What constitutes Misogyny?

[brekin]

Canadian Watcher wrote:

Brekin,

thank you for saying that you believe this is a worthwhile topic for discussion. In the spirit of making a fresh start, I'll quote you back to you regarding my accusation that you have said that this thread has condemned all males, because maybe that wasn't you. I do apologize as well.

brekin wrote:

You know, I have to apologize. I may have confused your views with someone else's (I don't want to name him either because I could be wrong about him to.)
But since I don't have time to review everyone's posts in this thread I'll just say I'm not clear on your views and leave it at that.

Thank you for that apology. The above post was in reply to Stephen Morgan's post where he felt I didn't fully understand his posts regarding
feminism. He's right, the ones I've read have been rather long and I've jumped around and think I may have confused many of them with some other posters. I was generalizing about his posts and Hugh's on Keyword HiJacking which I don't "get". But I haven't read Stephen's as carefully as Hugh's in the past so I can't provide a fair assessment then on his posts. Though as far as I know he hasn't been disrespectful or abusive to any individual posters, so I felt from what I had seen he didn't warrant being banned. Here is the larger context:

brekin wrote:
For example, while I disagree with say Stephen or Hugh about their views on feminism or keyword high jacking
I would never assume they are not thinking. They both seem to spend a lot of time pain stakingly showing us
their thinking.

Stephen Morgan wrote:
Not me, pal. I should one of these days put together a single document about my views on feminism and post it somewhere other than here, but I've generally just objected to things other people have said here. ...

brekin wrote:
You know, I have to apologize. I may have confused your views with someone else's (I don't want to name him either because I could be wrong about him to.)
But since I don't have time to review everyone's posts in this thread I'll just say I'm not clear on your views and leave it at that.
In the end doesn't really matter to me though the content as long as it hasn't been directly abusive to anyone; name calling, labeling, swearing, etc

[compared2what?]

The conversation gets moved along for periods of time, and then we have to deal with more temper tantrums from posters who seem to need the attentions focussed solely on themselves.

We get to a point where people are roundly condemning the posters who are hateful and disruptive and lo and behold someone - c2w - comes along and pretty much advocates that we are wrong to do so. Why did you do that, c2w?

Because I thought it was unfair to condemn Stephen for being the single hateful and disruptive voice around which the discussion had revolved. He doesn't have that kind of power, for the not-insignificant reason that he doesn't play that kind of power game.

I think it's fair to condemn his views as hateful, on reasonable grounds. Like so: Stephen, I utterly reject and condemn your views as hateful. I also think it's more than fair to request him to abide by the posting guidelines, which are themselves more than fair.

Now please excuse me for just a moment. I just remembered that I have to take care of something very important. But it won't take long. BRB.
_____________

there's a status quo here?

Your joking right?

I don't think he was joking as much as he was elliptically commenting on a different iteration of the same distorted perception I was trying to bring to your attention here.

But there is a status quo here, as a matter of fact. And it's this: Willow, who is inarguably one of the most reliably fair-minded, undemanding, thoughtful and responsible posters on this board, can state quite plainly, without anger, that she is being re-traumatized by Stephen Morgan's posts and go so completely unheeded, unnoticed and unrecognized by you that you can go blithering on about some 100 percent objectively non-existent human sacrifice in a state of such complete and total unawareness of her presence and her reality that your actions couldn't even be described as meaningfully self-aware, never mind considerate to others.

I don't condemn you for having had that blind spot to begin with because I'm sympathetic to the unconscious having of blind spots in a general way, that being part of the human condition. However, I'd be somewhat less sympathetic were you to elect to remain willfully blind to the suffering of another human being for reasons that didn't amount to a whole lot more than your own personal convenience. So please be advised:

There's a mote in your eye. Cast it out now, thank me later.
_________________

C_w, I'll be back in just a few.

[compared2what?]

This is pretty much the sort of transgressive statement that would/should prompt a moderator to step in.

FWIW, I've been reading this thread pretty closely, Plutonia, and it didn't seem at the time that c2w's comments regarding Izzy Kalman were pointed at you as a personal reproach.

That might have been because it manifestly, explicitly and clearly was not pointed at Plutonia in any way, shape or form. It was addressed to Izzy Kalman and the general reader, which both was and is the only fair and reasonable reading possible.

