Dear DU Women

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Last edited Sun Oct 9, 2016, 05:50 PM - Edit history (12)

No, not all guys don't talk like Trump. We aren't choirboys however. In our youth we talk about getting laid, maybe too much, but we never talk about grabbing the genitals of married women against their will.


Carry on...





ON EDIT- I can only speak to my own experience. It wasn't my intention to diminish such aberrant and criminal behavior. I certainly wouldn't count such a miscreant as a friend. I am thankful I never met anybody like that, very thankful...


ON EDIT (REDUX) Certain things are implied. I would never discount a person's account of abuse. I didn't state it because I felt it was self evident. My point is Trump is a deviant and a predator. If all men are like that malevolent clown we are lost !!!

[spooky3]

1. I'd have to ask Trumpy why it's necessary for him to use force

If he's so drop dead attractive and charming?

[bettyellen]

2. But enough of you actually do shit like that, and most of us have experienced the grab...

We appreciate you don't but there are also a lot of wingmen like Billy Bush encouraging that shit. Just for context.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. I have to believe the number of guys who would grope a woman is small...

If for the fear of retribution if anything.





On edit- My point is not to dispute the incidence of assaults. However I suspect that men who have sexually assaulted a woman have assaulted more than one.

[bettyellen]

5. Probably but they get around and others look the other way and minimize it ....

If you ever go to a (rare moderated) website where women don't get attacked for talking about it you'd be shocked at the stories. It's just those spaces are all to rare and most men aren't familiar. Check out Captain Awkward, this kind of crap is still an epidemic on campuses and too frequent in the workplace.

[justiceischeap]

7. Have you seen the Twitter thread #NotOkay?

A Canadian woman asked women to tell their assault stories. I think within 24 hours she has a million replies.

This type of thing happens more often than you think.

[sheshe2]

19. I posted that yesterday.

It never even made it to the greatest page. That tells people either don't care or do not believe it happens all that often. It does.

Canadian author Kelly Oxford started a Twitter thread Friday night in which she encouraged women to reply with the first time they were ever sexually abused, to show that “they aren’t just stats.”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512482061

Many of the stories were about girls as young as 12 being groped. The stories were about the first time it happened, not all the times it happened.

No one is saying all men, yet that type of behavior happens to often.

[Cakes488]

10. There was a time on the subway where there would be grabbing and

even more so grinding in packed cars...but that has really decreased..but it was rampant in the 90's...rampant.

What I would do is call the guy out and he would go scurrying from the train at the next stop.

[obamanut2012]

24. Then you are calling many DU women -- and some men 00 liras

Shameful for you to say this.

[Charlotte Little]

29. Depends on where you are...context

At bars, with alcohol involved, it happens quite frequently. It happens at frat houses and at Hollywood type parties.

It happens across the country in situations where the woman is alone with a man or alone in a group of men, where she might be dressed in what is considered a sexy fashion, where some joking and flirting may be taking place. It happens in the military and I suspect in police academies - and the pressure on the women to keep their mouths shut is immense.

No, I don't have stats for all of the above, I'll confess. But if you go digging, you'll find them easily, I'm sure of that.

"Groping" is sexual assault or rape if penetration is involved, but sadly, it's harder to prove. Add to that the stigma on women who come forward. Nothing has changed in 60 years. Not one damn thing. The victim's name is often leaked (unless she's a minor) and it can have devastating effects on her life. Women are discouraged from speaking up in cases of violent rape, let alone if a man grabs her genitals/breasts/etc. How do you prove that if no one saw it? And are others really going to believe you if you're at a bar, drinking, and a drunk man gropes you? Why were you there in the first place? Etc. Etc. Etc...

Predatory men rarely even think about retribution. They figure they'll get away with it (because they can and do). Nowadays, they even film it with their cell phones and spread it on the internet. That's how some boys at Vanderbilt University got caught. You can bet your life savings that the Vanderbilt rape was one of many, it's just the other predators never got caught. And if the raping is happening, the groping is too.

We women know this. There is a reason women fear men. That's just reality not a reactionary opinion.

[jehop61]

4. Most of us know this, and thanks for reiterating it

We also have experienced the creeps of society grabbing us and/or try to touch us inappropriately. That's what's driving this controversy. We've been there!

[mcar]

6. How do they not realize that line of argument makes things worse?

Thanks DSB.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. Because they are ignoring the fact he said he sexually assaulted women and focused on the bad....

Because they are ignoring the fact he said he sexually assaulted married women and focused on the bad language.

The B word is always intolerable. The P word describes a body party like the D word... But in context, his whole screed was deplorable.

