by 4684499 on 3/25/20, 11:49 AM with 18 comments
by DoreenMichele on 3/25/20, 2:10 PM
I was taught the shame was not in me. It was on the man who assaulted me.
As long as women can be shamed and blackmailed and no amount of trying to "be good" is ever adequate protection, you will see things in this vein. No woman should ever be characterized as a "whore." We don't do that to men. Men who get around have bragging rights for "being a stud" or whatever.
I understand some of the reasons it gets treated differently. In a nutshell, men can walk away from a one-night-stand and never know a pregnancy resulted. In contrast, a woman can end up a single parent and not know the father's name and it can trap her and her child in poverty for life.
But doubling down on saying it's the woman's responsibility to "be moral" and high fiving men for being able to get away with it just deepens the problem.
Prudish cultures, where "good girls don't," see a lot more prostitution. Studies show that availability of porn tends to drive down the incidence of rape.
Human sexual need -- both physical and emotional -- is very powerful. It really doesn't work to insist everyone just say no to sex. Without socially acceptable outlets that help keep all parties safe and help mitigate the inherent risks (such as disease and unexpected pregnancy), you just compound problems and actively create problems.
I have mixed feelings about seeing this on HN. People tend to get outraged and want revenge and so forth. This can deepen these problems.
We must, collectively, find ways to build bridges and foster healthy and safe avenues for sexual expression and sexual satisfaction. That's the actual antidote to rape culture and it's nigh impossible to read something like this and respond to it in that way. Instead, people get very understandably angry and want someone's head on a platter.
Yes, the law needs to go after these people. But fostering a better culture is mostly going to come from somewhere else and you don't get there by focusing on lurid stories and revenge fantasies.
by neom on 3/25/20, 1:40 PM
by black_puppydog on 3/25/20, 2:10 PM
When a company name gets mentioned like this it makes me feel the real story is that someone is trying to frame them as "bad guys" or make an example of them.
Edit: to be clear, the story of course does and should get attention, that's not what I'm saying. But I get the impression that including "telegram" in the story when really it should be "instant messaging" takes away from it.
by fulafel on 3/25/20, 2:20 PM
Details on the great content firewall: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/south-korea-i...
by lsh on 3/25/20, 1:31 PM
I remember I read a news article once about a man who battered his girlfriend to death with an iPod for messing with his playlist. The article had embedded advertisements to buy iPods.