The Celebrity Sexual Harassment and Rapists Thread

[deathrey]

I have to applaud that point @Keith Houchen. I can't really add anything because you said it so well but is such an important point.

I'm fed up of having to plan how I'm going to leave a venue if I go out on an evening, saying no to invites if there isn't a car park near by as I don't want to walk on my own or having to rely on my husband to pick me up to feel safe. It's not right that approximately half the population have to think this way.

[Steve Justice]

My wife works a 2 minute walk from our home. She drives to work because she feels safer. 

It's not fucking right that someone can't walk 2 minutes down the road for fear of being attacked/raped/murdered. 

[Mr_Danger]

As a man I’m obviously a bit of an authority on women’s issues and I was wondering if any amount of listening and education would stop a murderer or rapist from being fucking lunatics. Then seeing the response from men who at only being asked to listen and maybe consider making some small changes act as if they’re the one’s being targeted, attacked, intimidated and harassed I actually do think that education and listening would go quite some way to eradicating that sense of entitlement that leads the aforementioned lunatics down that path to the worse crimes imaginable. 

[BomberPat]

fundamentally, there's going to be the sociopaths and nutters who will rape and murder and have zero empathy and there's probably nothing we can do to change their behaviour - but they're an extreme minority.

What we can work on is every incremental bit of behaviour before it gets to that point. The majority of sexual assaults aren't coming from a stranger lurking in an alleyway, they're coming from someone who was won the victim's trust, or taken advantage of them at a point of vulnerability. Many of them would be shocked and horrified to be called rapists, or to find that what they did would even be considered sexual assault or abuse. 

Sexual assault seems to be the only crime in the world where we're asked, "imagine if it happened to your wife/daughter/sister" before being expected to understand it; when someone's house is broken into, you're not asked "imagine if it was your house that was burgled" before you're expected to have empathy for the victims. That needs to change, to a point where empathy is the starting point.

How do we get there? Actually listening to women is part of it, rather than trying to argue their point or jump in with a "well, actually". The reason the whole "Not All Men" thing isn't helpful is because it comes across like a bloke expecting to be praised and congratulated for not assaulting women, whereas really that should be the fucking baseline, not something to pat yourself on the back about. Part of is examining your own behaviour - at some point we've probably all done something to make a woman feel uncomfortable, likely without realising it, and rather than the kneejerk response of "I didn't mean to", it's worth some self-examination and trying to understand why your words, actions, or body language might have been construed in that way in the first place.

The biggest thing men should be doing, though, is calling out their mates on this shit. Not politely laughing at sexist jokes and objectification of women. Not saying, "oh, that's just the way he is" about a bloke who tries it on with women who have had too much to drink on every night out, or always has a girlfriend half his age. Make it clear that their behaviour and their view of women is unacceptable - the point of that is fourfold; one, they might actually learn something, two, it won't reinforce those views in the minds of other mates in the group who perhaps think the same way but haven't voiced it, three, it could stop them from taking things too further (in all transgressions, you don't go from point A straight to point Z if point Z is deemed unacceptable, but if point A to point B isn't too much of a stretch, then point C soon starts to look not that bad, then point D, and so on all the way to the end), and four, it tells women that you won't stand for it. If women see that your response to a mate objectifying or targeting women is to make excuses, they're not going to trust you either, you're part of the problem.

 

The lesson we should have learned from "MeToo" was this - if almost every woman I know can say that they have experienced sexual assault or abuse at the hands of a man, what does this say about every man I know? That abuse didn't happen in a vacuum; it stands to reason that if every woman has been through it, then the odds are we all know men responsible, and treating sexual assault as a "woman's issue" is never going to address that. 

[SaitoRyo]

Says 'Mr Danger'...

(I kid, I kid)

[Jazzy G]

17 hours ago, WyattSheepMask said:

The “ideal solution” certainly isn’t Baroness Jones’ idea of a 6pm curfew for men. That’s a new level of Orwellian bullshit

 

It isn't, but if the threat of such a thing can inspire men into not acting like rape shit bags and it become safer for women to be outside alone then it's not the worst of ideas. 

[Carbomb]

34 minutes ago, johnnyboy said:

This in 150 point bold.  Men have become the butt of a Chris Rock (iirc) routine.

Yep. Time for us to stop being low-expectation-having motherfuckers.

18 minutes ago, jazzygeofferz said:

It isn't, but if the threat of such a thing can inspire men into not acting like rape shit bags and it become safer for women to be outside alone then it's not the worst of ideas. 

Even just the idea of getting men to think about the notion that it might be on us, rather than women, to do something to address the issue is valuable.

There are so many ways to make this argument, but one of the simplest ones I saw online today (before I had to retreat from social media for the day in disgust at the responses) was: "Ask some men and women to imagine they've been attacked in the street, and ask them to describe their attacker. Neither of them will say it was a woman."

Another thing I'm finding interesting is that we're getting a load of people now who seem to be trying to pull an #allvictimsmatter thing by saying things like "Why are we making such a big deal about the victims? Surely men and women equally have to worry about male-perpetrated violence?" without realising that YES: THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE SAYING WHEN WE SAY TO STOP TELLING WOMEN THEY HAVE TO PROTECT THEMSELVES. NOW ENGAGE BRAIN A BIT FURTHER AND YOU FINALLY GET IT.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Carbomb
Edited because I had to engage my brain a bit further and finally get the words right.

