Realistically, after this whole little plotline, her career is basically over anyway, so she might as well go out doing something actually good for once.
On an unrelated note, there are talking audio ads on this site now, and it’s very annoying.
Those things that let you know something exists so that you’re not walking around wondering what those weird boxes people are holding up to their ears are.
Yes, even Anthony Weiner has folks that think he got railroaded out of office. We live in a world that has Holocaust deniers. You will always find someone who sympathizes with even the most unredeemable monsters.
it’s really not comparable. especially when women of color get attacked more often than white women do, and both get attacked more often than white men do. it’s like being a woman (and not being white) is an walking “punch me” sign
That’s an amazingly blanketed statement. When you say attacked, do you mean raped, mugged, relationship abuse, all of the above or something else? And is this in campuses, in the USA or across the world? What really bugs me about your comment is not the (somewhat warranted) idea that white men have it easier than anyone else, its the implication that non-white women have it worse than EVERYONE else. This ignores hate crimes, child abuse, gay bashing, etc. And since “non-white” covers the majority of people on the planet and 52% of them are female, you’ve skewed the numbers so that your statement almost HAS to be true. If you want to bring up specific injustices, fine, lets talk. But, please don’t use the worn out “white men is ebil overlords and I’m a poor victim” argument. Its demeaning to others who have suffered.
I’d assume USA. Other countries have different patterns of prejudice. And yeah, it’s pretty much accurate. I’d guess that’s for adults, with children being considered separately.
Nor, anywhere in there did they say anything about white men being evil. Just less likely to be victims. Which doesn’t mean can’t be victims, of course.
The “pity the poor white men” thing is also pretty worn out, though it still seems to work fairly well.
🙂 🙂 🙂 u know if you want to ask for my sources you don’t have to be rude about it
but given that my sources are all of human history, most statistics on attacks (be it verbal, physical, or otherwise) and ask any nonwhite woman on twitter, you’re going to have to be more specific about your ignorance so that i can answer your questions
I responded badly before so I’ll try to choose my words more carefully this time. I know women are more likely to be the victims of violence than men. I also know that there are cultures where women are treated far more brutally than they are in typical Western European culture. But percentage-wise, are women more likely to be victimized than homosexuals of either gender? Or children? I honestly don’t know and it shouldn’t matter because violence is violence; noone should suffer it. I just don’t want anyone’s pain to be considered less important than anyone else’s.
I’m sorry about the “ebil white men” comment. I was in a bad mood and acted like an a-hole.
the problem is that you are asking me to do your homework for you. if you are curious about the comparison of rates of violent attacks between women and gay people, then it is your responsibility to go look that up. it is not my job to be an encyclopedia of relevant facts for you.
my guess would be that gay men are more privileged than women (or possibly equivalent to white women?), and straight women more privileged than gay women, and gay women (potentially) more privileged than trans women in this regard, but that’s mostly my intuition speaking.
also like that reaally. does not. include intersectionality at all. i mean it’s not like people divide themselves into neat little subsets of gay vs. lesbian vs. trans vs. nonwhite, we contain multitudes
lol no, my friend, the large majority of LGBTQIAPN+-bashing crime victims are people of color, and being a trans woman of color specifically is the most dangerous. That you don’t already know that is only because LGBTQIAPN+ organizations have a nasty habit of not breaking down their statistics by race when they publish them.
Also, that little ~logic~ trap you laid is cute and all, but I’m afraid the statistics we’re talking about account for “women are a very slight majority”, and people of color are not in any way the majority in the USA but still make up the majority of the victims of violent crime anyway. So sorry your gotcha turned out to be so flimsy.
He’s a person. There will always be people who will side with someone, no matter how heinous the crime was. White privilege is real but its not an absolute.
I like to say that “priviledge” as an accusation is kinda like BMI as a measure of health. Its a valid concept and great meaning when measuring the average across a population. But the moment you use it as a diagnostic on an individual, you failed either philosophy or logic or both.
I don’t mean to say that people don’t act out of priveledge. They do. But priveledge is a descriptor, not a diagnostic.
Except that it IS diagnostic. Taking privilege for granted, falling to see where you have privileges that other people do not, that directly leads to a lot of crappy behavior.
And while not every white person has an easier life than every person of color, that doesn’t mean privilege doesn’t apply to individuals.
White privilege is a real phenomenon, but once you acknowledge it, you need to work on specific problems, not dwell on the unfairness of it all. Talk about why blacks and Latinos are more likely to be convicted than whites or how their sentences are usually longer. Figure out how to break the glass ceiling. But whining about unfairness in general is pointless.
“And while not every white person has an easier life than every person of color, that doesn’t mean privilege doesn’t apply to individuals.”
When you use it as “you’re a white person therefore you have privilege” yes, that’s exactly what it means. Privilege exists on the individual level, but it is not useful as a tool going from the general to the specific level. That is overgeneralizing and is the root of basically all forms of bigotry: “All X people are Y characteristic”
It’s one thing to see an individual who clearly does have privilege and comment on the reason, (IE. “He was treated better because he’s white” or “It’s because he’s rich that he got away with this thing.”) but the reverse situation is simply not useful. Assuming a white person WILL experience the privilege that comes across the AVERAGE or all white people is the same kind of bad logic as assuming that a black person will automatically behave like the average of all black people. Granted, the consequences of them are different, but it’s still bad logic.
Hey guess what. If you’re a person, then you have privilege.
White people aren’t the only ones who have it, but if you’re white in this country, that means don’t have to deal with systemic racism. You get to see people who look like you in the media, portrayed in a variety of ways as 3 dimensional people with inner lives.
Now, if you’re gay, a woman, transgender, an atheist, a Muslim (or anything other than Christian), if you’re disabled, neurodivergant, or mentally ill, if you’re elderly, overweight, or not conventionally attractive, if you’re poor, have a criminal record, or are an immigrant, all of those things affect privilege differently.
Having privilege isn’t about YOU. It’s about society. Our culture gives preferential treatment to wealthy, attractive, young, neurotypical white heterosexual cisgender male Christians who speak English without an accent.
If that describes you, then you have privilege because of this.
There’s a major difference between having general privilege and experiencing that privilege in a given situation. It is neither accurate nor helpful to anyone to assume that a member of a privileged class will automatically benefit from their privileged class status in a particular situation. Not all white people always benefit the same way from privilege. What I and some others are arguing is you cannot use privilege as a predictive tool on an individual level. “He’s white, so this specific thing will happen” is not a logical or helpful statement to make 99.99% of the time. You can use privilege to EXPLAIN, but not to PREDICT, else it by definition is becoming at best, dangerously close to racist/sexist/whatever other form of bigotry is relevant to the statement, and at worst, explicitly that.
He’s a white male, so these sort of things are in fact more likely to happen.
Society’s preference for white dudes makes it more likely to happen. As long as that is true, predicting results to be biased in his favor is completely reasonable.
And this “implying that white privilege benefits individual white people is the REAL racism” line of argument is ridiculous. Grow up.
If it’s fair to say it’s more likely, then people making predictions about it shouldn’t be a problem.
And racial profiling is a manifestation of our society favoring white people.
If I predict that a little old white lady is far less likely to be hassled by the TSA than a Muslim man with a beard and a turban, then YES, it’s based on the same logic employed by the TSA agents doing the profiling, because THAT’S WHY IT’S MORE LIKELY.
“American society gives White people preferential treatment” and “black people are more likely to commit crimes” are NOT comparable. The first one is actually true, and supported by data. The second is not.
As Foamy said there’s a distinction between something being “likely” and it being certain. And at know point did i imply, much less state, that the white privilege blaming took away from other forms of racism or was more real than them, but it IS racism. Assuming an individual will do something or get something because of their race is racism, by it’s very definition. Most racist lines of thought are based on statistics. Many minorities, at one point in time or another, were statistically more likely to match some of their stereotypes(not all though, some are just made up) but those stereotypes and assumptions are still racist because the individual is not the race and many of those statistics had underlying outside causes.
Statistical arguments that imply something is near certain are especially risky since something could have a .001% chance of happening in one race, and a .005% chance of happening in another and you could honestly say it was “five times as likely” but it’s still insignificant. (I intentionally used the exaggerated numbers there to make the point, I am NOT saying or implying that privilege is that rare or even close to it)
Now that’s purely wrong. Racist notions of black people, for example, are not based on statistics. Not even on old statistics. They’re based on white folks lying to each other to justify slavery.
White privilege isn’t really based on statistics either. It’s based on living in a society where “white” is the norm, where everything else is disadvantaged. Doesn’t mean you’re going to live like a king, of course. But if you’re white, you benefit from it, all the time, mostly in little ways. Often without you being aware.
Muslims’re more likely to smash planes into buildings than little old ladies though Fart Captor, or so people think. So you get dudes being hassled for the crime of doing math while Arabic. Hooray everything.
PS: Saying “but the statistics don’t support X” without further arguments against X implicitly means X would be okay if the statistics DID support it.
That’s not a great tack to take if you’re trying to say X is wrong.
@GJT:
“White privilege blaming”, even when that’s what’s actually what’s happening (fyi, it isn’t here), is in no way comparable to actual racism.
Giving dudes like Ryan a benefit of a doubt they would not give to minorities is a thing our society does. THAT is racism.
Making predictions that our flawed society will likely act in a typically flawed manner is not racism.
You’re basically saying “well I’m not denying that privilege is real or even uncommon, but people basing predictions on that real, common occurrence is wrong somehow”
@foamy:
You were likening “pointing out the likelihood that white male privilege is part of why Ryan has supporters” to racism. Yes, even if valid statistical data showed that any given Muslim was likely to be a terrorist, it would still be wrong to treat all of them like terrorists.
This is not comparable to people predicting that the way our society favors white males has benefited a particular white male.
The first is wrong, and acting on that assumption would have harmful consequences. The second is both true, and people acting on it would not result in harm, but awareness.
““White privilege blaming”, even when that’s what’s actually what’s happening (fyi, it isn’t here), is in no way comparable to actual racism.”
What is happening with Ryan isn’t the situation I was responding to. Saying Ryan’s supporters are because he is a white man is explanatory, not predictive. I was responding to discussion of the situation, not the situation itself. What i mean by white privilege blaming is NOT accusing an individual of white privilege after the fact like what is happening with Ryan, it is the viewpoint that “You are part of a privilege group so you are the problem” and all the sub-problems that branch off from it.
“Giving dudes like Ryan a benefit of a doubt they would not give to minorities is a thing our society does. THAT is racism.”
100% agreed.
“Making predictions that our flawed society will likely act in a typically flawed manner is not racism.”
Also agreed. What IS racist(or sexist, or whatever is relevant) is the assumption that all members of a privilege group will receive that privilege in a given situation and therefore those individuals are somehow worse or in the wrong because their group is usually treated better by society, even in situations where they themselves DON’T end up benefiting from the privilege in question.
“You’re basically saying “well I’m not denying that privilege is real or even uncommon, but people basing predictions on that real, common occurrence is wrong somehow””
Ok, i’ll give you this one to a point. I did give that impression. I’ll revise/clarify. Predictions are the problem. Treating those predictions like a certainty, or treating the individuals like they are responsible for everything society does regarding them is the problem.
And to give an overarcing statement in case I missed something: I am in NO WAY defending Ryan or saying he does not have white privilege, or male privilege, or any other particular privileges he may possess. All i was trying to address was the general topic of not overcompensating and trying to help unprivileged groups by targeting individuals of the privileged group for hate/bashing, rather than actually trying to help the underprivileged. Ryan(or whatever his real name is), and those like him, do not deserve protection, but it’s not BECAUSE he has white/male privilege, it’s because of what he DID that that white/male privilege is protecting him from. White privilege is a problem with society(and the individuals that support it), not a problem with the individuals that RECEIVE it.
I absolutely agree that privilege a problem with society and not the people receiving it. But I don’t see anyone here who has said otherwise, so I don’t understand who you were arguing against. I don’t see anyone saying that Ryan is bad because of white male privilege, only people saying white male privilege is bad because protects assholes like Ryan from what they deserve.
The people who are choosing to side with Ryan based on nothing – those members of society actively perpetuating injustices like this – they ARE a problem. They are responsible for the harm caused by the disparities they help create and maintain.
Predicting a crappy thing which happens all too often has happened again here is not harming anyone. Even people being 100% sure of those predictions.
“Saying Ryan’s supporters are because he is a white man is explanatory, not predictive.” Predicting that Ryan would have supporters before we learned about them would also not have been racist. As Felgraf says below, the Red Pillers would have jumped on board pretty much regardless.
“Also agreed. What IS racist(or sexist, or whatever is relevant) is the assumption that all members of a privilege group will receive that privilege in a given situation and therefore those individuals are somehow worse or in the wrong because their group is usually treated better by society, even in situations where they themselves DON’T end up benefiting from the privilege in question.” Here’s the big break in understanding. Particularly the second part: Having privilege doesn’t make you worse or put you in the wrong. It’s just a thing. It’s part of the society we live in. If you’ve got a particular kind of privilege, there really isn’t anything you can do about it. You can’t demand that everyone treat you as if you didn’t.
“I absolutely agree that privilege a problem with society and not the people receiving it. But I don’t see anyone here who has said otherwise, so I don’t understand who you were arguing against. I don’t see anyone saying that Ryan is bad because of white male privilege, only people saying white male privilege is bad because protects assholes like Ryan from what they deserve.”
Ok. Agreed.
“The people who are choosing to side with Ryan based on nothing – those members of society actively perpetuating injustices like this – they ARE a problem. They are responsible for the harm caused by the disparities they help create and maintain.”
Also agreed. To clarify that is what i meant by “and the individuals who support it”.
“Predicting a crappy thing which happens all too often has happened again here is not harming anyone. Even people being 100% sure of those predictions.”
I do agree that I said the wrong thing before, the predictions aren’t a problem, it’s just the way a subset of people use those predictions that is. I just noticed i made a typo in my last post, it should say “Predictions aren’t the problem” not “are”, and before that, I was just arguing wrongly on that particular point.
“Predicting that Ryan would have supporters before we learned about them would also not have been racist. As Felgraf says below, the Red Pillers would have jumped on board pretty much regardless.”
I agree, I believe I have already clarified that point.
“Here’s the big break in understanding. Particularly the second part: Having privilege doesn’t make you worse or put you in the wrong. It’s just a thing. It’s part of the society we live in. If you’ve got a particular kind of privilege, there really isn’t anything you can do about it. You can’t demand that everyone treat you as if you didn’t.”
Also agreed, but I also wanted to get across that privilege is not universal within a privileged group. That is basically the crux of my argument here. It is not racist to guess that someone will probably benefit from white privilege. It’s not racist to be confident in it. It becomes racist when you use the assumption that they WILL benefit because their group benefits more often, to make decisions regarding how to treat them. This is already bad even if the individual IS actually benefiting from their privilege in the situation, but it’s even worse when it’s just assumed they must be benefiting. And people do definitely do both of those things. Even arguing that “regular” (meaning more commonly recognized forms of) racism are BIGGER problems doesn’t make it not a problem when people do this. Examples include “You’re privileged so you don’t get to have opinions on this”, “You’re privileged you aren’t allowed to complain about mistreatment”, and “You’re privileged you must abuse it all the time”. I originally felt like this tone is what was being lead up to, but now I think I misunderstood the tone of the conversation. So while i still stand by my arguments(except the one part I’ve already ceded) I admit they may not actually be relevant to this conversation. So I’ll probably just move on, just wanted to explain myself first.
He is a white man accused of attempting to rape a woman.
Oh hell yes he has sympathizers. Like, the entire MRA/Red Pill crowd, instantly, and with no question, for starters.
But he’s such a prooooomising young man with suuuuuuch good grades and suuuuch a great start in politics! How can we possibly want to ruin this wonderful boy’s life over one little thing?!
…okay, feeling ill from typing that, but that’s not far off from the rhetoric that has been used in reality to justify light sentences for rapists and other sex offenders in reality.
While it’s colored a little by Willis’ writing, some people are definitely gonna try and defend the guy who was glassed when there’s no tangible evidence he did anything wrong.
We know he’s a dirtbag.
But everyone else?
It’s a he said/she said story.
Until more people join the conversation.
this. people who can’t magically watch and go back in time to see what happened in this comic aka the characters and misc people you never see might not trust it right away.
I’d like to say that sort of thing is rare in real life, but I know a guy who’s first comment on the Cosby rape charges was along the lines of “it’s pretty easy for a woman to make that sort of thing up”.
Thanks to everyone who matters there no case or evidence, besides the blood on Joyce’s shirt which could be reversed into a an assault charge against her. Seriously, they have nothing, their words only as good as his and it’s been at least a month or so since the attack given the known timeline so far. I’m not defending the guy, I’m just pointing out argument that could be made against them. they should have gone to the hospital and gotten the drugging on record.
Do you want to know how the justice system in America works? Of the sexual assaults that are reported, almost none are investigated. Of the ones that are investigated, almost none are charged. Of the ones that are charged, almost none are prosecuted. Of the ones that are prosecuted, almost no rapists are convicted.
Add into the fact that at almost every step of the process, Joyce is likely to be asked why she was at a party’s where there was alcohol, what she was wearing, is it possible she led him on, etc etc etc.
There is not justice to be found for survivors n the American legal justice system. Don’t tell survivors what we should have done.
literally none of your first statement is true, rape is so despised that people have actually been sent to prison on shorty evidence and fake stories fro false claims (they may be few in number but they still happen). Secondly, all three of the questions that would be asked of Joyce are likely to be dismissed for there lack of reasonability. Finally we do have justice for victims but, we also have a system that believes in Facts, evidence and Truth not FEELINGS or believe because I say so. If we lived under a justice system where an accusation equaled a jail sentence then just about everyone would be in prison for the worst of shit. We may not have a perfect system but atleast it’s better then nothing
And do you remember Brock Turner? He was convicted and only did 3 months in jail. His case may not have been typical, but it’s far from uncommon.
That isn’t justice.
I strongly doubt anyone here is saying “innocent until proven guilty” is a bad policy. It’s not. But it also shouldn’t mean that accusations get dismissed, aren’t investigated, or get the victim grilled as if they committed a crime.
If in the vast majority of cases where rapists got little or no punishment, the reason was because there wasn’t enough evidence to convict, it would be a dramatic improvement over the current situation
Both of you are actually right. Rape is certainly underreported because a lot of women don’t want to admit they were raped due to various factors and people often don’t believe them. The traditional evidentiary standards courts use also mean that reliable evidence of rape is extremely hard to come by.
This is why courts today use rules of evidence that are extremely relaxed for sexual assault and rape cases. It allows for the conviction of defendants on flimsier evidence, because flimsy evidence is all rape cases tend to get and it’s such a heinous and underreported crime that Congress was willing to take greater risks of convicting innocent people in order to crack down on rapists.
Justice is blind means it’s blind to; Race, gender, religion, age, creed, statues but, not unto it’s self. The guilty should be punished but, not until you know their guilty. That’s why our moto is INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty.
Justice is blind. The Justice System is not, because it’s made up of people. Who are subject to prejudice, bias, hate, incompetence, and all kinds of other petty bullshit.
By “dismissing survivors”, Zatar means that when one tries to report what happened, far too often they are dismissed by the police, who say they must have wanted it. They may get dismissed by prosecutors, who don’t want to take up the case because they think it “wasn’t really rape”. They may get dismissed by the courts who will try drag them through the mud for voluntarily having had sex at some point in their lives, or for having done drugs or having any criminal record. The defense will almost certainly do so.
Then finally, if they get a conviction, the judge may dismiss them by giving their attacker probation instead of jail, because they “don’t want to ruin the young man’s promising future”
and unless there’s been a change in medical law that I’m not aware of the doctors can’t tell her parents anything unless she’s allowed it, if she were incapable of making any decisions or was unconscious that’s a different story. (If there are any other exceptions I’m not aware of them)
I am going to guess that he has been going around with the tale of the minister’s son who got assaulted by a black woman at a party so if the truth ever pokes its head people will believe that its disinformation to cover up the assault.
The only “sympathizers” who “matter” in this, though, are either voters in Indiana’s 9th Congressional District—more specifically, *Republican or Republican-leaning voters,* or donors. If more of them sympathize with the minister’s son who has been accused of sexual assault, and “was assaulted by a black woman at a party,” as Pylgrim said—-if more of the voters sympathize with him than sympathize with the recently-outed lesbian Congresswoman, then it’s game over for Robin. And that’s among *Republicans,* remember.
My money’s on Ryan, in this case. Some voters are going to refuse to vote for Robin because she’s a Republican; of the remaining voters, some will refuse to vote for a lesbian, and some will probably refuse to vote for her simply because Ryan *was* an intern for her. She’s not going to be left with many voters to support her, at the end.
Exactly. Barring some serious scandal on Jake’s side, her coming out as a lesbian and going after Ryan, isn’t going to pick up enough Democratic (or leaning) voters to make up for those she loses.
I honestly think Robin has just never given a thought about how her positions actually hurt people. This was a reality check, and she’s trying to figure out how the hell to process it. Her impulsiveness is either going to make it easier, or harder. I guess we’ll see.
“Hey, guys! Not-Ryan, here, and welcome back to Minecraft Survival Mode! Today, I’ve decided to finish building my giant, roofless building, because I have never done anything involving roofs or words including the word roof, not even once.”
I don’t think it’s the rape accusation. It’s probably because he got beat up by Amazi-girl and a random black “troublemaker” in a 2v4 at a public rally.
He DID immediately attack Amazi-Girl when she accused him of drugging girls. Everything he did that night was “Attack the source of the info,” and not once was the claim refuted. Shit, he SAYS “You’re just jealous no one has ever wanted to drug your fat ass.”
Whether Amazi-Girl’s testimony would hold up is the problem (they’re in Indiana, so probably not), because you can be damn sure the people at the rally would have a different story.
I’mma get yelled at, but there are tons of people who still believe the person who’s currently sitting in the Oval Office, in a job he doesn’t deserve, didn’t say the things he’s actually been filmed saying.
As I said above, there are a lot of stupid people.
He’s just some poor random guy who got his face pasted all over the internet with a RAPIST!! tag. Getting smeared by someone, probably. No proof he did anything wrong. Really, if he’d raped someone why haven’t we heard about some guy running around raping people? Why haven’t they been reporting it? Pfft, if he HAS been sleeping with girls, they probably just had regrets and cried rape after…
It’s a very iffy line. Because rape (and attempted rape) is a super serious issue that is both hard to prove and hard to deny. I think it is worth it to take a victim’s word for it, but then there’s cases of false accusations and someone’s life being ruined because of it. And even if you’re later proven innocent, that basically hangs over your life forever.
That said in this case there’s at least several eye witnesses and friends to corroborate and back up the claim.
Almost anything that can happen has happened at one time or other. The question is: what happens most commonly? Outlier cases are used to discount the existence of rape, usually in sentences beginning “Well, what about…?”
True, but the U.S. justice system doesn’t use statistics, either. What is USUALLY true, in ‘similar circumstances’, isn’t relevant under the law, only what can be PROVEN to have happened in this particular case. This is why many people find court rulings to be frustrating enough to start bloody riots over – because they ignore ‘common sense’ and what’s ‘obvious’, and focus on evidence. And that’s not how many people think.
That’s not always the case though. The Brock Turner case is the poster child for a case where it was proven, but the judge dropped the sentence. And “proven” is very often a thing that relies on the jury judging credibility, which is an easy way for common prejudices and assumptions to come in.
And there are, especially in the case of rape, many ways that victims have their credibility questioned or their reports dismissed or ignored long before it could actually come to trial.
I have a lot of friends who have been sexually assaulted or sexually abused. More than a few of them are men. While some people deny rape in every case, the men I knew who have been sexually assaulted weren’t believed by anyone they told when it first happened.
The truth is, sexual assault happens to people of all genders, races, and ages. If you are a more vulnerable person (for example, disabled, as one of the men I knew who was assaulted was), were a child at the time of the assault, are LGBT in a homophic and transphobic community, you are more likely to be targeted because the attacker is more likely to get away with it.
In fact, recent studies have shown in the united states that disabled men, and children of both genders, are more likely to be victims of sexual assault or abuse than able-bodied adult women. Able bodied women are more likely to be assaulted than able-bodied men, and disabled women have the highest likelihood of assault.
I think the reason people have a problem with the over-representation of able-bodied women in advertising campaigns against sexual violence is not because people think able bodied women should not be free from violence or deserve to be attacked. Rather, it is that by making rape a Feminist(R) issue, it obscures the fact that it is a quite serious issue for everyone. There is no need to play Oppression Olympics when it comes to rape and sexual violence.
As a disabled woman myself, I know that I have never seen a single disabled person in an anti-sexual violence campaign. I also have had a lot of disabled people, of both genders, almost equally men and women, open up to me about experiencing sexual assault who told me that it was the first time they’ve told anyone about it.
Male victims of sexual assault are almost never believed, and for disabled men this is even more true, because they are seen as both not sexually desirable as a disabled person and yet as always desiring sex as a man.
In addition, many surveys about sexual violence do not count people who were sexually violated as children, but not as adults, despite the fact that sexual violence done to a child has lasting damage into adulthood and is traumatic. In surveys about Childhood Sexual Abuse, one in six boys and one in five girls are sexually abused. Keeping this truth in mind, any study that shows that men are so rarely victims of sexual assault (I have seen as high as one in thirty six!) discounts the one in six men currently suffering the long term effects of CSA.
So when people bring this up, this idea that able bodied adult female victim of sexual violence is the predominant person we all should be concerned with when making policy to combat sexual violence, it is a serious problem. The truth is, 1 out of 3 child rapists is a woman, and a full FIFTY PERCENT of people who abuse disabled people are women, often women placed in caregiver roles, assumed to be naturally nurturing.
I am 100% in favor of ending sexual violence forever. There are many ways we can go about doing that. But whatever is done must account for ALL perpetrators and ALL victims, not simply the ones you see portrayed in ad campiagns and in films.
So many people forget about the male victims. I did a report on male victims of sexual and domestic violence while getting my Master’s, and it made me cry constantly. Article after article detailing crap that is out there and how even the resources that are there to help victims will often ignore anyone not female at birth. They are even less likely to be believed by police, and more likely to be victim shamed, with the shamers using their masculinity against them (you could have fought them off, you must have really wanted it; or well you are gay so are sexually deviant and either deserve this or wanted it).
