For a little background on why this is going up. I got caught up in a debate about what constitutes harassment.
I don't often talk about it because its a time in my life that fucking sucked. I would rather suppress the experience than re-live it but I feel for this conversation its warranted. Here is my story about harassment.
I experienced harassment in the 3rd grade. My family moved from Binghamton NY to Swampscott MA so I was the new kid. Now I have an IQ of 163, Aspergers, ADHD and dysgraphia (bad handwriting approximate Competency is 2nd grade level). I am and always will be a bit weird so fitting in used to be difficult anyways.
I Went from an elementary school where my second grade teacher was in the running for teacher of the year, to a shit show. At home I could use my cognitive skills to coordinate the playground better than anyone else at that age and played a neutral diplomat between cliques and subgroups. That went away.
I ended up attending the Stanley Elementary School in Swampscott, MA. My teacher was Mr. asshole. He was a sports enthusiast (i'm not), and he was part of the problem.
See I'd covered much of the material that Mr. Asshole was teaching previously and pointed it out. Initially his response was to do it anyways which i did, from memory. I was a kid how the fuck was I supposed to know that you're supposed to fucking blend in, I had no idea there would be consequences.
And there were consequences by shit. Dysgraphia is a fine motor skills issue and it legitimately hurts to write over long periods of time. So when it came time for cursive, which again I had already done and didn't want to repeat because it actually fucking hurts to write in cursive. He asked for a sample, (it looked like crap because of dysgraphia), and promptly doubled the amount of work I had to do in the cursive book by making me write on external pages.
OK kind of a dick move right? kids in pain, you inflict more pain w/e asshat. But thats not enough to really call it harassment. Could just be practice makes perfect.
The funny thing about sports fanatics is they can talk to others who get it, and insult us plebes without us knowing. He did love his insults to, he'd ask me to demonstrate sports maneuvers or explain sports rules for his and the classes amusement.
with aspergers its kind of hard to tell why the kids are laughing. But when you realize the kids are laughing at you, and its instigated by an authority figure you are institutionally supposed to trust it really hurts.
I experienced harassment in the 3rd grade. My family moved from Binghamton NY to Swampscott MA so I was the new kid. Now I have an IQ of 163, Aspergers, ADHD and dysgraphia (bad handwriting approximate Competency is 2nd grade level). I am and always will be a bit weird so fitting in used to be difficult anyways.
I Went from an elementary school where my second grade teacher was in the running for teacher of the year, to a shit show. At home I could use my cognitive skills to coordinate the playground better than anyone else at that age and played a neutral diplomat between cliques and subgroups. That went away.
I ended up attending the Stanley Elementary School in Swampscott, MA. My teacher was Mr. asshole. He was a sports enthusiast (i'm not), and he was part of the problem.
See I'd covered much of the material that Mr. Asshole was teaching previously and pointed it out. Initially his response was to do it anyways which i did, from memory. I was a kid how the fuck was I supposed to know that you're supposed to fucking blend in, I had no idea there would be consequences.
And there were consequences by shit. Dysgraphia is a fine motor skills issue and it legitimately hurts to write over long periods of time. So when it came time for cursive, which again I had already done and didn't want to repeat because it actually fucking hurts to write in cursive. He asked for a sample, (it looked like crap because of dysgraphia), and promptly doubled the amount of work I had to do in the cursive book by making me write on external pages.
OK kind of a dick move right? kids in pain, you inflict more pain w/e asshat. But thats not enough to really call it harassment. Could just be practice makes perfect.
The funny thing about sports fanatics is they can talk to others who get it, and insult us plebes without us knowing. He did love his insults to, he'd ask me to demonstrate sports maneuvers or explain sports rules for his and the classes amusement.
with aspergers its kind of hard to tell why the kids are laughing. But when you realize the kids are laughing at you, and its instigated by an authority figure you are institutionally supposed to trust it really hurts.
You cant dodge it, you can't ask him to stop your the kid hes the teacher you start to think you, the fucking 9 year old, deserve it. Maybe this is some sort of normal thing and im just not. Maybe I should be laughed at for not knowing such a simple fucking thing.
