'Me, too'

That last part is what concerns me. The wife of one of my closest friends has been very public about the fact that she was raped on social media. So far, I've seen nothing but positive and supportive responses, but I know her husband worries about her being vulnerable in that way. I absolutely respect the choice she made and I do hope some others found comfort in reading that they weren't alone.

Sadly, she's not the only rape victim I've met. I had two women in college tell me about the times they were raped. In one instance it was a guy she thought was a friend who forced himself on her. The other got drunk at a fraternity party and one guy watched the door while the other raped her. A third woman I knew in college wasn't raped, but she was physically and psychologically abused by an ex-boyfriend. These aren't even all the ugly stories that make me wonder what the hell is wrong with people.

 

Definition is the issue with this whole discussion, as well as the "Me, too" posts on Facebook.

An unwelcome advance is not necessarily the same thing as sexual assault, and I suspect a lot of the "Me, too" postings fall into the former category, and not the latter. Particularly on Facebook, people like to "join in," show support, etc., and my guess is that that is what some of those posts exemplify.

As much as the internet can be a cesspool, I doubt most people who truly have been sexually assaulted would ever post it on Facebook.

 

Question for guys (since we've chased all the women away!):

How many have been, or could have been, the perpetrator that caused a "me, too"? I've searched and searched my memory. I can confidently say it hasn't been me. Does that mean it definitely hasn't? I guess not. But I have thought about it enough to be at the point where I would be shocked if I ever heard an allegation against myself, even years later.

But, I've been with my wife since midway through college, and my social circle has always known her too. (We worked together for a long time.) So my interest wasn't there and especially opportunity wasn't there.

 

30-40 times. And 20-30 times been the victim, per the new definition of “sexual assault” to include kissing without waiting for affirmative consent.

 

Having been the victim of an outrageously false allegation by a woman who was angry about a perceived slight at work, I have found it easier to just disengage and not get involved in any situation where there could be even the slightest appearance of impropriety to a lunatic.

 

Isn't that move from the Book of Pence?

 

Curbed the impulse to write a " 'kids' without affirmative consent " joke.

 

Oh, I have followed those principles since long before they were associated with him.

 

I’m going to move past the undertone here that the women are mostly lying and note that from what I understand, “Me, too” includes sexual harassment, i.e. unwanted advances that do not rise to the level of sexual assault.

And this kind of runs the movement into a problem. If the point is that most women have been targets of everything from drunk come-ons to catcalls to violent rape ... is that really useful information, i.e. anything we haven’t known for 10,000 years?

 

Yikes. Corrected.

 

That is exactly how I've felt about this discussion!

 

To borrow a question from earlier in the thread, "How do you know this?". I suspect that it's a lot more common than many men want to believe.