I think if I had included the disabled population in my report I would have jumped out the window. I think it would have been too much to handle.
I just wanted to thank you for your comment though, as it was well written and full of truths.
i think….this is important, but not particularly relevant to the question of “should we believe people when they say they have been assaulted/raped/abused”
which. the answer is yes, always yes. because regardless of whether or not they are lying, they need the help. and when something like that happens, it is so easy to be disoriented and invalidated.
if women making false claims of rape is a thing, then that deserves to be investigated on a case-by-case basis. but we can’t invalidate all claims of rape on the basis of a few women making a few false claims of rape, because that damages everyone, including men who need to make claims of having been raped.
in the case of the woman who sexually assaults and then lies about having been assaulted, taking her seriously means giving her attention and aid. part of that should include therapy. and i think it’d be pretty easy for a therapist to figure out whether or not she’s lying – i mean, it’s really hard to sustain a lie, especially one like that. patterns of behavior, patterns of thought – those can be picked up on. like: taking her seriously means investigating her claim and finding the truth.
Exactly what I’m getting at. Yes, male victims ABSOLUTELY matter, but I’m really sick and tired of them ONLY being trotted out as some sort of gainsaying counterpoint when we’re talking about female victims- and, more seriously, the entire “false accusations!!!1” argument.
Your comment is good and valid, and it’s important that we talk about male victims. It ISN’T important that they be brought up in every single conversation we have about female victims being treated like liars for speaking out.
well with no proof and a he said she said situation, while we readers know exactly what happened people who never met this guy and have seen false cases like mattress girl get a little wary of automatic trusting.
It’d be really nice if it were ‘false positives’ responsible for that mindset, but… almost literally every case in existence of a white guy sexually assaulting and raping girls, he gets sympathizers and supporters even when the evidence is 100% rock solid to the point of being convicted at trial.
On the other hand, this is a Trump with standards, apparently, so it’s clearly coming from some sort of alternate timeline. Take me with you when you go back, Willis. 🙁
That’s what I’m thinking: you could just tell them “no” and make them dig up the name anyway. Course, firing them makes her feel good & righteous and makes the problem go away of ‘hey, those two people I hired & made do all my work & know me well thought I’d put my career over this, what does that say about me?’ NOPE NUFFING JUST THEM HONEST
like. jesus. i mean i can accept that he is in power because of these things but what kills me is that all this happened because people just….put up with it. and allowed it to happen
That and redeemability unless broken down into more pragmatic deliverables is a wholly subjective measure based more on audience patience or frustration than on any objective qualities.
…..
Spellcheck doesn’t think that’s a word. Redeemability? Redemptability? Redemptiveness? Redeemness? Rede…
i mean. yes? but also no?? idk i guess redeemability is something formulated on your ability to forgive someone and for me it’s just. nope. best he can do is go live somewhere far away from me where i never have to hear about him again
i lived most of my life in blissful ignorance of donald trump and i hope to someday again achieve the same state but until then i live in the agony of having my country governed by an incompetent twaddle and honestly i may never forgive him for that. any reasonable person would just. never have run in the first place in his shoes
but he’s an old white dude who watches fox news and has never had anyone tell him no who went on a power trip that ended up with him in the white house and empowering people like steve bannon and mike pence and honestly
Okay, but, hypothetically. (And this will never happen, but hypothetically.) Let’s say he gets sent to jail and has a change of heart. From prison, he sets up a very-transparent charitable organization and pours most of his wealth into it, and spends a lot of the rest on compensating those he’s wronged throughout his life. He goes to the age of 90 doing nothing but good.
Unlikely? No. But IF that happened?
…. I think that a lot of our notions of justice (including redemption) arise out of a conflict between our desire to harm those we are (often justifiably) angry about, and our desire to better the world.
Sometimes these overlap — Sarah beaning “Ryan” in the head with a baseball bat did both old-testament harm and prevented some very bad stuff from happening. As another example creating the deterrent effect of a penal system, or a less formal pariah-system, can both harm the shithead while improving the world.
But sometimes there’s a tug-of-war between these two concepts that we’ve conflated into a single notion of justice.
Do I have a bloodlusty side of me that wants to see him suffer a horrible, agonizing fate? Yes. He’s my enemy. But I also have a side of me that wants what’s best for the world, and if that means reforming instead of punishing, that’s what it means. (Not that I think that’s a plausible path in this case.)
The notion of redemption (if we strip away the more religious elements) is a focus on somehow making the person a force for good in the world, and emphasizing that over punishment. It only works if we’re willing to let go of the desire to punish. Often we’re not. Often we shouldn’t be. Sometime it’s possible to reform a person, but no sane observer would think it’s LIKELY, and the best odds you can play to improve the world is to make an example of them pour encourager les outres. Establishing and maintaining a societal expectation that even the powerful are accountable for their ill deeds does GREAT benefit to the world.
…. so, I’m meandering. Trying to bring it home here, redemption would require genuine reform. He might theoretically have the capacity but he’s shown neither habit nor skill for the act nor the necessary self-awareness. Some considerable good could be done by bestowing on him a pariah “irredeemable” status instead, and as a completely unbiasing bonus it also makes us feel good. (Kinda. Venting anger feels good but also perpetuates the anger, which doesn’t feel good if unvented, so…. I dunno.)
…. okay, new theory. I’m a philosophizing windbag and should probably be trying to sleep right now.
i guess i feel like…if, at this point, donald trump were to turn his life around, the first thing he would have to do is accept that people have the right to be angry at him. and there are a lot more steps to go but like
being a good person isn’t about whether or not people accept you as a good person, or even like you very much. it’s about doing good things, repeatedly, because they are good to do, regardless of any reward you may or may not personally receive from them.
so i guess i see redemption less as a communal recognition and more of an individual thing, based on the content of your moral character as it changes from where it had been. i mean if you want people to see that you’ve changed, you have to show them that you’ve changed; but you can’t base your change around what people may or may not see in you. it is something you have to do for yourself.
i don’t have to hate donald in order to not-forgive him. honestly that’s kind of a waste of my energy. but what justice demands is that he be held accountable for his actions in a court of law. what liberty demands is protest of him at each and every level of society until justice is obtained. by the rule of law, once he has served his sentence then he is essentially redeemed – he has faced punishment and now he is free to go. but justice has been countermanded by his reckless abandonment of it, and now he is here.
my personal emotions don’t really come into play in the question of donald’s place in society, if that makes sense. i don’t need him to die a horrible death in order for justice to be done, unless justice demands it. donald is never going to be a person i can like, i’m pretty sure. that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the same right to live as any other person on this planet does. it just also doesn’t mean that he gets the right to trample all over everyone else just because he’s donald trump.
…….i mean at this point being donald trump is enough of a pariah status to not need to put any more labels on him, we all know who he is, and we have opportunity to know how awful he is. it is his identity, personality, himness that makes him detestable. and that’s not something that’s going to go away unless he makes active changes, but also there is no real reason to believe that he is going to make those changes of his own initiative. which is why we have to exert outside pressure.
…..see like. just because you’ve turned your life around doesn’t mean that people have to put up with you, is what i guess i’m getting at, and turning your life around means being okay with that and being grateful for the things you do have
-paps- i hope you had a good sleep by the time you read this!!
LIKE IDK suffering does not create more justice, is what i’m getting at. someone burning in hell doesn’t mean that what they did gets undone, it just means that they are burning in hell. there’s no real justice in that because nothing is accomplished of merit except that person not having the ability to hurt anyone but themselves anymore, and even hurting themselves does not create justice.
justice, i think, is accomplished by the truth coming to light and being validated, and consequences being handed out accordingly. you don’t have to like someone who’s committed sexual assault. you don’t have to hang out with someone who’s committed sexual assault. you don’t have to exonerate someone who’s committed sexual assault just because they’ve served their time. you don’t have to do shit on an interpersonal level, basically
but justice is created by the action ending, i think. the prevention of further harm. what is injust has been injust and will continue to be unjust; healing can only take place in the aftermath, but what has been destroyed will never be the same. the event exists, and cannot be undone. there’s no scales that can appropriately be balanced, because each action is different and they don’t outweigh each other, i don’t think. you’re just…you, with the things you have done and the life that you choose to live after the event. and whether or not you make that a life worth living
“…. I think that a lot of our notions of justice (including redemption) arise out of a conflict between our desire to harm those we are (often justifiably) angry about, and our desire to better the world.”
There’s an awful lot of legal theory written about precisely that, because you’re by no means the first to notice it. It’s a fascinating topic, and especially so because when based on outcomes it seems that what people consider proportionate sentences to certain crimes have minimal benefits (and many drawbacks) over shorter ones. This is also part of why judicial sentencing outrages people. It’s easy for a mob to demand blood, but it’s explicitly part of a judge’s job to not be a mob member.
This is particularly and especially true when the crime involved is something that pushes people’s hot buttons. It’s very easy to be blase about trying to rehabilitate a burglar (or, say, outright decriminalizing drug use); it’s another to say that these principles should still apply to Mr. Breivik, or to something that has personally wronged you. But that’s a visceral reaction, not one that comes from a measured, professional assessment.
Of course, in the States, you have elected judges and law enforcement, something that boggles me every time I think about it, so professionalism is not at a premium.
Re yesterday’s discussion about redemption arcs — taking this step makes it that much harder for her to continue in denial about how she’s treated Leslie. I hope.
The way I see Robin, it’s much more likely for her to correct her behavior and never treat anyone the way she treated Leslie ever again, than… stop being in denial about the time that already happened.
Or I guess she’s looking back and forth or just looking at Frieda. But I still like the idea of her just staring off away from them because firing people feels awkward.
Also note how Robin’s campaign took a hit because of “Ryan” but he still has sympathizers, to the point of him being more popular than her. Part of my rage is that this is how it would likely go down in real life too.
They imagine he’s being falsely accused and having his life ruined by lying bongos, or some such bullshit. It’s… pretty much exactly what happens any time any high-profile rape case comes up. Noted Rapist Brock Turner definitely had plenty of “sympathizers” too.
Yes, including the judge who gave him such a ridiculously lenient sentence because the poor rich white boy’s life shouldn’t be ruined. And this is for someone who was actually proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be a rapist.
i saw a case about a lady who got drunk or drugged up and stabbed a guy and got off because it might hurt her surgical career. not exactly the same setting but still the law system is messed up.
while it was only a butter knife she admitted to it which if find interesting.
I still think Robin is a shitty, awful human being, and I REALLY hope she doesn’t end up with Leslie, who deserves so much better.
But, hey, good on her for this, at least.
Nuke the swamp from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
…..
…..
…. okay, fine, use some sort of orbital magnifying heat lens to evaporate the swamp, yeah, that’s probably more efficient and will have less radioactive fallout.
technically, using a kinetic projectile probably wouldn’t work too well, assuming it’s just a metal rod using the force of gravity to accelerate from orbit.
You might make a few craters in the swamp, maybe a nice fountain of water flying into the air at the moment of impact, but I doubt it would actually effect…….you’d have to hit a dam or something that is holding the water into the swamp in order to do meaningful damage.
This is assuming, of course, that this is just a standard type of metal like tungsten. If you’re using, Uranium, Plutonium, or other super dense, radioactive metals then you’re just fucking over a bunch of fetid water and everything that lives in it.
……
……
I have been reading way too much (read: not enough) Jack Campbell lately.
Actually, you could use kinetic projectiles to alter the topography, thus affecting water flow. Destroy natural barriers that contain the flow of water, so that water naturally flows out of the swamp, and the land will dry up over the course of a few decades.
She’s not angry, so much as confused at how they apparently didn’t expect to be fired what they just suggested. She’s just pointing it out like something that should’ve been obvious to them.
A Republican behaving like this stretches credibility way more than a costumed vigilante taking part in a high speed chase with motorcycle jumps and stuff. I miss your grounded stories about aliens and 80’s cereal villains.
I personally know multiple Republican elected officials who would do this.
Then again, I live in Massachusetts. The only way a Republican gets elected here is to be basically a Democrat, since you have to win over so many Democrats to get into office.
Source: Have interned for multiple elected officials and candidates. Also, it’s pretty easy to get to know multiple Republican officials if you spend time in, say, the State House. When I was an intern there, there were 4 Republican State Senators, out of a total of 40. This was in 2011, when the number of Republicans doubled from 2 to 4 after the 2000 elections.
I should note that one of the Republicans I interned for was openly gay and married. Another was one of the deciding votes that made gay marriage legal in Massachusetts. Massachusetts Republicans are kind of their own subspecies.
Not only more supporters than the politician that just…. kinda… out… maybe? …. but supporters. Period. AT ALL.
Here’s why it makes sense. A horrible type of sense that you can kinda understand and it makes you feel slimy for understanding it even that far, so maybe stop reading here.
People like to support people they either identify with or WANT to identify with. This creates identity-networks of people that are “like” them — part of an adopted tribe, even if they’ve never met. Then they filter reality in favor of their chosen tribes and to the detriment of opposing tribes.
So, if people imagine themselves to be persecuted, and see someone else being persecuted, they will imagine other commonalities with that person. If a man gets into ugly shouting matches with women a lot and feels it’s not his fault, and sees a second man in a fight with a woman, he will identify with that second man and assume that the second man is also blameless.
Multiply this by many possible WAYS to identify, or disidentify. Someone who has trouble getting girls? Yeah, that’s me. Assault victim? That’s a VICTIM, I don’t want to identify with that, even thinking about that’s traumatic. If there’s a battle of the sexes and I’m male, I’m more likely to identify with the men than the women. If I’m white, I’m more likely to identify with someone who’s white than black. If I’m a Desanto supporter, I’m more likely to side with another Desanto supporter. If I’m a frat boy, I’ll side with another frat boy.
All of this can happen very, very quickly in the cognitive space, on a subconscious level, before the larger cloud of facts gets processed. So before I even register that there’s an accusation of rape, I will have identified with the fellow white male frat boy who supports the same party as me, and I will therefore be biased against the charges against him that I hear 2.7 seconds later. I won’t want that to be the case, so I’ll embrace the possibility that they aren’t.
The supporters they’re worried about are not the general public. The supporters they’re worried about are the core base, the swing voters, and the donors. Rape is a feminist issue, and feminism is the purview of those satanic liberals, not the good upright conservatives. Identity bias, or whatever it’s called, strikes again.
To be clear, I’m not supporting this and or excusing it or justifying it. I’m just laying out what I’m seeing. My next step is asking questions like “how can I fix this”. Step four, victory.
… also, if the voters in favor of the almost-Frexit and actual-Brexit are any indications, identity-induced tribalism is not an exclusively American phenomenon.
I mean, you’ve, uh, MET the internet, right? Particularly the angry-young-white-dude segment, and the family-values people who can look past just about anything as long as you’re against abortion and The Gays.
I got Hulu. I’m almost done on a several day binge of Steven Universe and Gravity Falls. I’m gonna go sleep for a week… after I mass text my friends to watch both and deciding which song from Steven Universe makes a good ring tone (or maybe an alarm?). I blame you guys.
Hate to say it, but I watched that before watching Gravity Falls because I’m a Rick and Morty fan. And yes. I agree. MatPat is one of my favorite YouTube personalities because of his great theories, his great performances, and the fact that he really acts like he’s having fun with it. A lot of people on YouTube aren’t so sincere. ^_^
Hailing from a botulism-ridden home, jumping ship at every opportunity, whining about not getting to wear the best clothes, and doing unspeakable things to sheep?
Oooo. I like that. Maybe Ryan is his middle name like others have said and Justin is his first? Or some other name starting with Just. Justice would be ironic. Maybe a feminine name like Justine or a rare/hard to spell name like Justukas, Justek, or Justiz? Or it could just be Just. Who knows?
I’m confused by the whole name thing, but I’m sticking with him being Ryan, one way or another. Middle name or something?
He’s still the Ryan from the Walkyverse, whatever his formal name is.
*applauds to last panel* Decent start to turning good Robin, except for one little problem: you didn’t get his name. I mean I know “Screw the career, I’m doing what’s right” is a powerful feeling, but you can’t do right without his name.
and this is basically why Robin has been going off a platform she doesn’t believe in and gives zero shits about. she needs everything organized for her by someone else )=
Becky made Employee of the Month before she was properly hired. At this rate, she’ll be too busy running an entire chain of Galasso’s restaurants by the end of the semester. That’s way too much work to manage a Republican’s campaign.
Does anyone know a good way to get rid of unwanted auditory hallucinations that only occur just before bedtime? Also, snapping awake in complete terror after only sleeping a few hours, sometimes with an accompanying scream? It’s starting to become bothersome, and tend to coincide with similarly-unwanted mental intrusions.
I only get auditory hallucinations when I’ve been playing a game way too much, so the solution was just to not do that (and get more sleep) 🙂
the waking up in terror sounds like something to google and then ask a doctor about. :/ and hey, maybe that’s making you sleep-deprived enough to explain the hallucinations. :/
if you’re describing night terrors (which you might not, but the link has criteria for you to check that) it could be caused by anything from stress to low blood sugar to, ironically, sleep deprivation.
I wonder if you are experiencing sleep paralysis? (Google it.) The causes aren’t fully understood (certain types of medication can trigger it), but some people think it’s the source of some of the legends about incubi and succubi, as well as “hauntings” and possibly even tales abour alien abductions.
I experience it sometimes; it feels like you’re awake but you can’t move. You may hear sounds and/or see things around you that aren’t really there. They may often seem very terrifying (at least in my personal experience). I remember a few times when I would have SWORN there was a monstrous, barely human creature in the room with me – until I woke up!
As Halpful said, talk to your doctor and Google it. What helped me was consciously realizing that I WAS in an altered state of consciousness and that what I was seeing wasn’t “real.” Sometimes I’d count my breaths to reassure myself that I was safe (one of my personal sleep paralysis terrors was that I’d stop breathing). I’ve actually been working, with some pretty good success, on using my sleep paralysis as a gateway to lucid dreaming!
I hope some of this is helpful and that you feel better soon. 🙂
Sleep paralysis was my first thought, but I can still move while it’s happening and usually take about 5-15 minutes to properly fall asleep. It’s not creepy or unsettling, either, aside from the obvious distressing nature of hearing sounds that aren’t happening. Thanks for the tips, though. I’ll try them anyway and see if it helps at all.
When I get really tired I sometimes hear sounds that aren’t there. I know they’re not there, because they’re usually recognizable voices of people I know. They’re sometimes “loud” enough that I’ve tried to make out words (knowing they’re not real, but just curious), but there aren’t ever words. Just a murmur.
Since it only happens when I’m really tired, and it doesn’t cause any actual problem, I just make a mental note to get more sleep, and otherwise ignore it.
If you’re playing video games, you’re likely using a screen lit by LEDs. That will keep you awake – white LEDs have a lot of blue light of the exact frequency to tell your brain it’s daytime. Some computers have a night mode you can turn on that makes the colors yellower. That can help. Or you can get a filter. Or just read a book (by incandescent light) instead of playing games late at night.
Sleep deprivation is really bad for your health; it’s worth finding ways to sleep more. The late-night video games are a good place to start.
The voices are exactly what’s been happening. You hit that one right on the head. The only thing is, my TV is old as hell, and I don’t tend to play much on it, late at night. My monitor settings are pretty yellowish, too, so I don’t know if it’s from that. Still, I can take this all under advisement, just to be safe. Thanks for this.
This is a comment directed towards “That Guy” and everyone else in this comments section who is defending “Ryan.” YES, people sometimes falsely accuse other people of sexual harrassment, assault, and/or rape, and that is NOT OKAY. However, people also falsely claim to have been mugged, robbed and/or been a victim of arson for insurance purposes and for other kinds of financial scams. Do we regularly assume that someone who says their house was robbed was lying, and the accused robber is probably an innocent victim? No, we do NOT. Yet the victims of sexual crimes, especially in the U.S., are often summarily disbelieved and/or ignored.
Going back to the theme of “false accusations:” I know this is anecdotal, but my male partner once lost a job because someone accused him of sexual harrassment. I came *this close* to leaving him because I could never ever EVER be with someone who would do something that terrible. However, after I stopped throwing things and drinking heavily (some of the things I threw were vodka bottles after I’d drunk the contents). 😛 , I talked seriously to him and to some of his co-workers whom I knew. My partner was up against a few other people for a major promotion. His co-workers said they’d never seen him behave inappropriately towards any other co-workers and, after he was let go, the person who most likely filed the complaint got the promotion.
Do I believe my partner was unjustly accused? Yes, I do. Did it have a terrible effect on our relationship and lives? Yes, it did. However, my partner did not get up on a soapbox claiming that “men are discriminated against and EVIL WOMEN just accuse them falsely!” In fact, in one of his subsequent jobs, he intervened positively when there was an ACTUAL case of sexual harrassment. He also helped draft some company policies regarding fair treatment for Queer and Trans* people. As terrible as the experience of being accused was, he is not bitter about it and instead has taken the initiative to fight against harrassment in the workplace. THAT is how to deal with a false accusation.
Statistically speaking, my partner falls into the small percentage of white men who are falsely accused of harrassment. (And yes, I DO believe he was falsely accused – please DO NOT comment otherwise as it will make me very sad and upsetted. If I honestly thought he was justly accused, I would have left him and done what I could to SEND HIS ASS TO JAIL.) My partner is the exception who proves the rule.
Current U.S. society is bending over backwards to “excuse” men who, inarguably, have committed acts of sexual violence against women. *TrumpcoughTrump* I did NOT assume my partner, despite my decade-long knowledge of him as a decent person, was innocent until I found out for sure. It is very upsetting to me that the “default” in the U.S. right now seems to be to disbelieve any woman who says she has been a victim of sexual violence, and to defend any man so accused.
Let me ask this: if “Ryan” was accused of stealing wallets and cell phones, would there even be a discussion about his culpability?
They’ll just take me from my life, potentially put a mark on my record and then take me in for questioning, and even if they’re way off base the most they’ll say is “My bad. You’re free to go.”
I think it’s REASONABLE to give credence to any claim of a wrong doing that’s happened to you. But when it comes to things like sexual assault, because it is indeed so hard to prove and because it happens so often, most people believe the burden of proof should be on someone to prove they DIDN’T rape someone. And taking the example provided I would not expect anyone to handle a trial in the same way for another crime.
I tend to abide by “Innocent” until proven guilty. This of course doesn’t pertain to cases where the evidence is strongly leading to the idea that sexual assault has taken place and yet the person gets off in spite of that, of course. That’s shitty and I understand. But I simply don’t believe that dragging someone’s name through the mud on something you CAN NOT prove is just as valid.
Very few people believe the burden of proof should shift in actual rape trials. There are vast improvements in the treatment of rape victims and of rape cases that could happen without nearly such a drastic change to the legal system. (Think, if nothing else, of the piles of unprocessed rape kits we keep hearing about.)
As for less legal results: should you know nothing more about Ryan than apparently appears on the social media here – he’s alleged to roofy girls at parties, if you recognized him at a party would you be comfortable with a female friend of yours hanging out with him unwarned? He’s “innocent”, after all. Nothing proven. Wouldn’t want to drag his name through the mud.
If I recognized him at a party I probably wouldn’t interact with him. Nor would a lot of people. Which is good considering he’s guilty. If he wasn’t he’d just be…depressing I guess. Just going around saying “I didn’t do anything!” and no one believing him.
Which would leave him free to find other women who didn’t recognize him.
You might remember he didn’t really interact with anyone at the party except for his target.
This is what Cerberus means by the “missing stair”. People kind of learn there’s some thing creepy about a guy and they avoid him and maybe warn their friends, but don’t actually do anything. While he keeps preying on those who haven’t gotten the warnings – newcomers and the like.
Like a busted stair in a house that you just get used to stepping around, rather than actually fixing.
Yup, like he went immediately for Joyce who hadn’t been to parties before and didn’t seem connected to anyone who had, so even if there was word of mouth, Joyce was completely unprepared.
And yeah, the thing about word of mouth is you need to tell people which runs into stuff like this. How to get word around about that creepy guy at parties. Like, socially, we tend to frown on folks “badmouthing” someone by telling an effective number of people that someone is an assaulter. And that means the majority of the community assumes they are okay while people mysteriously go disappearing from communities they belong to because of the fallout of their assaults.
Like, one of my assaulters is a member of some good standing in a community I belong to, because I don’t have nearly as much standing in that community and would be drummed out if I made a big fuss about their act of sexual assault. As such, I’ve told maybe 5 people in the community, with at least one having heard of other instances with that person. And even that is hella dangerous.
So in reality, under this method, the vast majority would be in the dark about the assaulter’s behavior unless there was a more public outing of their crimes like this. And this sort of thing tends to make people uncomfortable.
Like, not to dogpile on Yotomoe, in his example, he doesn’t even warn the woman in the hypothetical who is his friend. He just avoids the guy and assumes everyone else will do the same even though he may possibly one of only a few who know what the guy did or has heard talk of the guy’s behavior.
And that’s exactly what happens. Folks might make a wide berth, like one or two who happen to know one of their victims personally and seen the messy PTSD from stuff, but meanwhile the assaulter makes themselves more and more protected in the community, being the gladhander, helping out stand-up gent so that when someone actually tells others what he did, it can seem like a witch hunt against a decent dude.
Yotomoe, I understand what you’re saying, but by that logic *anyone* who is accused of a crime has their “name dragged through the mud.” And yes, at least in theory, the American criminal justice system abides by “innocent until proven guilty.”
We as readers know “Ryan” is guilty because we “saw” what happened. I am not an expert on the U.S. legal system, but if he is identified, I would expect him to be brought in for questioning. That is not “dragging his name through the mud;” if the case doesn’t proceed any further, there is no reason for anyone to ever know what he was accused of. Even if the case *goes* to trial, if he is found innocent it might not have an enormous effect on his life (there are many, many rape cases on the dockets that aren’t covered by the press; the accused doesn’t automatically land up on the front page). Granted, more attention may be paid to him because of Robin, but it seems there is a good chance the media will focus their negative attention on Robin more than him.
What bothers me is that I repeatedly see so much concern for the people who are accused of rape: “He’s a young man with his whole life ahead of him!” “What good are we doing by putting a ‘black mark’ on his name?” (Yotomoe, I’m not specifically saying you’re doing this.) To me personally, this defense of the accused’s rights does not necessarily entail a similar concern for the person making the accusation. It is not at all uncommon for someone who reports that they have been raped to have *that* stigma follow them around their entire life. (See discussion on “slut-shaming” below).