I'm not giving an inch on that one, sorry. It just wasn't and isn't ambiguous.

[compared2what?]

So. As I was just saying, when I so rudely interrupted myself, the board rules are themselves more than fair and reasonable. Let's move on.

Why do you encourage the narcissist to keep on pulling false 'facts' from his ass and posting them?

Canadian_watcher, I appreciate that you're under stress. I've been there myself. However, I did not encourage anyone to keep on pulling false facts out of his ass and posting them unless referring to them repeatedly as hateful -- to say nothing of having routinely pointed to their falsity in great detail and at the expenditure of no little amount of time and energy over the long haul -- can reasonably be regarded as encouragement.

Which it can't. So please remember yourself and those around you. While you're at it, you might want to spend a moment remembering that narcissists don't do empathy, which Stephen has shown to you on a number of occasions throughout this thread, albeit not very showily, for the most part, as he has to me and to others.

Speaking strictly for myself, I have to say that I personally very much appreciate that particular form of courtesy. I find it validating to be understood. However, since he seems to prefer habitually performing small acts in the spirit of Christian charity to having them formally recognized -- which is fully in keeping with the spirit of Christian humility, at least as I understand it -- I usually forgo expressions of gratitude for them out of basic consideration to another person's sensibilities as they're understood by me.

So thanks for giving me the opportunity to slip one of those in. Also, you've misunderstood me so greatly in your remarks immediately above that I almost have to wonder if you give any credence or consideration to who I am or what I say at all. I mean, that's just crazy talk, C_w. I didn't, wouldn't and couldn't. Have you lost your mind?

Would you have defended the 'rights' of the posters on the Matthew Shepard memorial bulletin board? Would you have made sure that you said "It's their words, not the people themselves, that we should be finding offensive and posting our objections to." ?? Maybe some people don't want to have to digress into that area when the things being said are personally hurtful and more than personally hurtful they can be traumatizing..

You either don't know who you're talking to, don't care, or are stunningly unobservant if you don't realize that asking me that would be more personally hurtful to me by a factor of approximately one gazillion than anything Stephen has ever said about feminists or women, and that's not excluding the time he called a subset of the latter evil verminous scum.

I say "would be" rather than "is" only because I can't take it seriously enough to be hurt by it, fwiw. I mean, I know who I am too well to think I've ever done anything that would prompt having those questions addressed to me in my whole entire life. That just couldn't be me.

But now look, this is the delight they feel. Divide and conquer - get them fighting amongst themselves. Feel free NOT to debate me on the above point or answer my questions - they're mostly rhetorical anyway.

Again, you appear not to know who you're talking to. Or maybe you do. I'm terribly, terribly sorry that this has been as painful for you as it has been. I know fully, in vivid detail, what that's like and do my very best to sustain and support your healthiest, strongest and best nature, which is the only nature that the Canadian_watcher I believe myself to know has.

Frankly, I don't really have any idea who wrote the last couple of paragraphs that I just replied to. But if I were going to address a few words to him or her directly, they'd probably be these:

Hey! Whoever-you-are! What have you done with Canadian_watcher? I demand that you return her immediately!

And brekin - please tell me why you CANNOT stand it that this is a subject matter some of us want to discuss? And further, please search back and give me a couple of examples of this categorical denouncement of all males that is routinely happening here.

Yeah, brekin, do that, why don't you? And if you find yourself with some idle time on your hands while you're looking, you might want to consider using it to reflect on whether anything on earth justified accusing Canadian_watcher of having been sexually assaulted at you out of pure hostility. Because that was pretty fucking insane by any standard, except (of course) that of the status quo.

[brekin]

vanlose kid wrote:
there's a status quo here?

brekin wrote:
Your joking right?

compared2what wrote:

I don't think he was joking as much as he was elliptically commenting on a different iteration of the same distorted perception I was trying to bring to your attention here.

But there is a status quo here, as a matter of fact. And it's this: Willow, who is inarguably one of the most reliably fair-minded, undemanding, thoughtful and responsible posters on this board, can state quite plainly, without anger, that she is being re-traumatized by Stephen Morgan's posts and go so completely unheeded, unnoticed and unrecognized by you that you can go blithering on about some 100 percent objectively non-existent human sacrifice in a state of such complete and total unawareness of her presence and her reality that your actions couldn't even be described as meaningfully self-aware, never mind considerate to others.