But whatever you know, so what the teacher is actively hurting you, insulting you, mocking you in ways that you don't get while the class laughs away. Haha what an Idiot, he knows about particle physics and general relativity in the 3rd grade but still can't figure out points for a touchdown haha.
But maybe I'm overplaying it. Maybe he just wanted me to practice cursive. Perhaps sports really are somehow important, maybe it was all a good jolly time and I'm being too sensitive.
Well part of my learning disabilities is a strong inability to organize. I can't speak for @themercedesxxx (who is the i guess host of the original conversation thread) but with a similar neural archetype I'm sure organization isn't her strong suit either, shes mentioned as much. It happens for some of us. You can be a fucking Tetris master and somehow when you have to pick shit up it looks worse when you're done than when you started.
So we had those little cubby desks. The top of my desk was a mess because i would spread things out to organize them and the cubby was a mess because I had my schoolwork and my homework in there. This ass was a neat freak, I hate neat freaks because of him. Early on he asked me to reorganize it. I tried and failed over several weeks to meet his fucking standard.
He spent once or twice trying to help me organize using a recess. This may be the closest thing to nice this asshole ever did. Then he dumped he started to dump out the desk. I remember that day like a fucking crystal clear moment of horror. In we come from recess, everyone sits down at their desks except me. My chair is 5-10 ft from the desk. All my books, classwork, homework, pens, pencils, protractor, markers, were in a pile spread out across the floor. I looked at the man I am supposed to fucking trust at 9 fucking yrs old and he said clean it up.
No that wasn't the last time it happened either. Its a learning disability at 29 yrs old I still can't organize for shit and I am substantially better than I was 20 yrs ago. So my desk got dumped almost every fucking day during recess. Until he decided to up the ante and dump the desk in front of the class and make me stay in for recess. Or the days he felt like dumping it 2 or 3 times so id have a welcome surprise when I came in during the morning, when i got back from the bathroom, and during the afternoons i was rapidly cleaning so I could get home as fast as possible.
So what? thats just one fucking asshole. You could even argue that dumping out my desk repeatedly and making me pick it up was a good practice or time use, after all my work was getting done.
But whatever you know, so what the teacher is actively hurting you, insulting you, mocking you in ways that you don't get while the class laughs away. Haha what an Idiot, he knows about particle physics and general relativity in the 3rd grade but still can't figure out points for a touchdown haha.
But maybe I'm overplaying it. Maybe he just wanted me to practice cursive. Perhaps sports really are somehow important, maybe it was all a good jolly time and I'm being too sensitive.
Well part of my learning disabilities is a strong inability to organize. I can't speak for @themercedesxxx (who is the i guess host of the original conversation thread) but with a similar neural archetype I'm sure organization isn't her strong suit either, shes mentioned as much. It happens for some of us. You can be a fucking Tetris master and somehow when you have to pick shit up it looks worse when you're done than when you started.
So we had those little cubby desks. The top of my desk was a mess because i would spread things out to organize them and the cubby was a mess because I had my schoolwork and my homework in there. This ass was a neat freak, I hate neat freaks because of him. Early on he asked me to reorganize it. I tried and failed over several weeks to meet his fucking standard.
He spent once or twice trying to help me organize using a recess. This may be the closest thing to nice this asshole ever did. Then he dumped he started to dump out the desk. I remember that day like a fucking crystal clear moment of horror. In we come from recess, everyone sits down at their desks except me. My chair is 5-10 ft from the desk. All my books, classwork, homework, pens, pencils, protractor, markers, were in a pile spread out across the floor. I looked at the man I am supposed to fucking trust at 9 fucking yrs old and he said clean it up.
No that wasn't the last time it happened either. Its a learning disability at 29 yrs old I still can't organize for shit and I am substantially better than I was 20 yrs ago. So my desk got dumped almost every fucking day during recess. Until he decided to up the ante and dump the desk in front of the class and make me stay in for recess. Or the days he felt like dumping it 2 or 3 times so id have a welcome surprise when I came in during the morning, when i got back from the bathroom, and during the afternoons i was rapidly cleaning so I could get home as fast as possible.
So what? thats just one fucking asshole. You could even argue that dumping out my desk repeatedly and making me pick it up was a good practice or time use, after all my work was getting done.
