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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMy Friends and I Beat Up My Rapist, And I Will Never Apologize for Getting Revenge
http://www.xojane.com/issues/i-got-revenge-on-my-rapistI was inspired by stories of women who sought vengeance. There was Lisbeth Salander, the fictional hero of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, who tattooed "I AM A SADISTIC PIG, A PERVERT, AND A RAPIST" on her abuser. There was the pregnant woman in Turkey who decapitated her repeat rapist and brought his head to town. There was the woman who set her daughter's rapist on fire outside of a bar. And there was Lorena Bobbitt, who cut her rapist husband's penis off....
We walked through snow flurries to Sean's street. I approached the front door and knocked. Sean answered. Before he could say anything, my ex-boyfriend punched him twice in the face, picked him up, and threw him into a glass coffee table. The four of us ran to where he fell and administered blind punches and kicks, as though button-mashing in Street Fighter. I bludgeoned Sean's pudgy body with a sock-n-lock as my ex-boyfriend screamed, "You don't rape our friends and get away with it!"
Sean said nothing throughout the attack, just looked at the ceiling. Maybe he knew he deserved it. Maybe he was busy learning how it felt to be violated.
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)but mob justice is not welcome in a functioning democracy.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Vigilantism thrives when people percieve that they are not getting justice through official channels, it is a symptom of a government failing to do one of government's basic jobs, keeping people safe and preventing crime.
TipTok
(2,474 posts)... because she didn't want to have to bother providing evidence.
"I would have to see Sean in court. And if I wanted to be taken seriously, I would have had to go to the emergency room for a rape kit, subjecting myself to further violation."
She and everyone involved deserves jail time.
Assuming all of this tumblr-esque story is true, she couldn't even begin to mitigate the circumstances because she just bucked the system.
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)Technically, that wouldn't be mob justice, it'd be sanctioned by the state...
closeupready
(29,503 posts)So, no worries there.
That said, I doubt this actually happened; it's likely some imaginative feminist writer lying about an experience that never happened to her or anyone she knows.
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)Why did you label the writer a "feminist?"
yewberry
(6,530 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)Sick. Rape is sick and so is this.
linuxman
(2,337 posts)The revenge porn fantasy was just a little too textbook hollywood/comic for me. That and you know, nobody with half a brain would admit to conspiracy to commit assault (attempted murder? Lock in a sock would fit the bill), felony breaking and entering, assault with a deadly weapon, etc...
closeupready
(29,503 posts)There's something poetic (if way too simple) about the plot here, but 3 unrelated people aren't going to jeopardize their own lives in this way.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)Yes, it's quite possible that he did. But, even so, if this is true, the author and their friends should be prosecuted.
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)Orrex
(63,213 posts)I read stories like this in my freshman year Intro to Fiction Writing course.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Not exactly a mob.
Orrex
(63,213 posts)Still, two weeks after the fact, it's difficult to justify an assault on any legal grounds.
Even if she can make a credible case for her own involvement, the other three have no legal basis for participating.
Revenge fantasy is fair game, but acting it out is still vigilante justice and is a crime in its own right.
Shrike47
(6,913 posts)Sadlly, it reads like revenge fantasy to me.
On the other hand, weird things do happen. 30 years ago, a bunch of people decided to help a woman get revenge on her abusive husband by blowing up his car with him in it. Essentially, these were strangers to the abuse victim.
The plan worked.
Orrex
(63,213 posts)Nothing wrong with revenge fantasy. It can be quite cathartic, in fact.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)Real rape victims do write fantasy stories, which could be therapeutic, if readers here were not so quick to judge others, without having complete evidence of anything. People are weird animals, capable of almost any kind of violence against each other.
Iggo
(47,558 posts)The writer is one of them.
Captain Stern
(2,201 posts)If for no other reason than this excerpt:
Over the next three days, we held private discussions in my bedroom, met up with Sean's roommates, and talked to his friends. The consensus was that our plan was fair.
So Sean's roommates and friends agreed that it was "fair" to beat Sean up......without even hearing their friend's side of the story? That's total bullshit.
Anyone that believes this story should feel a little embarrassed.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)justice, but it rarely does. I can understand the rage behind this mentality. Too many men get away with a committing a vicious, violent crime and too many women have to go through life not only with their souls destroyed, but with the knowledge that their rapist will never pay for their crime and will probably continue to rape other women.
Nevernose
(13,081 posts)Things didn't go as planned.
One's serving life, another was serving life before having his sentence commuted, and the two girls both served several years for kidnapping.