Rape Threats and Free Speech

As humans are social beings, I'm sure most women have enough tact not to show up at a funeral in short shorts and a bikini top.

 

No, you wear that to the wake.

 

double post

 

Double post. God, this site's a bit shitty today, isn't it?

 

Perfect.

 

When you see the pop-up box that asks, stay or leave the page, when you shouldn't see it, it usually means your post went through but the thread page failed to load. No need to hit 'post' again though I usually copy the post in case before I 'leave the page'.

 

In that case, it's not so much the frivolity that's the issue, as it is human stupidity?

So am I meant to click 'stay' or 'leave'?

 

"Leave", your post is posted.

... though I usually copy the post temporarily just in case before I 'leave the page'.

 

I see the two (frivolity and stupidity) as heavily related, if not the same thing when talking about possible threats to our survival as a species.

 

I wasn't going to post anymore but when my wife saw me being accused of misogyny, she convinced me to reply.

I do not hate women. At all.

I respect women and have said that I object to the 'women as objects' mantra in movies and tv. I believe women are beautiful, intelligent creatures that deserve nothing but the utmost respect and treatment.

I love my wife, (Hi sweetheart!) my daughter, my mother and my three sisters. I respect and admire my female coworkers and supervisors.

I emphatically reject any accusation of misogyny.

 

Forget funerals and wakes. Hypothetical scenario:

I'm with my husband at some normal social event, and along struts this pert, 20-something in baby shorts and a tank top. Now, my hubby's a decent guy, faithful, well mannered, but I know where his eyes are trailing. Hell, I'm looking there too. I can't blame the guy for doing it. Like Ginger said, it's human nature. Now, maybe it wasn't this girl's intention to attract him. Maybe, like T Trian said, she just wanted to feel good. Yet, the result of her attire is that I have to stand there quietly while my life mate is ogling another woman, waking me up, at least momentarily, to the harsh reality that is my own bloated figure, now worn out from two pregnancies, too many nights spent watching Sex and the City, and eating cupcakes. Thanks a lot, ****.

 

I dunno, what kind of social event is it? Is it a hot summer day where shorts and a tank top would be completely appropriate? You're gonna disapprove of her flaunting what she's got just because you're insecure or jealous? You might wanna stop eating cupcakes? At the end of the day, your husband married you, had two kids with you and is still with you?

 

The girl, presumably, dressed down to massage her ego. I too, have an ego, equally impulsive, in this particular case reeking of insecurity I can't help. My appetite for cupcakes is also human nature, and is not easily curbed. Same with my husband's tendency to look. Forget whose to blame. The result is I feel bad, when I easily could have been respected.

 

[MENTION=35652]123456789[/MENTION]: Consider this hypothetical scenario:

I'm with my friends at some normal social event, it's summer, 32 degrees C and I'm wearing a light cotton dress. It shows my shape nicely, my tanned legs, arms and I happen to have a half decent rack too. Yay for me, I ain't gonna be 20 forever. Anyways, along comes this middle aged couple, man and a woman, she reminds me a bit of my mum, older, kind eyes, a bit chubby, soft and loving. But her sad git of a balding, beer gut husband starts staring at my chest. He's checking me out while his poor wife is standing there looking embarrassed and utterly dejected. She starts looking at me with a mixture of sadness and rage, starts giving me evils like I'm some whore just because I'm young and her old pervert of a husband has no manners or decency to at least not make his boner obvious.

I feel disgusted, he could be my father, for Christ's sake, ewwww. All of a sudden, I start to feel depressed thinking how I'm gonna feel one day, if I'm unlucky enough to end up with some pathetic old loser like him. I decide that if I am that unlucky, I'm never gonna fall into this misogynist trap, that makes older women hate younger women just because their husbands are pigs. I know that if this was ever to happen to me, I'd kick the ****** to the curb because it's better to be alone than with someone who has no respect for me or other women. And then my friend thankfully snaps me out of my day-nightmare with a shout "Omg, look, cupcakes!"

[MENTION=44992]JJ_Maxx[/MENTION]: You make me laugh... Honestly, you do

 

Lemex, I agree that over population is a problem, but especially in Western societies, I believe it's more a case of stupidity than frivolity. Also, e.g. in Finland, reproduction seems to be declining, i.e. there are more and more couples who won't have kids for whatever reason (or choose to get just one).

The fact that person A has let themselves go and has grown fat does in no way make person B responsible for A's thoughts and feelings of self-loathing, low self-esteem etc. just because B is slim, fit, and good-looking (be they male or female). I know how it feels to be fat (been there, done that), but I also know how it feels to be fit and have a visible six-pack and be the object of ridicule coming from fat ****s.
Also, "old people who live in nursing homes failed" is insulting and antagonizing whereas a skinny girl wearing a revealing outfit insults only those who choose to be insulted by it, regardless of where that decision stems from (be it based on religion, insecurity about your own weight, or fear of what you might do to the girl if you ended up alone with her). Hence the two things are not comparable unless the girl skipped into a mosque or some such place with an actual dress code she'd be violating with a miniskirt and a thin top.