So how do you fucking cope with this bullshit? The easiest way was to bury myself in my school work. There wasn't much to do, I completed the in class assignments quickly and because most of the material was a repeat or more in depth look than the previous year (which i covered via encyclopedias at home, there was no wikipedia in 1994/1995). So I hid in my homework, makes sense if you think about it. With aspergers and a 163 IQ I can narrow my whole fucking world down to a point. The world becomes fuzzy, indistinct and I can live entirely in my mind palace. By doing my classwork and my homework I could escape the class, I could escape him. Except he shut that shit down, homework is to be done at home he said, so I had to relive my academic horror when I went home. Any time I tried to retreat to my safe little world he would wrench me out by name and resounding laughter.
The problem is kids are like sharks and Mr. Asshole wounded me severely and there was blood in the water.
See there was another kid Il dickhead or something like that and his friend bastardo . They were buddies and Il dickhead was going through a rough time (if I remember correctly his dad was in jail). So Il dickhead picked on me. At first it was just general mockery, I didn't get it Im Aspergers, so when I didn't respond they escalated. Sometimes it was spilling food on me by "accident" as they walked by me at lunch. Sometimes it was chasing me when I wanted to be left alone at recess. Fucking with my science experiments like the mealworms. Punting a kickball at my stomach from less than 10 ft away, noogies and periodically shunning (i liked shunning the best). And that's aside from the mockery.
My only fucking escape was at recess. Because of cooties or whatever Il dickhead and Bastardo stayed away from the girls. My first best friend in NY was a girl, and I have always been comfortable around women so hanging out with the girls was safe for me. For 30 fucking minutes of the day I had a reprieve from all of it because I was friends with Maria (not her real name). With her and the other girls I could talk safely, walk safely, and play a bit. I remember very clearly that cooties created a 20 ft barrier between Maria and the other boys, I fucking loved Maria, got a crush on her because she was safe. But that was it 30 minutes of my day.
So Mr. Asshole condemned me to hell for the crime of being smart and different. When the teacher and top bully decide to target you your a social pariah. When the authority figure denigrates you shit goes down.
My only fucking escape was at recess. Because of cooties or whatever Il dickhead and Bastardo stayed away from the girls. My first best friend in NY was a girl, and I have always been comfortable around women so hanging out with the girls was safe for me. For 30 fucking minutes of the day I had a reprieve from all of it because I was friends with Maria (not her real name). With her and the other girls I could talk safely, walk safely, and play a bit. I remember very clearly that cooties created a 20 ft barrier between Maria and the other boys, I fucking loved Maria, got a crush on her because she was safe. But that was it 30 minutes of my day.
So Mr. Asshole condemned me to hell for the crime of being smart and different. When the teacher and top bully decide to target you your a social pariah. When the authority figure denigrates you shit goes down.
http://goo.gl/wniHeI
At lunch time no one sat with me but Maria. I get it I was a target and being near me was a huge social risk and even she couldn't stop the harassment of spilled drinks and food at lunch with her cootie powers. This is HARASSMENT.
When people chose to pull the spilled drink stunt Mr. Asshole had me continue my day as normal even though il dickhead mocked me as if I pissed myself. This is HARASSMENT.
Mr. Asshole had me hold the door open for the class and the kids would stomp on my toes as they passed. When I hid my shoes and self behind the door they body slammed it. This is HARASSMENT.
I would hide in the teacher across the halls classroom, she tolerated none of that crap in her room it was a barrier to Il dickhead, Bastardo, and Asshole. Asshole would demand my return and I couldn't escape. The school refused to transfer me to the other 3rd grade teacher. This is HARASSMENT.
When the kids followed me down the road as I left school taunting me. That was HARASSMENT.
When Il dickhead busted up my mealworms experiment. I went to hide in the bathroom and they kicked in the stall door to point and laugh. THAT WAS FUCKING HARASSMENT.
When discussions were had with Asshole and he turned it back on me. That was VICTIM BLAMING
When my parents begged the school to move me and they blamed my troubles on me. THAT WAS VICTIM BLAMING.
