At Melinda Tankard Reist’s website today there’s a list of tweets from the hapless Brian McFadden, promising to donate money to rape crisis centres, and saying he’s sorry that his lyrics have been misunderstood.
He reiterates that he intended them as an intimate song for fiancee Delta Goodrem, and not as triggers for women who’ve been sexually assaulted while drunk.
I’m inclined to believe the bloke. I don’t think for minute he wrote that song with the intention of glorifying or encouraging the rape of senselessly drunk women.
But his apologies and donations are not enough for Melinda Tankard Reist. Not a truckload of money, she writes, will make up for the damage he has done to women.
Even in a court of law, intention counts when you’re passing sentence. But not in the courts of Christian sexual conservatism.
MTR also holds Delta Goodrem partially responsible. Why didn’t Delta check the lyrics before allowing Brian to record them, she asks. Is Delta so inured to sexual violence that she didn’t even notice what Brian was on about?
This would be unfortunate, MTR implies, as Delta is a spokeswoman for Avon Voices, a group that raises awareness of violence against women.
I guess the sexual conservatives also hold women responsible for what the men they live with do.
Personally, I think that’s a pretty low and unnecessarily malicious swipe.
Then there’s a letter from a victim of sexual assault whilst she was drunk, telling how McFadden’s song has brought it all back and is severely distressing her.
Nina Funnell then writes a long reassuring response to the victim, and I hope the woman follows this up with counselling.
There are triggers that cause memories of sexual assault, and many other traumatic experiences to flood back into consciousness, often without any warning. This is very hard for the survivor to deal with.
Triggers can be almost anything. I once worked with someone whose flashbacks were caused by pieces of green soap with a particular smell. Triggers are impossible to predict, extremely individual, and powerfully connected to the original trauma.
As much as the survivor would like never to have encounter these triggers, it is literally impossible to clear the world of them.
In some instances they may be so particular as to rarely emerge. Sometimes they aren’t known until the moment they strike. In many instances the triggers are all too common, and people have to deal with them on a daily basis.
It would be a foolish therapist indeed who recommended total avoidance of anything likely to act as a trigger. That would be condemning the survivor to a miserable life.
What we can do is teach cognitive behavioural techniques that can be used to manage the distressing flashbacks. This has the added advantage of empowering the survivor, both with the skills to handle bad times, and with the sense that she or he has some control over circumstances that can feel uncontrollable.
Given the proliferation of sexual topics in popular culture, it’s unrealistic to blame any artist for triggering a survivor’s flashbacks. As the triggers are so individual, its impossible to know what they might be.
As stupid as you might think McFadden’s song is, blaming him for activating post traumatic stress disorder is wrong. You might as well blame the manufacturer of green soap, and I believe McFadden, in his intentions, is as undeserving of blame.
The world is not an easy place to live in when you’re suffering post traumatic stress disorder. Many people don’t understand it, and have a low tolerance of sufferers who can seem difficult, withdrawn, moody, angry, weepy, and generally not interested in much. It’s tough, having first to withstand the trauma, and then to spend your time dealing with the aftermath.
The most difficult part is working with people towards an acceptance of their experiences, in the sense that they cannot be changed and must be lived with, as must the aftermath. The survivor has to take responsibility for learning to do this. This is the cornerstone of recovery. It can take many years, and nobody can do it for them.
I don’t think it helps survivors to be encouraged to look for someone to blame in the world around them. Nobody deliberately triggers someone’s flashbacks, unless they are entirely sadistic and know the survivor well enough to be able to do it.
If a creator of any kind must first consider if something in their work will cause distress to someone somewhere, and then abandon it in case it does, then nothing will be created.
I think Tankard Reist’s crusade against McFadden, and now Goodrem as well, is bordering on the vicious. She wants what she wants, which is an abject confession that they’ve caused immeasurable distress to women everywhere by recording the song. If she doesn’t get that, she will hound them, of that I’m certain.
She is displaying all the signs of the outraged self-righteous good Christian woman bent on vengeance, not only on him but on the woman he loves, and that is not a pretty sight.
And let’s remember, he isn’t a rapist. He wrote a song.
No Place For Sheep 
Well,
I hope I won’t get any triggers from future MTR articles. I dread waking up to yet another one.
