A Culture Of Rape

You know, I’m not a woman and I can’t claim understanding of what it looks like from their point of view anymore than I can truly grasp the inner life of any other human.  I only know it from this side of my eyes.

Yet I’ve always attempted to treat everyone as I would wish for myself which may explain my particular disdain for bullies who abuse their power.

I’ve done some thinking about it over the last couple of days and I guess my conclusion is that this is the way I want to be remembered, as someone who wasn’t afraid to stand up for what’s right and defend people who are under attack.

There are worse things they could write on your gravestone.

It was lovely ground.

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    • on 06/03/2014 at 20:45
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    • on 06/03/2014 at 21:10

    you’ll never know how much it meant to see my friend standing up for me in the face of a viscous, souless smear.

    • on 06/03/2014 at 21:37

    most of my adult life. They are standards that I will not compromise or abandon. The way women are abused around the world is a humanitarian disgrace.

    The display of disregard for the verbal abuse of a rape victim at the largest supposedly liberal community web site, mostly by women, was one of the most callous displays of hate I have ever seen. I don’t believe I’ve ever read anything this ugly on any Democratic web or liberal web site. It was beyond imagination that these poor excuses for civil rights activists would attack a woman like that was disgusting,

    Yet, these hateful people are now gloating over their accomplishment and are supported by the administration of the web site.

    Markos Moulitsas is a sexist and his front page writer, Denise Oliver Velez is a disgrace to her sex. Others who were involved, who claim to be educated women, were just as bad, lashing out at the diarist and her supporters with vicious and vile insults and accusations.

    Even, the man who claims to be such a supporter if women’s rights joined in. Meteor Blades, Tim Lange. Cowardly is not a strong enough word for his behavior.

    The people who verbally raped a rape survivor have no principles and should be held in contempt by those who support Women’s Rights.

    • on 06/03/2014 at 21:40
    • on 06/03/2014 at 22:30

    I don’t care how much you like the guy. It’s not excusable. I don’t want to hear oh, but they were just defending…defending what, exactly? A man who intensely disliked another poster, drank too much and went looking for trouble in a place he knew damn well he wasn’t wanted. And there he found a group of people that generally hang out there, including me, who had been in BoiseBlue’s diary, breaking my silence on my rape–in the same spare terms I would soon relate to ZR. Very upset and trying to regain my footing.

    Of course people need to show up in this diary to remind us we’re not liked, just to sling poo and remind us they can’t stand our presence on that site, and the lurking upraters, let’s not forget them. And in comes ZR, full of drink and looking for trouble, trying to start something, anything and challenging over an attempted rape of partner twenty-something years prior, raging against his assumptions of our apathy.

    Time stamps and being there in real time to see the tips as they come in leave you with no doubts as to what happened there. This man, no matter what high regard anybody may hold him in, and no matter what history anybody may hold with him–was out of line from the moment he entered that diary.

    His behavior only deteriorated from that point on. To make matters worse, the moment he arose the next morning, he picked up right where he left off, littering the post with unwanted comments, excuses, justifications, several nonpologies and mockeries of ratings and comments.How is this defensible in any way shape or form? I’ll give you a hint, it’s not.

    Yet uprates came pouring in, because he’s a nice guy. He was goaded. Wow, those suxxers are awful people. Gee, a lot of people just didn’t know the history so they couldn’t see that mentioning how real your prick is-yes, even in response to being called a fake one!–is totally inappropriate in a thread where a woman has just told him of her rape. Really? Honestly? So, when is it not appropriate for a man not to say how real his prick is in a thread when a woman has just told you of her rape? Three comments down? Four? I’d like to know. Everybody was just so darn confused. And as to him questioning whether i thought the issue was important? WTF???

    So,obviously I was pretty shaken up and I wrote a diary. I knew that it wouldn’t be easy going ans I knew there might be those that might not support me, but I honestly never thought, never believed that people would be hateful enough to actually come in first, throw pie, like a hateful child, all the while accusing everyone else of hating. And secondly, come to lay out a fantastical scenario, that was no “different opinion” as has been suggested, but an intentional smear and rewriting of the facts. Both of those posters were lurking and rating in the original diary. I was there. For one to suggest it was a “set up” is ridiculous on it’s face, unless she means on her part. There’s no way in hell anyone who congregates in those video diaries would have a clue that man who dislikes us and has nothing to do with us for six months, would show up drunk, spoiling for a fight.

    So, why is it so hard to imagine that when she showed up in my diary with her revisionist history, with it’s out of order comments, defense of the indefensible,calling my experience bogus and calling it a set up that it might be upsetting? Not just to me, but to others as well?

    I can’t even go into how thin gs spiraled downhill from there. all I want to say is that no, that site is not a safe place for ALL women, it’s a safe place for some women. If they like you, if the man that creeped you out isn’t in with the in crowd, even if he creeped another woman off the site six months ago, so what? They like him! He’s no misogynist, he was just drunk, goaded, there’s a history, there’s an excuse….no. No. There’s no excuse. No excuse. At least there shouldn’t be.

    But when front pagers start making them, when what was done by first one and then I’m told later, a second female front pager–no, it is not a safe place for women. Even though both front pagers are survivors, no compassion for me it seems one calls my experience bogus, and calls it a set-up when that can’t possibly be true and the other?

    I’ve been raped in this life not once but twice and trust me there ain’t nothing ANYONE can do to me –OR TO ANYONE ELSE– verbally that, and certainly not anonymously on the internet, can recreate what those rapes felt like.)

    http://www.dailykos.com/commen

    I could say a lot about the power of words. Words have awesome power. But I think I’ll let another woman tell you about the power of the spoken work and how in some moments a word can feel like a complete violation.

