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That was me on reddit commenting about how to get more rape victims to “come forward” with their experiences by telling the police.

Imagine if what happened at Steubenville wasn’t a couple of star athlete boys raping a less popular girl on camera. Imagine it was a couple of star athlete boys beating up a less popular boy on camera. Would you suspect that those boys would have gone to Juvie for any length of time at all? Would you suspect that such a thing would ever even see a court room? I suppose it’s possible it could have happened in a similar fashion. It would probably heavily depend on how viral the video went. In which case, how much would you want to bet that similar comments about how these star athlete boys ‘ruined their lives’ would have been made just as often? That there would be outrage in that small town over the fact that the boy who was beaten actually felt the desire to seek justice over what happened to him. ‘Victim blaming’ and comments about his lack of fortitude would be plentiful I suspect.

The way that we treat these two different types of assaults is pretty appalling in my opinion. The girl who was raped at Steubenville did not end up with a mutilated vagina. She didn’t end up pregnant. She didn’t end up barren. She didn’t end up bruised, scarred, scraped or bloodied. She didn’t end up with an STD. Some suspected that there was a level of participation on her part, however valid or invalid that opinion was; it was actually up for discussion based on the footage. I’m pretty sure I’d lose most people on these points. It’s seen as excessively callous to minimize a non-violent form of rape like that. Even people on the men’s rights side would slowly walk away so as not to be seen next to those views.

My intent isn’t necessarily to minimize this girls experience, and girls (also boys for that matter) who experience similar things. My intent is moreso to have jumpings and beatings finally be seen as valid forms of assaults. At this point, we don’t really get up in arms over jumpings and beatings amongst boys. No, we don’t. Really, we don’t. Don’t extrapolate from that one anecdote in which it was taken serious. Just about every single male that I know in my life has experienced being beaten unjustly at some point in their life. Every single damn one. Out of the countless examples, only one has sought justice in the court room. A friend who had been put in a coma for 3 days when he had his head stomped onto a curb repeatedly. He sought justice, and got it in the form of no single perpetrator going to Juvie, and the fines that were given never being paid. His story didn’t make national headlines, nor was it even found on page 12 of the city’s newspaper. And before you ask, the boy was white.

Compare that to similar forms of assault that happen to women and girls, and sometimes the outrage is so loud that we can hear it from halfway across the world. Such as that girl in India being gang raped. The outrage was so loud, westerners heard about it and the Indian government felt compelled to apologize for horrible things existing in their country.

But when I really think about it… Maybe it isn’t that important that justice was served for my friend. As absolutely appalling and horrible as it was that my friend endured this, I’m unsure if ruining the lives of the people who did this to my friend was really necessary. While I believe they deserved harsh punishment, my feelings on them being punished and/or learning their lesson take a major back seat to my friend being able to move on and live a fulfilling life. Should it really offend people that I feel that way? It would seem that such a position would be viewed as minimizing what happened to my friend. And holy shit would people be outraged if my friend was a female rape victim of similar circumstances and I felt that way…

I view being able to prosecute people who do this kind of shit as a luxury. Maybe I shouldn’t, I don’t know. Most of the beatings and jumpings I’ve seen were just done with and the people moved on. My brother was jumped multiple times growing up. Every time coming home bloodied and in tears. No cops were called. No victim groups rallied on his behalf and other teenage boys to stop a ‘culture’ from existing. If I were to say that the people who jumped my brother should have received hard time in the slammer for their crime, then I would also end up having to say that my brother deserves hard time in the slammer for the jumpings he would inevitably engage in back when he was in high school. That’s right, my brother who had been jumped on multiple occasions, ended up taking part in the jumping of other people. Cycle of abuse, no?

He learned that beating up other dudes was okay. It was okay when it happened to him, so it was okay when he did it to other people. He was largely correct in his estimations.

Had my brother been convicted of a crime after taking part in a jumping, my brother would have learned that when it happened to him, it was no big deal. But when he did it to other people, it was a big deal. How do you think my brother would have reacted had he been charged with a crime, a ‘crime’ that had been committed against him on multiple occasions and that no one cared when it happened to him?

I can tell you how he would have reacted. He would have minimized the fuck out of the crime. He would probably sound like a victim blamer and ‘violence apologist’.

Hey… Maybe that’s why men and boys sound so callous when they talk about rape? Could it be that they instinctively know that there’s a double standard at play here; and that’s why they are most often the ones who victim blame, minimize and sound like ‘rape apologists’? Could it be that the rape apologist dude probably experienced gray rapes at the hands of women on multiple occasions and no one gave a damn, including himself; and no one rallied on his behalf. But when the same thing happened to a chick it received national news coverage? Of course not. Everyone knows men can’t be raped by women. And so the rape apologist dude is only that way because he hates women for no reason. It’s not possible that he has experienced similar injustices and he learned to deal with it on his own; and in his own sense of fairness he feels that women and girls should have to do the same. Nope, that’s not what is going on at all. Man bad. Woman good. Man asshole. Woman victim.

Women, feminists, gynocentrists, rape hysteria peddlers — If you actually want men to stop minimizing the rapes of women… You’re going to have to do something about the minimization of the rape of men. I mean that with 100% certainty. I am 100% certain that the reason why men so often minimize the rape of women, and often sound like rape apologists and victim blamers… That they do this because when it happens to them, they receive that exact same treatment. And while you complain about getting that kind of treatment when it happens to you and/or women/girls; you’re going to have to admit to yourself that it happens in larger quantities and in a more systemic manner to men and boys. If you don’t admit this to yourself, then don’t expect the problems of rape apology, victim blaming and rape minimization to ever go away. I am 100% certain of this.

As you were.

See also:

Male on male violence shouldn’t be ignored because penis/patriarchy: http://www.ualberta.ca/~fchriste/PowerAb/Amybiehl.html

A way that gynocentrists minimize female on male rape is through statistics and resources: http://www.genderratic.com/p/836/manufacturing-female-victimhood-and-marginalizing-vulnerable-men/