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Sorry, I forgot. MTR’s cant knows no limits.
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Well if you do Gerard, let me know and I’ll lead you through it!
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Pardon my French, but MTR is fucking shitting me to tears. First, you cannot expect the world to revolve around survivors of sexual assault. Sorry, but you can’t. Having known people who have epilepsy due being involved in asperger syndrome groups, a lot of stuff triggers a seizure (like line markings on the road while traveling in a car). So should the world revolve around making sure those with epilepsy never see or hear any triggers?
If the great “advocate for women and girls” put her money where her mouth is, she’d raise some cash for this woman’s legal defence; http://ten.com.au/video-player.htm?movideo_m=93947 I mean it’s only down the road from her house in Belconnen. But no, stupid songs and music videos are far more important.
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Once again, short of seeing the actual lyrics its difficult to comment. I did use the link to McFadden’s site and suggest the lyrics he includes are a bit clumsy, perhaps?
MTM is not so much the trouble as media organisations like Fairfax who run or pay this type of anxious conservative stuff- think the Dreaded Miranda- for the consolidation of their own gravitas, which is the hook by which other contentious politics, but including the entuire l ifestyle thing ( yes lifestyle is political when in the hands of these sorts of people), are flogged to the public.
MTR and co know this but wont make the link beteen popular culture and sex and bigbusiness exploitation, rather a rabbit like McFadden is singled out for attention, because otherwise MTM and co would have to mention all the smut carried by Murdoch, Fairfax, TV and co, who pay her.
Its abit like blaming an alcoholic for the grog industry.
McFadden is a creation of our times much more than a knowing peddler of it.
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I believe ‘little red riding hood’ is next on MTR list. This is clearly a tale about an innocent hymen to be ravaged by a rapacious male in drag. We see more and more hooded young men on razors looking for red hoods, clearly encouraged by that mythological tale of wanton damage and destruction.
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Gerard’s comment has opened a tin of worms for me, as I muse on our hosts cv, which apparently involves considerable study on representations of desire and related topics involving gender.
After ten or fifteen minutes trawling my google I recall one site mentioning that Grimms Fairytales and the like emerged concurrent with massive changes to the Sexual Division of labor from the early nineteenth century that the anxieties created in this era of social divison were seperation anxieties and experiental gaps, brought about throughthe shattering of the older village/craft mode, expressed in the use of the euphemistic language employed in these stories.
The containment of women is part of an individuating process that socialises people for work in facrtories in big cities and not surprisingly the language is mythic through lack of experience, as with the Bronte sisiters and also metaphoric in accomodating the horrors of domestic confinement and loss of control of fertility and right of denial to male access, particularly when based on actual lpoor health. From this point we move to mystification and fear and here I agree with Dr Wilson that MTR and Fairfax do not help in explaining the context of porn,violence and exploitation in a society operating under the current evolved and evolving mode.
Concurrently this sort of theorising also proposes that men, exiled to the workshop as virtual slave labor. lost touch with the culture they were brought up in, and as aliens in their own homes, failed to acquire that intimcy and skill of contact that could make for a mutually fulfilling relationship between men and women and within familles. The archetype here is the surly male who arrives back home drunk after a day of sweated labour in the mines or factories, abuses his poverty stricken stranger of a wife, ( who herself may be exhausted from a day in the cotton mills ) and perhaps abuses the kids instead, as evidence of his own disintegrated personality induced through related narrowness of experience.
But above is supposition, and digressing from Dr Wilsons original thread subject.
Perhaps we see a modern symbolic reenacting of the fairy tale in the example of the St Kilda girl in the news so much lately. This modern kid seems no naif tho, shes turned the tables on those she regards as her exploiters, her various wolves, perhaps even at the cost of becoming one herself.
But then, in these days of euphemistic language and myth, the Wolf is actually symbolic of the Castrating Mother but being male, we have to ascribed the weakness and innocence in the Redcap to a girl child, since we can’t we males cant be seen to be scared of the unknown in this obvious way?
I know, whimsical…blame Gerard, not me…l
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ps spelling error, I say, mid comment, that MTR and Fairfax are not helpful in explaining- that should read these are not helpful in NOT explaining.
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I enjoy your tin of worms,Paul.
Little Red Riding hood pales somewhat with the mythological tales of the Finnish Kalevala.
