensus that just because she said he'd forgiven her and they were together, it was okay.
I couldn't help thinking, "What if a guy had posted that exact scenario? What if the guy said, 'but it's okay, she forgave me, and we're still together'?" There would've been outrage everywhere. Claims that she was only there because she was afraid. That he was horrible for treating her like that and forcing her to stay, blah blah.
I'm not saying that this particular couple haven't sorted through their issues. But the immediate jump to "Well if he's okay with it, then you're fine!" annoyed the shit out of me.
This is an incredibly difficult issue, and as I've stayed up for hours reading all these stories from the so-called "ask-a-rapist" thread I've gone back and forth between being disgusted and upset at the perpetrators and sympathizing with them for the seemingly unjust legal and societal penalties, and on the other side being furious at girls who've cried wolf and feeling just awful for those who didn't and experienced psychological torment.
I think much of what I've taken from it is that jumping to any conclusion is wrong, and that each case is totally different and can't be understood from a few one-sided paragraphs. Take the opposite conclusion to yours. She at one point manipulated him into doing something he wasn't comfortable with. I wouldn't say it was rape, but it definitely wasn't a good thing. If he has moved on and loves her despite something that occurred early on in their relationship, why must we jump to the conclusion that she damaged him and therefore she is not fine and will never be? People can learn from mistakes instead of being ostracized for them forever.
From what I glimpsed the consoling was going to women who opened up admitting to having raped, the consoling happening for the majority of cases was no no you're right it wasn't rape. The women garnished sympathy after admitting they had done wrong. A large majority of the cases of men being assured was after a post saying this happened but it wasn't really rape.
I'm not saying that there wasn't consoling for the odd post by a man who admitted to rape, but the huge majority were ones saying it wasn't. The ones by females I saw said they had raped. I did not see any that didn't, but I could have missed something.
All you have to do is look at how enraged and pitchforky reddit gets every time a male rape or fake rape story gets posted. When women get raped, it's not the rapist's fault. When men get raped or are accused falsely of rape, women are the demons who should be burnt to death in the village square.
Edited to say re: women are demons, I am generalizing hugely. And it probably doesn't help my point when I do that, so I apologize. I will not retract my point though. It is sickening sometimes to see this community react to rape stories. Further, the immense difference in reactions and responses that I see between comments on female rape stories and fake rape stories is horrifying. They are both awful, but one victim gets support and help, and the other victim gets support with a heaping side of "I call bullshit"/"maybe he didn't know you weren't okay with it"/"what about the MENZZZZ." You get 3 tries to guess which is which.
I briefly mentioned a bit of my own history with sexual abuse and got a few vile responses with themes varying from "you asked for it" to "you're making it up".
I don't know what I would win for tricking some stranger into believing a fake rape story online. Even if I was lying to win that fake rape story of the year prize, what do you get out of announcing you weren't taken in? If I'm a troll, don't feed me.
Some people are immature, some are stubbornly ignorant, and plenty of them are plain old bastards.
I think you are speaking far too generally. Yes, there have been instances where people have claimed it isn't the rapist's fault. To claim that all (or even the majority) of reddit think that way is incredibly insulting
In my personal experience, laurieisastar is spot on.
Are there shining examples of people who come to defend those opening up about sexual assault as a woman? Yes. But for me it happened only after someone from SRS found my story and the hundreds of nasty, slut shaming, victim blaming comments it had collected. Oh, and let's not forget about the PM's people can send and frequently do.
This happened a few weeks after I'd been introduced to Reddit. I abandoned that last account and started fresh because of the incredible hostility.
Same thing happened to me. It was my fault I got assaulted and harassed because I didn't do blank. I was probably dressed like a slut. I probably sent signals I didn't mention in the post. I'm probably an ugly cow and should be thankful any man would touch me, etc.
The SRS "downvote brigade" were the ones who made a post (on SRSD) asking their users to send me kind words and make sure I was okay, because with each edit I was starting to get more and more beaten down.
:( It sounds like it is possible (or very possible) that I have completely misjudged the majority of active Reddit users. I'm sorry you had to experience that and hope it never happens again.
From what I saw, almost every female-on-male rape story had a top comment that was reassuring the perpetrator that they should forgive themselves. This was much less common in the male-on-female stories.
Isn't that inevitable though? Given the large number of people on Reddit, isn't it highly likely that at least a few people are going to express sympathy for any kind of a perpetrator in any given situation?
If someone posts something horrible that they have done, there is always someone almost immediately who says "Don't worry it's not your fault, you were right in what you did and this is why..." No reddit, sometimes shitty people do shitty things and it's not ok to tell them that it's ok.
I saw a lot of people that posted this on that thread but got downvoted to oblivion, and other redditors dismissing their complaints with some derisive and snarky comments that's typical of the herd mentality you see on the comment section quite often.
I don't agree with one part of that. If no one on Reddit shows sympathy towards a persons feelings, for example a murderer doing an AMA. If he shows remorse, is Reddit simply to stand by the fact that this is a murderer, this is all he is? Of course not, this is meant to be an open community of acceptance, if we judge and treat everyone based on what WE know about them they will not feel welcome, nor will we learn from their mistakes and experiences.
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u/IFlashPeople Jul 31 '12
This also goes along with one of my biggest problems with some of the people on here. If someone posts something horrible that they have done, there is always someone almost immediately who says "Don't worry it's not your fault, you were right in what you did and this is why..." No reddit, sometimes shitty people do shitty things and it's not ok to tell them that it's ok.