    He responded without thought to the violence visited upon him first.  A violence that is going without punishment, because the law says it isn’t really violence, a white man calling him a nigger.   It’s just “words.”

    http://www.dailykos.com/commen

    That’s all I have to say.

    • on 06/03/2014 at 23:29

    at DKos over the years triv…

    but the last couple of days really are the worst of all.

    The fact that a “respected” Featured Writer there can characterize your agony as “bogus” and a “set up,” and do so with apparent impunity, leaves me utterly speechless. Earlier, I sent the site owner a private message about this. I’ll share it here; why not, since thus far he hasn’t deigned to reply?

    A serious question Markos…

    There’s been some ugly ugly shit going down the past few days; I don’t for a moment dispute that there’s ample blame to go around.

    To me though, Denise’s single comment in triv33’s diary–a diary in which at real personal cost triv describes her own horrific experience as a rape victim–stands alone in infamy. This comment: http://www.dailykos.com/commen

    It’s an awful comment, the worst of a very bad few days by an order of magnitude. I’m not “asking whether you agree with Denise’s description of triv’s agonized diary as a “set up” and “bogus;” I’m confident you would never support something like that. No compassionate person would. My question is different.

    Is a comment like that acceptable discourse on DKos at all? Is it “protected” personal opinion, about which honorable people can disagree… or is it, as I believe, utterly beyond the Pale?

    To me, the answer is crystal clear. From where I sit, Denise’s attempt to reduce triv33’s rape to disguised meta, one more salvo in a tedious ongoing “war,” is beyond despicable. It was malevolent; consciously–and very successfully–hurtful; borderline sociopathic really. Is that what we can expect going forward?

    If I–or anyone–posted something like that, the repercussions would be rapid and severe. I would deserve them all. Why is Denise, alone among Kossacks, permitted to mock another Kossack’s pain with impunity?

    Obviously I have no way to “compel” a reply to this message, but I would quite desperately appreciate one.

    Phil

    I post there because I like the potentially large readership; hope springs eternal that someone is listening. At some point though this shit isn’t worth it; not worth sitting by watching triv be abused with no response at all from site admin; not worth watching my friends be banned or sanctioned for trying to have her back; not worth be treated as a click-generator with nothing to offer beyond traffic; not worth watching good progressives be sacrificed on the altar of centrism and sociopathy.

    Be well triv; we all love you.

    • on 06/04/2014 at 01:43

    Democrats aren’t buying the Party before people.

    Elfling is clueless.  She may be an expert at site technology, but she’s agnostic when it comes to serious issues, so she just licks the butts of her friends and trashes people who aren’t her friends.

    Markos Moulitsas is a sexist and his front page writer, Denise Oliver Velez is a disgrace to her sex (and her race).

    Of course, we know that the little man, Markos, is a sexist.  Just go back and read the Ginger and MaryAnn comments over ten years ago.

    And Denise?  She’s a racist.  I know she’s black, but if you don’t support her cause at the moment, then YOU’RE a racist and are guilty of white privilege.

    Denise is a disgrace to women.  Her past means nothing.  She is a traitor to women now if they don’t kiss her ring and support her minions.

    Granted, she’s a great writer, but a piss-poor person.  I’d rather know a good person with heart rather than someone that can write some great articles — with a lot of copying and pasting.

    And Ek Hornbeck, you were exactly right of your description of Denise’s behavior, and TheMomCat, I’m sorry your service to the military is being trashed and you’re not being respected, not to mention your service to DWB.

    DailyKos is a fucking joke, it’s a Democratic site to promote the erections (yes, an “r,”) of anyone with a D after their name.  Markos wrote a book Crashing the Gates.  Now he’s licking the asses of the Democratic politicians to polish their gates.  

    I don’t hate Markos.  But he’s not anyone to be respected.  He’s been bought just like most, and I say most of the Democratic politicians have been in the past 6 years.

    Goddess help us.  And may elfling realize what an asshole she is and see herself for what she is.  But I have no hopes of that happening.

    • on 06/04/2014 at 18:19

    This is not Shahryar it his wifey. I highjacked his account. I’m so sorry Triv33 for the treatment that Denise and her minions purposely unleashed on you. They have gone after me in the past I’m apparently a vicious racist for saying that this administrations economic policy and foreign policy is racist. I made the mistake of replying to Denise in a thread where she was berating people for not liking the misuse of our military and the economic reasons that makes it a way out for people in poverty. Most of the HR’s and verbal abuse came after the thread was long gone. I went from being told that any ‘issues’ I have with what’s going down are white privilege to being a ‘ugly racist’ who was slurring Denise.

    Apparently she has street cred from her radical leftie past and no one is allowed to ‘smear her with filth’  or else your racist or if your lucky just a white privileged far lefty. She’s not my Sis and you can’t get more elitist white privileged then the Hudson Valley. The porch is so freaking fake that it makes me gag.

    They got rid of slinkerwink and joannelson and now ek and MomCat they sure go after the smart lefties. The set up is always lurking if you step outta line. Thanks ek you did good. You went out in top form and got right down to the nitty gritty. I feel slightly sorry for some of her minions who are being duped by her jive. Most are just a piece of work but some are bleeding heart liberals who buy into the bs. So much misdirected hate towards women or anyone who dares to challenge their hateful illogical so called democratic world view.

    Guess I have to go as this machine makes our money. No time to do anything but drive by and say thank you to all my favorite posters. Hi there la Escapee if your around these parts. When I do get a computer I’m going to spend more time at neck of the woods. Love to you all and see you around. Triv I hope you don’t get too down as you are a great woman as well as a real mensch. I liked your contributions to the conversation and could not believe the ugly that was thrown at you.                    

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