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Personally, at the very least it's flamebait.
And still wrong.
w7ngman @6 for the win.
However, if the commenter made some sort of case as to why he thought she was asking for it, then my response might be different.
Trolls, haters, nutjobs, and general asshats should definitely be allowed to put their inane comments up there, if only to warn the rest of us that, yes, they're still here.
This is going to be taking it way beyond a simple mean comment on a sex-advice column, but driving hate groups underground only makes their actions unknown, it doesn't make them go away. You WANT groups like WBC and the KKK and other losers out in the spotlight where everyone can see them and everyone knows where they are all the time. You don't want them doing their stuff in secret.
Staying focused on the deeper solutions to relationship violence rather than getting into shouting matches with commenters can help, but it remains difficult in the face of such provocation.
Of course, that doesn't excuse his actions. By all means, string the guy up.
It's like making a movie about Mark David Chapman, who killed John Lennon for attention (and also probably because he was crazy). You're giving him exactly what he wants!
Someone trolled an article, quite obviously, then undoubtedly some people responded to it in the original post, "dozens and dozens and dozens" of people flagged it and wrote up a reason why it should be deleted, then Megan Seling wrote this article inviting further discussion into said troll, then approximated 10 people respond to said discussion here.
Then I wrote this.
Mkay.
I am still stunned that Dan would offer such dangerous and thoughtless advice.
It is dangerous to suggest confronting a violent individual. Rape is always a violent crime, no matter how it may appear. So it is quite dangerous to suggest a confrontation.
Also, I am sure the police want the report. At the very least, it could help the next survivor make their case. Also, the police might press charges in the situation described to Dan, and I am saddened that Dan would ever suggest not informing law enforcement about a dangerous individual.
It is always up to the survivor to decide on whether they will cooperate with a police investigation. More information and support with that process and healing from sexual assault is available at www.rainn.org.
I wish Dan would have consulted law enforcement, attorneys and anti-violence advocates before writing his response. Dan is a widely read and widely respected writer, and I am very disappointed that he would give such terrible and destructive advice.
I hope that Dan issues a correction in a future column.
It may well have been a poorly written ask into why she didn't take better measures to protect herself. Saying that she could have is not the same thing as blaming the victim and/or advocating date rape.
We have ALL, and I do mean ALL, put ourselves in harm's way (knowingly or not) at one point or another, and many of us have fallen victim to said harm, myself included.
Of COURSE she wasn't ASKING for it. She was taken advantage of. The guy's an asshole and a criminal. That said, it's not totally out of bounds to put it out there that MAYBE, just MAYYYYYBE, going out into a parking lot alone with someone with whom you have a sexual history after an evening of drinking may not have been the most self-safe thing to do. Just as getting into an elevator with a strange man who outweighs you by 75 pounds is not the most self-safe thing to do. Does it give permission to attack? Of COURSE not. I don't think anyone is saying that. But there's a lesson in it for all of us. Pointing that out to SLOG readers is not abusive.
Keep the post on.
I'm just wondering. Sometimes it seems like there's a lower threshold of tolerance for offensive comments on Slog posts by certain authors. Example: If I were to call Dan an awful faggot in the comments to one of his posts, it would probably stay up, but if I were to call ECB a dumb whore in the comments to one of her posts, it would probably be deleted (as Julie @13 points out).
Isn't there a deep irony in how "dozens and dozens and dozens" of readers feel they have been violated and follow the process to do something about this violation...only to have their claims dismissed, ignored, questioned.
At some level, isn't this the message board equivalent of "Just relax and try to enjoy it?"
(And, from a practical point of view, the end result of ignoring the very system you've created to police your public forum will be more time spent by you making those editorial decisions on a case by case basis.)
Clearly the idea that some women "ask" to be raped is still in use in some dark corners of our society. Its better to expose it to opposition than to hide it.
Although, re: the "don't read it if you don't like it" sentiment, I still don't get how you're supposed to classify something as worthy of ignoring unless you read it first.
(Seriously, I am so tired of the Slog hens rolling out that term at every perceived micro-slight. It numbs the senses and lessens the word's intended effect when there might be a bona fide case of misogyny.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disemvoweli…
How about giving respect...before asking for it.
If a newspaper doesn't value a little, uninhibited expression and salacious discourse, is it really fit to print, much less read?
A writer and reader must be courageous, neither silent in fear of offense or in response to offense.
Your mettle needs be made of sterner stuff.
If a vast number of people flag a post as being unacceptable, and you ignore the flagging, why bother with the ability to flag posts? Just remove that option, since clearly there's nothing that's truly unacceptable in Slog. Of course in return for that, you end up with 4Chan's /b/ board, with its casual racism, homophobia, and misogyny.
"Since clearly there's nothing that's truly unacceptable in Slog."
That's not completely true. The abuse reports are read, and in some cases they have been very helpful in deleting spam, multiple posts, and threats.
This comment, while offensive to many people, is on-topic and part of the larger debate on the topic. Lots of other people wrote in with variations on the same theme, "Maybe she gave a certain degree of consent". While I don't agree with the perspective, I think it's creating an informative dialogue.
It's at least as socially responsible as the debate(s) re: the definition of "neo-Nazi" and/or legality of shooting blanks carried on in the comments of the article about the German Studies student killed by cops.
I say keep it.
Israel is constantly 'raping' Palestine, and all i hear from many Americans is " oh well...the Palestinians deserved it....they killed about 10 Israeli soldiers...meh who cares if 640( many of whom are children) Palestinians are killed from the Gaza attacks, and that some 3000 are displaced/wounded from/at there homes "they were asking for it" (by trying to defend themselves, and being there in the first place?!!?)
completely outrageous...
i see that these two situations are very similar to one another...hmpf...the only difference is that one is on a larger scale then the other.....so why are many people reacting to these cases differently?
You're right, i would respond with something like;
"BLAMMO!"
Then i would do some sort rad ASCI picture.
<("<)
That's why a blog comment format is sort of a shame, really. Everybody is shouting out into the wild fray of the interwebs, able to say whatever they want without any real accountability. Dang. Wonder if it really even matters that I'm posting this?
If you want to talk about posts saying "The victim was asking for it, wasn't she?": while phrased insensitively (as if that were reason to delete it), it raises a point that some people seem to consider valid: a number of posters, including mrclean, Psilly Cybin, and a number of sel-proclaimed rape victims and other whackos all take the perspective that it was at least partly the girl's fault. You can either delete every post that says the girl has to take some ownership of what happened, or we can have a whole conversation about it and let people go back and forth.
Before you say, "Well, of course it should be deleted," remember that even if there's nothing to be read between the lines of the letter, women DO do things like this all the time. Sometimes it's to get sympathy from a bf they just cheated on, sometimes it's to vacate their responsibility for something they regret afterwards, and sometimes it's to get back at someone. Was the Duke Lacrosse scandal so long ago that we've forgotten it already? If you want to pretend that false accusations of rape never happen and forbid people from even asking the question, go ahead, but remember that you'll be perpetuating just as big of an injustice as those who say that rape victims are always asking for it.
Slog gave us the ability to flag, so we flagged. There have been many abusive things on Slog that I would not think to flag. I did write in when there was a bunch of racist stuff about Obama. I wish Slog would take down the misogynist posts about ECB--although I have never flagged them.
You all at Slog can choose what you take down, and we choose what we think is so abusive as to flag.