If the fat me started whining about how his fatness makes him feel bad in the presence of the slimmer me, the latter would just hand out the web address www.google.com where anyone can find tons of good info on how to stay slim, fit, and good-looking even beyond the age of 50, beyond child births etc. And it's perfectly possible to maintain that level of fitness and health because I know plenty of mothers and fathers who fit this category. Heck, my 88yo grandmother was still slim (not bony-skinny btw, just healthy) and reasonably fit when she died of old age. And if you're younger, it's a bit easier to maintain your figure / health although it always takes hard work and dedication (at least for most of us), but just like it is with writing, you'll eventually learn to enjoy the burn in your muscles, the adrenaline flowing in your blood when you test your limits, even the healthier foods because the body adapts remarkably quickly to such changes.

This would deserve its own topic: how overweight people are allowed to stigmatize, insult, and, in a word, oppress skinny / fit people, but as soon as a slimmer person says something similar about / to a heavier individual, all hell breaks loose (or so it seems as I've witnessed this irl and online quite a few times). Where does this culture come from? Weren't we supposed to be equal? If a bigger gal wants to strut around in skimpy clothes, she's free to do so and she should be free to do so. The same should go for people of any size. But, as I said, this would probably deserve a separate thread.

"Morons with imperfect genitalia" refers to both, men and women.

So where does all this "the wife is under the man" -talk come from, then?

 

The result is you feel bad, when you easily could have been respected... by having a husband with a little tact?

 

Women look at men, too. I've seen my girlfriend checking out good looking guys before. And I check out good looking girls. It happens in all relationships I think.

 

Consider this newly adapted hypothetical situation.

I got lucky. Found a guy decent enough to never look at another woman. In fact, he's so respectful, so decent around me, I can't help but subconsciously feel he's sort of emasculated. See, he's tame. Predictable. I'm never going to find him looking at another woman, never going to find him disappearing for a night. He's a good guy. And I'm so bored, and there's Twilight and Fifty Shades and ..wait...

I don't want to be describing anyone real on this forum, so I better stop now

 

Thank you, but men don't walk around showing off too much. Those who do get their fair share of "compliments," I promise you.

 

Happens to everyone although I'd make a distinction between glancing (like you would if a nice car, a cute cat, or a clown riding a unicorn armed with bazookas and miniguns happened to pass you by) and leering. Glancing / looking briefly is normal, everyone and their cat does it, but leering is mostly reserved for the pathetic.

ETA: 123456789, I wouldn't necessarily equate 'faithful' and 'respectful' with 'boring.' I can assure you, there can be more than enough danger and excitement in a relationship even if the guy doesn't leer at other girls (or the girl at other guys).

 

Please, please do.

 

Where's the trust in that hypothetical, 123? And chances are if the wife has aged, so has the husband.

Marriage works best as a partnership, IMO.

 

I don't think these hypothetical situations are getting us anywhere... or I've been up way too late and can't seem to process their significance. I'm off to the land of nod. I hope this thread doesn't get closed, even though it's gone off-topic. There are still interesting things to be discussed.

 

Trust in relationships when 50% of marriages end in divorce? Men being able to look away from attractive women? Women (and men) not having to worry about what others think/do?

Are we arguing about Earth or Utopia?

 

JJ, let me ask you a question: when it comes to rape and the woman's part leading up to it. Is it possible that you're misconstruing what you actually believe? Here's why I ask:

Often in this kind of topic, what I think I hear a person saying is that every person, man or woman, should take personal responsibility to make sure they are not putting themselves in a bad situation. So, try to avoid walking down a street alone at night, try to avoid advertising yourself . . . whether that's wearing flashing jewelry at night that says "I'm rich, come get me" or "I have a great body" or "I'm an easy target because I'm injured/not as ambulatory as normal" and the like; try to avoid finding yourself in sections of town that blah blah blah. In that sense, the person is usually saying that every person has a responsibility to use situational awareness (SA) to make sure they are safe.

In reality, they're dividing SA from the actual act of rape and consider the act itself one hundred percent the fault of the perpetrator. The victim is innocent and should not ever receive the blame for being violated. What can and should be done however, is that the victim should try to understand if and/or where that person's SA failed them. Such failure doesn't equate to blame for the act itself, but rather, is just an assessment of how to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Is that more along the lines of what you're trying to say?

If so, I can agree to a certain point. Every person needs to have SA in any and every given situation. That's the ugly reality of the world we live in, and a lack of SA means a higher risk to the person. The problem however, is that too many have equated a lack of SA with guilt in the rape itself, and thus, blamed the person who was raped. Furthermore, it's human nature for many of us to look back and blame ourselves for anything that happens to us. When SA gets pushed in the way it does, it often gets reinterpreted by victims of crimes, especially rape, as "I'm the one to blame."

For me, I look at it this way: SA is my responsibility in order to keep myself safe, but a breakdown of my SA has nothing to do with my innocence in any situation that follows.