Also, in the U.S., it seems that on a sociological level we tend to “excuse” men accused of rape and not “hold it against them.” Heck, with his record, “Ryan” could very well go on to be President! *TrumpcoughTrump*
I don’t disagree. I’d much rather settle on justice for all parties. I think my concern comes from a tendency I’ve noticed for the pendulum to swing the other way. I’ve simply noticed myself how easy it is to get people to become militant and rage on someone based on accusations or out of context information and I think that’s dangerous.
I will probably, BY DEFAULT, believe a victim in a rape case. But if someone sympathizes with the accused, I can at least understand the sentiment without assuming that they’re ALSO a piece of shit that condones rape (like many people will do).
IS anyone actually defending Ryan? If so I’ve missed it, because every time he shows up the comments section seems to turn into murderboner measuring contest.
Nobody’s actually defending Ryan, because we as readers watched the attempted rape play out.
Some people are defending the in-comic people who support Ryan on the grounds that they don’t know that and that all they’ve heard is the social media stuff which could be lies.
Which suggests that such people might well fall into the “supporters” camp in real life, if they only knew the public information.
Sliiiight correction: we as readers don’t see anyone defending Ryan, because those tend to be first time commenters, and all first time commenters need to be individually approved before they show, and Willis is having none of it. The banhammer is powerful, and wielded liberally.
That’s been my impression, but then Jamie said this:
“This is a comment directed towards “That Guy” and everyone else in this comments section who is defending “Ryan.””
Which suggests that not only are there people defending Ryan specifically, but that there’s enough of them to make them worth addressing a big post to. I was wondering if I was going blind or skimming past stuff.
I think I misread some of the early comments on this strip and/or misunderstood their tone (it was late at nightand I was very tired). This subject is a bit of a trigger for me, especially in regards to politics *TrumpcoughTrump*
To be fair, the existence of slut-shaming means women do have an extra incentive to lie about rape/sexual assault that doesn’t exist for other crimes. Since just having consensual sex is often seen as immoral, it provides an incentive to claim the guy pressured/forced you into it so you’re not seen as a slut.
Ok not saying this doesn’t ever happen but reality is that it is nowhere near as common as people think it is. In pop culture land, like 2/3 of women are bullshitting. Here in reality land, ralse accusations are no more prevalent for rape than other crimes. And unlike other crimes, false rape allegations are very often a sign the accuser is in fact a victim of crime… just not necessarily the one reported. Not uncommon for victims of abuse to levy allegations if they can’t get anyone to help with the abuse.
Another common scenario is the girl whose father will LITERALLY kill her if he finds out she has had consensual sex who finds herself pregnant. Girl where I gre up ran into that… Hospitalized 3x while 14 and pregnant and ppl wouldn’t help her because her father was giving the “slut”what she deserved. So she cried rape. Because if she didn’t, he was literally going to kill her and people who saw it coming and refused to help would at most cluck their tongues and say “what a shame”. Think reaction to Toedad.
Also her sexual “partner” was 28. So she wasn’t wrong about the rape, just about how it took place. Pedo dude groomed a child for his sexual gratification but slut narrative meant he didn’t even see a day in jail despite irrefutable proof in the form of a positive paternity test.
People WERE, however, very upset with the 14YO child for “ruining” her molester’s life. She got a record for filing a false report, he got nada and went on to get three other girls under 15 preggo to date. He has yet to even be arrested, BTW.
And the fact that he leaved a trail of pregnant children dealing with the aftermath of sexual and emotional abuse just means there is a weird plague of children lying about their ages somehow believably to a guy who befriended their families and knows damn well they’re in fucking middle school. Or so the prevailing narrative back home tells it.
The existence of slut-shaming also gives female victims the incentive to lie and deny it happened, as it is likely that they will be blamed for what happened to them.
The reality of slut-shaming is such that when we’re raped, we keep it quiet, because once we mention what happened, we’re going to be drowning in a metric buttload of bullshit tearing apart our every tiniest sexual moment or risque statement to “prove” we’re actually secretly (slur for sexually active women), because y’know (slur for sexually active women) just live to randomly fuck people and then accused them of being rapists.
And yeah, I’m not going any higher than this on the comment threads, because I just can’t. I’ve got too little patience for rape apologia or the perpetuation of rape myths.
Like people assume stories like this are the minority, that most of the time, it’s smearing an innocent person. But the reality is stories like this are the vast vast majority. And most of the Joyces in the world never manage to pull the courage and risk to even get this far.
And it’s frustrating, living in the justice-less hell we do, to see something so low on actual impact. Which only serves to warn others so they may avoid a literal danger be treated still as too much to give a rapist, cuz what if they were innocent.
And the prevalence of this worldview is… yeah, upsetting. And it’s a bit more hard to take when it’s happening in a story where there isn’t that question of “did this happen or not”, because unlike so many times in fiction, it isn’t following the accused rapist’s perspective, but that of one of their victims.
This is the story that never makes it into media and it’s why people believe a fiction like “rape accusations frequently ruin lives” rather than any real acknowledgment of the toxic storm of PTSD that just surviving this shit brings much less trying to advocate for even the right to tell others what happened to you.
To be fair, the other people in her office want to do explicitly that. Whitney doesn’t even want to FIRE the shitstain. I absolutely believe that some people would recommend EMBRACING Ryan, as a measure of offering solidarity (specifically she’s supporting a straight white man), and when that is THE party norm, I absolutely wll give props to someone who bucks it to do the right thing.
Robin is like Joe in that I keep wanting her to get better because sometimes she does good person things, but I don’t know that I can really expect it to happen. This makes me hopeful, but don’t really know if that hope is warranted.
She was always going to be redeemed. A million years ago Willis said that the best and worst thing about her in this situation is that she’s still Robin.
You don’t have to like it, but I would definitely not express criticism as “if this happens”, because it will.
“If the price of my re-election is to even passively</i? protect a rapist because he has friends in the party hierarchy, then it is a price too high for me to pay.”
— Rep Robin DeSanto
— Impromptu press conference
I think that such an action would go a long way to redeeming her in a lot of people’s eyes.
Maybe now is a good time to retire from politics, write a book outing all your former colleagues’ horrific scandals, then show up outside Lezlie’s window with a boombox blasting whatever the hell that song is called.
See, that scene is this supposed stereotype of romance, but it always struck me as really creepy and stalkerish…oh God that’s why Robin will have no problem doing that isn’t it.
That whole movie bothers me, but my takeaway being “I have nothing going on in my life but I would love to officially be your biggest fan” is creepy af could just be projection on my part.
I believe so, but now it’s referenced without context as being a romantic act in popular culture. Which blows my mind because that’s damn creepy, especially as he’s also showing he has the strength to hold a boom-box over his own head for quite some time which is not as easy as people think.
(please read the entire post before you burn me alive)
So… umm… here’s the thing. There are actual ethical reasons to sympathize with Ryan. Yes, we know what he did. We know he’s guilty. For the reader, his guilt is established beyond all doubt. His actions are a particular hot button for me, to the extent that I’d like him to be flayed. But… here’s where the other half of my brain, the part of me that says flaying rapists isn’t necessarily the right thing to do, wrestles with it. In universe, he hasn’t been convicted of anything.
There are very good reasons why our legal system was designed with the intention of protecting the accused until they are proven guilty. This sort of e-mob justice is dangerous. Every single one of us should shudder at the thought of somebody being tried and convicted by a mob of casually interested people who read a tweet or an internet post and decided to jump on the bandwagon. For every Bill Cosby, there’s also a Zoe Quinn. We don’t get to choose who’s a fair target for a mob of random hatred, it all just depends on who the mob decides is worth destroying, we can only hope it’s a target that’s actually done something to deserve it.
THAT said, here’s where the first part of my brain keeps me up at night. Far too often in this case, mob justice may be the ONLY justice we can hope for. The fact of the matter is that in Rape cases, the system is often unable or even unwilling to protect the victims. It can even punish them further by forcing them to go through it all again during the trial. The casual indifference campuses show to rampant sexual assault only makes it worse.
So, I guess where I’m landing is that a sympathizer of Ryan isn’t necessary a horrible person, but they’re probably more than a little naive.
This. It’s also worth noting that in this day and age, it’s very easy to read something, get filled with righteous outrage and mobilize the e-masses… Only for it to be later revealed that the story was fake, or had crucial bits of information omitted. Remember that story about the German teen who was apparently sexually assaulted by three “Middle Eastern immigrants”? Yeah, it turns out she made up the whole thing and now SHE’S being charged by the German police.
There is a very good reason why jurors are not allowed to be influenced by external factors, and failure to adhere to that can result in immediate dismissal from the case. The harsh truth of reality is that things aren’t always as black and white as they seem, and I strongly caution anyone against jumping to conclusions or making hasty judgments. The same mob justice that can bring criminals down can also cause lynchings against innocent people.
Well, that’s definitely a thing and I’m actually far more suspicious of accusations against “easy targets”. Like that German case. Like accusations against black men in the US. Intersectionality.
And juries should certainly be judging only on the facts of the case and the presumption of innocence needs to be preserved, which means that many rapists will not be convicted due to lack of evidence.
As for the effects of social media: Actual lynchings of alleged rapists are pretty rare (as in, I don’t know of any.) Rape victims are also often victims of social media “lynchings” – often more so than those they’re accusing.
The most likely effect of a social media campaign like this against Ryan isn’t that “mob justice” will murder him or that he’ll be arrested and convicted simply because of the social media accusations, but that maybe, just maybe, a future target will recognize him and avoid being raped. Or maybe he’ll just be less welcome at the parties that he uses as a hunting ground.
Of course, that is only a good thing if he is INDEED a rapist. Like “social media lynchings” have caused people to lose their jobs over an incongruous comment about Africa. They can DEFINITELY derail your life if you are accused of rape. And if you are a rapist, fuck you, you deserve it. But if you’re not, social media can DEFINITELY ruin your life. Sites like Tumblr and Twitter especially are really good at “Reblog this because this guy is a piece of shit and I want everyone to know” and by the time more information comes out the original post is already so popular no one really notices the post that says “Whoops, my bad~”
There are definitely problems with social media. Still, I suspect more rape victims are harmed by such campaigns (smearing them to blunt their allegations) than actual rapists, much less falsely accused rapists.
I am aware of actual lynchings, but the victims weren’t white men and all the ones I know about happened a long time ago.
Consider, for example, To Kill A Mockingbird, the driving force behind which is the attempted lynching, and trial of, a black dude falsely accused of raping a white lady. The least realistic thing about it is probably the fact that he got a lawyer who was genuinely committed to defending him, given the time and place.
PS: I am also aware of much more recent murders for the same reasons, but they didn’t involve extrajudicial hanging and therefore aren’t, strictly speaking, lynches. =/
Oh absolutely. Intersectionality is strongly at play here. As I said, I’m much more wary of accusations against easy targets like non-white men.
Most of the more recent ones I’m aware of seem to have involved personal ties – closer to vigilante action than to whipping up a mob. Closer to AG or Sal attacking Ryan than the social media posts setting a mob after him.
Ehhh. There’s plenty of reason to not want to hang Ryan from the nearest tree on the basis of a tweet. However, the simple fact is that the accusation now exists and that should be investigated. Certainly, that means people are now warned about the man as a potential threat.
going into this, the assumption from the characters involved was that justice was never going to be found. i mean, starts with Sal, but everyone else agrees – because they all know what happens because they’ve lived here in this culture. so they don’t gather the evidence that would put him in jail in a good world. so all they have, months later, is a claim and hearsay. so now the only option open to them is spread what is, essentially, a rumor. and that is how vigilante justice works in the digital age.
and i mean it is a true rumor, but we know that because we got to see it. we have evidence that the general public in DoA doesn’t. there’s no real way for them to know for sure. it’s literally on the basis of half the rumors on tumblr
but like: it’s also very unlikely that joyce is his only victim. so if other women start coming out, then we have a pattern, and we more or less have got this asshole. to a degree. if they get a good judge, i guess
Yeah… um… let me put it this way. We as a society want to believe that every accuser of sexual assault is a liar and every perpetrator is a victim of a life-ruining smear.
This mythology is so powerful and pervasive that it happens in everything and builds a frequent conspiracy of silence where survivors bury what happened to them and live with the PTSD and disappear out of communities in silence, because speaking out means nothing but pain and watching all those you care about circle behind the rapist.
And we believe rapists are innocent above and beyond most any other crime. Like, we can’t wait to believe folks are guilty before any evidence when it comes to crimes like theft. How many folks have been willing to write off the literally humanity of various victims of police shootings because hey, the cops said they were a criminal or the media was able to dig up some ancient unpaid ticket or something. But bring up a long series of multiple individuals who’ve been assaulted and a rapist who pretty much straight up admits to doing it and it’s still “witch hunt” 24/7.
And this is what we see played out so many fucking times. It’s why I just ate my rape and stopped going to the event it occurred at, even though it had been a major part of my life before. Because speaking out or trying to get justice so often is just a great way to have lots of folks speaking poorly of you and well of your rapist.
Like I get the impulse and it’s a good one. It’s good to be cautious about social media pile-ons because there’s also a lot of abusers who use pile-ons about random shit and recruiting of toxic groups to hurt someone who was able to escape them.
But the reality of rape and how it’s treated in our culture is important as well to keep in mind here. There’s a huge social risk in naming a rapist and frequently by the time it gets there, the rapist has a whole string of folks he’s victimized over the years. And the survivor is at genuine risk by the rapists’ fans or the institutional support they can bring to bear.
It’s one of the things that keeps me awake at night. High minded ideals clashing with the real world. Without going into confidential details, I’ve seen how the system fails in this case, and it doesn’t take a legal genius to see how “innocent until proven guilty” turns into “blame the victim” both in and out of a courtroom. I desperately want there to be a better way, but I don’t know if there is one.
I think “innocent until proven guilty” is a good legal principle, especially as a bar to put someone in jail, but yeah, there’s definite problems, especially when it gets divorced from its legal context and used as a silencing cudgel against survivors being open about who did what to them.
Cause there should be different standards between do I believe a buddy of mine hurt someone or am I throwing this man in jail for this crime.
But yeah, the victim-blaming is pretty bad as is the way we’ve let sexual assault cases become things where we judge the victim to see if they are lying or (slurs for sexual women) and thus somehow undeserving of justice or incapable of being aware of what is or isn’t with consent. All while the perpetrators history or other creepy actions are seen as immaterial to the case.
I guess at the end of the day, it comes down to dismantling rape culture in general.
Personally, I think the main reason people are so hesitant to believe rape victims is because, since the vast majority of rape victims know their assailants, they are usually in the unique position to know the identity of the person that attacked them.
When someone gets, for example, mugged in an alley, they generally don’t know who mugged them. When they report this crime, it’s very easy to sympathize with them because the perpetrator is faceless and thus “believing” them doesn’t require you to condemn a specific person. A rape victim can point out exactly who raped them and thus if you want to believe them you have to, at least mentally, condemn someone with a face and a name attached and this is much harder to do.
The legal system basically requires that the victim be blamed until they can prove beyond any reasonable doubt that they aren’t making it up. I dare say that’s bled into popular sentiment.
Like terrible people aren’t literally incapable of doing good things occasionally. Being opposed to rape is a bar so low it is buried 3 miles under the earth’s surface so managing to get over it really doesn’t say much about someone.
This is literally ‘even villains have standards’; she still isn’t not a villain, and I could totally see her flying off the handle and lashing out at people when she inevitably loses.
It’s a low bar, but one that very many have trouble getting over.
I mean, they may be against rape in the abstract or when it happens to someone they know or someone sympathetic. Rape’s tricky. Nobody actually approves of rape. They just decide the cases they’re okay with weren’t really rape.
…and this is why spreading a picture of him on Facebook immediately may not have been the best thing to do, as I argued earlier. The thing with starting something on social media is that regardless of how noble or vile the initial case may have been, in the end you’re going to get mobs of uninformed people on both sides, and the relative sizes of those mobs is mostly uncorrelated to anything of importance.
It’s the missing stair problem. Sometimes all you can really do is publicize the missing stair so it becomes harder for him to trip and injure the folks walking near him.
Is it ideal? Fuck no.
But most rape survivors never get in the same ballpark as ideal, so this… this at least can feel like something.
I knew it. I knew Willis wouldn’t turn his magical pixie Warner Bros. cartoon baby into a villain.
Months and months of strips where every time Robin showed up, people in the comments were like “Holy SHIT she’s not being funny at all, what she’s doing is actually terrifying” and other people countering with “well, let’s see where he goes with it!” Fair, but I knew in my heart of hearts this is where it would go. Robin would not get arrested, she would face no consequences whatsoever other than ones she would then surmount in order to become the turnabout hero. Now, she will bravely fight for women’s issues fearlessly and stand up for what’s right after spending a week in the presence of a lesbian, the way no Republican ever has or will, ESPECIALLY not right now.
There were about ten different ways this story could have gone that would have somewhat redeemed Robin as a character/made her arc actually interesting, and making her suddenly come to her senses to be the hero she was meant to be all along was not one of them.
I really hope he gets her out of his system soon. Just do whatever you feel you need to Willis, as long as it’s quick. Have her make a “For Shame” Fozzy Bear speech in front of a room full of Republicans/on stage (you know it’s coming). Have her dump her “fake” Republican personality in the trashcan as she walks away from it dramatically, “Republican no more!”. Have her throw on a cape, literally get superpowers and fly to the Whitehouse, bopping Trump into space with a huge cartoon mallet. Have her say “totes”, trip over her own feet, and stumble headfirst into a slidewhistle collection that somehow ends up destroying the patriarchy Jar Jar style. Go ahead and get all of that shit out of your system so she can get busy never being in the strip again.
I doubt it’s going to be that simple and I’m sure she’s not going away. And you’re right that he’s not going to “turn his magical pixie Warner Bros. cartoon baby into a villain.” That’s been clear all along.
Robin’s nowhere near bottom yet though. She might be able to help with Ryan, but she’s likely to finish burning her political career in the process. She’s got a long way to go before her arc’s over.
I was hoping Willis was doing something interesting by making Robin a different person than in Shortpacked. You know, what most people do with alternate universe characters.
You don’t like redemption stories? I like them. Because I prefer redemption to revenge, and here’s why. In the past I have stood firmly on what I now know to be the harmful side of some really important issues. The only reason I didn’t do more harm (and I’m sure I did some, such as voting for the harm) was that I was not in a position to do so. Which means, logically, that I probably still have some things completely wrong and need to wise up.
It’s true that some people can’t be redeemed. Robin has done some horrible things but I’d be very glad to read a story of her redemption.
What would be interesting with her would be a “sometimes redemption isn’t enough” type story like with Ruth and Rachel.
Even if you turn over a new leaf, even if you work hard to set everything right, that doesn’t mean that the people you’ve hurt before won’t still see you as dangerous and keep their distance for fear of your relapse or see it as not enough.
And it’s also. This might potentially be the spark of the redemption, but this is nowhere near the actual redemption. An actual redemption would have to center the lack of consent she gave Leslie and some real deep important soul searching. So if we get a full redemption arc, it’s not going to be like the previous universe where it was as simple as “oh, I see you as a person and recognize I love you thanks to your endless patience”.
As for the OP, there are some. Sometimes it’s that personal moment that is what’s needed to jettison the rest of the garbage you were carting around. A good example is Harvey Milk. When he was more closeted, he was a bit of a mess, getting upset with lovers for being political in queer rights, actively campaigning for awful Republicans like Barry Goldwater, and so on.
But when he hit his moment where he couldn’t anymore, it sparked a renaissance for him. When he was assassinated, he had recently won on the back of a deeply intersectional movement that tied queer rights in with other rights such as labor or racial rights. So yeah, it happens, but given the depressing state of the now, I can feel being frustrated by it, because there’s also value in knowing that some folks you can reach out to, but won’t ever be saved, will just drain you instead. Or could be saved, but it’s toxic to try and do it yourself.
So it’ll be interesting to see what particular track this continues to go down.
I didn’t know that about Harvey Milk.
Another question: Is redemption valuable because (of righting wrongs, restoring relationships, etc.) or is it valuable in some way for its own sake.
I don’t like THIS redemption story, because it’s not interesting and it’s not even well done. Robin isn’t being redeemed here, because before you’re redeemed, you have to actually admit you did some fucked up shit. Robin has yet to have a moment of self reflection about her own personal actions or statements because quite frankly I don’t think Willis ever saw her as anything but a lovable cartoon character goofball who is immune from the concerns of mortal men. She’s not reflecting on herself, she’s reflecting on her party here. She’s not bad, just stupid and naive and easily duped! Except for all the times she was, but those don’t count, because lol Robin said “totes” again. Isn’t that endearing? (No.)
We don’t need heroic turnabout politician Robin, because at the very best she’ll be used to deliver heroic wish fulfillment, something which she doesn’t deserve to deliver, and at worst she will be a Deus Ex Machina that neatly ties up a dangling DoA plot thread. She’ll also be utterly redundant in the strip from here on out, because as I’ve said before, Becky is identical to Robin in every single way (He even made a joke about it!) except Becky’s way more interesting and important.
Villain Robin would have made her interesting, different, culturally relevant and unique. She would be the perfect commentary on all those “charming” down home huckster Republicans like Huckabee who are actually complete monsters. It would give the series its first non-male villain.
But no, Robin has to be the hero in any and all universes. Oh, added side ick: Ten bucks says this ends with Leslie and Robin getting together now. “Wow, you stood up to the whole Republican party?” “Totes m’goats!” “You’ve changed, i’m impressed, let’s fuck!”
First: I’m not here to tell you you have to like Robin, or this story, or even Willis’s writing. Goodness knows that would be a losing argument for me to make, just based on your display name alone.
But I do think that you’re wrong that this strip is supposed to be Robin’s redemption for anything she actually did to Leslie.
Robin has made a lot of mistakes in this comic so far. She’s hurt a lot of people. Her earliest appearances were all about how she was the hollowest possible politician, who made all of her decisions based on what was most likely to be popular with the largest number of people, and who was, obviously, completely willfully ignorant of the real harm caused by policies she was voting for. What we saw was a person who was sleepwalking through her political career.
What we’re seeing now is a person who’s saying, “Wait, you’re saying what would be most popular with the largest number of people is to let a literal rapist go free?” and not only hesitating but putting her foot down.
I think the writing wants us to view Robin, not as having been made into a fundamentally better person by knowing Leslie, but as having gotten lucky enough that someone she was attracted to (and therefore felt compelled to listen to) happened to open her eyes a tiny bit to some of the real-world consequences of her actions.
Unfortunately, Robin in this capacity represents a lot of real politicians. A few years back, one of the Daily Show (or similar) segments talked to an anti-abortion politician and asked him why he thinks women seek abortions, and he had no idea whatsoever. He admitted that he had never even thought about it before. And then he gave a vaguely apologetic smile, but clearly didn’t really see the issue.
There are a lot of Robins out there in our political landscape, enacting legislation they’ve never thought about before.
Which doesn’t make Robin a good person by any stretch of the imagination. But I don’t think she was ever meant to be the particular sort of awful politician you’re describing — I don’t think she was ever supposed to be a “complete monster”. And the politicians who just drift through their terms, signing horrible legislation because they’ve never thought twice about it — in addition to being a more appropriate translation for Walkyverse!Robin — are also culturally relevant sources for commentary.
I just don’t think this particular story is, as of yet, relevant to Robin’s breaking-and-entering, her treatment of Becky, or her treatment of Leslie. Whether we’ll get to that later or not is still very much a question for me, because I do agree that the tone of these encounters has been sort of questionable, but this is not a reaction to any of the things you’re expressing displeasure about it not addressing. It’s a reaction to different problems altogether.
– Also, “first non-male villain”… are you being serious right now? C’mon.
I dunno. There’s, what, Mary and Joyce’s mom? You compare them to Clint, Blaine, or Ross and — I think, anyway — there’s a very clear step change in level.
I’m gonna be real honest: if you don’t think Joyce’s mother is at least on Clint’s level, I don’t know what to tell you. Her emotional abusiveness is a huge huge huge deal for Willis personally because it’s autobiographical, and he directly paralleled her to ROSS, and she’s going to keep being an ongoing antagonistic force with Joyce and her trans sister. Her lack of shotgun is not meant to be taken as indication that she’s not as bad.
And you’re leaving out Walky and Sal’s mom. You’re leaving out Ethan and Leslie’s parents, and they have shitty moms as well as shitty dads. These people aren’t on screen right now, but they are also vile.
People rarely MEAN to be monsters. Most villains think they’re the good guys, and yet here we are, a world full of monsters and villains.
Yes, there are politicians that just float through life and don’t really think about the legislation they enact or how it effects people. My issue is that Robin stopped being that with one weekend jaunt and a couple of conversations, which doesn’t happen, especially not with Republicans. Something like this only happens in a story when an author goes “FINALLY I can make my favorite character a good guy again! It was so hard pretending she was a villain there for a second”.
I think characterizing her time in Leslie’s class and then with Leslie later, being confronted by her victims, was not “a weekend jaunt”.
But then I also think you sort of missed the point of what I was saying about Robin not being that type of awful.
There are absolutely politicians who enact conservative policies while also thinking LGBTQ+ folks are gross depraved monsters who deserve to suffer. They manage to do this while not considering themselves bad people! But they are a different group from the folks who are just plain not thinking things through.
Joyce was a different sort of person than her mom is. Some people ARE more reach-able, and never having thought about these issues as causing real human suffering does tend to make you more reach-able.
And it does, actually, happen in real life. Even with Republicans.
I’m pretty sure the redemption arc for Robin is, at best, just starting. She’s got a long way to go and this isn’t going to be quickly followed by forgiveness. Assuming we ever get there, which is pretty likely.
But yes, Willis likes the character. Likes the zaniness of her and he’s not going to keep her as the villain. Frankly, I think she’d make a lousy villain, unless he establishes the wackiness as just a mask for some cold calculating evil and that would kill all my interest in the character.
Robin you don’t have any grasp of how anything works in your campaign. Order these assholes to give you “Ryan’s” information, then fire them. Or at least try and see if they refuse.
It’s like no one in this strip has any urgency about this. I feel like if she had never had her endorsement revoked, she’d still be at Leslie’s home being a lazy asshole instead of trying to catch this guy.
