"FUCK YOU ALL" -Velvet Hammer (Re-Hollywood sucks)

[rustywire]

Also can someone pls explain to me where I 'boiled down any movement to what is happening in politics'? Contained in said post is an educated observation, based on many hours of analysis (covering a myriad of perspectives) reflection and painstaking effort to identify what is a trend present in every industry.

The uncomfortable truth is it's us, humans, who are the problem. It isn't only generational or cultural. Within us all is a struggle of selfish v selfless; and whether that choice is then "being right" v "getting it right" ...and the majority of decisions made in western culture (seemingly) come from a place of self-indulgence. With that said, I still think we have it pretty good, relatively speaking, when considering where we've come from and what else is currently out there. That's not to say room for improvement ceases to be a possibility.

I think the biggest problem in having this discussion is how people, for the most part, only hear what they want to/affirms their opinion.
It aint hard to tell women take a lot of shit in life, having to deal with constant dumb-dick proposition (implied or explicit) so I've made efforts to try not adding to it. I didn't need some hashtag, ad campaign, guilt-nagging or shame to reach this conclusion. I also don't need strangers telling me I "need to do more" or answer/repent for the sins of another.

[Kacey Y]

I don't really understand the framing of the issue of sexual harassment as being all for or against men or women. It's not acceptable to sexually harass, abuse or assault people. I do not at all get behind the "Where were all the teachers like that when I was a kid??" thing that people say when attractive women have sex with underage boys, they're pedophiles. I have yet to see a woman sexually harass a man in the workplace, but if they did they should also get the same criticism/consequence as men. I do however see men saying sexually charged things to women in my office ALL THE TIME and if they get any pushback on it instantly fall back to "I'm just joking around, I'm just trying to keep things light/joking". I have seen sexual predators (the kind NO ONE is supporting) make excuses and equivocations about misunderstandings or being led on. It's not a battle of the genders, it's just our culture is setup to favor/support/defend men in the those situations and not believe or flat out criticize women who come forward. Not to mention the very idea of gender interaction in sexual situations has been, from the "progressive" view, that men make advances and women let them know when they are about to or have gone to far, for a couple decades at least. That's what rape culture is (in part), because it tells boys/men that it's the woman's responsibility to avoid assault and harassment, that anything short of pulling a woman into the bushes at knife point, could potentially be chalked up to a "misunderstanding" or a woman "changing her mind", because she wasn't screaming no and fighting him off before that. Beyond that, men are often taught that romantic and/or sexual interactions are a challenge or a hunt. You "win over" a woman, they play "hard to get", people are "on the prowl". So anything short of "Hey, fuck off!" isn't necessarily a rejection and women who start off with that are considered rude and anti-social, at best. There are still A LOT of people who use the whole "why was she in a bar/club/etc. if she's not interested??" thing. It's not that men are terrible and women are all angels, but creepy to predatory behavior by men towards women is certainly way more tolerated and accepted on a daily basis in typical social situations.

That's not to say men are bad and women are victims, just an explanation as to why this conversation is so easily framed as "men vs women" and not a question of morality, ethics, empathy, consent or predatory behavior. It's not a zero sum game.

[rustywire]

It's not a battle of the genders, it's just our culture is setup to favor/support/defend men in the those situations and not believe or flat out criticize women who come forward.

Not trying to discount the rest of your post but this specific assertion needs immediate elaboration and citation.

[Kacey Y]

It's not a battle of the genders, it's just our culture is setup to favor/support/defend men in the those situations and not believe or flat out criticize women who come forward.

Not trying to discount the rest of your post but this specific assertion needs immediate elaboration and citation.

Which part? Do you want me to cite how our culture operates? I dunno, I mean I guess I can look up thousands of news articles, books, movies, television episodes, court testimony? How much work do you want me to do to prove the way the world is? Have you not read the news or paid attention to sexual harassment or rape cases in the media for the past however many decades you've been alive? Not trying to be a dick, but this is kind of like when people on Facebook want you to prove that racism exists or something. I mean...I can...but there's so much to draw from it's kind of daunting and if you're being serious and genuine and you haven't noticed or ran into this kind of thing ever in your life, I'm not sure I'm up to the task. Google is a very effective tool, have at it. It's like if we're talking about the merits of the space program and you want me to prove the world is round and gravity exists, the information is concrete and available, but it's kind of a huge distraction from the actual conversation. Are we here to debate whether or not this is happening or are we discussing the particulars and associated issues? I'm up for the latter, less so the former.