Jean Paul Sibelius’ music and indeed Finland itself lives those tales. I look at their ceramics, their architecture, nature and forests, can’t but feel the’ Kalevela.’
The problem for MTR is her lack of appreciating mythology. She might well be without a story and that is sad…
The Swan of Tuonela tells such a nice story.
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The old myths carry so many subtle injunctions and advice, as didactic agents for relaying a culture to the children of that culture, that have universal applications.
For me, with the Swan, am immediately drawn into world that also features characters like Osiris and Isis and the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh ( particularly), or the stories of the Greeks. The
Finns like most of the rest of Europe in that century w ere responding to imperalist attentions from Russia, the Germans,the Ottomans in southern Europe and so forth (think also of Smetana and Grieg ) and desperately sort the means for retaining and transferring cultural identity to their own, as a survival mechanism. In some cases this gave rise to jingoism and nationilism, but in light of historical experience we can also see nationalism as an emergency response that initially emerges necessarily, in response to some sense of actual threat.
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Now this is a debate that’s been hashed to death over in my particular online environment.
It basically comes down to: “Don’t be an arsehole.”
You say “As much as the survivor would like never to have encounter these triggers, it is literally impossible to clear the world of them.” Absolutely. However, there’s taking something that’s an uncommon trigger (green soap, to borrow your example) and taking something that’s a common trigger (oh, how about talking about GETTING A WOMAN REALLY DRUNK AND RAPING HER in a way that suggests that it’s awesome!) and putting it in the public arena without care or forethought for those women who are survivors of sexual assault. Ok, you’re not in any way obliged to think about your actions and how they might impact on others, but it’s called manners and it’d be a pretty rotten world if nobody ever thought about anyone else’s pain.
“As the triggers are so individual, its impossible to know what they might be.” But you also contradict yourself: “In many instances the triggers are all too common, and people have to deal with them on a daily basis”. Some triggers are pretty damn common and should NEVER HAPPEN. Like being restrained in a sexual situation without consent or having people constantly talking about rape in a “hurr hurr, imma rape her” way.
You know the stats. You know how common it is. I’m not arguing against depictions of sexual assault in art–art is a reflection of the world, blah blah. But you usually know, going into a movie and you can decide whether you’re up to coping with it on that day. With songs being so ever present and saturating our world, they’re really inflicted on us without our consent.
“If a creator of any kind must first consider if something in their work will cause distress to someone somewhere, and then abandon it in case it does, then nothing will be created.” That’s a straw man argument. Survivors of sexual assault are approximately a 12th of the population right now. It’s not “someone somewhere”. I could Godwin this comment, but you’ve probably already gone there in your brain.
Here’s the thing. I absolutely do not believe that an artist exists in a morally free space by virtue of their “art”. I refuse to give them a pass. I do not believe that being an “artist” gives the right to be a shitty human being. And in promoting this view of consent while drunk, without any appearance of being aware or having thought about it prior to being called on it, McFadden’s being an arsehole.
Mind you, I also think that MTR is an arsehole for holding someone’s sexual/life partner as responsible for their artistic output.
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Whoa, so much on your post, don’t know where to start,Jame.
Having spent a large chunk of my first career working with survivors of sexual assault, I’m fairly certain that teaching them how to deal with triggers is far more likely to assist with healing than attempting to rid the world of triggers, however obvious they may be.
McFadden’s stupid song has clearly acted as a trigger for the two women who wrote to MTR’s website.
But I don’t agree that the song is about “getting her really drunk and raping her.” For a start there’s sex when you’re drunk that is consensual, and there’s sexual assault when the woman is too drunk to give consent. Very different situations. I have yet to be persuaded that McFadden was singing about getting Delta too drunk to give consent and raping her.
I don’t think that being an artist gives anyone the right to be a “shitty human being” either.
I have the most enormous reluctance to censor art, film, books, etc etc. But I don’t know how any artist of any kind can embark on a work thinking, which part of what I want to do might provoke flashbacks in someone? Bearing in mind that post traumatic stress disorder is not specific to survivors of sexual assault. War veterans for example, can find helicopters terrifying. Does this mean we take them out of the sky? Holocaust survivors for whom a German accent triggers horrors. A little girl in my family who lived through a category five hurricane in Mexico, and whenever a big wind gets up suffers anxiety attacks.