[Hannibal Scorch]

Remember my old toxic friend who went all Covid conspiracy nutter. Well, he waded in today

[Mr_Danger]

Personally I’d rather spend 60p on one Creme Egg to be reminded that they’re disgusting than spend a couple of quid and be left with 17 Creme Eggs I don’t want.

[PowerButchi]

Aye, that filling is fucking boakworthy.

[Keith Houchen]

Much like racism, this normal country is more angry at accusations of harassing behaviour than the harassment itself. The self own from WHATABOUTTHEMENZ when they point out how many men have been killed over a time period says it all, who did the killing, lads, was it men?

[PunkStep]

There has been an outpouring on social media from women sharing stories of times where they were followed or approached while out and about. It's scary that this happens ALL the time and can even start with something that seems innocuous like staring at a girl on the tube. 

Children (yes, children- it has to start early) need to be educated as to what is and isn't socially acceptable- including gawking at somebody on public transport. Because that's how it starts. 

This all stems from a male-driven mindset that still exists in this country (and even more so in other countries) that men have a god given right to what they want. That's where awful excuses such as 'she was asking for it' arise from. As a society, we haven't progressed enough as we should have by now in this respect.

[Keith Houchen]

Spontaneous gammon boiler Ash Sarkar wrote this. 
 

Sarah Everard just wanted to go home. And she did all the things that all of us do to keep ourselves safe: bright clothing, main roads, a phone call to someone she knows. How many men realise the sheer amount of work women put in to avoid being hurt by them? The first thing we learn as children is that the world is conditioned by male violence, and we must labour hard if we want to live in it. In a YouGov poll released this week, it was found that 97% of women aged between 18 and 24 have been the victim of sexual harassment.

We slip keys between our knuckles, we organise elaborate routes home so no one’s in the taxi alone, we message a mate when something weird happens in case it’ll be key evidence one day. We check over our shoulders when we go for a run, we keep the music in our earphones low enough to hear footsteps coming up behind. We calibrate the perfect balance between 'smile politely' and 'keep walking', so the stranger who catcalled us doesn’t feel so rejected that he’ll throw a punch – or so encouraged that he’ll start following us home.

I wonder how many times Sarah herself had said the parting mantra familiar to women everywhere: “Let me know when you’re back safe.” It’s our way of saying: “I love you, and I know the world we live in.”

The man arrested on suspicion of murder, Wayne Couzens, was a serving police officer. He has not been charged, and may yet be cleared all wrongdoing. Our justice system works on the basis of innocence until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt, and that applies even when someone stands accused of the most heinous acts of violence. But regardless of whether Couzens’ arrest results in a charge or conviction, it has reopened discussions of whether the police are even capable of addressing gender-based violence; or indeed, whether they are its chief perpetrators.

Just 3% of rape complaints result in a criminal charge. Rape convictions have fallen to a record low in England and Wales, with half the suspects in cases where a rape had been alleged being convicted of rape or another crime compared to three years ago. What’s more, almost 700 cases of alleged domestic abuse involving police officers and staff were reported during the three years to April 2018. The data, with around three-quarters of forces reporting, showed that police accused of domestic abuse are a third less likely to be convicted than are the general public – and fewer than a quarter of complaints resulted in disciplinary action.

While Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick is probably sincere when she says the arrest of a serving police officer in the case of Sarah Everard has “sent shockwaves and anger” through the force, the culture within the Met is under scrutiny. They have been referred for an inquiry by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, to be assessed as to whether the Metropolitan Police properly investigated a separate claim of indecent exposure allegedly involving Wayne Couzens just days before Sarah Everard disappeared. Last year, sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry were found stabbed to death in a Wembley park. Not only were the police slow to investigate (it was Nicole's boyfriend, Adam, who found the sisters' bodies and the murder weapon), two officers were suspended after having allegedly taken selfies next to the murdered women and circulated the images on WhatsApp.

The criminal justice system has failed to protect women from violent men. The carceral deterrents to crime simply aren't working, while reports from within police forces hints at a casual and sometimes disturbing attitude to violence against women and girls. There is something rotten about a society which has continued to reproduce misogynist violence down the generations, despite social norms evolving in more progressive directions elsewhere. Sarah Everard, Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry deserved more than just to live. They deserved to thrive. I do not want to learn another woman’s name because she has been killed by a man. Not one more name. All women should be safe walking home; all women should be safe at home. Until that is the case, we cannot claim to be a civilised culture.

[BomberPat]

paraphrasing something I saw on Twitter earlier, but in the eyes of too many people a woman is always wrong - if they refuse to walk home alone, or express concerns about it, they're being overdramatic and unreasonable, but if they do walk home alone they were asking for it and got what was coming to them. 

To too many men, consciously or otherwise, it's less about ensuring women's safety and more about policing their behaviour. 

[Keith Houchen]

56 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

paraphrasing something I saw on Twitter earlier, but in the eyes of too many people a woman is always wrong - if they refuse to walk home alone, or express concerns about it, they're being overdramatic and unreasonable, but if they do walk home alone they were asking for it and got what was coming to them. 

To too many men, consciously or otherwise, it's less about ensuring women's safety and more about policing their behaviour. 

I remember when this was brought up before on here. Someone was saying it wasn’t victim blaming by saying there are preventative measures women can take. I was saying pointing this out after an attack is finger wagging. As soon as you suggest that steps could’ve been taken by the person attacked, it’s victim blaming regardless of how you dress it up