Sexual harassment

[MoroMurasaki]

You teach them exactly that, rather than tell women and victims how to not be abused, which sadly seems to be the more popular approach to the matter. You (general) can also stop going easy when people are found guilty of abuse or harassment. "But he's such a good boy from a good home and he's a star student in college!" Uh, if the court just found him guilty of rape, I don't think he's such a good boy, and the punishment should reflect that. But because it's not only hard to get the guilty verdict, but the sentences are also laughable, people learn that they can get away with it. There need to be harsher consequences to these actions.



Uh, yes? "Someone with that mindset", how did they reach that mindset in the first place? No one's born with any mindset. They're raised and groomed into it. If you teach a boy from a young age that girls are people too just like they are (#INeedFeminismBecause), if you stop saying "boys will be boys" when they hurt someone, if you hold boys accountable to their actions from a young age instead of just expecting them to know better when they hit a certain age and then go easy on them when they don't, then they will know better when they grow up. They'll know women aren't there just for their sexual pleasure; they'll know that if they hurt someone, they'll be punished for it and not get a reduced sentence, so they'll be much less likely to commit the crime; they'll be decent human beings.



What are you going to do, teach yourself how to clean up after your dog, or get the dog used to only doing its stuff on the paper, and then outside?
My attacker was someone I've known for over ten years and was one of my best friends. The only thing I can "learn" from this is to become a hermit and never form bonds with anyone else ever again because I don't know who will end up betraying me next.
Imagine if instead, we tried to teach people not to assault and harass.

Every single adult is responsible for their own safety. Take that responsibility and be empowered by it rather than casting it off as someone else's problem.

As a rape survivor I wish that my mom or teachers or anyone had put more of a focus on personal accountability when I was growing up, maybe then I would have seen any of the plethora of warning signs when I was putting myself in harms way or been better prepared to protect myself.

I place 100% of the guilt for my situation squarely on the shoulders of the man who assaulted me. That doesn't mean that I still can't hope that girls growing up now learn better than I did to follow basic common sense safety tips.

At the end of the day there are some really sick people out in the world who want to hurt others in awful ways and the idea that there is any alternative to personal responsibilty and protection absolutely disgusts me. You don't teach a monster to not be a monster, you learn how to fight back.

I just couldn't leave this post unopposed, it's too harmful. Cheers.

Edit: Also I was distracted at first but the idea of subjecting people to "dont sexually assault others" courses or something is ludicrous. You can't teach someome with that kind of mental instability not to act on it and the way this feels aimed at men and boys just feels really wrong and sexist.

[BillyKaplan]

Every single adult is responsible for their own safety. Take that responsibility and be empowered by it rather than casting it off as someone else's problem.

I ask again, how do you cope with this when the person assaulting you is someone you've known for forever and trusted? How do you make yourself safe in that situation? Yes, it's important to not leave your drinks unattented in bars, and travel with a friend, and have people on your phone you can contact. There's a lot a person can do. But there's a limit to that as well, and acknowledging it isn't casting it off as someone else's problem. It's acknowledging a problem and the fact there's a limit to how much you can do on your own.

At the end of the day there are some really sick people out in the world who want to hurt others in awful ways

Ah ha. And this is where our views on the matter differ. I don't see people who assault and abuse and rape as sick. Are none of them sick in one way or another? Of course they are, it's nigh impossible for any sub-demographic to not have sub-groups mirroring the larger demographic. But, sadly, the guy who assaulted me was very much sane. He knew exactly what he was doing, he just neglected to ask for consent before touching. And he didn't see what was wrong with doing it while he was married, with his wife being a friend of mine at the time too. A moron? Yes. Socially inept? Probably. But he was sane. He was mentally stable, healthy, and very much capable of making his own decisions. He just made a very, very bad one.

I just couldn't leave this post unopposed, it's too harmful.

So is the misconception that anyone who performs any such misdeed is inherently sick in some way. As media likes to remind us, oftentimes the perpetrators come from good homes, are very good people otherwise, do well in school, etc. The only thing such a stance does is pose a threat to non-violent people who suffer from actual mental conditions and illnesses.