I don't condemn you for having had that blind spot to begin with because I'm sympathetic to the unconscious having of blind spots in a general way, that being part of the human condition. However, I'd be somewhat less sympathetic were you to elect to remain willfully blind to the suffering of another human being for reasons that didn't amount to a whole lot more than your own personal convenience. So please be advised:

There's a mote in your eye. Cast it out now, thank me later.

Well first I don't believe anything is "inarguable" in general. Second, I didn't catch the Stephen/Willow thing so don't know what you are speaking to.
I would hope that he wasn't speaking to something personal in her background that she didn't put up for discussion. If he put up something
triggering then hopefully he alerted readers. And if his opinion on a general matter and not a personal matter stirred up something disturbing for her and he didn't break any board rules then that is the risk you take by posting and reading on a public discussion forum. This is an open thread on a discussion forum and not someone's blog page. If someone has an opinion you don't like and they aren't breaking the rules you can challenge them, debate them, asking them to refrain, etc but that is their right and as long as they are respectful they can continue to state their opinion.

Some people are going to have opinions that others will abhor. If they aren't breaking the rules though that is the price we pay in the
marketplace of ideas. RI in general has threads daily that are traumatic, can you imagine losing a loved one and visiting the 9/11 threads?
That would probably be more traumatizing then healing. But we should hardly crimp those.

Further I would ask you to examine your language. In general you seem to be quick to point out supposed faults and supply remedies
for others. Where do you derive this authority and assume you have the right to prescribe to others? And is anyone asking this from you?
Do you see how this could be considered invasive and unwelcome? I think I've received enough unsolicited "head" advice from you so I would ask you
to cultivate your own garden and stop trying to rototill mine.

Canadian Watcher wrote:
Quote:
And brekin - please tell me why you CANNOT stand it that this is a subject matter some of us want to discuss? And further, please search back and give me a couple of examples of this categorical denouncement of all males that is routinely happening here.

compared2what wrote:

Yeah, brekin, do that, why don't you?

This was already addressed here:

Quote:
Canadian Watcher wrote:

Brekin,

thank you for saying that you believe this is a worthwhile topic for discussion. In the spirit of making a fresh start, I'll quote you back to you regarding my accusation that you have said that this thread has condemned all males, because maybe that wasn't you. I do apologize as well.

Quote:
brekin wrote:

You know, I have to apologize. I may have confused your views with someone else's (I don't want to name him either because I could be wrong about him to.)
But since I don't have time to review everyone's posts in this thread I'll just say I'm not clear on your views and leave it at that.

brekin wrote:
Thank you for that apology. The above post was in reply to Stephen Morgan's post where he felt I didn't fully understand his posts regarding
feminism. He's right, the ones I've read have been rather long and I've jumped around and think I may have confused many of them with some other posters. I was generalizing about his posts and Hugh's on Keyword HiJacking which I don't "get". But I haven't read Stephen's as carefully as Hugh's in the past so I can't provide a fair assessment then on his posts. Though as far as I know he hasn't been disrespectful or abusive to any individual posters, so I felt from what I had seen he didn't warrant being banned. Here is the larger context:

Quote:
brekin wrote:
For example, while I disagree with say Stephen or Hugh about their views on feminism or keyword high jacking
I would never assume they are not thinking. They both seem to spend a lot of time pain stakingly showing us
their thinking.

Quote:
Stephen Morgan wrote:
Not me, pal. I should one of these days put together a single document about my views on feminism and post it somewhere other than here, but I've generally just objected to things other people have said here. ...

Quote:
brekin wrote:
You know, I have to apologize. I may have confused your views with someone else's (I don't want to name him either because I could be wrong about him to.)
But since I don't have time to review everyone's posts in this thread I'll just say I'm not clear on your views and leave it at that.
In the end doesn't really matter to me though the content as long as it hasn't been directly abusive to anyone; name calling, labeling, swearing, etc

compare2what wrote:

And if you find yourself with some idle time on your hands while you're looking, you might want to consider using it to reflect on whether anything on earth justified accusing Canadian_watcher of having been sexually assaulted at you out of pure hostility. Because that was pretty fucking insane by any standard, except (of course) that of the status quo.

