How an infuriated mom chased revenge-porn slime-king Hunter Moore offline

OK I hear you, I mean “founded” not really in the sense of putting the first stones in a square, rather “pioneer” of your civilization. But I stand corrected. I feel sorry that such an influential group of your early heritage consisted of Taliban.

That was for Steampunk Banana

Well I haven’t heard that since my daughter was 14.

Yeah actually I’d guess your history involves much much more than unfairly losing one job, since probably most of us have had that experience without being reduced to hurling ad homs at strangers for the rest of our lives.

You are trying very hard to explain how a victim would lie without thinking and are focusing on victims being outed as liars. It seems like a strange thing to do if you thought lying was rare. You also apparently agree with the first comment here which said “the idea that all these women are being ‘hacked’ seems ludicrous” and that “I am sure 99% of it comes from someone they sent the photos to in the first place”. To believe that, you have to assume that many of these victims are liars.

I just do not understand how someone could read that article and their first response is “I can easily imagine why a woman would lie and here is why ___.”

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Well that’s an entirely different discussion and off topic, but an adult who is operating at the level of a 13 year old is a Borderline Personality Disorder, and describing them as the “victim that would lie without thinking” nails it perfectly. But that’s a different story, because this is supposed to be about tweens that are driven to suicide, not envious adults trying to hog the spotlight of victimhood.

Your link reminds me of CNN’s coverage of Steubenville ( http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/17/cnn-grieves-that-guilty-verdict-ruined-promising-lives-of-steubenville-rapists/ ):

Candy then asked CNN legal contributor Paul Callan what the verdict meant for “a 16 year old, sobbing in court, regardless of what big football players they are, they still sound like 16 year olds.”

“What’s the lasting effect though on two young men being found guilty juvenile court of rape essentially?” Crowley wondered.

“There’s always that moment of just — lives are destroyed,” Callan remarked. “But in terms of what happens now, the most severe thing with these young men is being labeled as registered sex offenders. That label is now placed on them by Ohio law.”

“That will haunt them for the rest of their lives.”

Also a cartoon showing the “damned if you do, damned if don’t” idea fairly well ( This deserves to be seen again and again until people get the f**king message. - quickmeme )

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People should ponder Ken Cuccinelli’s recent loss in the Virginia gubanaturial race. “The Cooch” won overwhelming support among married women, who were apparently swept away by his promises of transvaginal ultrasound, abortion bans, and draconian restrictions on birth control.

Another really depressing fact is that many hospitals do not have the rape kits that are used to collect evidence. Apparently Texas recently started requiring that all hospitals with emergency rooms have staff trained to collect evidence. They will not, however, need to be Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners because that would be “expensive”.

Link: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20121012-advocates-try-to-expand-post-assault-services-for-dallas-rape-victims.ece
Link: http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/10414459-452/neil-steinberg-rape-victims-get-short-shrift-in-illinois.html
Link: http://www.texastribune.org/2013/08/13/er-staff-must-be-able-gather-sexual-assault-eviden/

It is also depressing that an estimated 400,000 rape kits have not been tested. This number is only an estimate because many states apparently do not find it worthwhile to keep track. And who knows how many kits were destroyed either intentionally (legally or otherwise) or unintentionally (poor storage conditions).

Link: http://nation.time.com/2013/09/07/the-dark-side-of-clearing-americas-rape-kit-backlog/
Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/rape-kits-data-by-the-numbers/
Link: http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/15/15848051-prosecutor-leads-effort-to-test-long-abandoned-rape-kits-brings-justice-to-victims

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This is a comment from someone who has no clue. Log onto your email (or other e-product, particularly social media) over the open wifi at your work, college, coffee shop etc, and that can be it - account compromised. If drivenbyboredom doesn’t believe that then they can very easily google step-by-step instructions on how to carry out such an attack, and even try it out if they feel like. Or simply set-up honeypot accounts and log into them over open wi-fi, see how long it takes. It’s unfortunately both incredibly easy and incredibly common. Add to that the plethora of threats you can encounter online and it just isn’t ludicrous.

And those are random attacks, some of these women have been targeted. I can’t imagine that I wouldn’t be able to gain access to the account(s) of anyone I work with for example - and I’m not a hacker.

Besides that drivenbyboredom seems to infer that if you ever sent such a photo to anyone then you deserve what you get, and/or that having your life destroyed because of one is somehow less of a crime if you once took a photo with a nipple showing - that goes beyond technically illiterate and well into morally despicable territory.

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Not really encouragement, I was trying to put what she was saying into perspective for you, why she would be so upset by your initially comment. When she responded a bit pissed off, you had the opportunity to clarify, but you immediately went on the offensive, because I guess you assume that she should just “get over it”. At this point, I think most people here assume that you believe that the maintenance of gender norms is just from a “shrill” minority (which if you think about it, is kind of a gender-loaded term – who are considered shrill? Men? No, mostly women, right?), rather than a systemic issue that needs to be addressed by all of us. She may have overreacted a bit–fair enough–but she was reacting to what you said, which made it seem like the daily struggle that women go through, often on a daily basis, is unimportant and just in our presumable PMS adled brains that can only be soothed by chocolates and shopping sprees.

