I would like to hear what you think about this

[hel]

Men without humanity

I usually start the day scanning Turkish newspapers on the internet each morning, like many of us do. There's usually not much to read though. But today, a story made me so angry, I laughed out loud. No, that's not a contradiction, laughing is what you do when there is nothing you can do about something so horrible there is no way to accept it.

It is about a 27 year old woman who got raped by burglars climbing through the 3rd floor balcony window. She couldn't stop them, but got up after they ran away and fired her grandfather's rifle after them. The neighbors called the police, who found her in her home.

That's a tragedy, but one that might happen anywhere on earth, unfortunately. What happened later is, I believe, unique to the Middle-Eastern culture.

Because she was raped, her fiancé broke things off saying he couldn't live with it. Then her boss fired her, citing 'performance issues'. She had been working there for three months on a probationary contract, even though she was quite successful at her job there is nothing she can do about it now.

Not that she wants to see those people anymore. She fled the city and moved in with her friend living somewhere else, because she couldn't stand stares and murmurs on top of everything else. She says she feels like everyone is blaming her for what happened.

In all likelihood, they do.


I just want to hunt down and cause great pain for a long, long time to not only those bastards who did this to her, but also to her fiancé and her boss, and everyone who looks at her with disgust, thinking she is now soiled forever. She shouldn't be alone in that house, and since she didn't live with her family she deserved what she got, didn't she? Or maybe she should just shut up after the deed was done, wouldn't that be better?




Then when I'm already so mad, I read something else online, but at the same time, the very same thing. This is from itiraf.com, a website built around the concept of 'confessions', people writing things they can't tell anyone anonymously.

A 29 year old guy writes:

I knew that my wife wasn't a virgin before getting married. I convinced myself and her that it didn't matter. But then... 1. I never slept with her willingly other than the times I was drunk. 2. I do accept her requests for sexual intercourse. But I do it only to have performed my duty, so she won't need anyone else. 3. After each time, I can't get it out of my mind that she experienced this with someone else too. 4. I can't tell anyone what I think and feel. 5. I neither can accept to live like this, nor end my marriage just because of this. 6. My only consolation is we don't have children yet. Maybe someday I will get the courage to end this wrong marriage.


This is what a Turkish man thinks of the person he married by his own will. This is how low a human being can stoop. This is how the majority of men see women in this land.

Incidentally, this is also why teenage girls have oral or anal sex only with their boyfriends in Turkey. So their future husbands can live in their own disgusting insecurity without losing sleep at night. Yay for virginity, huh?

(From my blog, http://phanja.blogspot.com/2005/08/men-without-humanity.html)



I am still extremely mad, and wanted to share the feeling with you all. What I'm wondering is, is it really unique to Middle Eastern culture as I stated above, or does this kind of thing happen anywhere else?

[Hello_Kitty]

1. Much more harsh in that culture

But sadly, you find similar attitudes here. Teenagers are engaging in oral and anal sex in order to "preserve their chastity" in fundamentalist enclaves here in the U.S., from what I've read.

We are treating rape more as a crime against women than something that they brought on themselves but that remains a battle because the neanderthal views persist. "What was she wearing?" "Why did she go off with those boys?" "She was asking for it, getting drunk like that." "Men/boys have uncontrollable urges, so women/girls need to be careful." Tired old canards rehashed every time the subject comes up, even here on this progressive board. Sometimes from women. Makes my head hurt.

Even some of the nicest guys subscribe to a very rigid madonna/whore dichotomy about women. Meaning that there are certain women they consider to be only good for sex while others are deemed marriage or relationship-worthy. It's not quite as pronounced here as in that letter from the 29yo guy in your paper. Simply not being a virgin won't usually put you in the 'whore' category anymore but, for example, having had more partners than he thinks you should have might. I've read numerous advice columns and such where guys confess that they shared the Number (no. of past sexual partners) and were bothered when the women's numbers were higher than theirs. There's a famous joke in American culture (probably in others too) that if a guy asks you how many you've been with cut the number in half. Then cut it in half again because he probably still couldn't handle it. :rofl:

[shockra]

2. Boy, that would only be 3/4 of a man.

Come to think of it, that sounds about right.

Edit: Word choice, not math skills. :)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. During the war in which Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan

in 1970 the Pakistani troops used rape as a weapon.

Most of the women who were raped were rejected by their husbands and parents. NGOs had to build shelters for them, and one group provided abortions, because some of the more "enlightened" families were willing to take the women back as long as they weren't pregnant. :grr:

[hel]

4. She might actually be considered lucky...

She certainly would have been murdered by some underage relative of hers, if she was living in the southern, less-developed parts of this country.

[undergroundpanther]

5. I am so pissed

I feel like castrating every male sometimes Just to take their weapon away.

Anyway I am pissed too the frickin selective blindness so many men have is infuriating to deal with.I was on a thread about sex slavery and trying to point out why I hate the corrupted porn industry and all the males on the thread defended pornography..I guess they assume I am gonna take away their precious abusive dirty pictures and they defend porn blindly as if it is their right to let an industry of exploitation go on unchallenged.

I wish the people in this world that like to dominate,use,abuse, and exploit others,the sociopath,pedophile, rapist. bully porn addicted creeps,would be destroyed every last one.

The world can get along well without bullies.The bullies cannot get along in the world without exploiting someone..And the woman who is victimized by the rapist piece of shit bullies and a culture that coddles bullies must never be silenced. Fuck men and their sick culture.If men do not like being called monsters and being hated for their choices they best learn not to choose to treat people in such monstrous ways.
Goddammit.

[bobbieinok]

6. Muslim doctors from ME performed abortions on Bosnian Muslim

women who had been raped by Serbs and got pregnant

this was in MS magazine, I think

also Serbs were very clear that they used rape and gang rape as a psychological war weapon

MS magazine also said that videos were made of the rapes and sold as porn videos in Central Europe

[ismnotwasm]

7. Horrible

On a par with sexual slavery. The demand for sexual access to women at all times, yet blaming women for the desire for sexual access. We pretty it up in this county but it's still there. This god awful fear of womens sexuality, the need to control it, to denigrate it. To make it less than a male's. Book after book has been written on the topic, and you still have folks not understanding. We are not equal. The rape culture DOES exist. Women are groomed here from birth to parade, to exaggerate the current desirable sexual attributes. Young women, in the name of sexual freedom perform sexual acts without realizing it's just another form of bondage. Sexual freedom includes the right to say no. Such a goddam simple statement. Yet rape is used worldwide as a destructive weapon. Date rape has become part of the common lexicon in America. We have to fight to call rape rape if we happen to be married to the rapist. God this pisses me off.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. Yeah, an article that disturbed me a couple of years ago was

about teenage girls who have pledged to remain virgins but perform fellatio on their boyfriends, basically because the guys demand it as a condition for staying together.

There's nothing about the boys reciprocating with oral sex.

That kind of thing, with the boy getting all the pleasure and the girl doing the work, seems, pardon the expression, really screwed up. It's as if the guys are saying, "I have the right" even though they consider the thought of reciprocating as either beneath their dignity or "yucky."