I want to empower people to take care of themselves in these situations. I can’t take the situations away.
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While McFadden’s music is under siege by MTR, you wouldn’t want to put on Wagner’s Ride of The Valkyries on too loud in Tel Aviv either.
It is strange how some notes including quavers can upset entire nations. Even Sibelius’ Finlandia was banned during Russian occupation of Finland.
I don’t know how this relates to Red Riding Hood. I’m sure there is something there.
By the way Jennifer W, a stunning reply to MTR on The Drum. Goodonya. Can’t wait for replies.
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Thanks, Gerard, I’m probably going to be torn to shreds. That’s the problem with taking an overview – everybody wants to kill you!
Like the Wagner comment!
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Hello Jennifer, and everyone else.
I like your blog. I might introduce myself later, but for the moment I jsut wanted to reproduce a comment I just put on MTR’s site, just in case it gets moderated (should that be “conservatised”?) out:
“I think you guys need to question the basis of your own beliefs a bit more.
By denying the possibility that Brian McF wrote that song as a fun, somewhat satyrical piece of intra-relationship banter, you are effectively displaying an attitude towards other people and relationships which is deeply unhealthy. To my mind, MTR and her acolytes (though I don’t include Nina F in here as her level of intelligence and self-awareness is on an entirely different, far superior plane) approach these sorts of debates with a disturbing lack of faith in humanity, and with an unconscious background understanding of relationships as somehow inherently transactional, individualist, evidence-based – or to collect these adjectives into a single word, abusive. But they’re not. Relationships are conducted between people who love and care for each other unconditionally, and who understand each other enough to know that everything their partner says does not necessarily reflect the person they are, or does not need to be taken literally. But I guess this is something you guys might never get to experience.
Sure, Brian’s song is dumb and insensitive, and he has apologised perfectly adequately for that in his tweet (though arguably the promoters who are pushing the date rape angle are doing it knowingly – and as such are the real villains here). However this lynch mob mentality that the MTR set is purveying on this website is far more dangerous and corrupting. I would make the analogy of a pack of zombies singling out the happiest, most life-living members of society and sinking their teeth in.
If you are serious about preventing abuse, then the best way to go about it is to sensitively alert people who would otherwise find it unthinkable (like Brian and Delta) to the fact that it does happen – not to go for the jugular. It is because of people like you that Western civilisation had to come up with the idea of an impartial judiciary in the first place.”
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Welcome, Sam Jandwich, we are very benevolent moderators here!
I agree with your comments on the contemptuous way the conservatives treat human beings and our relationships. And I like your point that while McFadden was probably stupid, the others have now made his song into the rape song of the century, for anybody who’s looking for one.
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(though arguably the promoters who are pushing the date rape angle are doing it knowingly – and as such are the real villains here).<<<
I don't think that is a fair assessment at all. The 'mug shot' cover was probably inspired by a recent drunken incident that McFadden got in trouble for.
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Beste, while it’s certainly possible that the mugshot cover was inspired by the plane incident rather than the lyrical controversy – the music video hadn’t been shot before the single’s release, and apparently it was going to refer to the plane incident – his official website is definitely playing up the lyrical controversy. “The song… has been receiving mixed reviews – with many critics questioning Brian’s lyrics, interpreting them as supporting date rape… you be the judge, buy Brian’s new single here.”
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I for one am glad that MTR has been identified “dare I say “outed”) on The Drum as the right wing religious neo conservative she is. This is much to be preferred than the current persona she seems to have, one of “Im just a nice right-thinking woman”
Well done.
For more details on this woman religious conservatism, see
http://unbelief.org/articles/melinda-tankard-reist/
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And MTR “wins”; http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/confidential/universal-grounds-mcfadden-clip/story-e6frf96x-1226015615785
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By Geez Matthew, he’s not the sharpest tool in the rack, is he?
Kyle Sandilands rides again, duh!
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Paul, he’s a complete knob, the song is dreadful, but Tankard Reist is a loon for mentioning him and the song and trying to link it with causing date rape. Reminds me of the whole Ice-T Vs. Tipper Gore thing back in the 1990’s on Oprah; stupidity Vs. stupidity.
