Content Warning: This is about the CNN investigation into the website that has a ‘rape academy’ on it. If you’re not ok to read more about it, then skip this one. If you’ve not heard about it, then here’s the link.
I shouldn’t have to say anything here. Or explain anything. Or even need to write anything.
But there are so many people commenting on the posts I see on social media right now and saying things like: but it’s not all men; men get raped too; women commit violence against men so you can’t say they don’t; it’s 62 million visits, not unique visitors.
And to all of those people, I say: fuck off.
Fuck right off and keep fucking off until you fall off the edge of the flat earth you probably believe in. Spending time rebutting these statements detracts from and waters down the news that should have everyone up in arms and demanding change in the streets.
The fact that the site that these men visited exists at all is horrific and shouldn’t ever have happened.
The fact that the visits to the site happened is horrific and shouldn’t ever have happened.
The fact that people are arguing semantics rather than being horrified is horrific and shouldn’t ever happen.
The appropriate responses are horror, and listening.
Having a response to this particular horror doesn’t mean there’s less care or horror to go around for the issue you have in mind.
This particular horror means that we can’t believe you when you say you protect women.
It means that millions of women are not safe at home, after they’ve walked the streets with their location shared with girlfriends, their keys held between their fingers and have texted their girlfriends once they’re ‘safe home’.
It means that women are living with and sleeping next to their most dangerous predator.
We’re seeing what we haven’t wanted to see: that we can’t tell the bad men from the good.
I recently used an example in a group I run, asking people if they’d choose to eat an M&M from a bowl of 100 M&Ms if they knew that three of them were poisoned and would kill them. Of course no-one would choose to eat one of the M&Ms. It’s a case of ‘until we know which M&Ms are poisoned, we can’t know which are safe to eat’.
Same goes with men. Until we know which ones are safe to associate with, they’re all unsafe. I say this as a woman with a man as a partner. Until we know which ones are safe to associate with, they’re all unsafe.
I don’t have a solution because the problem is so much bigger than I ever anticipated. However the advice I can give women is this: decentre men from your life. Live as the main character without reference to what a man might think. That’s the starting point for the change we need.
For those who need some comebacks
Let’s get something straight here: while I don’t want to waste time giving the men in the comments who are anything but horrified time and airspace, I know that you might need some ideas on how to respond to them. I go through the most common things you might hear or see below:
“It’s not all men”
I’m so tired of explaining this one, but here we go: until it’s no men, we don’t know which ones it is. This CNN expose shows us exactly how wrong ‘but I’m one of the good ones’ is. The men who visited this site in their millions are the ones assuring us that it’s ‘not all men’ and that they’re protectors and champions of women.
That the men these women were trusting – with their bodies, with their sleep, with their fucking cups of tea – are bad men. Men who in many cases had taken vows in front of their loving family and friends to honour and protect the woman in front of them.
‘It’s not all men’ is defensive and shifts the narrative from the appropriate reactions of horror and disgust to one where we have to salve the egos of the men in case they have a feeling that’s uncomfortable to them. Men need to learn to sit with discomfort and understand that they are representative of the problem, and if their sole action is to not react, then that is no longer enough.
“Men get raped too” is whataboutism.
Sure, men get raped too, and that is also a horrifying thing that shouldn’t happen.
However, we’re talking about a specific news story here and don’t need to qualify it with every other rape statistic out there in order to make you feel included.
If you’re not talking about the rape of men outside of mentioning it in comments on a post about the 62 million site visits to a rape academy, then you don’t care about the rape of men. You only care to dilute the issue at hand, which is SIXTY-TWO MILLION SITE VISITS TO A SITE THAT EDUCATES MEN ON HOW TO DRUG AND RAPE THEIR UNCONSCIOUS WOMAN PARTNERS.
“Women commit violence against men too” is true, up to a point.
Yes, they do. However it’s in vastly smaller numbers than men commit violence against women. The statistics are clear: over 95% of violent crime worldwide is committed by men. That includes rape. It’s so vastly much more than women commit, that it’s ridiculous when men come into comments sections to say that ‘women commit violence too’.
“It’s 62 million VISITS, not 62 million VISITORS”
Just fuck off. Arguing semantics over such a huge number is meaningless and makes it look like you’re attempting to cover things up. When did you visit?
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