News/Current Affairs thread

[Carbomb]

35 minutes ago, Chris B said:

Was tempted to make this one it's own thread, but the Gisele Pelicot case has been fascinating and horrendous. https://www.girlonthenet.com/blog/dominique-pelicots-shame/ - I thought this was a particularly good blog (by a sex writer, so an NSFW site, even if the blog itself isn't). 

Part of why I'm raising it is seeing a few women I know on social media make the point that they've only really heard other women talking about it. I think there's probably something to that - and there are some wider questions around how we, as guys, process this kind of stuff.

I also saw, in response to one of the women on social, a dickhead responding in a butt-hurt way, complaining about misandry and how most men aren't like this. And yeah, most men aren't, but it'd be nice if it were a much smaller percentage than it is. But realistically, I know multiple men who have assaulted or raped women. Some of them, I know about (because it's come out and people have filed charges), but there'll be others that I don't.

I've changed my thinking on this over time, but I really struggled to understand the idea that so many guys just outright enjoy the power and causing discomfort. It was only really during Me Too that I started to rethink that. And I'm also aware that guys like that are going to be more careful how they talk around guys who aren't like that.

So, yeah, I'm sure I'm not the only one with reflections on all this. 

This was the bit that stood out in that article:

Quote

 

What Dominique Pelicot did was truly abhorrent, but we should refrain from calling him a monster. He is not a mythical creature who can’t be held to account. He’s been sitting right there in that courtroom as this grotesque story is told. We can see him. Name him. Shame him. Make him look at what he has done. Tell the fucking story.

Dominique Pelicot is not a monster, he’s a man. A disgusting one, but a man nonetheless. Not someone we can or should distance ourselves from by pretending that what he did was somehow evil beyond comprehension. It’s hard to get my head around, for sure, but not impossible: this man did these things. He has admitted that he did them. He lived for years and years, comfortable with the knowledge that he did them and would keep doing them until caught. Dominique Pelicot’s shame is there in lurid detail in dozens of papers for all the world to see, so we have no excuse for saying – the next time a man does disgusting things to a woman he purports to love – that we’re shocked or disappointed or we simply can’t believe it.

Believe it. It happened. It’s right there. We can see it.

Not only is Dominique Pelicot just a man, he’s not even a unique one… he had company! At least fifty other men in and around Mazan joined him in doing this. They accepted his invitation to rape. They followed his instructions on how to do it without leaving a trace. They went home to their own families, and got into bed with their own partners, after having violated an unconscious stranger. They looked their loved ones in the eye over breakfast the morning after. They lived with themselves for years, continuing to go about their everyday lives, comfortable with the knowledge that they had walked into the home of a man they met on the internet and raped his unconscious wife.

These men are not monsters. They are human. Thanks to Gisèle Pelicot’s heroic decision to waive her anonymity, now we even know their fucking names.

 

 

As long as there are dickheads butting in that "the majority of men aren't like this", there will always be an issue with whole swathes of people missing the entire fucking point that it doesn't have to be a majority for it to be a real, statistically-significant, systemic problem amongst men in general.

[Chris B]

40 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

As long as there are dickheads butting in that "the majority of men aren't like this", there will always be an issue with whole swathes of people missing the entire fucking point that it doesn't have to be a majority for it to be a real, statistically-significant, systemic problem amongst men in general.

I think a lot of it comes from people thinking it's this incredibly rare thing. But when we think a bit further, I think we've all known about situations where horrible things have happened. At the very least, we all know women who have been assaulted, harrassed or raped - that was the whole point of Me Too, was that it has happened to just about every woman at some point.

[Merzbow]

Is this guy threatening military intervention?

[Just Some Guy]

I, for one, welcome our new, fuck-witted overlord.

Edited January 6, 2025 by Just Some Guy
,

[JLM]

I miss the days when innovators and inventors would be killed by their own inventions. Trying to break the landspeed record with a jet engine strapped to a bathtub. Proper crackpottery. Nowadays they pay actual clever people to do the clever stuff, pretend to be Tony Stark and peddle right wing propaganda  on the internet instead. Make your own flying squirrel suit and jump off the Eiffel Tower you coward. 

Edited January 6, 2025 by JLM

[neil]

Elon is just posting shit to get views which turns into ad spend. Avoid X at all costs

[ReturnOfTheMack]

Andrew Tate has launched his most recent desperate grab for attention, The Bruv Party, his run for becoming UK PM.

 

Well, that's Ospreys merch finding a new audience.

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgmy7xpw3pyo

 

Bye bye equal rights in America 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

29 minutes ago, Tim Healys Chutney Spoon said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgmy7xpw3pyo

 

Bye bye equal rights in America 

It's always something ending with you isn't it. 

[Chili]

Was everyone just a massive cunt before this or did Trump's reelection just enable everyone to be like that Simpsons episode where they all 'be like the boy.'

I'm too thick to properly know but I just assume it's money and profit related or something isn't it?

[Chest Rockwell]

All giant corporations are run by cunts and whenever they do something good it's only by accident or for the wrong reasons.

[Vamp]

Sadly I imagine a bit part of it is corporate America chasing market trends. I think a lot of corporations paid lip service to equality because it seemed like a percentage of potential customers believed enough in it for it to be a motivating factor in their purchasing habits. Now they probably see a sizable percentage of customers who believe strongly enough in being "anti-woke" (whatever the fuck that means) for the opposite to be a motivating factor in who they buy from. 

 

[King Coconut]

RAF clear exploding Tunnock's teacakes to fly again. About fucking time.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20x5x0g3kqo

 

[SuperBacon]

Holy shit, is Anne a sleeper agent?

[Carbomb]

Now they just need to approve the Wafer Creams. Hopefully this will boost production.