[Kacey Y]

Also, for not trying, you did manage to easily side step the entire point of my post, which wasn't inflammatory or accusatory, in order to challenge the premise of the underlying issue of sexual misconduct in our culture, which is the basis for the entire conversation in this thread/the news/life.

[hbombgraphics]

It's not a battle of the genders, it's just our culture is setup to favor/support/defend men in the those situations and not believe or flat out criticize women who come forward.

Not trying to discount the rest of your post but this specific assertion needs immediate elaboration and citation.

Which part? Do you want me to cite how our culture operates? I dunno, I mean I guess I can look up thousands of news articles, books, movies, television episodes, court testimony? How much work do you want me to do to prove the way the world is? Have you not read the news or paid attention to sexual harassment or rape cases in the media for the past however many decades you've been alive? Not trying to be a dick, but this is kind of like when people on Facebook want you to prove that racism exists or something. I mean...I can...but there's so much to draw from it's kind of daunting and if you're being serious and genuine and you haven't noticed or ran into this kind of thing ever in your life, I'm not sure I'm up to the task. Google is a very effective tool, have at it. It's like if we're talking about the merits of the space program and you want me to prove the world is round and gravity exists, the information is concrete and available, but it's kind of a huge distraction from the actual conversation. Are we here to debate whether or not this is happening or are we discussing the particulars and associated issues? I'm up for the latter, less so the former.

I started researching and stopped at Kobe Bryant

[Kacey Y]

I mean, you could easily start with any of the women who accused the current President of the USA, during the election. Most of the responses are enshrined in tweets. There's probably some supercut videos. I'm not here to assign homework.

[hbombgraphics]

I mean, you could easily start with any of the women who accused the current President of the USA, during the election. Most of the responses are enshrined in tweets. There's probably some supercut videos. I'm not here to assign homework.

Oh I totally agree,

Based on personal experience taking victim statements it's generally very difficult for victims to come forward and most are discredited almost immediately by someone in authority.

I once worked with a girl who was date raped, and an adult very close to the situation made the comment that "She was probably going to have sex at that party anyway"
I pointed out to him that if he and I were going to box at a local gym and I punched him in the parking lot it would still be assault. (the logic seemed lost)


You don't have to look up sexual assault statistics for more than a few minutes to realize that the way we treat victims in this country is shameful.


I have seen news stories where people plead guilty to Sexual assault of teens, and you scroll through the comments and you will always see at least one person pointing out "look at the way kids dress these days" (Happy to post links but it isn't hard to find) Mind you these are people who plead guilty and the comments still belittled the victim.


I know this is post is disjointed, but I don't believe you have to prove to anyone that everything is broken.

[Kacey Y]

I can tell you that two weeks ago, a woman I work with who is 40 years old told me a story about a local court case involving two men in their late 20's who had sex with a 14 year old girl. One man was prostituting her, brought her to a local Burger King, to have sex with another man in the bathroom. He didn't pay the first man, so the pimp beat him up. The john went to the police and told them the whole story and after some investigation they were both convicted of statutory rape, then individual charges between them involving corrupting a minor, assault and a bunch of other things. I was listening to this story, very bummed out and she paused and said..."Sooo...don't you think something should have happened to the girl? Right?". I had had to explain to an adult woman how children aren't prostitutes, they're sex slaves. In her view, kids these days are just out, prostituting themselves with older male pimps and only the men get in trouble...not a man molested a girl, made her have sex with other men, collected money from them (for himself), then got arrested for it.

[hbombgraphics]

I can tell you that two weeks ago, a woman I work with who is 40 years old told me a story about a local court case involving two men in their late 20's who had sex with a 14 year old girl. One man was prostituting her, brought her to a local Burger King, to have sex with another man in the bathroom. He didn't pay the first man, so the pimp beat him up. The john went to the police and told them the whole story and after some investigation they were both convicted of statutory rape, then individual charges between them involving corrupting a minor, assault and a bunch of other things. I was listening to this story, very bummed out and she paused and said..."Sooo...don't you think something should have happened to the girl? Right?". I had had to explain to an adult woman how children aren't prostitutes, they're sex slaves. In her view, kids these days are just out, prostituting themselves with older male pimps and only the men get in trouble...not a man molested a girl, made her have sex with other men, collected money from them (for himself), then got arrested for it.

Holy Hell that is a shitty story,
That poor kid,

This is exactly what I am talking about, and everyone seems to have stories like this.

Just curious, how receptive was this woman in her 40s to your explanation that this was a Child?

[Kacey Y]

Holy Hell that is a shitty story,
That poor kid,

This is exactly what I am talking about, and everyone seems to have stories like this.

Just curious, how receptive was this woman in her 40s to your explanation that this was a Child?