So, yeah. Think a bit harder about how our society treats women, what is expected out of, and the kinds of pressure that can exert on us. Can we rise above, sure as shit, we can, but it’s there and it’s constant. And it really fucking sucks. It would also be helpful to listen to us when we tell you how this all makes us feel and not just dismiss it because it doesn’t conform with your perception of reality.

EDITED for clarity of thought.

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I think you’ll find that a lot of us are aware that the puritans were pretty much laughed out of England.

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After they played a key role in sparking the English Civil War that put Oliver Cromwell in charge of a Taliban-like military regime until Cromwell’s death and the Restoration of Charles II. They were hated with a passion, although they did play a role in transitioning England to a more Parliamentary system.

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It’s partly - hugely - a problem with sexism more than puritanism.

And yes, we do take consent seriously - which is one of the main issues here.

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He did ban football though, so there’s that.

The above interpretation of what I wrote is not at all what I intended.

The mindset of my initial post was to try and describe my perception that over-moralizing – for example, trying to get society to be aghast at the showing of a blurry shadowy nipple – is the work of a small percentage of the population in the US, not a majority. I qualified the statement as simply my own (which is what I meant by including the word “anecdotally”), and in that confine it is eminently true: I can accurately say that of the people I know or have any association with, their reactions to the situation described (the publication against the subject’s will of a compromising picture) would be sympathy for the person in the picture, and repugnance toward the instigator.

I don’t know if that makes me an expert on society, but it is in no way an attack on her. I thought, if anything, it was a note of hope. My “ugh” at the end was an acknowledgement of how crummy it is that there are people in the world foul enough to try to cause the kind of trouble she experienced.

It’s fine for people to disagree with my point if they like. It’s even fine for them to ask questions about it. But marilove, who is clearly a barrel of laughs, came out guns blazing, assuming I was saying something like – I’m not even clear on this, so I’m guessing – women should shut up, and women who want this changed are the shrill minority I was talking about? I really don’t know what she was saying, but she was incredibly hostile, that was unmistakable.

And wow. I thought I was on her side. But she seems to require that I not only acknowledge how terrible her situation is in whatever depths she dictates, but that I prove that I’m incensed, in all the same ways and degrees that she is, about just how shitty society at large is.

Well no thanks. Not only do I not happen to agree, but I can do without the meltdown. She can take her I’m-gonna-explode-in-your-face act and go do it on a streetcorner, where she can get applauded by the winos. For my part, I’m going to do my best to continue believing that most people aren’t so wound up by a nipple that they’ll go on a witchhunt… hey, believing that is my prerogative. If believing that makes me the object of someone’s hate, I suppose I have to live with that.

(which if you think about it, is kind of a gender-loaded term – who are considered shrill? Men? No, mostly women, right?)

I wouldn’t know, but it was not my intent. You’re a more even-keeled writer than she is, but you apparently share by degrees her unfortunate inclination to assume negative interpretations. Ok, so you weren’t “encouraging” me; fine, message received. Don’t give up the tiniest begrudging admittance that I might actually be a fine upstanding person who loves and supports women and reviles oppression of all kinds. Stay angry! And the angry shall shame the rest of the world into thinking the Right Things, and then we’ll all be happy.

See, clarification wasn’t so hard, was it? You should have done it at the offset and maybe this would not have escalated? I think if you had done that initially, it might have diffused her anger a bit–maybe not, I don’t know. You’d have to ask her…

But–again I’ll clarify myself–I do not think you are a bad guy, out to hurt women or purposefully dismiss them and how they view the world - I don’t know you, but I want to give you the benefit of the doubt–because the truth is, the world is a shitty place and we all need to band together if we are going to make it better. I am sure you meant it with the best intentions. And no, I was not offering encouragement (I feel this is loaded, too), I was offering clarification on these issues from a source that was not personally involved in the same way as Marilove. I am not here to “encourage” you, because I am not someone who is marginal to the struggle for gender equality–like Marilove and other women on this board, I am central to it. I have views and ideas that are no less valid than yours or Mariloves. Once again, do not see this as a personal attack–see it as an attempt to make our views of gender issues clear to you, because we feel you are not getting it.