See its HARASSMENT not because these were one off events they were continuous. Its HARASSMENT not because mean things were done but because I couldn't avoid them. Its HARASSMENT because I was trapped, I was forced to be at school I was FORCED to sit there by an AUTHORITY FIGURE. Its HARASSMENT because my PERSONAL AGENCY was removed.
I was a VICTIM because I did nothing wrong. I broke no rules, no social contracts. I was a VICTIM because I was POWERLESS to stop what I was experiencing. I was a VICTIM because I had no PERSONAL AGENCY in the start or stop of what occurred.
You don't experience internet HARASSMENT in PUBLIC internet space because block buttons can stop it. You can't experience HARASSMENT In PUBLIC internet space because you can easily avoid whatever you don't want to see by not looking. You can't experience HARASSMENT in PUBLIC internet space because no AUTHORITY FIGURE is FORCING you to be there. you can't experience internet HARASSMENT in PUBLIC space because you never lose your PERSONAL AGENCY.
You aren't a VICTIM on SOCIAL MEDIA because people are responding to YOUR INTERACTIONS. You can't be a VICTIM on SOCIAL MEDIA because you're never ever POWERLESS to stop what you see. You aren't a VICTIM of SOCIAL MEDIA because you never lose your PERSONAL AGENCY.
Expanding the definitions of VICTIM, HARASSMENT, THREATS, MISOGYNY, SEXISM, RACISM, HOMOPHOBIA or RAPE, to include
"PEOPLE SAID MEAN THINGS TO ME"
"SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH ME OR SOMEONE I AGREE WITH"
"SOMEONE USED VIOLENT LANGUAGE"
"I SEE BOOBIES"
"I DON'T SEE ENOUGH BOOBIES"
"YOU'RE NOT TREATING X WITH ENOUGH SPECIALNESS"
"THERE ISN'T ENOUGH OF X IN Y"
"YOUR CLOTHING IS OPPRESSING X"
"YOUR MEDIA IS OPPRESSING X"
"BECAUSE MEN/WHITES/HETEROS LIKE IT"
"BECAUSE MEN/WHITES/HETEROS DON'T LIKE IT"
"YOU DON'T LIKE PERSON A AND THEY ARE X THEREFORE YOU HATE X"
"IT DOESNT MATTER IF THE ALLEGATION WAS FALSE/EXAGGERATED/HEARSAY WE SHOULD PUNISH ANYWAYS"
You demean actual VICTIMS who actually experienced HARASSMENT,THREATS, MISOGYNY, SEXISM, RACISM, HOMOPHOBIA OR RAPE.
It works like this
Lets use rape as an example because this is a hot button issue at the moment:
Rape describes non consensual sex. This can be by force, or incapacitation.
Now lets correlate each of these experiences with a horribleness factor (hf). The factor will be on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being good, 5 being average shittyness. Lets apply this to the types of rape listed above you can insert your own horribleness factors for the experience but im gonna go with.
Force = 10
Incapacitation = 9
Force takes the top slot, Its a cognitive experience of fear, terror and powerlessness. Again its a DENIAL OF AGENCY. threats of violence are included here
Incapacitation takes 9. The reasoning is that finding out afterwards is terrible but not as bad as actually experiencing every moment. this includes drinking to be non responsive, passed out, or unable to really consent.
Now the percentage of women who reported rapes is about 1.3% with an estimated 60% unreported. Thus a safe bet for total percentage is about 3.25% of women are raped. Now lets Assume that of this 90% of reported are violent, and 50% of unreported Are violent. That means 2.145% of women experience a violent rape assault 1.105% of women are raped via incapacitation. Thus ⅔ of rape has an hf of 10 and ⅓ has a hf of 9. We can therefore say rape stands as a pretty terrible accusation with a weighted hf of about 9.6.
What Happens if we Expand the Definition
So with all good intentions people are trying to stop rape. With an hf of 9.6 everyone can empathize with that. But they want to expand the definition from no means no or consent to anything from undesired kissing, morning after mistake realization or sex while drunk. Using the CDC stats that brings the number of women raped in college to about ⅕ or 20% so holy shitsnacks sounds like a killer stat to me
Except that changes the distribution and significance of the term rape. See we still have the total 3.25% at an hf of 9.6, but now were adding in sex while drunk, affirmative consent or undesired kissing to the title of rape
So lets approximate some integer horribleness factors for this
Drunk sex= 2
Not affirmative consent=3
undesired kissing= 6
Dafuq did i do=5
Now to clarify drunk sex is sex while still knowing what your doing. Affirmative consent means asking for permission every step of the way from kissing to completion. Undesired kissing is undesired kissing, Dafuq did I do is waking up next to someone you going what the fuck did I do last night.
