I’ve just been thinking...I feel funny calling myself a victim/survivor of abuse/rape/sexual assault. I feel like, I’m just a woman who’s had boyfriends and had the ability to escape from them. That just makes me fortunate.

THIS THIS THIIIIIIIS! I can honestly say it was reading Jez and interacting with commenters on Jez that helped me realize all this. So until a couple years ago, I always prioritized men’s feelings. Now, since NOT prioritizing their feelings often results in violence (including verbal and psychological abuse), I…

sometimes it’s worth it to have a conversation about what you did and didn’t like, and to talk about what consent means to YOU.

To my knowledge BLM has never shot up anywhere or killed anyone. When I was interviewing for a job for an organization that works with abortion we had to meet at an undisclosed location for safety reasons. I had to sign that I wouldn’t tell anyone where we met. Anti-choice fuck nuts have killed and bombed us. They…

I understand. You are correct.

This person is a victim of abuse. She is not the right person to talk to about your previous rapey behavior, and having engaged with her, getting a (predictable and unsurprising) response like she gave isn't grounds to call her names and be a jerk. If you want to be an ally, you have some learning to do about how to…

It really sucks she had to teach you how to treat her as a person.

Come on now. If you don’t want us to judge the entire male populace on the basis of one rapist, you shouldn’t dismiss the entire feminist movement on the basis of one man-hater. You know most of us aren't like that, just like most men aren't like that.

Could you be more condescending? I don’t know your history, and I don’t know if you’re a rape survivor, but ad infinitum is a rape survivor and you’re acting like she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about, which is fucked up. The “Does that makes sense?” is the condescending cherry on top. If you read her…

Oh good. A whorephobic rape joke. Never heard that one. Good stuff.

I agree with that definition, but since you mention consent, a rapist’s motivation absolutely matters because it affects how effective teaching consent is. Rapists and any adults that have that rape mentality cannot change their spots, but there is hope for the future generations. By teaching the importance of consent…

Using power and control to get what they want isn’t the same thing as what they want being power and control.

You don’t get it. There are rapists that get off on abusing their victims and while there is a sexual undertone, for them it IS about power and control. However, that’s not the kind of rapist that ad infinitum is talking about.

But that’s not what most people mean when they say that rape is about power. The rape that they’re talking about is when a rapist gets off on abusing a victim. There is still a sexual element to it, but the power aspect comes first.

Please tell me you dumped the fucker.

The rape is not about sex theory only covers a portion of rape. Certainly serial rapists are acting under deeper needs of control and power. But there are many many kinds of rape, and many scenarios in which rape can happen and some of those scenarios are driven by sex and sexual desire.

To add to your comment, the flawed definition of rape also completely negates the importance of teaching consent. If rape is only about power, then teaching consent is meaningless.

While I agree that rape and sex are fundamentally different, the whole “rape is always about power and control, and never about sexual desire” thing that has been accepted as a truism really goes too far.

Honestly, I’ve tried to see it from her perspective . Upthread you’ll see that I expanded on the story. She never came to see my sister when she was sick. That’s what upsets me most. If you add that to what she said to me when she said it to me... Maybe I'm out of line, but I don't think so.

My dad used to joke when I had braces that all I needed in addition to those railroad tracks were glasses and then I would never find a husband.