I think the crux of her complaint with your comment (and I realize this is downplaying her reaction a bit) was that you are writing off sexist attitudes to a “shrill minority”, where as she and I see it as a broader based problem in society. It’s not just about people complaining about Janet Jackson’s nipple–it’s about the fact that a dude can walk around shirtless or be on TV shirtless or whatever all sexy like, yet there is controversy when a woman feeds her child in a public place (which I think we all agree is non-sexual in nature, and completely natural and why do people think it’s “gross”? Because it’s a boob that is not directly in the service of men’s sexual fantasies maybe?). It’s about walking down the street in a city and being cat-called for looking good, and then being called a slut if we don’t return the attention (because some guy yelling at us should make us so grateful that we should immediately blow the guy?). It’s about the notion that we’re almost always damned if we do, damned if we don’t in ways that men just aren’t. it’s about the notion that a judge last week gave a guy HOUSE ARREST for raping a young women (HE WAS CONVICTED AND HE GOT HOUSE ARREST!!!). It’s about the fact that some many women (and men too) don’t report rape, because they don’t want to get dragged through the mud for having the bad luck to be raped. it’s about Steubenville and that other small town where young women were gang raped by the popular boys and then run out of town for daring to press charges. It’s abot all this and more…

And yes, I think that “shrill” is pretty obviously a loaded term–it tends to be associated with “uptight” women who want to be kill joys for the rest of. It ignores and glosses over the real nature of gender inequality.

I don’t think you’re a bad guy here bent on shaming women for existing–but I think you just aren’t seeing it form her (or really our) POV. I’m sure you are a fine person, and did not mean to dismiss Marilove’s example of sexual harassment that had a very real impact on her life. Yet, that is exactly what you did, intentionally or not. She might have been a bit harsh in her response, but given that there is a tendency to dismiss women’s complaints about sexism or harassment in the culture generally, it would have been nice if you had taken that into consideration. How we see these issues might not be the same as you see these issues, because they just don’t affect you in the same way–or at least they might not seem to from your perspective. When we try and tell you how we feel and you just say “it’s just a shrill minority that are causing the problems”, you are being dismissive of how we see it, and assuming that your view is the only one that is valuable to the discussion. You want to be an ally for women? Then listen to what we have to say about these issues and please take that seriously. That is what set her off–you just dismissing her description of what happened to her and the women in the article in question.

I’ll give you a less prominent/sexually charged example from my own recent life. I just got a new car. A month later, the battery is dead. I was fairly certain that I had not left the lights on (new cars tend to yell at you when you do that) or done something bone headed like leave the door ajar, so the interior lights were on. when the guy came to give me a jump, he bascially said “oh, you just left the lights on” (with the “honey” or “sweetie” implied)… I took it to the dealership, same thing - the dude dismissed me. But next day–guess what? The battery was dead. The two men I talked to just didn’t want to believe me. Now, if I had been a man, I doubt I would have gotten such condescending treatment (I could be wrong here, but I doubt it). Now, this isn’t nearly so bad as what Marilove went through and I’m not claiming it is–where she lost her job because some douchenozzle decided to hack her around and a picture to her boss!!!–but I think it gives you a bit more insight into how women can at times be dismissed just for existing without a wang.

Also, “street corner”? Really? Again, I think you’re resorting to yet another loaded term there… I’ll leave you to figure that out.

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One of our original colonies was mostly populated with English convicts as well. Not to mention the one founded by the Quakers. And the one founded by the businessmen for mostly financial reasons. So, really, we pretty much ran the gamut all along the line from various religions to financial to being forced to go there in the first place.

I fail to see why you’re picking Massachusetts out specifically and claiming that’s both an influential group and one of the reasons we have problems today. You’re just as well off to pick out Florida and blaming the hot blooded Spanish for our woes or say the free-wheeling French and their den of vice known as Louisiana are responsible for the revenge porn business.

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Forget mindreading, I think you may need to work on the regular sort of reading.[quote=“PrestonSturges, post:85, topic:14895”]
probably most of us have had that experience without being reduced to hurling ad homs at strangers for the rest of our lives.
[/quote]

However much marilove’s comments may project anger I do not see her making any ad hom arguments. I do see SomeDude making ad homs.

Try again? Maybe check the definition for “ad hominem” next time?

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Possibly relevant - Paul Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement

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As thus, sir: I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier’s beard. He sent me word if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the mind it was. This is called “the retort courteous.” If I sent him word again it was not well cut, he would send me word he cut it to please himself. This is called “the quip modest.” If again it was not well cut, he disabled my judgment. This is called “the reply churlish.” If again it was not well cut, he would answer I spake not true. This is called “the reproof valiant.” If again it was not well cut, he would say I lie. This is called “the countercheck quarrelsome,” and so to “the lie circumstantial” and “the lie direct.”

Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie?

Sir, we quarrel in print, by the book, as you have books for good manners. I will name you the degrees: the first, “the retort courteous”; the second, “the quip modest”; the third, “the reply churlish”; the fourth, “the reproof valiant”; the fifth, “the countercheque quarrelsome”; the sixth, “the lie with circumstance”; the seventh, “the lie direct.” All these you may avoid but the lie direct, and you may avoid that, too, with an “if.” I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an “if,” as: “If you said so, then I said so.” And they shook hands and swore brothers. Your “if” is the only peacemaker: much virtue in “if.”