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Nope. I’ll bet it pays, too. Just as well date rape is not some sort of personal exploitative theme.
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Even so,
I doubt the MTR stuff would ever have gotten off the ground in most of Europe, I am sure never in The Netherlands. So, what makes Australia such fertile soil not just for MRT but the ruckus with Bill Henson and his art? It started years ago when Eugene Goossens was kicked out of Australia, followed by the banning of DH Lawrence L.CHat.Lover and some years after that with Phillip Roth’s work.
Swearing amongst men was OK but not in front of women. Even that curious habit still lingers.
Is single sex education the culprit, girls in pink, boys in blue, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters? There has to be something?
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I’m reeling from some of the abuse I’m copping from women over the Drum article and the On Line Opinion one. The latest: I am a victim blaming apologist for rapists who thinks elderly ladies raped in their homes should have done more to protect themselves.
What is it with some women? Has the victim mindset become so entrenched that they cannot bear to let it go?
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I honestly wonder if these people live in some sort of alternate universe where Australia has been “ponified” and has a “rape culture”. I’m blowed if I can see either. But of course their definition of porn is broad it’s practically meaningless.
I think like a number of people I’ve tried rationally explaining my point of view to these people. I’ve given them links to studies, referenced bits out of them, etc. These people aren’t rational. In the end I got so frustrated with talking with Reader1, I called her a Dalek (naturally it never got published). Because, that’s what they are. They’re on a mission to purge the universe of everything non-Dalek (anything which doesn’t correlate with their narrow view of sexuality).
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iorarua : 07 Mar 2011 11:05:56am;
“Wilson’s arguments clearly mirror the writings of Wendy McElroy’s i-feminism movement, which is probably the best known and most influential of the ‘fake’ feminism movements […]. Its main focus is to discredit so-called radical feminism by promoting the straw fallacy that it is in partnership with so-called Christian sexual conservatism.”
Wow! So my question is do they actually believe what they write, because if I was iorarua, I would find it so hard to write that without giggling. How can they continue to deny that MTR has no links with the radical religious right in this country? That’s like trying to argue that Bob Hawke had nothing to do with the union movement. MTR a radical feminist? Uh, I think not. MTR a fake feminist? Yup, definitely.
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With the blog now second from bottom, it might get pinged any moment, pity.
Lots of posts don’t see daylight and certain articles are being kept bubbling along more than others.
This seems to suggest that some kind of massaging towards a slant is being used by the Drum.
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Gerard, they’ve dropped my article, the MTR is still up – what is going on in that place?
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The Reader 1 response to J.Wilson and calling you ‘idiot’ has gone. I pointed out their own moderator’s ABC No1 rule about name calling.
What’s good for the G… etc.
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They’ve dropped my article off, and the Tankard Reist is still up???? What the hell is that about?
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Ring the ABC in Sydney and ask for someone to explain it to you.
Then put there excuses here.
I would also send an email to Conroys office and Media watch if they don’t put it back up.
As I said i think MTR has inside mates.
Just the posts not getting up is enough.
And if they bin all traces how can we prove our point to the people running the show?
Who are the same people Moderating.
The whole ABC blog thing is like the the antithesis of getup.
Being used to push a mainstream political agenda.
Feel sick.
looking likely,eh?
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Jennifer,
Your article is still there. You have to click on ‘more’ and then go to last Friday when your article was put up.
People can still respond and they will for a few days yet. I am miffed that your article wasn’t put on ‘Hot topics’.
That Ted Lapkin’s rant, is still there and yet, the subject is closed.
The Tankard myth was kept on the DRUM for a while but has now gone as well.
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Reader1 and ioraura,
are a little similar.
No?
Almost as vicious as MTR,no?
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As gerard says,or go to more,then search alphabetically,in Contributors.
Thats also a good way to track MTR propaganda,only select R for Rabid,no T for Tantric.(LOL)
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I complained that all my replies weren’t being put up, just checked and they’ve suddenly appeared.
I don’t know why they’ve dropped the article into obscurity so fast – others on the front page are older.
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Reader1: Is sometimes and only ‘perhaps’ racked by doubt and then answers her own post somewhat conciliatory but under a different name.
She is a she and used to have it in for me but was severely beaten and finally gave up.
It’s a tricky world in Unleashed.
