[I’m re-posting this entry because I’ve been thinking that I shouldn’t censor myself just because some people disagreed with what I said. Or, more accurately, personally attacked me for trying to give an opinion.
I’ve removed the links that originally existed in the post, as I’m not trying to open up the debate again – just to present my blog in as complete a way as possible.
It was the debate that raged around this post that lead directly to writing this post, and creating my guidelines.]
Seriously, do yourself a favour and don’t do it. Especially not if its this one [link deleted].
I made the mistake; it was late, I’d had a few drinks. Well, perhaps “a few” isn’t the right description. Perhaps “a lot” would be better. I was checking out the latest postings on WordPress and happened on this one [link deleted].
Now, I’ll freely admit that I didn’t read it all. In fact, I read hardly any of it, but the gist was clear enough - a group of thugs had subjected a young girl to a horrible ordeal and filmed it. Its really “happy slapping” taken to its (almost) ultimate conclusion. There’s only one thing left to film now.
Quite rightly the blog and the comments were condemning the vileness of the crime and the perpetrators. I felt, though, that an important area of the debate had not been covered and, with my senses dulled by too much cider, suggested that blogs like this were giving the perpertrators an audience and that we should stop giving them a platform.
Of course, if I’d been sober I would have just read the blog and left. I know that. I know that I was stupid to make any comment, let alone one like that, on such a blog. I know that. But it didn’t stop me.
As you would expect, the floodgates opened. I was accused of “trivialising the attack” by suggesting that the blogger and others were “fuelling the misogyny”. I was told that this sort of thing meant “Jack Shit” to me, that I was being “simplistic”, “insincere” and “fucking dismissive”. I was asked if I would like to “fuck off and carry on pretending that women aren’t people”. Finally, it was suggested that it is me and people like me that “create and maintain the rape culture” and my “male entitlement and total lack of regard for the ’sex’ class is what underpins the world”.
Now, by the time I read these comments it was the next day and I wasn’t drunk anymore. I was stone cold sober - not even a hangover - and I couldn’t see how one comment could generate such personal vitriol. OK, you may not have agreed with my comment, but just ignore it. If they’d done that, I would have let it lie. But they attacked me personally and there was no way I was going to let that go.
I tried to remain calm and be polite; I tried to clarify my original point:
It’s nice to see that one comment can generate so much ‘reasoned’ debate.
[name removed], I am not being “fucking dimissive”, nor “simplistic” [name removed]. My comment was not because this type of thing means “Jack Shit” to me as you’ve also suggested. I agree that this kind of crime - whether against women or men - is atrocius and deplorable. I am not suggesting that they should be ignored; genuine reporting I have no objection with.
What I do object to is the type of reporting that - whether intentionally or not - glorifies either the crime itself or those that have committed it. The advent of the Net age and widespread blogging - MySpace, YouTube, all those types of sites - give these morons an audience. Everybody wants to be famous, and some are content to be famous for doing bad things.
>Don’t give them the oxygen of publicity was all I was saying. It’s been fascinating to read in your comments what else I supposedly said.
I know, not the most conciliatory thing I could have said perhaps. But I felt - and still do, even though I’m probably now guilty of glorification myself - that my point was a valid one; don’t give them the publicity. Someone else suggested that my view compared this type of heinous act to graffiti on walls, smashing windows and made it “no more serious than a stolen neckless [sic]“. This completely - and maybe deliberately - misunderstands what I was trying to say; the increase in availability of media coverage has led to a desensitising of sensibilities. When you see on the news every night coverage of some atrocity committed by one group on another (whether for sexual, political and religious ideals or - as with George - just for the oil), you start to think this is the norm. Especially if you’re a young, impressionable (or just plain thick) teenager with nothing better to do.
And the comments continued. The blogger suggested next that as “[your] name usually sports a penis - maybe it is your attitude that needs examining not ordinary decent folk who want to know exactly what we as a gender are up against”.
I should have left it there. I really should have. I was never going to convince any of these people that my point of view wasn’t coming from a position of hating women or wishing them harm, but was coming from a position of hating the media’s glorifcaiton of crime in the name of information and that the blogosphere was perpetuating this.
But I didn’t. The internal filters broke and I decided to get personal as well, and I enquired whether the bloggers attitude of seeing themselves as an oppressed and victimised minority might not be holding them back from actually having a life which is why they needed their blog to validate themselves. I also indicated that I would leave them “to go back to your man-hating”.
Ooops.
OK, I perhaps didn’t put my point over very well - or indeed, at all - so perhaps you’re now reading this and are completely against me (its already been suggested that I should watch out that my “male entitlement isn’t savaged by the Pit Bull on the way out”). I’ve learned my lesson; I will never comment on a feminist blog again.