Where the HELL did you get that? I think you need quote me, now.

[Pierre d'Achoppement]

I'm sure we'd all love to be prosecuted minorities, but when half the world starts acting like it, it's getting kind of silly in my opinion.

[compared2what?]

On points of substance, I find his positions to be hateful. I regard it as a categorical imperative to say as much and also to give my reasons for so doing. I think that's both fair in itself and compatible with fair standards for discourse generally.

Yes. So I did that too, for the nth time on the unmerry-go-round, and now I consider it to be enough.

Or I guess I could have just said:

Hateful views are not hate speech, in themselves. Freedom of expression can, should and actually has to allow for them on the most minimally acceptable terms possible in order to be meaningfully free. That's a fine line to walk, but the rewards are universal, so it's worth the effort.

That's all.

True enough. Did anything I say create the impression I would have thought otherwise? Then I'm sorry.

I'm not in a position to ban him, and would have trouble doing so for the same reason, but I am able to be done with him. I did find that the use of "batter" crossed a line from hateful views to abusive, hateful speech, and was a sign for me to call it done.

.

No, honey, the only thing that you wrote that I objected to was the singling out of Stephen. And even that wasn't a personally critical thing or directed at you, at all, at all, at all. I just get scapegoated personally myself all alone for stuff that I myself all alone was not responsible for not to be very sensitive to small innocent and incipient signs of it. Your post was no more and no less than that, as I read it. Which I believe was a fair reading.

I have no problem with or objection to anything that's about you, in short.

I have a more generalized problem with the chronic, unnecessary and excessive demonization of individual posters to this board by roving gangs that quite often include much, much more abusive, angry and habitually sadistic posters than the one being demonized, for this one simple, self-evident and far-from-unsympathetic reason: Truly abusive, angry and habitually sadistic posters hit back. And that hurts.

But that has nothing to do with you or with anybody, really. It's just an unfair thing that happens, and of which your post reminded me.

Okay?

[compared2what?]

There's a mote in your eye. Cast it out now, thank me later.

Well first I don't believe anything is "inarguable" in general. Second, I didn't catch the Stephen/Willow thing so don't know what you are speaking to.
I would hope that he wasn't speaking to something personal in her background that she didn't put up for discussion. If he put up something
triggering then hopefully he alerted readers. And if his opinion on a general matter and not a personal matter stirred up something disturbing for her and he didn't break any board rules then that is the risk you take by posting and reading on a public discussion forum. This is an open thread on a discussion forum and not someone's blog page. If someone has an opinion you don't like and they aren't breaking the rules you can challenge them, debate them, asking them to refrain, etc but that is their right and as long as they are respectful they can continue to state their opinion.

Some people are going to have opinions that others will abhor. If they aren't breaking the rules though that is the price we pay in the
marketplace of ideas.

I agree. But since I went to some pains to say that in a post you read and responded to within the last several hours and he was breaking a rule, all of that is either irrelevant or willfully blind or both.

RI in general has threads daily that are traumatic, can you imagine losing a loved one and visiting the 9/11 threads?
That would probably be more traumatizing then healing. But we should hardly crimp those.

What makes you think I'd have to imagine it?

Further I would ask you to examine your language. In general you seem to be quick to point out supposed faults and supply remedies for others.

Get serious. I'm not quick to do that, I did it to you in one post as a rhetorical device arising from a callback to the words of a certified school psychologist, which I then carried over into a follow-up post. No part of it was seriously intended as diagnostically or therapeutically valid. I believed and still do believe that every part of it was rhetorically justified by the professed sense of powerlessness, martyrdom and persecution displayed in your posts, for which there was and is no reasonable cause. But I didn't mean any of it unkindly and still don't. You seemed to me to be unhappy. I took a shot at suggesting something you might do to address that. Sorry.

Where do you derive this authority and assume you have the right to prescribe to others? And is anyone asking this from you?

I have none, don't pretend to have any, don't assume that, and yes, people sometimes ask my advice.

Do you see how this could be considered invasive and unwelcome? I think I've received enough unsolicited "head" advice from you so I would ask you
to cultivate your own garden and stop trying to rototill mine.