It’s like mathematical order-of-operations: “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally”. I’m willing to bet that Robin did poorly that kind of math question in school.
In this case, First you get the name, Then you fire them, Then you go get not-Ryan and see what’s what. She just got her order of operations wrong and that’s like true to form for her.
See, this is why Robin’s future in the Republican Party is limited: there are things she is not willing to do, and lines she is not willing to step over, to further her own interest.
Nooo! Bad move Robin! Now you’ll never find out his real name, because you are too stupid to do so on your own. You should have waited until they told you his real name, then fired them!
Not that she’d be likely to figure this out, but Robin is well-positioned for a switch right now. Here’s a scenario: she gives an “I’ve had enough of this crap” speech, and starts building support. Some bridges she could build by burning others.
Panels 1-3: I really like this consistent good aspect to Robin’s character. She’s unwilling to turn a blind eye to sexual assault or to let it go in ways that would be better for her. This is something that truly deeply matters to her and it is bringing out genuine integrity in this arena.
And I can definitely relate. Sexual assault is one of those things where I stop being able to really think strategically and find myself taking big risks to try and put an end to.
And oof, Whitney’s statements. Because… well, yeah, that’s the dark secret of sexual assault, the vast majority of people will circle around the rapist no matter what.
And there’s a lot of reasons for that. The myth of how a rape accusation ruins lives (that matter) and the cultural idea that “percussion instruments always be lyin’ ” that supports it. General rape culture that normalizes a lot of rape behavior, makes it “funny’ parts of teen movies, makes it seem like a college right of passage, makes it seem “justified”. And sadly, the way that committing abuse or assault is often seen as making one stronger whereas suffering it makes one weaker. So we venerate people who hit their partners or rape others, because culturally that reads as “strong” enough to turn people into objects.
It’s not good, moral, fair, or acceptable, but it’s the mess we have.
So yeah, this is the realest moment because yeah, when a rapist gets accused or shamed like this. When folks start talking about the missing stair in their community and warning each other, folks trip over themselves to show sympathy to the “poor (usually) man” at the center of the “dogpile”. And if there is a victim that can be identified, denigrating them as a (slur for sexually active woman) or a liar or as “weak” and “damaged”.
It’s a cycle I’ve seen time and time before and tried to mitigate where I can, but there’s a similar cycle of the survivor being ostracized and attacked for “ruining a life” and the perpetrator getting a golden moment in the sun where all their friends who would previously call them creepy, circle round and lock arms to defend.
It’s a major part of what makes reporting, even in an anonymous method with no real legal consequences and no full/possibly even real name like this so dangerous.
Because there’s a whole poisonous culture wanting to deny away reality and reinforce this broken narrative of lying (slurs for sexually active women) “ruining lives”.*
*And yeah, I’ve got no time for this “ruined lives” crap. Like, the amount of bullshit and PTSD you go through as a survivor. The number of folks who’ve had to drop out or quit because the flashbacks and the locations were too much afterwards. And like, when an admitted rapist is the President of the United States, elected after that came out, when so many rapists have had long successful careers while the people they assaulted dropped out constantly, when no one even remembers the names of most rapists and where one of the few we do gets paid by colleges to basically spread a victim-blaming message about how you shouldn’t drink booze if you don’t want to be raped. So yeah, miss me with that shit.
I agree with you totally. When I finally was able to tell people that a guy I went on 3 dates with sexually assaulted me, my friends and family believed me for the most part because they didn’t know him personally. My dad even tracked him down and threatened him (without my knowledge) to never come near me again. However, when I told them my ex whom they had known 7 years had had sex with me without consent during our relationship (yes that’s rape, but at the time it didn’t click that me saying I wasn’t in the mood and him doing it anyway was rape) and had full out pinned me down and raped me in my dad’s front yard (including graphic details which I’ve shared before here), I got a… less supportive response. My friends supported me as they knew how he really was as they had seen cracks in the narrative (I thought I didn’t deserve better so I tried to make him sound better than he was), had talked to me while crying after he had done or said something bad during the relationship, or heard/seen something when we were talking or on Skype. Two of them had been trying to get me to break up with him on and off. But my family? Ha! They blamed me even saying that the rape was us just having sex and me regretting it afterward because I found out he had a girlfriend and twisting it into that. Yeah. Sure. I’d totally have unprotected sex with my ex (who left me a week before my 30th birthday) while not on birth control a month out of the hospital for suicidal ideation where I was accidentally exposed to blood from a woman with full blown AIDS (which I told him about). Plenty of people in my family are still friends with him years later. It’s like the fact that knowing the perpetrator makes people try to find any possible excuse to defend them especially if they have a good opinion of them regardless of how they feel about the victim. One of my relatives who I was close to at the time even said I was a pathological liar (he said I lied about being an abuse survivor and my dad having depression and a drinking problem). If I hadn’t had the support of my four friends and his ex who I became friends with after, I have no doubt that I would have ended up back in the hospital or worse over this. It’s a big problem.
I don’t know everything that happened with his 3 other exes, but I do know he has 1 restraining order (not surprising as he had her son start calling him dad after less than a year of dating, was kinda stalker-ish, had a box with pictures of them and toys and a lock of her son’s hair, kept a picture of the 3 of them in his wallet, and had me try to look them up online several times). He also had one bolt and block him from everything after he randomly showed up pissed off at her child’s father’s house while they were discussing visitation to tell him to stay away from her and then two weeks later proposed to her after dating her only 2 months total (I know because he was dating her during a time we were broke up and came to me for help with getting his money back for the ring). The third stayed in touch and tried to warn me to leave him to which he responded that her fiancé (now husband) was made up and she was still in love with him and trying to get me to leave him so she could swoop in. This is the guy my family loved and believed over me. This is what he was like and even though he seemed like a sweetheart and a good guy, he wasn’t. Appearances can be deceiving as hell, so unless there is OVERWHELMING evidence that a sexual assault could not have happened, believe the god damn victim!
*Appropriate gesture of support* Yeah, those ones are the worst. When people who are supposed to love you disbelieve you and think the worst of you because they don’t want to believe they could have ever felt positively about a rapist or an abuser.
It’s a fucked up system and yeah, given all the shit survivors get, it’s really a best practice to believe survivors when they confide shit in you. Cause way more often than not, they’ll be talking not only about a real incident, but a real incident they are minimizing to try and protect their abuser/attacker.
Oh yeah. Both times I tried to minimize at first because I was in shock and denial. Rape and sexual assault hardly ever looks like we were told it looks or feels emotionally how they say either which I think is why we question it so strongly when it happens to us and why others think we are lying when we don’t act right. It’s terrible all the way around.
How are you and your fiancé by the way? Also, I hope you don’t mind, but I used you as an example to a man and woman I was talking to who had no idea there were more things in this world than gay, straight, and bi. I’m pretty sure I blew their minds explaining polysexual, demisexual, asexual, trans (including the dangers of surgery and how many choose to not have it and how they are their gender regardless of what they have in their pants), intersex, cis, two spirit, gender fluid, third gender, agender, romantic vs sexual, and how gender and sexuality are on a spectrum instead of the strict confined groups they had been taught. It was amazing! They stood there listening with occasional questions like kids at story time which was a present and wonderful surprise because of the area I live in. 🙂
2nd paragraph: That’s awesome! And yes, I totally retroactively give you permission for that.
1st paragraph: Yeah, I don’t know if I know someone who didn’t minimize their rape at least at first. It’s such an easy pattern to fit into. *appropriate gesture of support*
And my fiance and I are doing better. Evil Head of School had his last day yesterday so it’s good to be seeing the back of him and I’ve been spending a good chunk of my free time planning stuff for my new job in the fall. And fiance is doing well, they’re going back to school in the fall and we’re trying to figure out how to make cohabitation happen in the next year.
Plus, one of my kids came out as grey-ace yesterday and I’m inviting them to an ace conference that’ll be happening this year and am super proud of them.
It really is. And I honestly think that’s why so many don’t believe us. We minimize it at first, only telling the full truth later which I think some look at like we are exaggerating. It’s just sad.
I’m so glad yall are doing well! I hope the asshats that have been cruel to them go get a life and grow up. Did you decide to go back to school too? I hope so 🙂
Wow! I imagine you are. That takes guts. Not gonna lie; I had to look it up. There are so many words out there to describe who we are as people. I’m glad there are. I know when I found a word that described what I was, it felt so great. I wasn’t something weird. I wasn’t alone. There were words for me and how I felt. The words came from somewhere so someone else felt the same and I wasn’t alone. The words have power and while I will never try and make myself live up to my definitions (especially if one day a word no longer fits), they still help me feel at home in my skin and confident in who I am.
It’s okay hun! I’m good now. I’m one of the lucky ones. I was just using my story as an example of what happens to a lot of us.
As many stories as I’ve heard (unfortunately, sexual assault is sickeningly common), I’ve only questioned one. Long story short, one of my former roommates who lied a lot, was cheating on her boyfriend without his knowledge, and had a drug problem on and off. She started saying she had been raped after her baby was born very pale skinned. It was really sad because he was looking for who did it until he realized her story kept conflicting so badly (3 very different car descriptions/colors, 2 different perpetrator’s hair colors/faces, several different places she was hitchhiking from and to, when it happen…). The sad part is she really was raped before and if she was raped again, she had to have been be back on drugs to have it be so convoluted and/or been raped 2 or 3 different times with the memories being compressed into one. That being said, I know dozens of people who have been sexually assaulted that I do believe. When I say know, I mean family and past and present friends and I’m not that socially active. I’m the kind of gal who sits at home on a Saturday night playing with my kitten Danny (after DoA) and binge watching Fullmetal Alchemist or playing Skyrim and loving it, so the fact I know that many survivors in my tiny pool should tell you something. I don’t even want to think of the number I’ve met through various forums.
Panel 2: And I want to circle back to this moment, because yeah, that realization on how bad rape culture is for Robin feels central and powerful. Like, she cares about this subject, so it’s not tripping her usual Robinisms for ignoring reality she doesn’t like and so to find out that her being seen as kissing girls and becoming more supportive of queer rights makes her less popular than a rapist who is only known as being a rapist is strong.
And I wonder if this is going to be the thing that finally gets through all her garbage on queer issues and actually allow her to internalize how bad the system she has been supporting is. And that’s going to be a critical first step if she’s going to have any sort of growth or redemption that’s not going to be undone at the first uncomfortable moment.
Panel 4: One thing I’ve noticed in her toxic playing house at Leslie’s expense was how much of it almost felt like a subconscious sabotaging of her career. Part of her recognizes the immorality of what she is working with and wants to just be with a woman she loves play-acting a happy domestic scene rather than continuing to salvage the destruction to her career she wreaks.
And well, there’s so much wrong with how she went about it, first up being the complete steamrolling over consent and so on, but I think this moment is interesting, because it’s one where the full price of staying in the role she is in is made explicitly clear.
If she wants to remain a conservative candidate in good standing, she needs to turn a blind eye to a rapist, continue denying her sexuality, continue to support things that she cannot defend in any meaningful way in response to direct questions, which initially made Leslie try and cut her loose once and for all.
And I think that is truly hitting here.
Whether that will be enough to trigger real growth and development and making amends to past behavior is still up in the air, but I’m wondering if there’s been so much reality slamming in sideways that her natural defenses of spin aren’t running at all to distract her from it. I dunno. I can have hope.
Panel 5: Especially as this does feel like she’s actually grappling with the full immorality of the people and positions and constituents that she’s been courting. On an issue she cares about so it hits home. And well, it’s not an uncommon thing for someone deep in that toxic web to be hit on one aspect they care about that unravels the rest. So who knows, maybe there’ll be something.
Panel 6: Whatever way though, this is a positive action. These two are awful human beings but they are skilled at the task of electing conservatives in this district. If Robin wanted to run back to fixing this, she’d keep them around or find a way to mentally make it work. But it’s a line too far, so she can’t. And disconnecting herself from her toxic campaign and party… well, if she is going to improve or at least just not hurt folks anymore, this is a crucial first step.
And hey, if not, it’s at the very least, one less person voting against the humanity of others in a deeply dangerous US House of Representatives.
i keep looking back at robin leaving leslie and like: she knew that she was losing leslie but also losing her career, so she made the breakup on her terms so that she could have a story she could live with to hold onto and keep leslie out of it
AND LIKE that is manipulative as heck but also is very much, emotionally, what she seems to have needed
while being unfair to leslie
but god that dream of a happy domestic gay life must have meant so much to her
Yeah, it was a really toxic mess, because yeah, that fantasy meant so so much to her, but that doesn’t matter once it’s at the expense of another person’s consent. And Robin did a lot of not okay things to cling to that fantasy.
And the irony is, she could live that fantasy if she was willing to full own it. Leslie at first was just looking for any sign of things getting through, of the hope of redemption to give her more than a fair chance. But Robin has scorched a lot of Earth by repeatedly ignoring her consent and escalating things to try and cling to that fantasy without owning it or owning what she needed to do to have a chance of getting it.
And so yeah, it’s why I will feel any redemption will be heavily hollow if it doesn’t end up dealing with an honest reckoning of how fucked up what she did to Leslie was.
it feels almost like a very Vriska thing to do, except Vriska would be like five times more screwed up about it.
AND LIKE whatever…robin does…she can’t do it *for* leslie, she has to do it for herself. she has to come to terms with not being able to stop people from disliking her. she has to come to terms with actual real consequences for her actions. she has to come to terms with, y’know, the realities of her situation and what she’s done
she has to see other people as other people not as manipulatable objects
she has to honest to god aPOLOGIZE.
i mean i think she can pull through, i don’t know if she and leslie are ever gonna get back together but i think that mostly she can figure her shit out for herself, at least. she has that capability
and if she didn’t i don’t think that roz would be so frustrated by her. she’d just be someone you avoid and hate
someone learning empathy is just…really fascinating to me… like learning to see things the way that other people see them? to understand how your actions come off to someone else, to really dive into how different somebody else’s perspective can be…i think that’s really cool and im excited for it
Just a side-comment here: You say “get back together” here and “breakup” above. That’s buying into the fantasy. They never were together. There’s nothing to break up.
If they do get together in the future, it’ll be a new relationship, no “back” about it.
i mean the instance of “breakup” was very much from robin’s perspective
idk like it’s hard not to think of robin and leslie as having been together since they were so together in shortpacked that it feels weird that they haven’t officially been together since
i mean. watching steven universe together is pretty cute but also like is maybe first date material
I really like her look in panel 5 because it is seriously like ‘the fuck is wrong with you people’ and leads well into her panel 6 face of ‘Yeeeeeeeeah, you’re both fired.’
My one complaint is that Robin didn’t get “Ryan’s” real/full name, but aside from that, this definitely gives me hope. And judging how important this is too her, I think doing something about sexual assault and rape culture might have been the reason she ran for political office in the first place. That is the one, one issue we have seen her consistently and actively care about. And in panel five, it feels like she’s realized that she hasn’t been able to do anything about that issue by towing the party line, and is realizing she probably never will if she keeps doing what she’s doing.
…
I will say though, if part of Robin’s possible redemption involves running as an independent/no longer caucusing with the Republican Party, she would be an important swing voter who might actually be able to get something done about sexual assault and rape in exchange for her support of such and such bill. Especially as she hasn’t really believed in anything else she’s said politically and has only been the “family values” candidate because she lives in a red district, which will probably stay red until someone gets a chance to gerrymander the state again.
I gotta say I’m happy with this strip here for a lot of reasons. But mostly I’m happy that Robin is actually on the path to improving as a person again. I watched her go through her arc in shortpacked, and yeah she was a kinda shitty person in that universe too (not as shitty as here but still not all that great). But she changed, confronted her flaws, and overcame them and eventually became a great partner for Leslie in a happy loving relationship.
Now after all she’s done do I think she should end up with Leslie again…? ehhhhhhhhhh maybe, part of me wants to see that relationship succeed again because the romantic in me likes to see happy endings to romantic stories, it lets me cling to hope that I won’t die alone and unloved despite all evidence to the contrary. The other part of me feels she really doesn’t deserve it though, and so if it happens I wanna see Robin freaking EARN it.
She’s redeemed herself and earned a happy ending before, now lets see if she can do it again without superpowers and while starting in a much deeper hole to dig out of.
If it happens again I think it will be more drawn out and possibly more casual. I wouldn’t be surprised if the two didn’t see each other again for a long while and much like in shortpacked the next time Lesbian sees Robin she will be far closer to the person she thought she was/could be. Though I also think it would be amusing if Robin came to terms with herself by that point and had already found new Lesbian. Just for the drama though, I still want to see Robin and Leslie together again. Even if the triplets may be out of the question this time.
While it’s no reason for Leslie or anyone else to tolerate Robin’s bullshit, I’m glad that she’s starting to borrow some good qualities from her Walkyverse counterpart.
First comment: I don’t think this has to do with being confronted with the humanity of LGBT+ people or with her being trashed in the media. She wanted to find “Ryan” and put him in a cell before the newspaper was published with her and Leslie. I think this is a line Robin had ALREADY.
So, best case scenario: She continues not to be an asshole about this, and will hopefully curve into not being an asshole about LGBT+ folks and other people she hurts and reaches some kind of redemption arc.
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“FIRE EVERYONE LET GOD* SORT ‘EM OUT”
*Willis has a crowdsourced wiki, tho, so this is actually not super necessary for him to do
Realistically, after this whole little plotline, her career is basically over anyway, so she might as well go out doing something actually good for once.
On an unrelated note, there are talking audio ads on this site now, and it’s very annoying.
I swear half the reason I give to Patreons is so the little Kronk-in-a-white-dress (“Robe!”) on my shoulder will shut up about my adblocker usage.
“We’ve been over this before. It’s a harp, and you know it!”
“Yeah, that’s a harp. And THAT’s a dress!”
“GOWN!”
No, Doctor_Who had it right: Angel Kronk’s line is “Robe!”
what are ads?
Those things that let you know something exists so that you’re not walking around wondering what those weird boxes people are holding up to their ears are.
i mean it’s only over if she gives up
or if people stop paying attention to her
Atta-girl, Robin! ^_^
What sympathizers?! Everyone who matters hates him!
He’s a white man. He will never not have sympathizers.
I’m sure a black woman would also have sympathizers. Just not the same ones.
Also not nearly as many, which is the bigger point here.
I don’t think quantity is much of an issue as is outcome. It’s not about how many people are upset, it’s who’s in charge of dishing out punishment.
Which also tends to favor the white boy.
AKA predominantly white dudes.
Ok, I got one for you…
Anthony Weiner.
I don’t think anyone has any real sympathy for him at all!!!
(And if they DO, they’re some very sick monkeys!!!)
Yes, even Anthony Weiner has folks that think he got railroaded out of office. We live in a world that has Holocaust deniers. You will always find someone who sympathizes with even the most unredeemable monsters.
Like who?
More to the point: Not as well-positioned.
it’s really not comparable. especially when women of color get attacked more often than white women do, and both get attacked more often than white men do. it’s like being a woman (and not being white) is an walking “punch me” sign
That’s an amazingly blanketed statement. When you say attacked, do you mean raped, mugged, relationship abuse, all of the above or something else? And is this in campuses, in the USA or across the world? What really bugs me about your comment is not the (somewhat warranted) idea that white men have it easier than anyone else, its the implication that non-white women have it worse than EVERYONE else. This ignores hate crimes, child abuse, gay bashing, etc. And since “non-white” covers the majority of people on the planet and 52% of them are female, you’ve skewed the numbers so that your statement almost HAS to be true. If you want to bring up specific injustices, fine, lets talk. But, please don’t use the worn out “white men is ebil overlords and I’m a poor victim” argument. Its demeaning to others who have suffered.
I’d assume USA. Other countries have different patterns of prejudice. And yeah, it’s pretty much accurate. I’d guess that’s for adults, with children being considered separately.
Nor, anywhere in there did they say anything about white men being evil. Just less likely to be victims. Which doesn’t mean can’t be victims, of course.
The “pity the poor white men” thing is also pretty worn out, though it still seems to work fairly well.
🙂 🙂 🙂 u know if you want to ask for my sources you don’t have to be rude about it
but given that my sources are all of human history, most statistics on attacks (be it verbal, physical, or otherwise) and ask any nonwhite woman on twitter, you’re going to have to be more specific about your ignorance so that i can answer your questions
or, you know, you could just google it
I responded badly before so I’ll try to choose my words more carefully this time. I know women are more likely to be the victims of violence than men. I also know that there are cultures where women are treated far more brutally than they are in typical Western European culture. But percentage-wise, are women more likely to be victimized than homosexuals of either gender? Or children? I honestly don’t know and it shouldn’t matter because violence is violence; noone should suffer it. I just don’t want anyone’s pain to be considered less important than anyone else’s.
I’m sorry about the “ebil white men” comment. I was in a bad mood and acted like an a-hole.
yeah, you were pretty much being an a-hole.
the problem is that you are asking me to do your homework for you. if you are curious about the comparison of rates of violent attacks between women and gay people, then it is your responsibility to go look that up. it is not my job to be an encyclopedia of relevant facts for you.
my guess would be that gay men are more privileged than women (or possibly equivalent to white women?), and straight women more privileged than gay women, and gay women (potentially) more privileged than trans women in this regard, but that’s mostly my intuition speaking.
also like that reaally. does not. include intersectionality at all. i mean it’s not like people divide themselves into neat little subsets of gay vs. lesbian vs. trans vs. nonwhite, we contain multitudes
lol no, my friend, the large majority of LGBTQIAPN+-bashing crime victims are people of color, and being a trans woman of color specifically is the most dangerous. That you don’t already know that is only because LGBTQIAPN+ organizations have a nasty habit of not breaking down their statistics by race when they publish them.
Also, that little ~logic~ trap you laid is cute and all, but I’m afraid the statistics we’re talking about account for “women are a very slight majority”, and people of color are not in any way the majority in the USA but still make up the majority of the victims of violent crime anyway. So sorry your gotcha turned out to be so flimsy.
Like zoelogical said, use google.
He’s a person. There will always be people who will side with someone, no matter how heinous the crime was. White privilege is real but its not an absolute.
I like to say that “priviledge” as an accusation is kinda like BMI as a measure of health. Its a valid concept and great meaning when measuring the average across a population. But the moment you use it as a diagnostic on an individual, you failed either philosophy or logic or both.
I don’t mean to say that people don’t act out of priveledge. They do. But priveledge is a descriptor, not a diagnostic.
Except that it IS diagnostic. Taking privilege for granted, falling to see where you have privileges that other people do not, that directly leads to a lot of crappy behavior.
And while not every white person has an easier life than every person of color, that doesn’t mean privilege doesn’t apply to individuals.
White privilege is a real phenomenon, but once you acknowledge it, you need to work on specific problems, not dwell on the unfairness of it all. Talk about why blacks and Latinos are more likely to be convicted than whites or how their sentences are usually longer. Figure out how to break the glass ceiling. But whining about unfairness in general is pointless.
White people complaining about others “whining about unfairness” is an excellent example of privilege.
“Why are you complaining to me about this? I’m not going to do anything about this! Go solve it yourself and leave me alone!”
The first step to solving any problem is to shut up.
“And while not every white person has an easier life than every person of color, that doesn’t mean privilege doesn’t apply to individuals.”
When you use it as “you’re a white person therefore you have privilege” yes, that’s exactly what it means. Privilege exists on the individual level, but it is not useful as a tool going from the general to the specific level. That is overgeneralizing and is the root of basically all forms of bigotry: “All X people are Y characteristic”
It’s one thing to see an individual who clearly does have privilege and comment on the reason, (IE. “He was treated better because he’s white” or “It’s because he’s rich that he got away with this thing.”) but the reverse situation is simply not useful. Assuming a white person WILL experience the privilege that comes across the AVERAGE or all white people is the same kind of bad logic as assuming that a black person will automatically behave like the average of all black people. Granted, the consequences of them are different, but it’s still bad logic.
Hey guess what. If you’re a person, then you have privilege.
White people aren’t the only ones who have it, but if you’re white in this country, that means don’t have to deal with systemic racism. You get to see people who look like you in the media, portrayed in a variety of ways as 3 dimensional people with inner lives.
Now, if you’re gay, a woman, transgender, an atheist, a Muslim (or anything other than Christian), if you’re disabled, neurodivergant, or mentally ill, if you’re elderly, overweight, or not conventionally attractive, if you’re poor, have a criminal record, or are an immigrant, all of those things affect privilege differently.
Having privilege isn’t about YOU. It’s about society. Our culture gives preferential treatment to wealthy, attractive, young, neurotypical white heterosexual cisgender male Christians who speak English without an accent.
If that describes you, then you have privilege because of this.
There’s a major difference between having general privilege and experiencing that privilege in a given situation. It is neither accurate nor helpful to anyone to assume that a member of a privileged class will automatically benefit from their privileged class status in a particular situation. Not all white people always benefit the same way from privilege. What I and some others are arguing is you cannot use privilege as a predictive tool on an individual level. “He’s white, so this specific thing will happen” is not a logical or helpful statement to make 99.99% of the time. You can use privilege to EXPLAIN, but not to PREDICT, else it by definition is becoming at best, dangerously close to racist/sexist/whatever other form of bigotry is relevant to the statement, and at worst, explicitly that.
He’s a white male, so these sort of things are in fact more likely to happen.
Society’s preference for white dudes makes it more likely to happen. As long as that is true, predicting results to be biased in his favor is completely reasonable.
And this “implying that white privilege benefits individual white people is the REAL racism” line of argument is ridiculous. Grow up.
“This guy’s using loaded dice that are more likely to roll a 6, I’ll bet he’s going to win a lot!”
“OMG that’s practically racist”
It’s important to draw distinctions between “more likely” and “will”.
Also of note: That’s the precise form of thinking behind racial profiling in policing.
If it’s fair to say it’s more likely, then people making predictions about it shouldn’t be a problem.
And racial profiling is a manifestation of our society favoring white people.
If I predict that a little old white lady is far less likely to be hassled by the TSA than a Muslim man with a beard and a turban, then YES, it’s based on the same logic employed by the TSA agents doing the profiling, because THAT’S WHY IT’S MORE LIKELY.
“American society gives White people preferential treatment” and “black people are more likely to commit crimes” are NOT comparable. The first one is actually true, and supported by data. The second is not.