So of the now remaining 16.75% under the “new rape” lets say drunk sex has occurred in 20% of those cases not affirmative consent in 60% of those cases, undesired kissing in 5% and dafuq did I do in 15%
Act
|
hf
|
%
|
Weighted Factor
|
Force
|
10
|
2.145
|
1.0725
|
Incapacitation
|
9
|
1.105
|
0.49725
|
Undesired Kissing
|
6
|
0.8375
|
0.25125
|
Dafuq did I do
|
5
|
2.5125
|
0.628125
|
not affirmative consent
|
3
|
10.05
|
1.5075
|
Drunk sex
|
2
|
3.35
|
0.335
|
Total %
|
Total hf
| ||
SUM values
|
20
|
4.291625
|
So by expanding the definition of rape, a horrible crime with a weight of 9.6, to include drunk sex, we plummet the seriousness of the crime to almost half. Now yes this is a subjective weighting system and everyone can apply their own weights to the system. But even if you decided that all but one of those factors is a 10 scale horribleness. You're still dropping the impact of the word.
So if you're expanding these definitions to cover Interactions that are made by Choice, such as through services with a block feature, not only are you expanding the number of cases you collapsing the hf of the experience by ¼. Thus the overall impact of a word drops drastically.
BEING A REAL VICTIM IS A BADGE OF FUCKING HONOR AND YOU'RE SHITTING ON IT
See if you did experience BULLYING, HARASSMENT, MISOGYNY, SEXISM, RACISM, RAPE or any one of the horrible ways humans inflict themselves on others, you get angry when tumblrettes and SJW’s attempt to usurp shit they haven’t experienced or don't understand.
See being a VICTIM requires more than being upset, its MORTAL mother fucking FEAR. FEAR that it could happen AGAIN. FEAR that you won't be able to STOP IT. FEAR that you can’t RECOVER.
When you're a VICTIM, you're not concerned with petty bullshit reasons of who, what, when, where, why. You try EVERYTHING, you say ANYTHING because every fiber of your being is crying out for fucking MERCY. What can I do to APPEASE my attackers. What can I do to MAKE IT STOP.
You're not interested in friends or family, they can’t help you. You DON’T ask for DONATIONS, they can't heal you. Only your ATTACKERS can RELENT, only your ATTACKERS can SAVE YOU. Your mind reaches into its most primitive recesses, the FIGHT or FLIGHT response. But you can’t FIGHT, and you can't RUN because those options have been taken away from you by FORCE. When you're a VICTIM your first last and only thought is SURVIVAL.
If you're upset that someone said NASTY THINGS or DISAGREED with you you're clearly not a fucking VICTIM. If you were a fucking VICTIM you wouldn’t make the same ARGUMENTS. If you were a VICTIM the first thing you would try is an APOLOGY. You wouldn't defend yourself because as an actual VICTIM you don't feel your WORTH defending. You DON'T ask for DONATIONS because your NOT WORTH IT. Thats what its like to be a VICTIM, your sense of self worth is DESTROYED because your PERSONAL AGENCY is gone by FORCE
If you have ever been an actual VICTIM you're a fucking SURVIVOR. There's a distinct point where your world suddenly and irrevocably changed and you remember every agonizing detail. You were attacked and it hit you SOUL. It’s a WOUND you carry with you for life. It heals but it’s a SCAR, a permanent memory of the WORST you have ever EXPERIENCED.
Saying NASTY THINGS in an ONLINE PUBLIC SPACE isn’t HARASSMENT because there is a BLOCK BUTTON. Its not HARASSMENT because the entire interaction positive or negative is by CHOICE from using the service to reading the text. Its not HARASSMENT because you never lose your PERSONAL AGENCY. With DOXXING It can become HARASSMENT because DOXXING actual PERSONAL information can take away your CHOICE.