Sure. You're kind of grasping at a rhetorical straw there. But as you wish. Consider it done.

compare2what wrote:

And if you find yourself with some idle time on your hands while you're looking, you might want to consider using it to reflect on whether anything on earth justified accusing Canadian_watcher of having been sexually assaulted at you out of pure hostility. Because that was pretty fucking insane by any standard, except (of course) that of the status quo.

Where the HELL did you get that? I think you need quote me, now.[/quote]

Okay.

you are going to lose respect and appear ridiculous when
to prove a point about a silly furnace man encounter you throw a traumatic episode from your
past in a juvenile way, taunting way in people's faces.

May I point out that there were no people other than yourself saying that they felt that C_w had thrown a traumatic episode from her past -- ie, having been sexually assaulted -- in a juvenile and taunting way in their faces?

do you think it is the right time for them to bring up a something completely on the other end of the spectrum that they were subjected to, just to prove a point?

How does that make that person or anyone else more vulnerable? I'd say it creates a situation where you are trying to shame others into silence or compliance.

May I again point out that there were no people apart from you who were saying anything that they might feel shamed into compliant silence about saying when C_w putatively tried to do that to them by using her experience of sexual assault to create that situation?

Possibly I'm sure some people who were angry about the Furnace man episode and wanted to pursue that and saw your divulging your traumatic experience then as a way to morally high-jack the thread and putting you above any criticism or reproach. I saw it as someone who was trapped, angry and felt like they they had been disrespected again and because others didn't see this,felt like they ad to defiantly share that they had been a clear victim of misogyny in the past.

Some people, huh? But not you? And you're sure about it? Where do you derive this authority to speak for unnamed others as a proximate occasion for prescribing to the person you're addressing?

I think you have a problem with being challenged. I think you need to understand that people who most respect you and see you as a true equal are the ones who will challenge you.

Willfully blind non-physician, heal thyself.

[Stephen Morgan]

Yeah, yeah. The record speaks for itself, which is lucky because no-one else is able to. Those who have eyes to see can see, what was going on then and what's going on now.

Dude, this is Jeff's board, not mine, and he made the call. I assume you have some degree of sympathy with his viewpoint, otherwise, why post on his board? But in a larger sense the forum also belongs to the people who frequent here, and a large part of the community of the members made it very clear that they felt offended. You think their offense was and is misplaced, but in the final analysis, the admin, someone I consider to be extremely fair and even-handed, disagreed with you. That's the record, bro. Show him some respect, if you find it necessary to focus whatever remnants of that sensibility you possess upon an individual rather than the group of your peers.

I'm not sure what you mean here. I'm just saying, as you already know, I completely disagree with it all. I'll stick to the new posting guidelines, I slipped a couple of times there because I got talking about emotive issues again, MTH, but the prevailing state of affairs is something I'll still disagree with Jeff on, if you don't mind. Others have to decide for themselves, as always.

You do make a lot of thinly veiled threats though, barracuda. Not that I let it stop me posting the... er... you know... the things that I post. But I can see why it gets to people.

So what? Would you rather I jump out from behind a bush and say "boo"? I operate here as a mod, besides having my own rather strongly held opinions on just about every single thing discussed here. If you need to separate the two to maintain, go ahead. I don't feel that way.

Yeah, I'd like it if your mod-functions were more clearly differentiated. Like this post warning me to stay within the revised posting guidelines, that's good. When you make statements about being tired of seeing someone posting in a thread or that sort of thing, as you did with Brekin shortly before his suspension and with me many dozens of pages ago, I'd like to know if you're issuing a warning as a mod or just expressing your irritation as a human. Acting as you do now is intimidatory and bound to breed hostility, or alternatively to rob moderator warnings of their force. Uncertainty is bad.

[Stephen Morgan]

I didn't know that there were people here who considered the ills of the world to be the result of patriarchy, as opposed to capitalism or corruption or organised crime or evil people conniving themselves into positions of power, which were all just seen as symptoms.

Thats not how it is, you're seeing the patriarchy as above those other things when it isn't. What it is tho is just as bad.

If we lived in a matriarchy that is as coercive as our current patriarchy then that would be as bad to. Tell me have you ever seen that 2 Ronnies thing about the worm that turned?

