Meet the Predators (men need to learn how to recognize and fight rape culture)

[TeamsterDem]

118. Nope, not the life of a monk. Never said that, never implied it

Simply that I haven't raped anyone, haven't heard a confession of same, haven't heard or seen or been a part of getting people drunk to take advantage of them, none of that. That's not the life of a monk, it's the life of someone who respects both the law and humanity. How you've come to accuse me of suggesting that I've lived life perfectly is an exaggeration made only by someone desperate to attack the messenger as opposed to trying to debate the message, and it's rather pathetic, frankly.

The OP is not all about men learning about the perils of rape. It's about men learning that "bros before hos" is some nefarious scheme meant to form a pact between the two men, an omerta pledge, to never say anything about the other's rape resume. It's about men learning - supposedly - on how to spot predators in their midst, as if they don't already know how to do that, don't already talk amongst themselves about perhaps questionable, dubious, or dangerous individuals in their company or cohort who might do real damage to someone. It assumes that many men go along with these things not out of direct malice, but of a kind of malevolent silence that they should know is wrong but simply need a bit of training to understand. This is horribly misguided, as many men absolutely abhor rape - many of them have family members who've been raped and thus traumatized, and some have even been victims of rape in prison or even outside. But yes, "men need lessons," aside from those who already know it first-hand, and those who even not knowing its effects personally are still human beings who wouldn't be silent about the torture of another human being.

That anyone would assume we don't already have that capacity is offensive and wrong. Period. Dance around it all you like, but you know as well as I do that stereotypes are wrong and offensive. Rape is much worse. Much, much, much worse. But that rape is worse than stereotyping and bigotry doesn't mean we can't discuss both and hopefully eradicate both. We're human beings, we're capable of doing more than one thing at a time.

In no way does my ire at being stereotyped take away from the fight against rape, and you damn well know my anger at being stereotyped doesn't do that. Hell, how could it, even hypothetically? This is DU, a message board. You're pretending that we're conducting some formal symposium on the subject, and that any derivation from the specific agenda necessarily erodes the force of our effort. It's a pure manufacture to distract from the fact that you know you can't defend the stereotyping, so instead of that you're choosing to focus on me ... and then you have the chutzpah to say I'm making it all about me. You're doing that, ma'am. You're doing such a good job of it that even if I wanted to I couldn't do it any better.

Your level of hypocrisy and chutzpah is almost astounding, alarming even. Yet even still I don't cast doubt on what you say here because of course I've no evidence to support such doubts. You, however, have accused me of repeatedly lying ... all the while lying about what I said to support your claims. I mean that takes some nerve to be doing the very thing you're accusing someone else of while doing it yourself, all the while doing so with no evidence to speak of. Not even a firsthand personal experience to support it. Breathtaking stuff, really.