As Foamy said there’s a distinction between something being “likely” and it being certain. And at know point did i imply, much less state, that the white privilege blaming took away from other forms of racism or was more real than them, but it IS racism. Assuming an individual will do something or get something because of their race is racism, by it’s very definition. Most racist lines of thought are based on statistics. Many minorities, at one point in time or another, were statistically more likely to match some of their stereotypes(not all though, some are just made up) but those stereotypes and assumptions are still racist because the individual is not the race and many of those statistics had underlying outside causes.
Statistical arguments that imply something is near certain are especially risky since something could have a .001% chance of happening in one race, and a .005% chance of happening in another and you could honestly say it was “five times as likely” but it’s still insignificant. (I intentionally used the exaggerated numbers there to make the point, I am NOT saying or implying that privilege is that rare or even close to it)
Now that’s purely wrong. Racist notions of black people, for example, are not based on statistics. Not even on old statistics. They’re based on white folks lying to each other to justify slavery.
White privilege isn’t really based on statistics either. It’s based on living in a society where “white” is the norm, where everything else is disadvantaged. Doesn’t mean you’re going to live like a king, of course. But if you’re white, you benefit from it, all the time, mostly in little ways. Often without you being aware.
I’m sure I have.
Muslims’re more likely to smash planes into buildings than little old ladies though Fart Captor, or so people think. So you get dudes being hassled for the crime of doing math while Arabic. Hooray everything.
PS: Saying “but the statistics don’t support X” without further arguments against X implicitly means X would be okay if the statistics DID support it.
That’s not a great tack to take if you’re trying to say X is wrong.
@GJT:
“White privilege blaming”, even when that’s what’s actually what’s happening (fyi, it isn’t here), is in no way comparable to actual racism.
Giving dudes like Ryan a benefit of a doubt they would not give to minorities is a thing our society does. THAT is racism.
Making predictions that our flawed society will likely act in a typically flawed manner is not racism.
You’re basically saying “well I’m not denying that privilege is real or even uncommon, but people basing predictions on that real, common occurrence is wrong somehow”
@foamy:
You were likening “pointing out the likelihood that white male privilege is part of why Ryan has supporters” to racism. Yes, even if valid statistical data showed that any given Muslim was likely to be a terrorist, it would still be wrong to treat all of them like terrorists.
This is not comparable to people predicting that the way our society favors white males has benefited a particular white male.
The first is wrong, and acting on that assumption would have harmful consequences. The second is both true, and people acting on it would not result in harm, but awareness.
““White privilege blaming”, even when that’s what’s actually what’s happening (fyi, it isn’t here), is in no way comparable to actual racism.”
What is happening with Ryan isn’t the situation I was responding to. Saying Ryan’s supporters are because he is a white man is explanatory, not predictive. I was responding to discussion of the situation, not the situation itself. What i mean by white privilege blaming is NOT accusing an individual of white privilege after the fact like what is happening with Ryan, it is the viewpoint that “You are part of a privilege group so you are the problem” and all the sub-problems that branch off from it.
“Giving dudes like Ryan a benefit of a doubt they would not give to minorities is a thing our society does. THAT is racism.”
100% agreed.
“Making predictions that our flawed society will likely act in a typically flawed manner is not racism.”
Also agreed. What IS racist(or sexist, or whatever is relevant) is the assumption that all members of a privilege group will receive that privilege in a given situation and therefore those individuals are somehow worse or in the wrong because their group is usually treated better by society, even in situations where they themselves DON’T end up benefiting from the privilege in question.
“You’re basically saying “well I’m not denying that privilege is real or even uncommon, but people basing predictions on that real, common occurrence is wrong somehow””
Ok, i’ll give you this one to a point. I did give that impression. I’ll revise/clarify. Predictions are the problem. Treating those predictions like a certainty, or treating the individuals like they are responsible for everything society does regarding them is the problem.
And to give an overarcing statement in case I missed something: I am in NO WAY defending Ryan or saying he does not have white privilege, or male privilege, or any other particular privileges he may possess. All i was trying to address was the general topic of not overcompensating and trying to help unprivileged groups by targeting individuals of the privileged group for hate/bashing, rather than actually trying to help the underprivileged. Ryan(or whatever his real name is), and those like him, do not deserve protection, but it’s not BECAUSE he has white/male privilege, it’s because of what he DID that that white/male privilege is protecting him from. White privilege is a problem with society(and the individuals that support it), not a problem with the individuals that RECEIVE it.
I absolutely agree that privilege a problem with society and not the people receiving it. But I don’t see anyone here who has said otherwise, so I don’t understand who you were arguing against. I don’t see anyone saying that Ryan is bad because of white male privilege, only people saying white male privilege is bad because protects assholes like Ryan from what they deserve.
The people who are choosing to side with Ryan based on nothing – those members of society actively perpetuating injustices like this – they ARE a problem. They are responsible for the harm caused by the disparities they help create and maintain.
Predicting a crappy thing which happens all too often has happened again here is not harming anyone. Even people being 100% sure of those predictions.
“Saying Ryan’s supporters are because he is a white man is explanatory, not predictive.” Predicting that Ryan would have supporters before we learned about them would also not have been racist. As Felgraf says below, the Red Pillers would have jumped on board pretty much regardless.
“Also agreed. What IS racist(or sexist, or whatever is relevant) is the assumption that all members of a privilege group will receive that privilege in a given situation and therefore those individuals are somehow worse or in the wrong because their group is usually treated better by society, even in situations where they themselves DON’T end up benefiting from the privilege in question.” Here’s the big break in understanding. Particularly the second part: Having privilege doesn’t make you worse or put you in the wrong. It’s just a thing. It’s part of the society we live in. If you’ve got a particular kind of privilege, there really isn’t anything you can do about it. You can’t demand that everyone treat you as if you didn’t.
“I absolutely agree that privilege a problem with society and not the people receiving it. But I don’t see anyone here who has said otherwise, so I don’t understand who you were arguing against. I don’t see anyone saying that Ryan is bad because of white male privilege, only people saying white male privilege is bad because protects assholes like Ryan from what they deserve.”
Ok. Agreed.
“The people who are choosing to side with Ryan based on nothing – those members of society actively perpetuating injustices like this – they ARE a problem. They are responsible for the harm caused by the disparities they help create and maintain.”
Also agreed. To clarify that is what i meant by “and the individuals who support it”.
“Predicting a crappy thing which happens all too often has happened again here is not harming anyone. Even people being 100% sure of those predictions.”
I do agree that I said the wrong thing before, the predictions aren’t a problem, it’s just the way a subset of people use those predictions that is. I just noticed i made a typo in my last post, it should say “Predictions aren’t the problem” not “are”, and before that, I was just arguing wrongly on that particular point.
“Predicting that Ryan would have supporters before we learned about them would also not have been racist. As Felgraf says below, the Red Pillers would have jumped on board pretty much regardless.”
I agree, I believe I have already clarified that point.
“Here’s the big break in understanding. Particularly the second part: Having privilege doesn’t make you worse or put you in the wrong. It’s just a thing. It’s part of the society we live in. If you’ve got a particular kind of privilege, there really isn’t anything you can do about it. You can’t demand that everyone treat you as if you didn’t.”
Also agreed, but I also wanted to get across that privilege is not universal within a privileged group. That is basically the crux of my argument here. It is not racist to guess that someone will probably benefit from white privilege. It’s not racist to be confident in it. It becomes racist when you use the assumption that they WILL benefit because their group benefits more often, to make decisions regarding how to treat them. This is already bad even if the individual IS actually benefiting from their privilege in the situation, but it’s even worse when it’s just assumed they must be benefiting. And people do definitely do both of those things. Even arguing that “regular” (meaning more commonly recognized forms of) racism are BIGGER problems doesn’t make it not a problem when people do this. Examples include “You’re privileged so you don’t get to have opinions on this”, “You’re privileged you aren’t allowed to complain about mistreatment”, and “You’re privileged you must abuse it all the time”. I originally felt like this tone is what was being lead up to, but now I think I misunderstood the tone of the conversation. So while i still stand by my arguments(except the one part I’ve already ceded) I admit they may not actually be relevant to this conversation. So I’ll probably just move on, just wanted to explain myself first.
He is a white man accused of attempting to rape a woman.
Oh hell yes he has sympathizers. Like, the entire MRA/Red Pill crowd, instantly, and with no question, for starters.
/Because they are ASSHOLES.
There are a lot of stupid people. Lots.
But he’s such a prooooomising young man with suuuuuuch good grades and suuuuch a great start in politics! How can we possibly want to ruin this wonderful boy’s life over one little thing?!
…okay, feeling ill from typing that, but that’s not far off from the rhetoric that has been used in reality to justify light sentences for rapists and other sex offenders in reality.
That’s not so much far off as what was literally said about a certain douchebag monster.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/pixely/
While it’s colored a little by Willis’ writing, some people are definitely gonna try and defend the guy who was glassed when there’s no tangible evidence he did anything wrong.
We know he’s a dirtbag.
But everyone else?
It’s a he said/she said story.
Until more people join the conversation.
this. people who can’t magically watch and go back in time to see what happened in this comic aka the characters and misc people you never see might not trust it right away.
I’d like to say that sort of thing is rare in real life, but I know a guy who’s first comment on the Cosby rape charges was along the lines of “it’s pretty easy for a woman to make that sort of thing up”.
Thanks to everyone who matters there no case or evidence, besides the blood on Joyce’s shirt which could be reversed into a an assault charge against her. Seriously, they have nothing, their words only as good as his and it’s been at least a month or so since the attack given the known timeline so far. I’m not defending the guy, I’m just pointing out argument that could be made against them. they should have gone to the hospital and gotten the drugging on record.
Please don’t repeat all the arguments that people use when dismissing survivors here.
it’s not dismissing survivors, it’s just how the justice system in America works.
Do you want to know how the justice system in America works? Of the sexual assaults that are reported, almost none are investigated. Of the ones that are investigated, almost none are charged. Of the ones that are charged, almost none are prosecuted. Of the ones that are prosecuted, almost no rapists are convicted.
Add into the fact that at almost every step of the process, Joyce is likely to be asked why she was at a party’s where there was alcohol, what she was wearing, is it possible she led him on, etc etc etc.
There is not justice to be found for survivors n the American legal justice system. Don’t tell survivors what we should have done.
literally none of your first statement is true, rape is so despised that people have actually been sent to prison on shorty evidence and fake stories fro false claims (they may be few in number but they still happen). Secondly, all three of the questions that would be asked of Joyce are likely to be dismissed for there lack of reasonability. Finally we do have justice for victims but, we also have a system that believes in Facts, evidence and Truth not FEELINGS or believe because I say so. If we lived under a justice system where an accusation equaled a jail sentence then just about everyone would be in prison for the worst of shit. We may not have a perfect system but atleast it’s better then nothing
Literally all of Lin’s statement was true.
There are numerous major cities with huge backlogs of untested rape kits. In some cases they date back years.
Here’s a story from 2015 where NBC found 70,000 untested kits by looking at only 1,000 of the country’s 18,000 police departments:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rape-kits-n393186
And do you remember Brock Turner? He was convicted and only did 3 months in jail. His case may not have been typical, but it’s far from uncommon.
That isn’t justice.
I strongly doubt anyone here is saying “innocent until proven guilty” is a bad policy. It’s not. But it also shouldn’t mean that accusations get dismissed, aren’t investigated, or get the victim grilled as if they committed a crime.
If in the vast majority of cases where rapists got little or no punishment, the reason was because there wasn’t enough evidence to convict, it would be a dramatic improvement over the current situation
Both of you are actually right. Rape is certainly underreported because a lot of women don’t want to admit they were raped due to various factors and people often don’t believe them. The traditional evidentiary standards courts use also mean that reliable evidence of rape is extremely hard to come by.
This is why courts today use rules of evidence that are extremely relaxed for sexual assault and rape cases. It allows for the conviction of defendants on flimsier evidence, because flimsy evidence is all rape cases tend to get and it’s such a heinous and underreported crime that Congress was willing to take greater risks of convicting innocent people in order to crack down on rapists.
Not just how it works, but how its designed. Feature not bug.
The Justice System of America regularly dismisses survivors.
Justice is blind means it’s blind to; Race, gender, religion, age, creed, statues but, not unto it’s self. The guilty should be punished but, not until you know their guilty. That’s why our moto is INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty.
CW: Victim blaming / rape culture.
Justice is blind. The Justice System is not, because it’s made up of people. Who are subject to prejudice, bias, hate, incompetence, and all kinds of other petty bullshit.
By “dismissing survivors”, Zatar means that when one tries to report what happened, far too often they are dismissed by the police, who say they must have wanted it. They may get dismissed by prosecutors, who don’t want to take up the case because they think it “wasn’t really rape”. They may get dismissed by the courts who will try drag them through the mud for voluntarily having had sex at some point in their lives, or for having done drugs or having any criminal record. The defense will almost certainly do so.
Then finally, if they get a conviction, the judge may dismiss them by giving their attacker probation instead of jail, because they “don’t want to ruin the young man’s promising future”
…and Joyce’s parents would almost certainly have pulled her out of school, while there would still be no guarantee Ryan would go to jail.
and unless there’s been a change in medical law that I’m not aware of the doctors can’t tell her parents anything unless she’s allowed it, if she were incapable of making any decisions or was unconscious that’s a different story. (If there are any other exceptions I’m not aware of them)
Remember how this would involve the police? They can and probably would contact either her parents or the school (who would contact her parents)
Yea, I forgot that part, sorry.
I am going to guess that he has been going around with the tale of the minister’s son who got assaulted by a black woman at a party so if the truth ever pokes its head people will believe that its disinformation to cover up the assault.
The only “sympathizers” who “matter” in this, though, are either voters in Indiana’s 9th Congressional District—more specifically, *Republican or Republican-leaning voters,* or donors. If more of them sympathize with the minister’s son who has been accused of sexual assault, and “was assaulted by a black woman at a party,” as Pylgrim said—-if more of the voters sympathize with him than sympathize with the recently-outed lesbian Congresswoman, then it’s game over for Robin. And that’s among *Republicans,* remember.
My money’s on Ryan, in this case. Some voters are going to refuse to vote for Robin because she’s a Republican; of the remaining voters, some will refuse to vote for a lesbian, and some will probably refuse to vote for her simply because Ryan *was* an intern for her. She’s not going to be left with many voters to support her, at the end.
Exactly. Barring some serious scandal on Jake’s side, her coming out as a lesbian and going after Ryan, isn’t going to pick up enough Democratic (or leaning) voters to make up for those she loses.
I’m going to bet that Whitney is one of those sympathizers.
Wow. Robin’s actually taking the whole “Ryan” thing seriously.
I honestly think Robin has just never given a thought about how her positions actually hurt people. This was a reality check, and she’s trying to figure out how the hell to process it. Her impulsiveness is either going to make it easier, or harder. I guess we’ll see.
What’s odd is that she is giving a thought to it NOW. She really had the blinders on hard there for a while.
She was giving this one thought BEFORE. She took it seriously as soon as Leslie told her about it.
I think this just isn’t something she’s awful about. She got a bunch of homophobia, but not rape culture. It happens.
Not every awful person is every kind of awful.
Intersectionality, yo. Some people are more aware of it than others.
Even among the actually decent people in this strip it’s a common theme to be bigoted in some way, but be aware of other injustices at the same time.
Pretty common in real life, too.
She’s slowly becoming the Robin DeSanto from Shortpacked!, little by little.
Robin herself probably had this exact same evolution of character, only much quicker, because speedster.
Love the little joke there.
But also could you get his name
Oh the humanity!
FUCK YES ROBIN
You still have years of work before you make up for all the damage you’ve caused, but I love a good start.
BUT WHO IS HE?! I must KNOW!!! **shakes comic hoping answers will fall out**
Out of a cannon into a brick wall.
Ok, while yes…good move…she still doesn’t know his name. And now those two might not be so inclined to give it to her.
He has symphathizers? The heck did he do to get so popular?
Be born a white man
Watch him be like a shitty youtuber or something.
“Hey, guys! Not-Ryan, here, and welcome back to Minecraft Survival Mode! Today, I’ve decided to finish building my giant, roofless building, because I have never done anything involving roofs or words including the word roof, not even once.”
Yeah… If I watch your LPs I *really* don’t want to find out your politics, especially if I disagree with them. Oh right, you were making a pun.
“Roofless” includes the word “roof”.
“Roof” gets semantic saturation awfully fast.
Roof.
I am not here.
Get accused of attempted rape in a society that insists most victims are lying about their assault.
I don’t think it’s the rape accusation. It’s probably because he got beat up by Amazi-girl and a random black “troublemaker” in a 2v4 at a public rally.
He DID immediately attack Amazi-Girl when she accused him of drugging girls. Everything he did that night was “Attack the source of the info,” and not once was the claim refuted. Shit, he SAYS “You’re just jealous no one has ever wanted to drug your fat ass.”
Whether Amazi-Girl’s testimony would hold up is the problem (they’re in Indiana, so probably not), because you can be damn sure the people at the rally would have a different story.
I’mma get yelled at, but there are tons of people who still believe the person who’s currently sitting in the Oval Office, in a job he doesn’t deserve, didn’t say the things he’s actually been filmed saying.
As I said above, there are a lot of stupid people.
You probably couldn’t get testimony to hold up in any state if you insisted on wearing the costume to court.
He’s just some poor random guy who got his face pasted all over the internet with a RAPIST!! tag. Getting smeared by someone, probably. No proof he did anything wrong. Really, if he’d raped someone why haven’t we heard about some guy running around raping people? Why haven’t they been reporting it? Pfft, if he HAS been sleeping with girls, they probably just had regrets and cried rape after…
And so on.
It’s a very iffy line. Because rape (and attempted rape) is a super serious issue that is both hard to prove and hard to deny. I think it is worth it to take a victim’s word for it, but then there’s cases of false accusations and someone’s life being ruined because of it. And even if you’re later proven innocent, that basically hangs over your life forever.
That said in this case there’s at least several eye witnesses and friends to corroborate and back up the claim.
Has there ever been a case where a girl has sexually assaulted a guy and then claimed to be the victim?
Maybe. In fact I would be much more surprised if that’s NEVER happened. There’s some bad people out there.
Almost anything that can happen has happened at one time or other. The question is: what happens most commonly? Outlier cases are used to discount the existence of rape, usually in sentences beginning “Well, what about…?”
True, but the U.S. justice system doesn’t use statistics, either. What is USUALLY true, in ‘similar circumstances’, isn’t relevant under the law, only what can be PROVEN to have happened in this particular case. This is why many people find court rulings to be frustrating enough to start bloody riots over – because they ignore ‘common sense’ and what’s ‘obvious’, and focus on evidence. And that’s not how many people think.
That’s not always the case though. The Brock Turner case is the poster child for a case where it was proven, but the judge dropped the sentence. And “proven” is very often a thing that relies on the jury judging credibility, which is an easy way for common prejudices and assumptions to come in.
And there are, especially in the case of rape, many ways that victims have their credibility questioned or their reports dismissed or ignored long before it could actually come to trial.
Yes. I’ll try to remember to provide more info later. I’m on my phone right now, and I’m not very good at this.
who… cares?
this is the most relevant question in this thread
Er, male victims of sexual assault probably care?
I have a lot of friends who have been sexually assaulted or sexually abused. More than a few of them are men. While some people deny rape in every case, the men I knew who have been sexually assaulted weren’t believed by anyone they told when it first happened.
The truth is, sexual assault happens to people of all genders, races, and ages. If you are a more vulnerable person (for example, disabled, as one of the men I knew who was assaulted was), were a child at the time of the assault, are LGBT in a homophic and transphobic community, you are more likely to be targeted because the attacker is more likely to get away with it.
In fact, recent studies have shown in the united states that disabled men, and children of both genders, are more likely to be victims of sexual assault or abuse than able-bodied adult women. Able bodied women are more likely to be assaulted than able-bodied men, and disabled women have the highest likelihood of assault.
I think the reason people have a problem with the over-representation of able-bodied women in advertising campaigns against sexual violence is not because people think able bodied women should not be free from violence or deserve to be attacked. Rather, it is that by making rape a Feminist(R) issue, it obscures the fact that it is a quite serious issue for everyone. There is no need to play Oppression Olympics when it comes to rape and sexual violence.
As a disabled woman myself, I know that I have never seen a single disabled person in an anti-sexual violence campaign. I also have had a lot of disabled people, of both genders, almost equally men and women, open up to me about experiencing sexual assault who told me that it was the first time they’ve told anyone about it.
Male victims of sexual assault are almost never believed, and for disabled men this is even more true, because they are seen as both not sexually desirable as a disabled person and yet as always desiring sex as a man.
In addition, many surveys about sexual violence do not count people who were sexually violated as children, but not as adults, despite the fact that sexual violence done to a child has lasting damage into adulthood and is traumatic. In surveys about Childhood Sexual Abuse, one in six boys and one in five girls are sexually abused. Keeping this truth in mind, any study that shows that men are so rarely victims of sexual assault (I have seen as high as one in thirty six!) discounts the one in six men currently suffering the long term effects of CSA.
So when people bring this up, this idea that able bodied adult female victim of sexual violence is the predominant person we all should be concerned with when making policy to combat sexual violence, it is a serious problem. The truth is, 1 out of 3 child rapists is a woman, and a full FIFTY PERCENT of people who abuse disabled people are women, often women placed in caregiver roles, assumed to be naturally nurturing.
I am 100% in favor of ending sexual violence forever. There are many ways we can go about doing that. But whatever is done must account for ALL perpetrators and ALL victims, not simply the ones you see portrayed in ad campiagns and in films.
You are beautiful and I love your comment.
So many people forget about the male victims. I did a report on male victims of sexual and domestic violence while getting my Master’s, and it made me cry constantly. Article after article detailing crap that is out there and how even the resources that are there to help victims will often ignore anyone not female at birth. They are even less likely to be believed by police, and more likely to be victim shamed, with the shamers using their masculinity against them (you could have fought them off, you must have really wanted it; or well you are gay so are sexually deviant and either deserve this or wanted it).
I think if I had included the disabled population in my report I would have jumped out the window. I think it would have been too much to handle.
I just wanted to thank you for your comment though, as it was well written and full of truths.
i think….this is important, but not particularly relevant to the question of “should we believe people when they say they have been assaulted/raped/abused”
which. the answer is yes, always yes. because regardless of whether or not they are lying, they need the help. and when something like that happens, it is so easy to be disoriented and invalidated.
if women making false claims of rape is a thing, then that deserves to be investigated on a case-by-case basis. but we can’t invalidate all claims of rape on the basis of a few women making a few false claims of rape, because that damages everyone, including men who need to make claims of having been raped.
in the case of the woman who sexually assaults and then lies about having been assaulted, taking her seriously means giving her attention and aid. part of that should include therapy. and i think it’d be pretty easy for a therapist to figure out whether or not she’s lying – i mean, it’s really hard to sustain a lie, especially one like that. patterns of behavior, patterns of thought – those can be picked up on. like: taking her seriously means investigating her claim and finding the truth.
which i think is what is being reacted to here.
Exactly what I’m getting at. Yes, male victims ABSOLUTELY matter, but I’m really sick and tired of them ONLY being trotted out as some sort of gainsaying counterpoint when we’re talking about female victims- and, more seriously, the entire “false accusations!!!1” argument.
Your comment is good and valid, and it’s important that we talk about male victims. It ISN’T important that they be brought up in every single conversation we have about female victims being treated like liars for speaking out.
He’s a straight white cis-dude and he was accused of attempted drug-facilitated rape. That is literally all it takes.
Sadly, yes.
Except for all those times it isn’t.
American society kind of overall sucks at properly dealing with cases of sexual assault. The statistics are downright depressing
well with no proof and a he said she said situation, while we readers know exactly what happened people who never met this guy and have seen false cases like mattress girl get a little wary of automatic trusting.
It’d be really nice if it were ‘false positives’ responsible for that mindset, but… almost literally every case in existence of a white guy sexually assaulting and raping girls, he gets sympathizers and supporters even when the evidence is 100% rock solid to the point of being convicted at trial.
Yeah, it’s the false positive boogieman. Any tiny number of real false positives are just used lend credence the idea that false positives are likely.
Now we’re getting somewhere Robin.
Robin’s making the baby steps to be a Bernie analogue (I hope?)
Honestly, she still resembles a (face-turning) Trump, impulsively firing employees left&right ‘n’ all that.
A face-turning Trump would be a Bernie.
….. I’m trying to imagine Bernie getting his start in a screw-everyone-but-me business empire, and I can’t.
That’s because Bernie isn’t, and has never been, a heel.
Haven’t seen that Newsweek article, huh?
Plus, that’d be a wrong turn, as it would be a heel-turn, not a face-turn.
(Also, wrong in the “tryng to be an evil, crazy dicktator” way.)
My thought exactly.
On the other hand, this is a Trump with standards, apparently, so it’s clearly coming from some sort of alternate timeline. Take me with you when you go back, Willis. 🙁
At least she’s firing them over ethical grounds, rather than firing them for self-interest.
Screw the career, she’s doin’ what’s right.
She’s on her path to redemption.
Doing what’s right would be easier if she had a career that gave her the tools to do it.
…. or at least two employees to give her a name so she could do it.
That’s what I’m thinking: you could just tell them “no” and make them dig up the name anyway. Course, firing them makes her feel good & righteous and makes the problem go away of ‘hey, those two people I hired & made do all my work & know me well thought I’d put my career over this, what does that say about me?’ NOPE NUFFING JUST THEM HONEST
See, why can’t our Trump take this kinda turn and also be a hot 20-something-year-old?
…… thank you for that. Now I must go and gouge out my imagination’s eyes.
I see no reason as to why he can’t.
Someone get that man a beach bod!
I expect the forums to generously provide.
Allegedly, Trump believes exercise makes you weaker. It is in fact probably not possible to get him in shape.
Our Trump is too busy sticking his foot in his mouth every time he talks.
All his staff wants is for him to just act like he’s innocent. He can’t manage that for a day.
because you can’t be that young and be president. its one of the only qualifiers to being able to be president.
because he’s sixty years old and set in his ways and therefore irredeemable
Well, that and he’s lived this long off money he never really earned himself, and has only been told “no” the first time when he became president.
Plus I think actually sincerely admitting fault would probably kill him. As would effort of any kind.