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Safety in numbers.
; )
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Obfuscation is the trade mark of Reader1
If one has trouble understanding a post, it is a safe bet that it is her, no matter the name being used.
I have a feeling that the ABC’s Drum is understaffed and like the rest of ABC, underfunded.
The change of editors has been marked by a move to become more Crikey or Channel 10 and less, well……..ABC.
With the change to IT, journos are fighting tooth and nail to get exposure and income.
It is a very nervous world now-a-days.
I have just planted some daffodil bulbs. Jonquils to morrow.
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look at this comment on the Drum
Kym :
07 Mar 2011 5:53:19pm
*Dr. Wilson may not agree with rape, she certainly cashes in on it. Why, all those women who were sexually assaulted need someone to talk to – and, of course, preferably talk to a psycho analyst and their consultant.*
What on earth is the purpose of publishing this? Why would a moderator let that through? I haven’t responded I’ve complained to Jonathan Green.
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I’m not giving up, Hoffman, I’m really alarmed, not so much at the comment, which is vile but I can deal with that, but that the moderator published it. Now matter how busy they are there’s no missing that content, it’s blatant and there’s no attempt to disguise it or bury it in words. It’s beyond me how that could accidentally get by. I don’t believe it could accidentally get by. Which means there is some kind of interference and that really upsets me.
No way am I walking away from any of this, but I’ll be very selective about what comments I respond to, if any. I’ve done a lot, and I don’t think an author has to keep on indefinitely.
I’m loving opening the blog and reading what you are all are saying here – it’s lovely, you know, to read these supportive messages.
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So they ensored you, did they?
They have a long reach, some of these people. Now you know why I’m so resentful of some blogs that also follow this sort of high handed approach to discussion of issues.You’ll probably get accused of”hate speech”, because you advocated that women employ their own minds in working out their way through life instead of lazily ceding autonomy, allowing others to do that for them, then complaining when things go wrong.
Kym’s comment is prejudiced, illinformed, hysterical and cowardly hyperbole, as you well know as well as me.Trust us, we can spot hot air merchants and bigots a mile off.
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Jennifer it would be *terrible* if we knew how to get in contact with Green.
; )
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Will the real Jonathan Green please stand up.
(Careful not to catch your empty scrotum on the edge of the chair)
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mediadiary/index.php/australianmedia/comments/marieke_hardy_christopher_pyne
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Hoffman is it OK for me to email you?
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Jennifer, why don’t you fix your $%&$% clock?
I just put up a post at Quiggin re this Green problem, one positive response, thus far and one negative.
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Because I don’t know how, but as well as that, it’s on US time and I have dearly beloved’s there and when I look at the time on my blog I can imagine which part of their day they are in.
But seeing as it’s giving everybody so much grief, I’ll see if I can fix it and use a clock on my desk instead.
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Maybe you could split the difference?
Then everyone would have to adapt slightly.
It’s just a jump to the left…..
Oh God now I’m dry …reaching…
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Where is this Quiggin??
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OK I found it. (Quiggin)
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Yep, Prof Quiggin, that rarest of creatures, an economics professor who has a sense of ecology.
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Looks like MTRs Cricfiixion of McFadden is closed.
(She’s run out of nails)
Wonder whose effigy cops the pins next time ’round?
And why is it so hard for the ABC Websites to acknowledge such closures?
( Oh yeah,I heard a rumour the “Alert Moderator” tab is being renamed “Talk To The Hand”.)
Wouldn’t it be great if a big fat injunction from McFaddens lawyers was lobbed on Greens desk and also over at Melindas ‘God Bothering Central’ cess pit.
ROFL
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No I don’t know anything except I complained and Jonathan apologised and took the comment down. Haven’t looked for a while.
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Well, Dr Wilson since you are reminded of near and dear, and get to imagine how things are in the states and what could be happening there and if you were there, we”d have to consider the riddle answered.
Long may your clock embark on its eccentric path across the universe, like Pluto. Long may it, like Robert E Lee, march to sound of the beat of its own drum.
As for fiddling with computers, if you want to meet someone genuinely computer illiterate, please allow m to introduce myself.
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My clock, c’est moi
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Yo! Changed the clock and nobody’s even noticed!
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Jennifer.