I'm not a big Ronnies man, and I believe it was C_w who put forward the idea that all those other evils stem from Patriarchy. But this:

So its not about all men being evil. This situation is amazing imo - I am watching two sides of this debate play out in my friends lives. And its easy to see that even tho on the surface Animal's ex and Ghost are going thru the same thing its also easy to see that Ghost's ex's actions stem from mistrust and powerless and Animal's from being in a powerful position and being lazy and selfish.

I was just wondering what led you to conclude that this Animal person is in a powerful position and being lazy and selfish while Ghost's ex is powerless and mistrustful, especially as you'd just been saying about the disadvantage they were labouring under.

[Canadian_watcher]

Why do you encourage the narcissist to keep on pulling false 'facts' from his ass and posting them?

Canadian_watcher, I appreciate that you're under stress. I've been there myself. However, I did not encourage anyone to keep on pulling false facts out of his ass and posting them unless referring to them repeatedly as hateful -- to say nothing of having routinely pointed to their falsity in great detail and at the expenditure of no little amount of time and energy over the long haul -- can reasonably be regarded as encouragement.

I have to laugh at the singling out of that one phrase. It really sounds funny. And I agree and also apologize because you are right - you didn't say that you think he should post lies in support of his position (which, in essence, he does all the time) but you are saying basically that we should all lay off poor Stephen.

I therefore have to say on principle that if it's fair for me, it's fair for him, basically. His views are still hateful, but that's a separate issue and should be addressed as such. Condemn the sin, not the sinner, is I guess what I'm saying. I advocate for that, generally.

I condemn the sin strongly enough that I think it's time everyone put him on ignore. I think that prerogative remains with each individual and I resent your implication that we're all missing something when we read his posts and that we would be wrong to sanction him. If you were to insist I could easily find and list a dozen or more examples of where he has been coldly, purposefully hurtful - places and times where he would have had the choice not to be.

Narcissists don't do empathy. Sure, of course. But narcissists can fake emotion, and they often do. They have to appear to give a teensy bit now and then or they lose control of the situation. From where I sit you've got that 'wanting to save people' syndrome that was mentioned in one of the Nice-Guy's articles VK posted. If I were you I'd put him on ignore, but I'm not you so fill your boots arguing with him and reading words that are neither truthful nor sympathetic and never - not in any - way suggestive of a better approach either in this thread or out in the world at large. He just likes to harsh on women. PERIOD > and I'm sick of it. I wonder when you will be?

To the part about me not seeming to know you.. well.. I'm trying to decide whether or not to type this, whether or not this will hurt you and I certainly wouldn't want to do that, but ... bah, just take this as a clinical answer to your question and not an emotional one: I would have thought that you would view my not knowing you as a success on your part, being that you have 100 foot walls around you and sometimes your posts are incredibly difficult for me to decipher . That last part is on me, but it still serves to keep a barrier between us.

Speaking strictly for myself, I have to say that I personally very much appreciate that particular form of courtesy. I find it validating to be understood. However, since he seems to prefer habitually performing small acts in the spirit of Christian charity to having them formally recognized -- which is fully in keeping with the spirit of Christian humility, at least as I understand it -- I usually forgo expressions of gratitude for them out of basic consideration to another person's sensibilities as they're understood by me.

cCearly you and he have some sort of bond and that's fine by me. Bond away. Just do not lecture me on whom has shown me empathy or whom I should consider un-ignoring when I took enough shit and abuse from whomever I've put on ignore and I don't need any more of it, thanks.

Have you lost your mind?

thanks for this. very nice. especially when paired with this:

Again, you appear not to know who you're talking to. Or maybe you do. I'm terribly, terribly sorry that this has been as painful for you as it has been. I know fully, in vivid detail, what that's like and do my very best to sustain and support your healthiest, strongest and best nature, which is the only nature that the Canadian_watcher I believe myself to know has.

[Stephen Morgan]

I'm sure we'd all love to be prosecuted minorities, but when half the world starts acting like it, it's getting kind of silly in my opinion.

It is possible to be part of a persecuted majority. I'd expect most of us here to be in one.

[Project Willow]

I want to raise my hand here too, and please accept this as an offering and delivered with deep respect, and indeed as a bit of confusion, which is why I feel compelled to post.

Which it can't. So please remember yourself and those around you. While you're at it, you might want to spend a moment remembering that narcissists don't do empathy, which Stephen has shown to you on a number of occasions throughout this thread, albeit not very showily, for the most part, as he has to me and to others.