AGREED
like. jesus. i mean i can accept that he is in power because of these things but what kills me is that all this happened because people just….put up with it. and allowed it to happen
like jesus h christ america grow a spine
America HAS grown a spine.
…. unfortunately, most of the, erm, leaders on the Left do not possess it.
idk what awes me is that he’s never been to jail with all the illegal shit he’s pulled
been to court, but never been to jail
that is incomprehensible
1% don’t do time, yo.
fuck ’em
They’re not the ones sticking by him as he falls completely apart
That and redeemability unless broken down into more pragmatic deliverables is a wholly subjective measure based more on audience patience or frustration than on any objective qualities.
…..
Spellcheck doesn’t think that’s a word. Redeemability? Redemptability? Redemptiveness? Redeemness? Rede…
i mean. yes? but also no?? idk i guess redeemability is something formulated on your ability to forgive someone and for me it’s just. nope. best he can do is go live somewhere far away from me where i never have to hear about him again
i lived most of my life in blissful ignorance of donald trump and i hope to someday again achieve the same state but until then i live in the agony of having my country governed by an incompetent twaddle and honestly i may never forgive him for that. any reasonable person would just. never have run in the first place in his shoes
but he’s an old white dude who watches fox news and has never had anyone tell him no who went on a power trip that ended up with him in the white house and empowering people like steve bannon and mike pence and honestly
he has got to be accountable for his actions
If he really turns out to be a home pooper, just wait til he learns about the toilets in jail
my god. the horror
9 days in Saudia Arabia without a shit.
being served Sharia-certified steak with ketchup.
Halal?
Okay, but, hypothetically. (And this will never happen, but hypothetically.) Let’s say he gets sent to jail and has a change of heart. From prison, he sets up a very-transparent charitable organization and pours most of his wealth into it, and spends a lot of the rest on compensating those he’s wronged throughout his life. He goes to the age of 90 doing nothing but good.
Unlikely? No. But IF that happened?
…. I think that a lot of our notions of justice (including redemption) arise out of a conflict between our desire to harm those we are (often justifiably) angry about, and our desire to better the world.
Sometimes these overlap — Sarah beaning “Ryan” in the head with a baseball bat did both old-testament harm and prevented some very bad stuff from happening. As another example creating the deterrent effect of a penal system, or a less formal pariah-system, can both harm the shithead while improving the world.
But sometimes there’s a tug-of-war between these two concepts that we’ve conflated into a single notion of justice.
Do I have a bloodlusty side of me that wants to see him suffer a horrible, agonizing fate? Yes. He’s my enemy. But I also have a side of me that wants what’s best for the world, and if that means reforming instead of punishing, that’s what it means. (Not that I think that’s a plausible path in this case.)
The notion of redemption (if we strip away the more religious elements) is a focus on somehow making the person a force for good in the world, and emphasizing that over punishment. It only works if we’re willing to let go of the desire to punish. Often we’re not. Often we shouldn’t be. Sometime it’s possible to reform a person, but no sane observer would think it’s LIKELY, and the best odds you can play to improve the world is to make an example of them pour encourager les outres. Establishing and maintaining a societal expectation that even the powerful are accountable for their ill deeds does GREAT benefit to the world.
…. so, I’m meandering. Trying to bring it home here, redemption would require genuine reform. He might theoretically have the capacity but he’s shown neither habit nor skill for the act nor the necessary self-awareness. Some considerable good could be done by bestowing on him a pariah “irredeemable” status instead, and as a completely unbiasing bonus it also makes us feel good. (Kinda. Venting anger feels good but also perpetuates the anger, which doesn’t feel good if unvented, so…. I dunno.)
…. okay, new theory. I’m a philosophizing windbag and should probably be trying to sleep right now.
i guess i feel like…if, at this point, donald trump were to turn his life around, the first thing he would have to do is accept that people have the right to be angry at him. and there are a lot more steps to go but like
being a good person isn’t about whether or not people accept you as a good person, or even like you very much. it’s about doing good things, repeatedly, because they are good to do, regardless of any reward you may or may not personally receive from them.
so i guess i see redemption less as a communal recognition and more of an individual thing, based on the content of your moral character as it changes from where it had been. i mean if you want people to see that you’ve changed, you have to show them that you’ve changed; but you can’t base your change around what people may or may not see in you. it is something you have to do for yourself.
i don’t have to hate donald in order to not-forgive him. honestly that’s kind of a waste of my energy. but what justice demands is that he be held accountable for his actions in a court of law. what liberty demands is protest of him at each and every level of society until justice is obtained. by the rule of law, once he has served his sentence then he is essentially redeemed – he has faced punishment and now he is free to go. but justice has been countermanded by his reckless abandonment of it, and now he is here.
my personal emotions don’t really come into play in the question of donald’s place in society, if that makes sense. i don’t need him to die a horrible death in order for justice to be done, unless justice demands it. donald is never going to be a person i can like, i’m pretty sure. that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the same right to live as any other person on this planet does. it just also doesn’t mean that he gets the right to trample all over everyone else just because he’s donald trump.
…….i mean at this point being donald trump is enough of a pariah status to not need to put any more labels on him, we all know who he is, and we have opportunity to know how awful he is. it is his identity, personality, himness that makes him detestable. and that’s not something that’s going to go away unless he makes active changes, but also there is no real reason to believe that he is going to make those changes of his own initiative. which is why we have to exert outside pressure.
…..see like. just because you’ve turned your life around doesn’t mean that people have to put up with you, is what i guess i’m getting at, and turning your life around means being okay with that and being grateful for the things you do have
-paps- i hope you had a good sleep by the time you read this!!
like: ok: you can be as horrible a person as you want but the minute you start making that other people’s problem is the problem, if that makes sense
you can want to rob a house all you want, but until you actually go out and rob a house it’s not an offense
and this house has well been robbed and we keep putting up with it
LIKE IDK suffering does not create more justice, is what i’m getting at. someone burning in hell doesn’t mean that what they did gets undone, it just means that they are burning in hell. there’s no real justice in that because nothing is accomplished of merit except that person not having the ability to hurt anyone but themselves anymore, and even hurting themselves does not create justice.
justice, i think, is accomplished by the truth coming to light and being validated, and consequences being handed out accordingly. you don’t have to like someone who’s committed sexual assault. you don’t have to hang out with someone who’s committed sexual assault. you don’t have to exonerate someone who’s committed sexual assault just because they’ve served their time. you don’t have to do shit on an interpersonal level, basically
but justice is created by the action ending, i think. the prevention of further harm. what is injust has been injust and will continue to be unjust; healing can only take place in the aftermath, but what has been destroyed will never be the same. the event exists, and cannot be undone. there’s no scales that can appropriately be balanced, because each action is different and they don’t outweigh each other, i don’t think. you’re just…you, with the things you have done and the life that you choose to live after the event. and whether or not you make that a life worth living
“…. I think that a lot of our notions of justice (including redemption) arise out of a conflict between our desire to harm those we are (often justifiably) angry about, and our desire to better the world.”
There’s an awful lot of legal theory written about precisely that, because you’re by no means the first to notice it. It’s a fascinating topic, and especially so because when based on outcomes it seems that what people consider proportionate sentences to certain crimes have minimal benefits (and many drawbacks) over shorter ones. This is also part of why judicial sentencing outrages people. It’s easy for a mob to demand blood, but it’s explicitly part of a judge’s job to not be a mob member.
This is particularly and especially true when the crime involved is something that pushes people’s hot buttons. It’s very easy to be blase about trying to rehabilitate a burglar (or, say, outright decriminalizing drug use); it’s another to say that these principles should still apply to Mr. Breivik, or to something that has personally wronged you. But that’s a visceral reaction, not one that comes from a measured, professional assessment.
Of course, in the States, you have elected judges and law enforcement, something that boggles me every time I think about it, so professionalism is not at a premium.
Seventy years old. Seventy one next month.
Interestingly, when Reagan ran for President, his age was a campaign issue. But I guess being a seventy year-old president is the new normal.
Hell, when Hillary Clinton ran for President, her age was an issue – mostly disguised as all those rumors about her health and stamina.
Bernie’s age (79 in 2020) is supposed to be an issue, but Joe Biden’s age (78 in 2020) apparently isn’t.
*shrugs*
Honestly, I’d consider them both too old. And I like them both.
Which is frankly bizarre, especially considering that women live longer than men on average and Trump is older (and shows it more) than her.
I guess enough people mistook his spray tan for a healthy complexion or something.
god
i didn’t want to factcheck, thank you
Trump is actually 70.
i did just hear this from Inspector Hound, thank you
i dont actually care enough about trump in order to factcheck his age b/c caring means exposing myself to him even more and that’s exhausting
but i do appreciate you making it so that i don’t have to factcheck
Panel 6 got a roar of a cheer from here.
Re yesterday’s discussion about redemption arcs — taking this step makes it that much harder for her to continue in denial about how she’s treated Leslie. I hope.
The way I see Robin, it’s much more likely for her to correct her behavior and never treat anyone the way she treated Leslie ever again, than… stop being in denial about the time that already happened.
Defensive mechanisms ahoy!
Panel 2 Robin mirrored my exact expression, I am happy for this!
OUTTA THE WAY, WHITNEY, SHE’S A WOMAN ON A MISSION.
http://imgur.com/a/W1zHH
“See, the hands are not tiny at all”
#desantohugehonkers
I thought it was #desantoradicalpuppies?
#desantoshirtpuppies
I am happy to see Robin is starting to go full “fuck this shit” and follow her conscience. Let’s hope this continues.
She’ll take a moral stand for once but she doesn’t have to look you in the eye while doing it.
Or I guess she’s looking back and forth or just looking at Frieda. But I still like the idea of her just staring off away from them because firing people feels awkward.
*plays “Take This Job And Shove It” on the hacked Muzak*
The sympathy must be due to the scar.
And he probably made up the story of how he got the scar mentioning sad moments of his life or something like that.
You mean like the story of how he got his scars?
Also note how Robin’s campaign took a hit because of “Ryan” but he still has sympathizers, to the point of him being more popular than her. Part of my rage is that this is how it would likely go down in real life too.
YUP YUP YUP
it’s more scandalous because people thought they knew robin before and this feels out of character
but also. because. she is a woman. and this is gay.
I agree. that whole DeSanto scandal is so totally GAAAAAAAAAY.
……
too much?
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
moar gay?
Good job, Robin.
There’s at least two sides to every story. I’m trying to figure what these “sympathizers” imagine Ryan’s to be. Sympathize with what?
They imagine he’s being falsely accused and having his life ruined by lying bongos, or some such bullshit. It’s… pretty much exactly what happens any time any high-profile rape case comes up. Noted Rapist Brock Turner definitely had plenty of “sympathizers” too.
Yes, including the judge who gave him such a ridiculously lenient sentence because the poor rich white boy’s life shouldn’t be ruined. And this is for someone who was actually proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be a rapist.
i saw a case about a lady who got drunk or drugged up and stabbed a guy and got off because it might hurt her surgical career. not exactly the same setting but still the law system is messed up.
while it was only a butter knife she admitted to it which if find interesting.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/extraordinary-aspiring-surgeon-who-stabbed-her-ex-might-avoid-prison-as-it-could-hurt-her-career-judge-says
Interesting case, but a terrible comparison.
he looks like such a nice boy!!!
he’s just so white and manly
he just doesnt seem like the type
Go Robin!
I still think Robin is a shitty, awful human being, and I REALLY hope she doesn’t end up with Leslie, who deserves so much better.
But, hey, good on her for this, at least.
Man, this comment is nostalgic. Anyone else remember readin’ that basic sentence back in the day? Shortpacked! fans? Yeah? No? Anybody?
“Currently, he’s more popular than you are”.
O-okay, yeah, sure, but who’s comparing the two?
(Re: Alt text)
Nuke the swamp from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
…..
…..
…. okay, fine, use some sort of orbital magnifying heat lens to evaporate the swamp, yeah, that’s probably more efficient and will have less radioactive fallout.
Rods from God.
technically, using a kinetic projectile probably wouldn’t work too well, assuming it’s just a metal rod using the force of gravity to accelerate from orbit.
You might make a few craters in the swamp, maybe a nice fountain of water flying into the air at the moment of impact, but I doubt it would actually effect…….you’d have to hit a dam or something that is holding the water into the swamp in order to do meaningful damage.
This is assuming, of course, that this is just a standard type of metal like tungsten. If you’re using, Uranium, Plutonium, or other super dense, radioactive metals then you’re just fucking over a bunch of fetid water and everything that lives in it.
……
……
I have been reading way too much (read: not enough) Jack Campbell lately.
Actually, you could use kinetic projectiles to alter the topography, thus affecting water flow. Destroy natural barriers that contain the flow of water, so that water naturally flows out of the swamp, and the land will dry up over the course of a few decades.
Hooray, Robin’s finally doing the right thing!
I love Robin’s expression in the last panel.
She’s not angry, so much as confused at how they apparently didn’t expect to be fired what they just suggested. She’s just pointing it out like something that should’ve been obvious to them.
A Republican behaving like this stretches credibility way more than a costumed vigilante taking part in a high speed chase with motorcycle jumps and stuff. I miss your grounded stories about aliens and 80’s cereal villains.
But she’s not a republican. She’s Robin deSanto.
gosh the good old days with jetpacks and superpowers
I personally know multiple Republican elected officials who would do this.
Then again, I live in Massachusetts. The only way a Republican gets elected here is to be basically a Democrat, since you have to win over so many Democrats to get into office.
Source: Have interned for multiple elected officials and candidates. Also, it’s pretty easy to get to know multiple Republican officials if you spend time in, say, the State House. When I was an intern there, there were 4 Republican State Senators, out of a total of 40. This was in 2011, when the number of Republicans doubled from 2 to 4 after the 2000 elections.
I should note that one of the Republicans I interned for was openly gay and married. Another was one of the deciding votes that made gay marriage legal in Massachusetts. Massachusetts Republicans are kind of their own subspecies.
A frat boy serial date rapist has more supporters than the politician who just indirectly came out of the closet ?
What fucking sense does the make ?
It’s the world we live in. A really stupid one too.
A M E R I C A
…fuck yeah 🙁
Not only more supporters than the politician that just…. kinda… out… maybe? …. but supporters. Period. AT ALL.
Here’s why it makes sense. A horrible type of sense that you can kinda understand and it makes you feel slimy for understanding it even that far, so maybe stop reading here.
People like to support people they either identify with or WANT to identify with. This creates identity-networks of people that are “like” them — part of an adopted tribe, even if they’ve never met. Then they filter reality in favor of their chosen tribes and to the detriment of opposing tribes.
So, if people imagine themselves to be persecuted, and see someone else being persecuted, they will imagine other commonalities with that person. If a man gets into ugly shouting matches with women a lot and feels it’s not his fault, and sees a second man in a fight with a woman, he will identify with that second man and assume that the second man is also blameless.
Multiply this by many possible WAYS to identify, or disidentify. Someone who has trouble getting girls? Yeah, that’s me. Assault victim? That’s a VICTIM, I don’t want to identify with that, even thinking about that’s traumatic. If there’s a battle of the sexes and I’m male, I’m more likely to identify with the men than the women. If I’m white, I’m more likely to identify with someone who’s white than black. If I’m a Desanto supporter, I’m more likely to side with another Desanto supporter. If I’m a frat boy, I’ll side with another frat boy.
All of this can happen very, very quickly in the cognitive space, on a subconscious level, before the larger cloud of facts gets processed. So before I even register that there’s an accusation of rape, I will have identified with the fellow white male frat boy who supports the same party as me, and I will therefore be biased against the charges against him that I hear 2.7 seconds later. I won’t want that to be the case, so I’ll embrace the possibility that they aren’t.
The supporters they’re worried about are not the general public. The supporters they’re worried about are the core base, the swing voters, and the donors. Rape is a feminist issue, and feminism is the purview of those satanic liberals, not the good upright conservatives. Identity bias, or whatever it’s called, strikes again.
To be clear, I’m not supporting this and or excusing it or justifying it. I’m just laying out what I’m seeing. My next step is asking questions like “how can I fix this”. Step four, victory.
… also, if the voters in favor of the almost-Frexit and actual-Brexit are any indications, identity-induced tribalism is not an exclusively American phenomenon.
I mean, you’ve, uh, MET the internet, right? Particularly the angry-young-white-dude segment, and the family-values people who can look past just about anything as long as you’re against abortion and The Gays.
Unless you were being sarcastic and I misread… 🙂
Sadly, that’s the most realistic part of this strip.
nice
I got Hulu. I’m almost done on a several day binge of Steven Universe and Gravity Falls. I’m gonna go sleep for a week… after I mass text my friends to watch both and deciding which song from Steven Universe makes a good ring tone (or maybe an alarm?). I blame you guys.
heh gravity falls theme has been my ringtone for like 2 years now. swap in the spoopy one around halloween for variety
Oh my god I love it too! Most shows I fast forward through the intro, but I literally listened to it every single time O_O
Go to Youtube. Lizz Robinett made up words to go with the theme song.
…..then someone else added more verses.
also:
One of us
One of us
One of us
*/ take some time to think of just
flexibility, love and trust*/
…then again, that song tends to make me cry, so maybe it’s not the best ringtone. 🙂
*/at the moment that I hit the stage
I hear the universe calling my name…*/
That’s the only bad part about streaming. Some shows are a season behind, so I haven’t seen that episode yet :\
Once you finish Steven Universe (NOT BEFORE), check out the Movie Theorist Gravity Falls/Rick and Morty crossover video.
Matpat makes some extremely strong arguments, and it makes me even MORE eager for more Rick and Morty.
uh….once you finish Gravity Falls (NOT BEFORE*
derp.
A Steven Universe/Rick and Morty crossover would be hilarious though. just in concept if nothing else.
Hate to say it, but I watched that before watching Gravity Falls because I’m a Rick and Morty fan. And yes. I agree. MatPat is one of my favorite YouTube personalities because of his great theories, his great performances, and the fact that he really acts like he’s having fun with it. A lot of people on YouTube aren’t so sincere. ^_^
So is Ryan’s real name Leland? Does he go by “Ryan” because “Leland” sounds like a wuss?
I’m loving all these weird name theories.
Leland is actually a character from the Marcie/Sal flashback strips, who kind of looks like Ryan.
It’s probably Francis
So he’s like Ajax then?
Hailing from a botulism-ridden home, jumping ship at every opportunity, whining about not getting to wear the best clothes, and doing unspeakable things to sheep?
….. yeah, sure, why not?
Not the Ajax I was thinking of, but eh, close enough.
WHERE’S FRANCIS?
Francis is a great name. I have no idea what problem people have with it.
It’s Bill. Bill Cipher.
Don’t insult Bill like that. He’s only an eldritch abomination that wants to take over the world. Still better then Ryan.
Leland Gaunt would like a word with you.
im sticking with frantzenberg swiss cambertly
or methuselah “meth” martin because goddamn is that a good pun and im so happy i thought of it
I’m onboard with the ‘Justin’ theory.
Because, you know, that “I’m just… just an intern” line
Oooo. I like that. Maybe Ryan is his middle name like others have said and Justin is his first? Or some other name starting with Just. Justice would be ironic. Maybe a feminine name like Justine or a rare/hard to spell name like Justukas, Justek, or Justiz? Or it could just be Just. Who knows?
I’m staying with my, “His real name is, ironically, Gashface,” theory until proven otherwise. And possibly longer.
Ryan could be a middle name that his employers don’t know but that he prefers to use with friends. That’s not an uncommon situation.
Everyone I work with knows me by my middle name, but the payhecks and email still use First M. Last.
But I want nothing in common with Ryan.
I’m confused by the whole name thing, but I’m sticking with him being Ryan, one way or another. Middle name or something?
He’s still the Ryan from the Walkyverse, whatever his formal name is.
Yessss! Kick some ass and take some names, Robin!
No but seriously, take some names. Please find out that guy’s name.
AND THEN CHEW BUBBLEGUM
Frieda has THE BEST day.
definitely liking where this is going….
And cue the redemption arc…
*applauds to last panel* Decent start to turning good Robin, except for one little problem: you didn’t get his name. I mean I know “Screw the career, I’m doing what’s right” is a powerful feeling, but you can’t do right without his name.
thaaat’s a very good point
and this is basically why Robin has been going off a platform she doesn’t believe in and gives zero shits about. she needs everything organized for her by someone else )=
She should hire Becky for her new campaign manager.
Becky made Employee of the Month before she was properly hired. At this rate, she’ll be too busy running an entire chain of Galasso’s restaurants by the end of the semester. That’s way too much work to manage a Republican’s campaign.
Also far more enriching.
especially in the waist region.
You finally did something right Robin.
Does anyone know a good way to get rid of unwanted auditory hallucinations that only occur just before bedtime? Also, snapping awake in complete terror after only sleeping a few hours, sometimes with an accompanying scream? It’s starting to become bothersome, and tend to coincide with similarly-unwanted mental intrusions.
I only get auditory hallucinations when I’ve been playing a game way too much, so the solution was just to not do that (and get more sleep) 🙂
the waking up in terror sounds like something to google and then ask a doctor about. :/ and hey, maybe that’s making you sleep-deprived enough to explain the hallucinations. :/
…heh, I ended up doing a quick google myself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_terror
if you’re describing night terrors (which you might not, but the link has criteria for you to check that) it could be caused by anything from stress to low blood sugar to, ironically, sleep deprivation.
Low blood sugar, eh? More of an excuse to eat a pack of Twizzlers before bed, I guess. (Christ, not actually.)
You’re right about the sudden jolts causing the sleep deprivation, though. I’ll look into this more, just to be safe. Thanks!
I wonder if you are experiencing sleep paralysis? (Google it.) The causes aren’t fully understood (certain types of medication can trigger it), but some people think it’s the source of some of the legends about incubi and succubi, as well as “hauntings” and possibly even tales abour alien abductions.
I experience it sometimes; it feels like you’re awake but you can’t move. You may hear sounds and/or see things around you that aren’t really there. They may often seem very terrifying (at least in my personal experience). I remember a few times when I would have SWORN there was a monstrous, barely human creature in the room with me – until I woke up!
As Halpful said, talk to your doctor and Google it. What helped me was consciously realizing that I WAS in an altered state of consciousness and that what I was seeing wasn’t “real.” Sometimes I’d count my breaths to reassure myself that I was safe (one of my personal sleep paralysis terrors was that I’d stop breathing). I’ve actually been working, with some pretty good success, on using my sleep paralysis as a gateway to lucid dreaming!
I hope some of this is helpful and that you feel better soon. 🙂
Sleep paralysis was my first thought, but I can still move while it’s happening and usually take about 5-15 minutes to properly fall asleep. It’s not creepy or unsettling, either, aside from the obvious distressing nature of hearing sounds that aren’t happening. Thanks for the tips, though. I’ll try them anyway and see if it helps at all.
When I get really tired I sometimes hear sounds that aren’t there. I know they’re not there, because they’re usually recognizable voices of people I know. They’re sometimes “loud” enough that I’ve tried to make out words (knowing they’re not real, but just curious), but there aren’t ever words. Just a murmur.
Since it only happens when I’m really tired, and it doesn’t cause any actual problem, I just make a mental note to get more sleep, and otherwise ignore it.
If you’re playing video games, you’re likely using a screen lit by LEDs. That will keep you awake – white LEDs have a lot of blue light of the exact frequency to tell your brain it’s daytime. Some computers have a night mode you can turn on that makes the colors yellower. That can help. Or you can get a filter. Or just read a book (by incandescent light) instead of playing games late at night.
Sleep deprivation is really bad for your health; it’s worth finding ways to sleep more. The late-night video games are a good place to start.
The voices are exactly what’s been happening. You hit that one right on the head. The only thing is, my TV is old as hell, and I don’t tend to play much on it, late at night. My monitor settings are pretty yellowish, too, so I don’t know if it’s from that. Still, I can take this all under advisement, just to be safe. Thanks for this.
Hypnagogic hallucinations. Baaasically your auditory/visual enters go to sleep before the rwst of you and you dream while somewhat awake.
For a while I had one that was a loud BANG 15min after starting to doze off and it would startle me awake. Every time.
Oh, exploding head syndrome! (No seriously that’s what it’s called)
Yeah I used to get that. Less so now, not sure that changed.
Yeah though mine was less explosion and more something really heavy getting dropped on something really hard.
This is a comment directed towards “That Guy” and everyone else in this comments section who is defending “Ryan.” YES, people sometimes falsely accuse other people of sexual harrassment, assault, and/or rape, and that is NOT OKAY. However, people also falsely claim to have been mugged, robbed and/or been a victim of arson for insurance purposes and for other kinds of financial scams. Do we regularly assume that someone who says their house was robbed was lying, and the accused robber is probably an innocent victim? No, we do NOT. Yet the victims of sexual crimes, especially in the U.S., are often summarily disbelieved and/or ignored.
Going back to the theme of “false accusations:” I know this is anecdotal, but my male partner once lost a job because someone accused him of sexual harrassment. I came *this close* to leaving him because I could never ever EVER be with someone who would do something that terrible. However, after I stopped throwing things and drinking heavily (some of the things I threw were vodka bottles after I’d drunk the contents). 😛 , I talked seriously to him and to some of his co-workers whom I knew. My partner was up against a few other people for a major promotion. His co-workers said they’d never seen him behave inappropriately towards any other co-workers and, after he was let go, the person who most likely filed the complaint got the promotion.
Do I believe my partner was unjustly accused? Yes, I do. Did it have a terrible effect on our relationship and lives? Yes, it did. However, my partner did not get up on a soapbox claiming that “men are discriminated against and EVIL WOMEN just accuse them falsely!” In fact, in one of his subsequent jobs, he intervened positively when there was an ACTUAL case of sexual harrassment. He also helped draft some company policies regarding fair treatment for Queer and Trans* people. As terrible as the experience of being accused was, he is not bitter about it and instead has taken the initiative to fight against harrassment in the workplace. THAT is how to deal with a false accusation.
Statistically speaking, my partner falls into the small percentage of white men who are falsely accused of harrassment. (And yes, I DO believe he was falsely accused – please DO NOT comment otherwise as it will make me very sad and upsetted. If I honestly thought he was justly accused, I would have left him and done what I could to SEND HIS ASS TO JAIL.) My partner is the exception who proves the rule.