I was going to post the latest rebuttal rejected by the Onside Mods.(And there are heaps more not getting a guernsey) But I won’t clutter this place just yet.If you wish to see it/them, you can email me.
If nothing else I feel two things have been proved.MTR is one or all of the Rabbit Boilers in disguise, in attack mode.
She can’t help herself,but she dares not risk the Goose that lays the Golden egg by having the courage of her convictions, and using her real handle.
She is the Great Pretender.And the precious name feeds her luxuriant, resource, guzzling lifestyle.
To you,big ups,I have learnt so much since the last two blogs,and mainly that feminism is a mine field,and that there are a lot more people within the women’s movement,doing damage than I ever knew.
Which brings me to another name for a blog.(SSh_ Not here!)
They have done themselves and their reputations great damage,and the worthwhile parts of what they ‘pretend’ to care about even more damage.
Time for you to have some fun now.Do what MTR does.
Make up a name and go a-postin’.
For the record I predict,one of her pseudos will bust their desperate self righteous a*ses to have the last word on your blog.
Who will it be:
Kum,
iou an areola,
Bleeder1
?
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They haven’t got the last word – I think they’ve given up – not as many of them as usual – no Joyce
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“Your advantage our disadvantage?” What’s that mean?
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I have asked for Stagger Lee, Reader1 and oloreo to have the guts to state their real names in a response to the latest from Stagger Lee. I have a fair idea who they are. It is so much easier to show bravado and selfrightiousness when hiding behind a poster’s name.
I am not cofident that they will post my request. Stagger Lee is very obsessive and one reason why I think I know him, alas, only by yet another pseudonym on a different forum.
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Gerard, I think the increasing personalisation in SLee’s posts is creepy. The insistence that she/he knows what’s in my head – that is crazy stuff and seems to be escalating. It’s got nothing to do with the debate, but it does reveal a great deal about the mind of the person writing it.
Hope she/he never comes after me in real life – the malice is extraordinary, and the judgements on me delivered in such an old testament tone!!! I’m keeping his/her posts as evidence, and I really mean that.
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I’m inclined to believe the bloke. I don’t think for minute he wrote that song with the intention of glorifying or encouraging the rape of senselessly drunk women.
But isn’t that the point? That rape culture is so entrenched in our society, he doesn’t realise what he’s doing?
I agree with what you’re saying about MTR and her attack on him. I also think that her attack on his partner is tantamount to victim blaming and is just as disgusting. I don’t think we can allowance ignorance to be the excuse, though. We wouldn’t do it with racism, so why should we do it with references to rape?
I am also disappointed you seem to be dismissing the song as ‘just triggering’. I have possibly read you wrong here. Personally, I felt undermined. I firmly believe, as you do, that victims need to be empowered and that facing their triggers is an important part of the CBT process. However, to say that a reference to rape culture, which essentially encourages his peers to think in the same manner, be dismissed as ‘just something that needs to be dealt with’, is not particularly fair to any female, not just victims of rape. We need to band together to stand against rape apologism, no?
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I’m so not dismissing anything as “just triggering.” I’m saying that triggers are extremely individual and it is impossible for others to know what they might be for someone. The song was clearly a trigger for some people, for others it wasn’t, but you can’t say the song shouldn’t have been written because of that I don’t think. The most unlikely things can trigger PTSD distress, as it is linked to the circumstances of the original trauma.
I didn’t read his song as rape apologism. He wrote it for his girlfriend and it described their private sexual practices. He wasn’t to know, no one can know, that it would hurt some people.
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“We need to band together to stand against rape apologism, no?”
Just curious.
Who’s we?
And ‘what’ do you intend to actually DO,once ‘banded’ together?
It seems like the old swap shoes shuffle to me.
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Hey Chasy,
let’s tie a rope around Kate Ceberano’s ankles and drag her around the town square for daring to utter the obviously paedophilia driven words of her adolescent boy molestation anthem,”Young Boys Are My Weakness”.
Then we can form a real posse and track down this Irish dude.
You can choose the outcome.
Or do you vote ! Hypocrisy party?
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Hey! This post couldn’t be written any better!
Reading this post reminds me of my old room mate!
He always kept talking about this. I will forward this page
to him. Fairly certain he will have a good read.
Thank you for sharing!
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