[bettyellen]

12. In almost every panel I saw it took a woman to correct the record and say "this is assault" Trump

Was bragging about- not just lewd words. Can you imagine if this was fifteen years ago and those panels were less diverse?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. All I can say then is I am thankful I never knew somebody like that. Sick !!!

[Cakes488]

9. I know most men aren't predatory skanks. n/t

[MoonRiver]

11. My husband of 25 years is just appalled.

He's athletic and has been in many "locker rooms." These things are simply not discussed, especially regarding forced sex and comments about their female children's hotness.

[ehrnst]

13. I doubt that Trump started out saying we should grab genitals

Maybe it was a lot of talk about women as sexual conquests, and his special brand of ugly embellished on the entitlement.

[boston bean]

14. This kind of doesn't mesh with realities of women. Many women, a good god damned percentage... have

experienced this.

This kind of post really isn't helpful. It's sort of like a denial and calling women liars... we know that this not some minor issue for us.

[ehrnst]

22. Thank you. the #notallmen tone of the post bothered me as well. (nt)

[Duckhunter935]

32. Yep, we know all men are abhorrent

And can't control themselves. Wow






Note to jurors

[Squinch]

35. Poor you. It must be so upsetting when women talk about this.

[Duckhunter935]

39. Nope

[obamanut2012]

26. this

[onecaliberal]

16. We actually do get that. The sad thing is republicans aren't horrified by him.

A frightening number of people in this country are morally bankrupt and very very stupid.

[JTFrog]

17. Dear DSB,

You are witnessing blatant rape culture. This year we've seen rape culture banners put up by college fraternities, celebrity serial rapists, judges who sentence rapists to a slap on the wrist and a candidate for a major political party who brags about sexual assault.

We fill the air with noise like "blurred lines", companies create decals of women bound and tied to promote business, we see Reddit threads like "you just have to make sure she's dead", twitter hashtags that support accused rapists and blame victims, women being told how not to get raped instead of men being told not to rape....

I could go on all day.

I don't believe it was your intention, but please do not attempt to minimize what is going on here. We live in a society of rape culture.

[Rex]

20. Yes guys do that. Hard to believe if you've never been in that environment.

I've known some real pigs in my life, yes MEN do do those things. Sadly in mass. The fact that you hang around good folks, doesn't change that fact.

[obamanut2012]

23. But yet we have filled threads with how we have been sexually assaulted

Thanks for dismissing our experiences.

JFC

[uponit7771]

27. OK, read the OP again.. OP wasn't saying "most" ... I think that's an operative word that's missing

... and I'm shocked at the amount of post of sexual assault like tRump was describing.

DU can't have more than a million accounts ... it's shocking

[uponit7771]

25. delete

[Gothmog]

28. I concur with OP

The men I know do not speak like trump

[Doreen]

30. I see more than one side.

I have suffered a lot of sexual abuse but most of the time I have not been around men who talk like that. No, it is not the norm for most men to talk like that. I have been abused by several men in my life but I also know that it was those particular men NOT all men or even most men. I will not blame the general male population for what a few of them did to me.

[csziggy]

31. I'd bet men who have the sensibilities to be Democrats do NOT talk like this

But I'd also bet more men who are Republican do not have the respect for other people DO talk like this.

That would certainly match my experience as a woman, that the men I have heard who speak in the most demeaning ways about women and minority have without exception been Republicans.

The men I know who were raised to be respectful and considerate are all Democratic voters, even the men who were raised by Republican parents.

[cry baby]

33. I know that there are pussy grabbers cause that happened to me...

but I don't know if he bragged about it.

[Butterbean]

34. I'm married to a man, and I have male children and nephews.

I know all males are not horrible. That being said, I also know a staggering number of females who have been raped/molested than those who HAVEN'T. As in, the number of females that I know who have NOT been violated in some way is extremely disproportionate and small compared to the number of them who HAVE. They don't always tell, you can't always pick them out, they don't always act like something is wrong and something happened, and there isn't a "look" about them.

The number of sexual assault victims I have encountered in my practice as a nurse alone is mind blowing. To see on a patient's chart that she has a history of rape or childhood sexual abuse is so common for me to see now that it's extremely sad. I see it all. the. time.

So yes, I know all men aren't horrible. But a huge proportion of women have been victimized. That's not hyperbole, that's just fact.

[Squinch]

36. How much damage do you think one percent of men could do? Yes. Guys do talk like Trump.

Maybe a small percent, but certainly enough to spread a world of pain and anguish.

[boston bean]

38. It is your privilege you have never met such a person. Unfortunately millions of women have.