It was very much a "yeah, ok, I guess I see what you mean" type of thing. I took it as "that was not the response I was hoping for, so whatever". This lady is very nice to me personally, but the list of highly problematic to unambiguously fucked up and offensive things I have heard from her in 6 months is not small. I have had one brief altercation with her over one of those, but in general we get along and I don't go out of my way to discuss anything personal surface level non-work stuff, like kids, weekends, what's cooking for dinner, etc.

[hbombgraphics]

Holy Hell that is a shitty story,
That poor kid,

This is exactly what I am talking about, and everyone seems to have stories like this.

Just curious, how receptive was this woman in her 40s to your explanation that this was a Child?

It was very much a "yeah, ok, I guess I see what you mean" type of thing. I took it as "that was not the response I was hoping for, so whatever". This lady is very nice to me personally, but the list of highly problematic to unambiguously fucked up and offensive things I have heard from her in 6 months is not small. I have had one brief altercation with her over one of those, but in general we get along and I don't go out of my way to discuss anything personal surface level non-work stuff, like kids, weekends, what's cooking for dinner, etc.

Office small talk is awesome: I had an "it's friday" guy for a long time but he quit a ways back.

The challenge as I see it is that what she has provided is a built in excuse for someone in the future to be shitty, and people don't need more excuses.

[Kacey Y]

Office small talk is awesome: I had an "it's friday" guy for a long time but he quit a ways back.

The challenge as I see it is that what she has provided is a built in excuse for someone in the future to be shitty, and people don't need more excuses.

I don't have a problem with perceptions being challenged or assumptions being questioned. My only objection is when people are challenging or questioning in order to keep someone from asking questions or addressing an issue or to distract from what's important. You know, if you're discussing racism with someone and someone comes along with "yes, but what is race anyway, isn't race just a construct". Yeah, sure, fine, that's a whole discussion. If anything though, that's a discussion to explain why racism is stupid and made up to give people power, not a reason to say racism doesn't exist. Same with misogyny or sexual assault, there's always a lot of sidebars that are essentially "let's discuss the semantics of the underlying philosophical principles of gender, sexuality culture, the nature of justice and how we define 'truth'...". At that point, I have to say NO, sorry, this is a real practical thing in the real world. If you want to discuss those things, that's amazing and I'm super into it...but not instead of discussing the real world problem that is definitely real and happening.

I'm definitely a chronic overthinker, but if someone gets stabbed I'm not going to pull the paramedics aside and discuss with them if driving a fossil fuel burning vehicle ultimately hurts more people than they save. Am I making any sense?

[hbombgraphics]

Office small talk is awesome: I had an "it's friday" guy for a long time but he quit a ways back.

The challenge as I see it is that what she has provided is a built in excuse for someone in the future to be shitty, and people don't need more excuses.

I don't have a problem with perceptions being challenged or assumptions being questioned. My only objection is when people are challenging or questioning in order to keep someone from asking questions or addressing an issue or to distract from what's important. You know, if you're discussing racism with someone and someone comes along with "yes, but what is race anyway, isn't race just a construct". Yeah, sure, fine, that's a whole discussion. If anything though, that's a discussion to explain why racism is stupid and made up to give people power, not a reason to say racism doesn't exist. Same with misogyny or sexual assault, there's always a lot of sidebars that are essentially "let's discuss the semantics of the underlying philosophical principles of gender, sexuality culture, the nature of justice and how we define 'truth'...". At that point, I have to say NO, sorry, this is a real practical thing in the real world. If you want to discuss those things, that's amazing and I'm super into it...but not instead of discussing the real world problem that is definitely real and happening.

I'm definitely a chronic overthinker, but if someone gets stabbed I'm not going to pull the paramedics aside and discuss with them if driving a fossil fuel burning vehicle ultimately hurts more people than they save. Am I making any sense?

absolutely, derailing real topics can be frustrating,

I do feel that this is a trademark of internet conversation

then I can go back and read how smart I sound

On a very real and personal level when you are sitting with someone as they walk you through their own experience, you would have to be a giant asshole to say "Oh well I understand you were raped, but what really is rape? and aren't we all victims of blah blah.........."

[D.o.S.]

A specific example of "minimizing the experiences of women" is The 2017 Lena Dunham Experience. You know, how she went from "things women dont lie about: rape" to then "you should listen & believe every woman!" and now “our insider knowledge of Murray’s situation makes us confident that sadly this accusation is one of the 3% of assault cases that are misreported every year.”

For the record I would not necessarily pick Lena Dunham as my paragon of thoughtful nuance and I'm not sure you should here, either.