Current U.S. society is bending over backwards to “excuse” men who, inarguably, have committed acts of sexual violence against women. *TrumpcoughTrump* I did NOT assume my partner, despite my decade-long knowledge of him as a decent person, was innocent until I found out for sure. It is very upsetting to me that the “default” in the U.S. right now seems to be to disbelieve any woman who says she has been a victim of sexual violence, and to defend any man so accused.
Let me ask this: if “Ryan” was accused of stealing wallets and cell phones, would there even be a discussion about his culpability?
Who is “That Guy”?
Gone now, apparently.
But he shall return, or another like him. There seems to be an innumerable supply, somewhere…
If someone accused me of stealing wallets, I’d certainly hope someone would give ME the benefit of the doubt and not just clap me in irons.
I mean it is perhaps worth noting that believing / giving credence to an accusation is not the same as clapping the accused in irons.
You know there’s a middle-ground between immediately deriding the accuser as a liar and throwing the accused it prison without a trial right?
They’ll just take me from my life, potentially put a mark on my record and then take me in for questioning, and even if they’re way off base the most they’ll say is “My bad. You’re free to go.”
I think it’s REASONABLE to give credence to any claim of a wrong doing that’s happened to you. But when it comes to things like sexual assault, because it is indeed so hard to prove and because it happens so often, most people believe the burden of proof should be on someone to prove they DIDN’T rape someone. And taking the example provided I would not expect anyone to handle a trial in the same way for another crime.
I tend to abide by “Innocent” until proven guilty. This of course doesn’t pertain to cases where the evidence is strongly leading to the idea that sexual assault has taken place and yet the person gets off in spite of that, of course. That’s shitty and I understand. But I simply don’t believe that dragging someone’s name through the mud on something you CAN NOT prove is just as valid.
Very few people believe the burden of proof should shift in actual rape trials. There are vast improvements in the treatment of rape victims and of rape cases that could happen without nearly such a drastic change to the legal system. (Think, if nothing else, of the piles of unprocessed rape kits we keep hearing about.)
As for less legal results: should you know nothing more about Ryan than apparently appears on the social media here – he’s alleged to roofy girls at parties, if you recognized him at a party would you be comfortable with a female friend of yours hanging out with him unwarned? He’s “innocent”, after all. Nothing proven. Wouldn’t want to drag his name through the mud.
If I recognized him at a party I probably wouldn’t interact with him. Nor would a lot of people. Which is good considering he’s guilty. If he wasn’t he’d just be…depressing I guess. Just going around saying “I didn’t do anything!” and no one believing him.
Which would leave him free to find other women who didn’t recognize him.
You might remember he didn’t really interact with anyone at the party except for his target.
This is what Cerberus means by the “missing stair”. People kind of learn there’s some thing creepy about a guy and they avoid him and maybe warn their friends, but don’t actually do anything. While he keeps preying on those who haven’t gotten the warnings – newcomers and the like.
Like a busted stair in a house that you just get used to stepping around, rather than actually fixing.
Yup, like he went immediately for Joyce who hadn’t been to parties before and didn’t seem connected to anyone who had, so even if there was word of mouth, Joyce was completely unprepared.
And yeah, the thing about word of mouth is you need to tell people which runs into stuff like this. How to get word around about that creepy guy at parties. Like, socially, we tend to frown on folks “badmouthing” someone by telling an effective number of people that someone is an assaulter. And that means the majority of the community assumes they are okay while people mysteriously go disappearing from communities they belong to because of the fallout of their assaults.
Like, one of my assaulters is a member of some good standing in a community I belong to, because I don’t have nearly as much standing in that community and would be drummed out if I made a big fuss about their act of sexual assault. As such, I’ve told maybe 5 people in the community, with at least one having heard of other instances with that person. And even that is hella dangerous.
So in reality, under this method, the vast majority would be in the dark about the assaulter’s behavior unless there was a more public outing of their crimes like this. And this sort of thing tends to make people uncomfortable.
Like, not to dogpile on Yotomoe, in his example, he doesn’t even warn the woman in the hypothetical who is his friend. He just avoids the guy and assumes everyone else will do the same even though he may possibly one of only a few who know what the guy did or has heard talk of the guy’s behavior.
And that’s exactly what happens. Folks might make a wide berth, like one or two who happen to know one of their victims personally and seen the messy PTSD from stuff, but meanwhile the assaulter makes themselves more and more protected in the community, being the gladhander, helping out stand-up gent so that when someone actually tells others what he did, it can seem like a witch hunt against a decent dude.
Yotomoe, I understand what you’re saying, but by that logic *anyone* who is accused of a crime has their “name dragged through the mud.” And yes, at least in theory, the American criminal justice system abides by “innocent until proven guilty.”
We as readers know “Ryan” is guilty because we “saw” what happened. I am not an expert on the U.S. legal system, but if he is identified, I would expect him to be brought in for questioning. That is not “dragging his name through the mud;” if the case doesn’t proceed any further, there is no reason for anyone to ever know what he was accused of. Even if the case *goes* to trial, if he is found innocent it might not have an enormous effect on his life (there are many, many rape cases on the dockets that aren’t covered by the press; the accused doesn’t automatically land up on the front page). Granted, more attention may be paid to him because of Robin, but it seems there is a good chance the media will focus their negative attention on Robin more than him.
What bothers me is that I repeatedly see so much concern for the people who are accused of rape: “He’s a young man with his whole life ahead of him!” “What good are we doing by putting a ‘black mark’ on his name?” (Yotomoe, I’m not specifically saying you’re doing this.) To me personally, this defense of the accused’s rights does not necessarily entail a similar concern for the person making the accusation. It is not at all uncommon for someone who reports that they have been raped to have *that* stigma follow them around their entire life. (See discussion on “slut-shaming” below).
Also, in the U.S., it seems that on a sociological level we tend to “excuse” men accused of rape and not “hold it against them.” Heck, with his record, “Ryan” could very well go on to be President! *TrumpcoughTrump*
I don’t disagree. I’d much rather settle on justice for all parties. I think my concern comes from a tendency I’ve noticed for the pendulum to swing the other way. I’ve simply noticed myself how easy it is to get people to become militant and rage on someone based on accusations or out of context information and I think that’s dangerous.
I will probably, BY DEFAULT, believe a victim in a rape case. But if someone sympathizes with the accused, I can at least understand the sentiment without assuming that they’re ALSO a piece of shit that condones rape (like many people will do).
IS anyone actually defending Ryan? If so I’ve missed it, because every time he shows up the comments section seems to turn into murderboner measuring contest.
Nobody’s actually defending Ryan, because we as readers watched the attempted rape play out.
Some people are defending the in-comic people who support Ryan on the grounds that they don’t know that and that all they’ve heard is the social media stuff which could be lies.
Which suggests that such people might well fall into the “supporters” camp in real life, if they only knew the public information.
Sliiiight correction: we as readers don’t see anyone defending Ryan, because those tend to be first time commenters, and all first time commenters need to be individually approved before they show, and Willis is having none of it. The banhammer is powerful, and wielded liberally.
That’s been my impression, but then Jamie said this:
“This is a comment directed towards “That Guy” and everyone else in this comments section who is defending “Ryan.””
Which suggests that not only are there people defending Ryan specifically, but that there’s enough of them to make them worth addressing a big post to. I was wondering if I was going blind or skimming past stuff.
I think I misread some of the early comments on this strip and/or misunderstood their tone (it was late at nightand I was very tired). This subject is a bit of a trigger for me, especially in regards to politics *TrumpcoughTrump*
To be fair, the existence of slut-shaming means women do have an extra incentive to lie about rape/sexual assault that doesn’t exist for other crimes. Since just having consensual sex is often seen as immoral, it provides an incentive to claim the guy pressured/forced you into it so you’re not seen as a slut.
Ok not saying this doesn’t ever happen but reality is that it is nowhere near as common as people think it is. In pop culture land, like 2/3 of women are bullshitting. Here in reality land, ralse accusations are no more prevalent for rape than other crimes. And unlike other crimes, false rape allegations are very often a sign the accuser is in fact a victim of crime… just not necessarily the one reported. Not uncommon for victims of abuse to levy allegations if they can’t get anyone to help with the abuse.
Another common scenario is the girl whose father will LITERALLY kill her if he finds out she has had consensual sex who finds herself pregnant. Girl where I gre up ran into that… Hospitalized 3x while 14 and pregnant and ppl wouldn’t help her because her father was giving the “slut”what she deserved. So she cried rape. Because if she didn’t, he was literally going to kill her and people who saw it coming and refused to help would at most cluck their tongues and say “what a shame”. Think reaction to Toedad.
Also her sexual “partner” was 28. So she wasn’t wrong about the rape, just about how it took place. Pedo dude groomed a child for his sexual gratification but slut narrative meant he didn’t even see a day in jail despite irrefutable proof in the form of a positive paternity test.
People WERE, however, very upset with the 14YO child for “ruining” her molester’s life. She got a record for filing a false report, he got nada and went on to get three other girls under 15 preggo to date. He has yet to even be arrested, BTW.
Cuz y’know, he’s a nice guy when he isn’t grooming children for his sexual gratification.
And the fact that he leaved a trail of pregnant children dealing with the aftermath of sexual and emotional abuse just means there is a weird plague of children lying about their ages somehow believably to a guy who befriended their families and knows damn well they’re in fucking middle school. Or so the prevailing narrative back home tells it.
The existence of slut-shaming also gives female victims the incentive to lie and deny it happened, as it is likely that they will be blamed for what happened to them.
The reality of slut-shaming is such that when we’re raped, we keep it quiet, because once we mention what happened, we’re going to be drowning in a metric buttload of bullshit tearing apart our every tiniest sexual moment or risque statement to “prove” we’re actually secretly (slur for sexually active women), because y’know (slur for sexually active women) just live to randomly fuck people and then accused them of being rapists.
And yeah, I’m not going any higher than this on the comment threads, because I just can’t. I’ve got too little patience for rape apologia or the perpetuation of rape myths.
Like people assume stories like this are the minority, that most of the time, it’s smearing an innocent person. But the reality is stories like this are the vast vast majority. And most of the Joyces in the world never manage to pull the courage and risk to even get this far.
And it’s frustrating, living in the justice-less hell we do, to see something so low on actual impact. Which only serves to warn others so they may avoid a literal danger be treated still as too much to give a rapist, cuz what if they were innocent.
And the prevalence of this worldview is… yeah, upsetting. And it’s a bit more hard to take when it’s happening in a story where there isn’t that question of “did this happen or not”, because unlike so many times in fiction, it isn’t following the accused rapist’s perspective, but that of one of their victims.
This is the story that never makes it into media and it’s why people believe a fiction like “rape accusations frequently ruin lives” rather than any real acknowledgment of the toxic storm of PTSD that just surviving this shit brings much less trying to advocate for even the right to tell others what happened to you.
We’ve seen Robin at her worst. Now let’s see Robin at her best.
Surprisingly to many people, she is not, in fact, Donald Trump.
Her best being “not letting an attempted rapist get away scot-free.”
To be fair, the other people in her office want to do explicitly that. Whitney doesn’t even want to FIRE the shitstain. I absolutely believe that some people would recommend EMBRACING Ryan, as a measure of offering solidarity (specifically she’s supporting a straight white man), and when that is THE party norm, I absolutely wll give props to someone who bucks it to do the right thing.
Robin is like Joe in that I keep wanting her to get better because sometimes she does good person things, but I don’t know that I can really expect it to happen. This makes me hopeful, but don’t really know if that hope is warranted.
Yessssssss…
Boo! We do not redemption for Robin! Keep her a villain. Albeit, one who strangles Ryan Darth Vader style because even evil has standards.
Yeah, redemption for her after her career, even if she takes care of fucking Ryan would be cheap and gross.
She was always going to be redeemed. A million years ago Willis said that the best and worst thing about her in this situation is that she’s still Robin.
You don’t have to like it, but I would definitely not express criticism as “if this happens”, because it will.
“If the price of my re-election is to even passively</i? protect a rapist because he has friends in the party hierarchy, then it is a price too high for me to pay.”
— Rep Robin DeSanto
— Impromptu press conference
I think that such an action would go a long way to redeeming her in a lot of people’s eyes.
the audience here, maybe.
the party that’s disavowed her and is protecting him? nope.
I’ve got a feeling that she suddenly doesn’t care what they think.
i kind of think that robin has made her audience too small: she packages herself to appeal to as small a slice as possible in individual doses
a statement like that would basically be presenting herself, the things she really believes, and asking the world to accept them
which is not really how she’s tended to operate in past
on one side : woohooo
on the other side : girl, they were doing all the work and you have no idea how to do any of this.
hahahahah yeaaaaah
Maybe now is a good time to retire from politics, write a book outing all your former colleagues’ horrific scandals, then show up outside Lezlie’s window with a boombox blasting whatever the hell that song is called.
See, that scene is this supposed stereotype of romance, but it always struck me as really creepy and stalkerish…oh God that’s why Robin will have no problem doing that isn’t it.
That whole movie bothers me, but my takeaway being “I have nothing going on in my life but I would love to officially be your biggest fan” is creepy af could just be projection on my part.
doesn’t the girl have a boyfriend at the time, too?
No, wait. that’s the other stalker. Rick from Walking Dead, with the cue cards.
Wasn’t it taken as actually creepy and stalkery in the movie itself?
I believe so, but now it’s referenced without context as being a romantic act in popular culture. Which blows my mind because that’s damn creepy, especially as he’s also showing he has the strength to hold a boom-box over his own head for quite some time which is not as easy as people think.
Yay, Robin!!!!!!
OH NO, a rape-y ass has sympathizers? Better run away because there’s NO WAY there’s an opposing movement to that. Way to go Robin!
Good move, Robin.
(please read the entire post before you burn me alive)
So… umm… here’s the thing. There are actual ethical reasons to sympathize with Ryan. Yes, we know what he did. We know he’s guilty. For the reader, his guilt is established beyond all doubt. His actions are a particular hot button for me, to the extent that I’d like him to be flayed. But… here’s where the other half of my brain, the part of me that says flaying rapists isn’t necessarily the right thing to do, wrestles with it. In universe, he hasn’t been convicted of anything.
There are very good reasons why our legal system was designed with the intention of protecting the accused until they are proven guilty. This sort of e-mob justice is dangerous. Every single one of us should shudder at the thought of somebody being tried and convicted by a mob of casually interested people who read a tweet or an internet post and decided to jump on the bandwagon. For every Bill Cosby, there’s also a Zoe Quinn. We don’t get to choose who’s a fair target for a mob of random hatred, it all just depends on who the mob decides is worth destroying, we can only hope it’s a target that’s actually done something to deserve it.
THAT said, here’s where the first part of my brain keeps me up at night. Far too often in this case, mob justice may be the ONLY justice we can hope for. The fact of the matter is that in Rape cases, the system is often unable or even unwilling to protect the victims. It can even punish them further by forcing them to go through it all again during the trial. The casual indifference campuses show to rampant sexual assault only makes it worse.
So, I guess where I’m landing is that a sympathizer of Ryan isn’t necessary a horrible person, but they’re probably more than a little naive.
This. It’s also worth noting that in this day and age, it’s very easy to read something, get filled with righteous outrage and mobilize the e-masses… Only for it to be later revealed that the story was fake, or had crucial bits of information omitted. Remember that story about the German teen who was apparently sexually assaulted by three “Middle Eastern immigrants”? Yeah, it turns out she made up the whole thing and now SHE’S being charged by the German police.
There is a very good reason why jurors are not allowed to be influenced by external factors, and failure to adhere to that can result in immediate dismissal from the case. The harsh truth of reality is that things aren’t always as black and white as they seem, and I strongly caution anyone against jumping to conclusions or making hasty judgments. The same mob justice that can bring criminals down can also cause lynchings against innocent people.
Well, that’s definitely a thing and I’m actually far more suspicious of accusations against “easy targets”. Like that German case. Like accusations against black men in the US. Intersectionality.
And juries should certainly be judging only on the facts of the case and the presumption of innocence needs to be preserved, which means that many rapists will not be convicted due to lack of evidence.
As for the effects of social media: Actual lynchings of alleged rapists are pretty rare (as in, I don’t know of any.) Rape victims are also often victims of social media “lynchings” – often more so than those they’re accusing.
The most likely effect of a social media campaign like this against Ryan isn’t that “mob justice” will murder him or that he’ll be arrested and convicted simply because of the social media accusations, but that maybe, just maybe, a future target will recognize him and avoid being raped. Or maybe he’ll just be less welcome at the parties that he uses as a hunting ground.
Of course, that is only a good thing if he is INDEED a rapist. Like “social media lynchings” have caused people to lose their jobs over an incongruous comment about Africa. They can DEFINITELY derail your life if you are accused of rape. And if you are a rapist, fuck you, you deserve it. But if you’re not, social media can DEFINITELY ruin your life. Sites like Tumblr and Twitter especially are really good at “Reblog this because this guy is a piece of shit and I want everyone to know” and by the time more information comes out the original post is already so popular no one really notices the post that says “Whoops, my bad~”
There are definitely problems with social media. Still, I suspect more rape victims are harmed by such campaigns (smearing them to blunt their allegations) than actual rapists, much less falsely accused rapists.
I am aware of actual lynchings, but the victims weren’t white men and all the ones I know about happened a long time ago.
Consider, for example, To Kill A Mockingbird, the driving force behind which is the attempted lynching, and trial of, a black dude falsely accused of raping a white lady. The least realistic thing about it is probably the fact that he got a lawyer who was genuinely committed to defending him, given the time and place.
PS: I am also aware of much more recent murders for the same reasons, but they didn’t involve extrajudicial hanging and therefore aren’t, strictly speaking, lynches. =/
Oh absolutely. Intersectionality is strongly at play here. As I said, I’m much more wary of accusations against easy targets like non-white men.
Most of the more recent ones I’m aware of seem to have involved personal ties – closer to vigilante action than to whipping up a mob. Closer to AG or Sal attacking Ryan than the social media posts setting a mob after him.
Ehhh. There’s plenty of reason to not want to hang Ryan from the nearest tree on the basis of a tweet. However, the simple fact is that the accusation now exists and that should be investigated. Certainly, that means people are now warned about the man as a potential threat.
yeah.
going into this, the assumption from the characters involved was that justice was never going to be found. i mean, starts with Sal, but everyone else agrees – because they all know what happens because they’ve lived here in this culture. so they don’t gather the evidence that would put him in jail in a good world. so all they have, months later, is a claim and hearsay. so now the only option open to them is spread what is, essentially, a rumor. and that is how vigilante justice works in the digital age.
and i mean it is a true rumor, but we know that because we got to see it. we have evidence that the general public in DoA doesn’t. there’s no real way for them to know for sure. it’s literally on the basis of half the rumors on tumblr
but like: it’s also very unlikely that joyce is his only victim. so if other women start coming out, then we have a pattern, and we more or less have got this asshole. to a degree. if they get a good judge, i guess
Yeah… um… let me put it this way. We as a society want to believe that every accuser of sexual assault is a liar and every perpetrator is a victim of a life-ruining smear.
This mythology is so powerful and pervasive that it happens in everything and builds a frequent conspiracy of silence where survivors bury what happened to them and live with the PTSD and disappear out of communities in silence, because speaking out means nothing but pain and watching all those you care about circle behind the rapist.
And we believe rapists are innocent above and beyond most any other crime. Like, we can’t wait to believe folks are guilty before any evidence when it comes to crimes like theft. How many folks have been willing to write off the literally humanity of various victims of police shootings because hey, the cops said they were a criminal or the media was able to dig up some ancient unpaid ticket or something. But bring up a long series of multiple individuals who’ve been assaulted and a rapist who pretty much straight up admits to doing it and it’s still “witch hunt” 24/7.
And this is what we see played out so many fucking times. It’s why I just ate my rape and stopped going to the event it occurred at, even though it had been a major part of my life before. Because speaking out or trying to get justice so often is just a great way to have lots of folks speaking poorly of you and well of your rapist.
Like I get the impulse and it’s a good one. It’s good to be cautious about social media pile-ons because there’s also a lot of abusers who use pile-ons about random shit and recruiting of toxic groups to hurt someone who was able to escape them.
But the reality of rape and how it’s treated in our culture is important as well to keep in mind here. There’s a huge social risk in naming a rapist and frequently by the time it gets there, the rapist has a whole string of folks he’s victimized over the years. And the survivor is at genuine risk by the rapists’ fans or the institutional support they can bring to bear.
It’s one of the things that keeps me awake at night. High minded ideals clashing with the real world. Without going into confidential details, I’ve seen how the system fails in this case, and it doesn’t take a legal genius to see how “innocent until proven guilty” turns into “blame the victim” both in and out of a courtroom. I desperately want there to be a better way, but I don’t know if there is one.
I think “innocent until proven guilty” is a good legal principle, especially as a bar to put someone in jail, but yeah, there’s definite problems, especially when it gets divorced from its legal context and used as a silencing cudgel against survivors being open about who did what to them.
Cause there should be different standards between do I believe a buddy of mine hurt someone or am I throwing this man in jail for this crime.
But yeah, the victim-blaming is pretty bad as is the way we’ve let sexual assault cases become things where we judge the victim to see if they are lying or (slurs for sexual women) and thus somehow undeserving of justice or incapable of being aware of what is or isn’t with consent. All while the perpetrators history or other creepy actions are seen as immaterial to the case.
I guess at the end of the day, it comes down to dismantling rape culture in general.
Personally, I think the main reason people are so hesitant to believe rape victims is because, since the vast majority of rape victims know their assailants, they are usually in the unique position to know the identity of the person that attacked them.
When someone gets, for example, mugged in an alley, they generally don’t know who mugged them. When they report this crime, it’s very easy to sympathize with them because the perpetrator is faceless and thus “believing” them doesn’t require you to condemn a specific person. A rape victim can point out exactly who raped them and thus if you want to believe them you have to, at least mentally, condemn someone with a face and a name attached and this is much harder to do.
The legal system basically requires that the victim be blamed until they can prove beyond any reasonable doubt that they aren’t making it up. I dare say that’s bled into popular sentiment.
I still hate you Robin but I applaud you not being literally Satan.
I’m really hoping she’ll help against Ryan then do something awful again, showing she’s still a terrible person.
Like terrible people aren’t literally incapable of doing good things occasionally. Being opposed to rape is a bar so low it is buried 3 miles under the earth’s surface so managing to get over it really doesn’t say much about someone.
This is literally ‘even villains have standards’; she still isn’t not a villain, and I could totally see her flying off the handle and lashing out at people when she inevitably loses.
It’s a low bar, but one that very many have trouble getting over.
I mean, they may be against rape in the abstract or when it happens to someone they know or someone sympathetic. Rape’s tricky. Nobody actually approves of rape. They just decide the cases they’re okay with weren’t really rape.
they just like the person more than they want to deal with the possibility of rape existing in any meaningful context
Yup. It’s… depressing.
That is a low bar.
Satan gets a bad rep. Dude was a prosecution attorney, and that was it.
…and this is why spreading a picture of him on Facebook immediately may not have been the best thing to do, as I argued earlier. The thing with starting something on social media is that regardless of how noble or vile the initial case may have been, in the end you’re going to get mobs of uninformed people on both sides, and the relative sizes of those mobs is mostly uncorrelated to anything of importance.
On the other hand, Ryan actually has lost a large amount of his protection and is now sneaking around like a ninja.
It’s the missing stair problem. Sometimes all you can really do is publicize the missing stair so it becomes harder for him to trip and injure the folks walking near him.
Is it ideal? Fuck no.
But most rape survivors never get in the same ballpark as ideal, so this… this at least can feel like something.
Exactly, Robin. Exactly.
I knew it. I knew Willis wouldn’t turn his magical pixie Warner Bros. cartoon baby into a villain.
Months and months of strips where every time Robin showed up, people in the comments were like “Holy SHIT she’s not being funny at all, what she’s doing is actually terrifying” and other people countering with “well, let’s see where he goes with it!” Fair, but I knew in my heart of hearts this is where it would go. Robin would not get arrested, she would face no consequences whatsoever other than ones she would then surmount in order to become the turnabout hero. Now, she will bravely fight for women’s issues fearlessly and stand up for what’s right after spending a week in the presence of a lesbian, the way no Republican ever has or will, ESPECIALLY not right now.
There were about ten different ways this story could have gone that would have somewhat redeemed Robin as a character/made her arc actually interesting, and making her suddenly come to her senses to be the hero she was meant to be all along was not one of them.
I really hope he gets her out of his system soon. Just do whatever you feel you need to Willis, as long as it’s quick. Have her make a “For Shame” Fozzy Bear speech in front of a room full of Republicans/on stage (you know it’s coming). Have her dump her “fake” Republican personality in the trashcan as she walks away from it dramatically, “Republican no more!”. Have her throw on a cape, literally get superpowers and fly to the Whitehouse, bopping Trump into space with a huge cartoon mallet. Have her say “totes”, trip over her own feet, and stumble headfirst into a slidewhistle collection that somehow ends up destroying the patriarchy Jar Jar style. Go ahead and get all of that shit out of your system so she can get busy never being in the strip again.
I doubt it’s going to be that simple and I’m sure she’s not going away. And you’re right that he’s not going to “turn his magical pixie Warner Bros. cartoon baby into a villain.” That’s been clear all along.
Robin’s nowhere near bottom yet though. She might be able to help with Ryan, but she’s likely to finish burning her political career in the process. She’s got a long way to go before her arc’s over.
I was hoping Willis was doing something interesting by making Robin a different person than in Shortpacked. You know, what most people do with alternate universe characters.
Of course she’s a different person. Just like they’re all different people.
You don’t like redemption stories? I like them. Because I prefer redemption to revenge, and here’s why. In the past I have stood firmly on what I now know to be the harmful side of some really important issues. The only reason I didn’t do more harm (and I’m sure I did some, such as voting for the harm) was that I was not in a position to do so. Which means, logically, that I probably still have some things completely wrong and need to wise up.
It’s true that some people can’t be redeemed. Robin has done some horrible things but I’d be very glad to read a story of her redemption.
What would be interesting with her would be a “sometimes redemption isn’t enough” type story like with Ruth and Rachel.
Even if you turn over a new leaf, even if you work hard to set everything right, that doesn’t mean that the people you’ve hurt before won’t still see you as dangerous and keep their distance for fear of your relapse or see it as not enough.