I just want to say that I read that linked response and I hold an entirely different view and I am at a loss to explain to myself how others came to different ones. What I read (past tense) in the linked response was manipulation, the use of someone else's trauma to draw focus to one's own with the purpose of advocating for a position which in turn negates the original person's trauma. It's brilliant, but if the entire thrust of the conversation is to accomplish the erasure, any statement supporting that intention, even if it sounds empathetic, is quite the opposite.

[brekin]

compare2what wrote:
Quote:
And if you find yourself with some idle time on your hands while you're looking, you might want to consider using it to reflect on
whether anything on earth justified accusing Canadian_watcher of having been sexually assaulted at you out of pure hostility.
Because that was pretty fucking insane by any standard, except (of course) that of the status quo.

brekin wrote:
Where the HELL did you get that? I think you need quote me, now.

[/quote]


compared2what wrote:
Okay.

brekin wrote:
you are going to lose respect and appear ridiculous when
to prove a point about a silly furnace man encounter you throw a traumatic episode from your
past in a juvenile way, taunting way in people's faces.

compared2what wrote:
May I point out that there were no people other than yourself saying that they felt that C_w had thrown a traumatic episode from her past -- ie, having been sexually assaulted -- in a juvenile and taunting way in their faces?

O.K. you are going to have to grammar better.
Look this has gone over ad nauseum.There are probably dozens of replies to all of the above from me, and rebuttals and replies that you can quote to answer your questions.
I stand by everything I said and I notice you didn't quote the thousand other lines related to the above in between. Do I need to repost everything and supply a timeline?
Do I need to repost who the post was addressed to and how? When it came? Do I need to repost my cautioning? The polite refusal? Then my poster boy status as being paternalistic?
Then the misogynistic accusation game and evidence game? It's been done. No ones going to gain from it. All I'm going to say is I don't think it was someones best moment
under stress and later I had a few moments when I wasn't my best under stress. But I have no guilt over it. I could throw in a related analogy but
I doubt it would be helpful. And I doubt the other person's past you are using for your own agenda would appreciate it. (just a guess. not sure. peace.)

brekin wrote:
do you think it is the right time for them to bring up a something completely on the other end of the spectrum that they were subjected to, just to prove a point?
How does that make that person or anyone else more vulnerable? I'd say it creates a situation where you are trying to shame others into silence or compliance.

compared2what wrote:
May I again point out that there were no people apart from you who were saying anything that they might feel shamed into compliant silence about saying when C_w putatively tried to do that to them by using her experience of sexual assault to create that situation?

Okay you force the analogy.
compared2what what if I said right now that I've been sexually abused as a child?
Yeah, Where do you go from there?
Do you continue to debate me on other matters? Would that be seen as insensitive?
Do you think people will line up to post about it?
How do you empathize with someone when you try to help them
after such a admission during a hostile thread exchange, are attacked for trying to help and
then are labeled worse and worse labels the more you
disagree? See sometimes others create the monster
they want to fight.

brekin wrote:
Possibly I'm sure some people who were angry about the Furnace man episode and wanted to pursue that and saw your divulging your traumatic experience then as a way to morally high-jack the thread and putting you above any criticism or reproach. I saw it as someone who was trapped, angry and felt like they they had been disrespected again and because others didn't see this,felt like they ad to defiantly share that they had been a clear victim of misogyny in the past.

compared2what wrote:
Some people, huh? But not you? And you're sure about it? Where do you derive this authority to speak for unnamed others as a proximate occasion for prescribing to the person you're addressing?

brekin wrote:
I think you have a problem with being challenged. I think you need to understand that people who most respect you and see you as a true equal are the ones who will challenge you.

compared2what wrote:
Willfully blind non-physician, heal thyself.

I thought you were done with the prescriptions? Jeez.
As Clarice told her good Dr. Lector:

You see a lot, Doctor. But are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself?
What about it? Why don't you - why don't you look at yourself and write down what you see? Or maybe you're afraid to.

[Searcher08]

I'm reminded on reading this just how much information of high quality that we take for granted in ordinary communication, from the raising of an quizzical eyebrow, the inflection of a curious voice to the reassurance of a poke in the ribs... how much of that vanishes on a message board...