Saying NASTY THINGS about someone of a specific race/gender/sexuality is not RACISM SEXISM or HOMOPHOBIA. It’s just SAYING NASTY THINGS. For bigotry you need additional characteristics, GENERALIZATION to other members of that POPULATION is pretty important without it you're full of shit. The same thing goes for misogyny, you can dislike some women for what they have done or views they hold without disliking or disrespecting all women everywhere.
What was the final outcome for me
While I used my experience as an example I didn’t really end the story. I was pulled from the school after starting to discuss suicide openly as a way out. In fact the only reason I didn't was I would be inflicting pain on my family and that wasnt fair. I felt I was the failure and they didn't need to bear any pain for my mistakes.
I was diagnosed with PTSD. To all those who want to talk about being “triggered” by non PC language, FUCK OFF, YOU DON'T HAVE ANY FUCKING CLUE WHAT ITS LIKE TO BE FUCKING TRIGGERED. It’s not a problem anymore but for years, sudden anxiety attacks, images, sounds. It took a while before I felt safe in a bathroom stall again.
|Side Note: To be fair I believe it’s a neurological susceptibility, under stress the most recent traumatic experience tends to resurface. So I have experienced flashbacks to the
- time when I accidentally killed my chinchilla,
- the screams of my wife and the sight and smell of smoke after her volkswagen caught on fire
- The death of our husky dozer when he was hit by the car, his cries at the vet, the blood on his nose and paws and again the wife's screams
These seem to reset the counter and severe stress, sounds, and smells in particular can set it off. luckily there haven't been any other sudden violent losses since 2011 so flashbacks are rare unless I let them happen.|
My parents put me in a private school that was a bit too art driven just to get me out. It wasn't a good experience but then again I was pretty much destroyed by the previous year. I eventually got placed in a smaller private school for a few years which worked out fairly well. I was able to recover and develop. However I did run into a similar experience with another teacher there. but after a few years and some healing I tanked his stupid like a pro
After four years we had moved, I was given a choice for middle school, charter or public, because we couldn't afford the private school any more. I had recovered to the point of choosing to face down my fears. I entered the public middle school and thrived. It was 2 more years before I talked about what happened. I submitted my experience as my 8th grade moving on paper. So when I first spoke about what happened publicly it was in front of my entire 8th grade class, their parents and the middle school faculty. No public speaking doesn't scare me.
The funny Part is years later during the SAT's I encountered some members of the 3rd grade class. They remembered who I was and my stories. One of them was in my 8th grade class in the other school system with me and heard my speech. It was a bit cathartic to find out there was no hate.
Since then I have earned my Eagle Scout, a Black Belt, got a 1360/1600 on the SAT a 700 on my physics and a 710 on the Chemistry SAT II, received an award for physics in my high school which I didn't actually attend. I have gotten my EMT basic license, degrees in both Psychology and Chemical Engineering and currently work for a nuclear national lab and have a beautiful wife.
All in all what I went through sucked, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone but I learned persistence at all costs. I am and always will be a survivor because fuck the world I am better than whatever it throws at me. It always leaves a mark though, you never fully trust people. I deal with this by living an open book, if I have no secrets, you can't judge me, and if you do I don't fucking care. It also leaves a never ending, all consuming desire to be better, I must learn more, succeed more, and push myself farther. I cannot lose, failure is not an option, ever.
I do not even remotely respect the current social justice approach to expand the definitions of terrible experiences to fit whatever microscopic issue they have at the moment. It devalues the impact of the language used to describe terrible experiences real people actually suffer for a short term attention gain. You're not harassed, triggered, or staring down some just cause online. If you can turn it off it isn't harassment. If its not generalized to an entire population possessing a physical characteristic its not bigotry.
so get off your moral horse. don't defend the indefensible don't generalize an entire group by the interactions of a few. Stop deflecting from the fact that people don't like you or your friends, anonymous screen names, because your hypocritical assholes
I am #GamerGate
**PS. The names of people who actually harassed me were originally listed here but I changed them. The school is legit where it happened and the dates are correct only the names are changed. It does hurt to review this stuff and when I typed it up their names were there but i gain nothing from some internet assholes harassing them.