And it’s also. This might potentially be the spark of the redemption, but this is nowhere near the actual redemption. An actual redemption would have to center the lack of consent she gave Leslie and some real deep important soul searching. So if we get a full redemption arc, it’s not going to be like the previous universe where it was as simple as “oh, I see you as a person and recognize I love you thanks to your endless patience”.
As for the OP, there are some. Sometimes it’s that personal moment that is what’s needed to jettison the rest of the garbage you were carting around. A good example is Harvey Milk. When he was more closeted, he was a bit of a mess, getting upset with lovers for being political in queer rights, actively campaigning for awful Republicans like Barry Goldwater, and so on.
But when he hit his moment where he couldn’t anymore, it sparked a renaissance for him. When he was assassinated, he had recently won on the back of a deeply intersectional movement that tied queer rights in with other rights such as labor or racial rights. So yeah, it happens, but given the depressing state of the now, I can feel being frustrated by it, because there’s also value in knowing that some folks you can reach out to, but won’t ever be saved, will just drain you instead. Or could be saved, but it’s toxic to try and do it yourself.
So it’ll be interesting to see what particular track this continues to go down.
I didn’t know that about Harvey Milk.
Another question: Is redemption valuable because (of righting wrongs, restoring relationships, etc.) or is it valuable in some way for its own sake.
I don’t like THIS redemption story, because it’s not interesting and it’s not even well done. Robin isn’t being redeemed here, because before you’re redeemed, you have to actually admit you did some fucked up shit. Robin has yet to have a moment of self reflection about her own personal actions or statements because quite frankly I don’t think Willis ever saw her as anything but a lovable cartoon character goofball who is immune from the concerns of mortal men. She’s not reflecting on herself, she’s reflecting on her party here. She’s not bad, just stupid and naive and easily duped! Except for all the times she was, but those don’t count, because lol Robin said “totes” again. Isn’t that endearing? (No.)
We don’t need heroic turnabout politician Robin, because at the very best she’ll be used to deliver heroic wish fulfillment, something which she doesn’t deserve to deliver, and at worst she will be a Deus Ex Machina that neatly ties up a dangling DoA plot thread. She’ll also be utterly redundant in the strip from here on out, because as I’ve said before, Becky is identical to Robin in every single way (He even made a joke about it!) except Becky’s way more interesting and important.
Villain Robin would have made her interesting, different, culturally relevant and unique. She would be the perfect commentary on all those “charming” down home huckster Republicans like Huckabee who are actually complete monsters. It would give the series its first non-male villain.
But no, Robin has to be the hero in any and all universes. Oh, added side ick: Ten bucks says this ends with Leslie and Robin getting together now. “Wow, you stood up to the whole Republican party?” “Totes m’goats!” “You’ve changed, i’m impressed, let’s fuck!”
I hear you, but I hope you wind up being wrong. My hopes are pretty severely strained by the whole home-invasion-as-a-joke plot point, though.
First: I’m not here to tell you you have to like Robin, or this story, or even Willis’s writing. Goodness knows that would be a losing argument for me to make, just based on your display name alone.
But I do think that you’re wrong that this strip is supposed to be Robin’s redemption for anything she actually did to Leslie.
Robin has made a lot of mistakes in this comic so far. She’s hurt a lot of people. Her earliest appearances were all about how she was the hollowest possible politician, who made all of her decisions based on what was most likely to be popular with the largest number of people, and who was, obviously, completely willfully ignorant of the real harm caused by policies she was voting for. What we saw was a person who was sleepwalking through her political career.
What we’re seeing now is a person who’s saying, “Wait, you’re saying what would be most popular with the largest number of people is to let a literal rapist go free?” and not only hesitating but putting her foot down.
I think the writing wants us to view Robin, not as having been made into a fundamentally better person by knowing Leslie, but as having gotten lucky enough that someone she was attracted to (and therefore felt compelled to listen to) happened to open her eyes a tiny bit to some of the real-world consequences of her actions.
Unfortunately, Robin in this capacity represents a lot of real politicians. A few years back, one of the Daily Show (or similar) segments talked to an anti-abortion politician and asked him why he thinks women seek abortions, and he had no idea whatsoever. He admitted that he had never even thought about it before. And then he gave a vaguely apologetic smile, but clearly didn’t really see the issue.
There are a lot of Robins out there in our political landscape, enacting legislation they’ve never thought about before.
Which doesn’t make Robin a good person by any stretch of the imagination. But I don’t think she was ever meant to be the particular sort of awful politician you’re describing — I don’t think she was ever supposed to be a “complete monster”. And the politicians who just drift through their terms, signing horrible legislation because they’ve never thought twice about it — in addition to being a more appropriate translation for Walkyverse!Robin — are also culturally relevant sources for commentary.
I just don’t think this particular story is, as of yet, relevant to Robin’s breaking-and-entering, her treatment of Becky, or her treatment of Leslie. Whether we’ll get to that later or not is still very much a question for me, because I do agree that the tone of these encounters has been sort of questionable, but this is not a reaction to any of the things you’re expressing displeasure about it not addressing. It’s a reaction to different problems altogether.
– Also, “first non-male villain”… are you being serious right now? C’mon.
I dunno. There’s, what, Mary and Joyce’s mom? You compare them to Clint, Blaine, or Ross and — I think, anyway — there’s a very clear step change in level.
I’m gonna be real honest: if you don’t think Joyce’s mother is at least on Clint’s level, I don’t know what to tell you. Her emotional abusiveness is a huge huge huge deal for Willis personally because it’s autobiographical, and he directly paralleled her to ROSS, and she’s going to keep being an ongoing antagonistic force with Joyce and her trans sister. Her lack of shotgun is not meant to be taken as indication that she’s not as bad.
And you’re leaving out Walky and Sal’s mom. You’re leaving out Ethan and Leslie’s parents, and they have shitty moms as well as shitty dads. These people aren’t on screen right now, but they are also vile.
Hell, what about Danny’s mom.
Subtler abuse is not lesser abuse. It doesn’t terrorize kids any less.
People rarely MEAN to be monsters. Most villains think they’re the good guys, and yet here we are, a world full of monsters and villains.
Yes, there are politicians that just float through life and don’t really think about the legislation they enact or how it effects people. My issue is that Robin stopped being that with one weekend jaunt and a couple of conversations, which doesn’t happen, especially not with Republicans. Something like this only happens in a story when an author goes “FINALLY I can make my favorite character a good guy again! It was so hard pretending she was a villain there for a second”.
I think characterizing her time in Leslie’s class and then with Leslie later, being confronted by her victims, was not “a weekend jaunt”.
But then I also think you sort of missed the point of what I was saying about Robin not being that type of awful.
There are absolutely politicians who enact conservative policies while also thinking LGBTQ+ folks are gross depraved monsters who deserve to suffer. They manage to do this while not considering themselves bad people! But they are a different group from the folks who are just plain not thinking things through.
Joyce was a different sort of person than her mom is. Some people ARE more reach-able, and never having thought about these issues as causing real human suffering does tend to make you more reach-able.
And it does, actually, happen in real life. Even with Republicans.
I’m pretty sure the redemption arc for Robin is, at best, just starting. She’s got a long way to go and this isn’t going to be quickly followed by forgiveness. Assuming we ever get there, which is pretty likely.
But yes, Willis likes the character. Likes the zaniness of her and he’s not going to keep her as the villain. Frankly, I think she’d make a lousy villain, unless he establishes the wackiness as just a mask for some cold calculating evil and that would kill all my interest in the character.
Sometimes the comment section makes me think that the entire strip should just be Leslie’s Women’s Studies class.
Robin you don’t have any grasp of how anything works in your campaign. Order these assholes to give you “Ryan’s” information, then fire them. Or at least try and see if they refuse.
It’s like no one in this strip has any urgency about this. I feel like if she had never had her endorsement revoked, she’d still be at Leslie’s home being a lazy asshole instead of trying to catch this guy.
It’s like mathematical order-of-operations: “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally”. I’m willing to bet that Robin did poorly that kind of math question in school.
In this case, First you get the name, Then you fire them, Then you go get not-Ryan and see what’s what. She just got her order of operations wrong and that’s like true to form for her.
ROBIN I LOVE YOU!!!!!! I ALWAYS BELIEVED IN YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
See, this is why Robin’s future in the Republican Party is limited: there are things she is not willing to do, and lines she is not willing to step over, to further her own interest.
And a Republican politico spontaneously grows a backbone.
Of course, this *IS* in a fictional world.
He has sympathizers…
…
…
fuck this world
Yeah, that was so painfully real. Cause yeah, of course he has sympathizers. Every rapist has sympathizers. Usually more than the people they assault.
It’s… yeah, fuck this world.
Yep, fuck this world, and the “Ryans” in it especially.
Nooo! Bad move Robin! Now you’ll never find out his real name, because you are too stupid to do so on your own. You should have waited until they told you his real name, then fired them!
I predict that Ryan is the son of one of her biggest campaign contributors. Like top 3-5 contributors. Donated ~10-30% of her total campaign funds.
And it’s gonna get reaaaaaal messy.
ESPECIALLY since he said that his dad actually is a pastor/minister/whatever term you want to use.
I further tongue-in-cheek predict that Ryan’s actual name is Paul.
Well, let it not be said I don’t kudo when I should.
Good on you, Robin.
Not that she’d be likely to figure this out, but Robin is well-positioned for a switch right now. Here’s a scenario: she gives an “I’ve had enough of this crap” speech, and starts building support. Some bridges she could build by burning others.
FUCKING FINALLY. <3
CW: discussions of rape culture
Comic Reactions:
Panels 1-3: I really like this consistent good aspect to Robin’s character. She’s unwilling to turn a blind eye to sexual assault or to let it go in ways that would be better for her. This is something that truly deeply matters to her and it is bringing out genuine integrity in this arena.
And I can definitely relate. Sexual assault is one of those things where I stop being able to really think strategically and find myself taking big risks to try and put an end to.
And oof, Whitney’s statements. Because… well, yeah, that’s the dark secret of sexual assault, the vast majority of people will circle around the rapist no matter what.
And there’s a lot of reasons for that. The myth of how a rape accusation ruins lives (that matter) and the cultural idea that “percussion instruments always be lyin’ ” that supports it. General rape culture that normalizes a lot of rape behavior, makes it “funny’ parts of teen movies, makes it seem like a college right of passage, makes it seem “justified”. And sadly, the way that committing abuse or assault is often seen as making one stronger whereas suffering it makes one weaker. So we venerate people who hit their partners or rape others, because culturally that reads as “strong” enough to turn people into objects.
It’s not good, moral, fair, or acceptable, but it’s the mess we have.
So yeah, this is the realest moment because yeah, when a rapist gets accused or shamed like this. When folks start talking about the missing stair in their community and warning each other, folks trip over themselves to show sympathy to the “poor (usually) man” at the center of the “dogpile”. And if there is a victim that can be identified, denigrating them as a (slur for sexually active woman) or a liar or as “weak” and “damaged”.
It’s a cycle I’ve seen time and time before and tried to mitigate where I can, but there’s a similar cycle of the survivor being ostracized and attacked for “ruining a life” and the perpetrator getting a golden moment in the sun where all their friends who would previously call them creepy, circle round and lock arms to defend.
It’s a major part of what makes reporting, even in an anonymous method with no real legal consequences and no full/possibly even real name like this so dangerous.
Because there’s a whole poisonous culture wanting to deny away reality and reinforce this broken narrative of lying (slurs for sexually active women) “ruining lives”.*
*And yeah, I’ve got no time for this “ruined lives” crap. Like, the amount of bullshit and PTSD you go through as a survivor. The number of folks who’ve had to drop out or quit because the flashbacks and the locations were too much afterwards. And like, when an admitted rapist is the President of the United States, elected after that came out, when so many rapists have had long successful careers while the people they assaulted dropped out constantly, when no one even remembers the names of most rapists and where one of the few we do gets paid by colleges to basically spread a victim-blaming message about how you shouldn’t drink booze if you don’t want to be raped. So yeah, miss me with that shit.
I agree with you totally. When I finally was able to tell people that a guy I went on 3 dates with sexually assaulted me, my friends and family believed me for the most part because they didn’t know him personally. My dad even tracked him down and threatened him (without my knowledge) to never come near me again. However, when I told them my ex whom they had known 7 years had had sex with me without consent during our relationship (yes that’s rape, but at the time it didn’t click that me saying I wasn’t in the mood and him doing it anyway was rape) and had full out pinned me down and raped me in my dad’s front yard (including graphic details which I’ve shared before here), I got a… less supportive response. My friends supported me as they knew how he really was as they had seen cracks in the narrative (I thought I didn’t deserve better so I tried to make him sound better than he was), had talked to me while crying after he had done or said something bad during the relationship, or heard/seen something when we were talking or on Skype. Two of them had been trying to get me to break up with him on and off. But my family? Ha! They blamed me even saying that the rape was us just having sex and me regretting it afterward because I found out he had a girlfriend and twisting it into that. Yeah. Sure. I’d totally have unprotected sex with my ex (who left me a week before my 30th birthday) while not on birth control a month out of the hospital for suicidal ideation where I was accidentally exposed to blood from a woman with full blown AIDS (which I told him about). Plenty of people in my family are still friends with him years later. It’s like the fact that knowing the perpetrator makes people try to find any possible excuse to defend them especially if they have a good opinion of them regardless of how they feel about the victim. One of my relatives who I was close to at the time even said I was a pathological liar (he said I lied about being an abuse survivor and my dad having depression and a drinking problem). If I hadn’t had the support of my four friends and his ex who I became friends with after, I have no doubt that I would have ended up back in the hospital or worse over this. It’s a big problem.
I don’t know everything that happened with his 3 other exes, but I do know he has 1 restraining order (not surprising as he had her son start calling him dad after less than a year of dating, was kinda stalker-ish, had a box with pictures of them and toys and a lock of her son’s hair, kept a picture of the 3 of them in his wallet, and had me try to look them up online several times). He also had one bolt and block him from everything after he randomly showed up pissed off at her child’s father’s house while they were discussing visitation to tell him to stay away from her and then two weeks later proposed to her after dating her only 2 months total (I know because he was dating her during a time we were broke up and came to me for help with getting his money back for the ring). The third stayed in touch and tried to warn me to leave him to which he responded that her fiancé (now husband) was made up and she was still in love with him and trying to get me to leave him so she could swoop in. This is the guy my family loved and believed over me. This is what he was like and even though he seemed like a sweetheart and a good guy, he wasn’t. Appearances can be deceiving as hell, so unless there is OVERWHELMING evidence that a sexual assault could not have happened, believe the god damn victim!
*Appropriate gesture of support* Yeah, those ones are the worst. When people who are supposed to love you disbelieve you and think the worst of you because they don’t want to believe they could have ever felt positively about a rapist or an abuser.
It’s a fucked up system and yeah, given all the shit survivors get, it’s really a best practice to believe survivors when they confide shit in you. Cause way more often than not, they’ll be talking not only about a real incident, but a real incident they are minimizing to try and protect their abuser/attacker.
Oh yeah. Both times I tried to minimize at first because I was in shock and denial. Rape and sexual assault hardly ever looks like we were told it looks or feels emotionally how they say either which I think is why we question it so strongly when it happens to us and why others think we are lying when we don’t act right. It’s terrible all the way around.
How are you and your fiancé by the way? Also, I hope you don’t mind, but I used you as an example to a man and woman I was talking to who had no idea there were more things in this world than gay, straight, and bi. I’m pretty sure I blew their minds explaining polysexual, demisexual, asexual, trans (including the dangers of surgery and how many choose to not have it and how they are their gender regardless of what they have in their pants), intersex, cis, two spirit, gender fluid, third gender, agender, romantic vs sexual, and how gender and sexuality are on a spectrum instead of the strict confined groups they had been taught. It was amazing! They stood there listening with occasional questions like kids at story time which was a present and wonderful surprise because of the area I live in. 🙂
2nd paragraph: That’s awesome! And yes, I totally retroactively give you permission for that.
1st paragraph: Yeah, I don’t know if I know someone who didn’t minimize their rape at least at first. It’s such an easy pattern to fit into. *appropriate gesture of support*
And my fiance and I are doing better. Evil Head of School had his last day yesterday so it’s good to be seeing the back of him and I’ve been spending a good chunk of my free time planning stuff for my new job in the fall. And fiance is doing well, they’re going back to school in the fall and we’re trying to figure out how to make cohabitation happen in the next year.
Plus, one of my kids came out as grey-ace yesterday and I’m inviting them to an ace conference that’ll be happening this year and am super proud of them.
I’m glad you approve ^_^
It really is. And I honestly think that’s why so many don’t believe us. We minimize it at first, only telling the full truth later which I think some look at like we are exaggerating. It’s just sad.
I’m so glad yall are doing well! I hope the asshats that have been cruel to them go get a life and grow up. Did you decide to go back to school too? I hope so 🙂
Wow! I imagine you are. That takes guts. Not gonna lie; I had to look it up. There are so many words out there to describe who we are as people. I’m glad there are. I know when I found a word that described what I was, it felt so great. I wasn’t something weird. I wasn’t alone. There were words for me and how I felt. The words came from somewhere so someone else felt the same and I wasn’t alone. The words have power and while I will never try and make myself live up to my definitions (especially if one day a word no longer fits), they still help me feel at home in my skin and confident in who I am.
I have nothing to say other than my sympathies and support. I’m sorry.
It’s okay hun! I’m good now. I’m one of the lucky ones. I was just using my story as an example of what happens to a lot of us.
As many stories as I’ve heard (unfortunately, sexual assault is sickeningly common), I’ve only questioned one. Long story short, one of my former roommates who lied a lot, was cheating on her boyfriend without his knowledge, and had a drug problem on and off. She started saying she had been raped after her baby was born very pale skinned. It was really sad because he was looking for who did it until he realized her story kept conflicting so badly (3 very different car descriptions/colors, 2 different perpetrator’s hair colors/faces, several different places she was hitchhiking from and to, when it happen…). The sad part is she really was raped before and if she was raped again, she had to have been be back on drugs to have it be so convoluted and/or been raped 2 or 3 different times with the memories being compressed into one. That being said, I know dozens of people who have been sexually assaulted that I do believe. When I say know, I mean family and past and present friends and I’m not that socially active. I’m the kind of gal who sits at home on a Saturday night playing with my kitten Danny (after DoA) and binge watching Fullmetal Alchemist or playing Skyrim and loving it, so the fact I know that many survivors in my tiny pool should tell you something. I don’t even want to think of the number I’ve met through various forums.
Panel 2: And I want to circle back to this moment, because yeah, that realization on how bad rape culture is for Robin feels central and powerful. Like, she cares about this subject, so it’s not tripping her usual Robinisms for ignoring reality she doesn’t like and so to find out that her being seen as kissing girls and becoming more supportive of queer rights makes her less popular than a rapist who is only known as being a rapist is strong.
And I wonder if this is going to be the thing that finally gets through all her garbage on queer issues and actually allow her to internalize how bad the system she has been supporting is. And that’s going to be a critical first step if she’s going to have any sort of growth or redemption that’s not going to be undone at the first uncomfortable moment.
Panel 4: One thing I’ve noticed in her toxic playing house at Leslie’s expense was how much of it almost felt like a subconscious sabotaging of her career. Part of her recognizes the immorality of what she is working with and wants to just be with a woman she loves play-acting a happy domestic scene rather than continuing to salvage the destruction to her career she wreaks.
And well, there’s so much wrong with how she went about it, first up being the complete steamrolling over consent and so on, but I think this moment is interesting, because it’s one where the full price of staying in the role she is in is made explicitly clear.
If she wants to remain a conservative candidate in good standing, she needs to turn a blind eye to a rapist, continue denying her sexuality, continue to support things that she cannot defend in any meaningful way in response to direct questions, which initially made Leslie try and cut her loose once and for all.
And I think that is truly hitting here.
Whether that will be enough to trigger real growth and development and making amends to past behavior is still up in the air, but I’m wondering if there’s been so much reality slamming in sideways that her natural defenses of spin aren’t running at all to distract her from it. I dunno. I can have hope.
Panel 5: Especially as this does feel like she’s actually grappling with the full immorality of the people and positions and constituents that she’s been courting. On an issue she cares about so it hits home. And well, it’s not an uncommon thing for someone deep in that toxic web to be hit on one aspect they care about that unravels the rest. So who knows, maybe there’ll be something.
Panel 6: Whatever way though, this is a positive action. These two are awful human beings but they are skilled at the task of electing conservatives in this district. If Robin wanted to run back to fixing this, she’d keep them around or find a way to mentally make it work. But it’s a line too far, so she can’t. And disconnecting herself from her toxic campaign and party… well, if she is going to improve or at least just not hurt folks anymore, this is a crucial first step.
And hey, if not, it’s at the very least, one less person voting against the humanity of others in a deeply dangerous US House of Representatives.
i keep looking back at robin leaving leslie and like: she knew that she was losing leslie but also losing her career, so she made the breakup on her terms so that she could have a story she could live with to hold onto and keep leslie out of it
AND LIKE that is manipulative as heck but also is very much, emotionally, what she seems to have needed
while being unfair to leslie
but god that dream of a happy domestic gay life must have meant so much to her
while tramping all over leslie’s very real needs
…lmao what a mess
Yeah, it was a really toxic mess, because yeah, that fantasy meant so so much to her, but that doesn’t matter once it’s at the expense of another person’s consent. And Robin did a lot of not okay things to cling to that fantasy.
And the irony is, she could live that fantasy if she was willing to full own it. Leslie at first was just looking for any sign of things getting through, of the hope of redemption to give her more than a fair chance. But Robin has scorched a lot of Earth by repeatedly ignoring her consent and escalating things to try and cling to that fantasy without owning it or owning what she needed to do to have a chance of getting it.
And so yeah, it’s why I will feel any redemption will be heavily hollow if it doesn’t end up dealing with an honest reckoning of how fucked up what she did to Leslie was.
it feels almost like a very Vriska thing to do, except Vriska would be like five times more screwed up about it.
AND LIKE whatever…robin does…she can’t do it *for* leslie, she has to do it for herself. she has to come to terms with not being able to stop people from disliking her. she has to come to terms with actual real consequences for her actions. she has to come to terms with, y’know, the realities of her situation and what she’s done
she has to see other people as other people not as manipulatable objects
she has to honest to god aPOLOGIZE.
i mean i think she can pull through, i don’t know if she and leslie are ever gonna get back together but i think that mostly she can figure her shit out for herself, at least. she has that capability
and if she didn’t i don’t think that roz would be so frustrated by her. she’d just be someone you avoid and hate
I agree with all of this. She can’t redeem herself to win Leslie or she shouldn’t, but to improve herself.
someone learning empathy is just…really fascinating to me… like learning to see things the way that other people see them? to understand how your actions come off to someone else, to really dive into how different somebody else’s perspective can be…i think that’s really cool and im excited for it
Just a side-comment here: You say “get back together” here and “breakup” above. That’s buying into the fantasy. They never were together. There’s nothing to break up.
If they do get together in the future, it’ll be a new relationship, no “back” about it.
….a bit
i mean the instance of “breakup” was very much from robin’s perspective
idk like it’s hard not to think of robin and leslie as having been together since they were so together in shortpacked that it feels weird that they haven’t officially been together since
i mean. watching steven universe together is pretty cute but also like is maybe first date material
I really like her look in panel 5 because it is seriously like ‘the fuck is wrong with you people’ and leads well into her panel 6 face of ‘Yeeeeeeeeah, you’re both fired.’
My one complaint is that Robin didn’t get “Ryan’s” real/full name, but aside from that, this definitely gives me hope. And judging how important this is too her, I think doing something about sexual assault and rape culture might have been the reason she ran for political office in the first place. That is the one, one issue we have seen her consistently and actively care about. And in panel five, it feels like she’s realized that she hasn’t been able to do anything about that issue by towing the party line, and is realizing she probably never will if she keeps doing what she’s doing.
…
I will say though, if part of Robin’s possible redemption involves running as an independent/no longer caucusing with the Republican Party, she would be an important swing voter who might actually be able to get something done about sexual assault and rape in exchange for her support of such and such bill. Especially as she hasn’t really believed in anything else she’s said politically and has only been the “family values” candidate because she lives in a red district, which will probably stay red until someone gets a chance to gerrymander the state again.
*WASTED*
I gotta say I’m happy with this strip here for a lot of reasons. But mostly I’m happy that Robin is actually on the path to improving as a person again. I watched her go through her arc in shortpacked, and yeah she was a kinda shitty person in that universe too (not as shitty as here but still not all that great). But she changed, confronted her flaws, and overcame them and eventually became a great partner for Leslie in a happy loving relationship.
Now after all she’s done do I think she should end up with Leslie again…? ehhhhhhhhhh maybe, part of me wants to see that relationship succeed again because the romantic in me likes to see happy endings to romantic stories, it lets me cling to hope that I won’t die alone and unloved despite all evidence to the contrary. The other part of me feels she really doesn’t deserve it though, and so if it happens I wanna see Robin freaking EARN it.
She’s redeemed herself and earned a happy ending before, now lets see if she can do it again without superpowers and while starting in a much deeper hole to dig out of.
If it happens again I think it will be more drawn out and possibly more casual. I wouldn’t be surprised if the two didn’t see each other again for a long while and much like in shortpacked the next time Lesbian sees Robin she will be far closer to the person she thought she was/could be. Though I also think it would be amusing if Robin came to terms with herself by that point and had already found new Lesbian. Just for the drama though, I still want to see Robin and Leslie together again. Even if the triplets may be out of the question this time.
While it’s no reason for Leslie or anyone else to tolerate Robin’s bullshit, I’m glad that she’s starting to borrow some good qualities from her Walkyverse counterpart.
First comment: I don’t think this has to do with being confronted with the humanity of LGBT+ people or with her being trashed in the media. She wanted to find “Ryan” and put him in a cell before the newspaper was published with her and Leslie. I think this is a line Robin had ALREADY.
So, best case scenario: She continues not to be an asshole about this, and will hopefully curve into not being an asshole about LGBT+ folks and other people she hurts and reaches some kind of redemption arc.
Worst case scenario: Even Evil Has Standards.
When do we get the part about Dina getting excited over the nodosaur? I mean if I am hopping up and down about it, she must have exploded!