No, I totally understand. I used to be a misogynist myself--I'm not even kidding. I mean, you'd think "how does that work," right, but I definitely thought women were stupid and all those other sorts of things. I laughed at the jokes. I made the jokes. I had to learn. Fifteen is also neither too young, nor too old to learn--right?
The thing is, though, that it doesn't matter where you came from, what your circumstances are, your excuses, your reasons. If you were beaten you would deserve sympathy, gentleness, and protection, but that would not give you an excuse to make jokes about raping women. And, indeed, I hope you feel pretty bad at least momentarily, because... well, honestly, there are victims of rape on this forum, and when people joke about it sometimes their PTSD is triggered. They hurt themselves, they have horrible nightmares, they feel like they can't keep on living, just... remembering. I try to protect these people as much as I can, so that they can have fun with the rest of us. They didn't deserve what happened to them.
The other important thing to know is that, according to some studies I'm not digging up right now, rapists think that everyone else is a rapist; indeed, when you don't name it rape, some... what, 6% of men entering college will admit to having already having raped a woman. It doesn't matter if it's just a joke or not, because they can feel that it's funny, it's light, no one cares. That their intention was good. That the result doesn't matter. It's important to express that rape isn't something to laugh about or trivialize, so that they understand that they're the minorities in the society. So that peer pressure works against them, rather than for them.
Now, I really didn't want to derail this thread, but on the other hand I find it really, really important to stop this now, rather than just sitting back and letting it keep happen (or, say, blowing up in the middle of a game like some sort of atomic explosion--that's happened more than a few times, and I'm really trying to get a handle on it >_>). I want everyone to feel safe and comfortable here. This is especially important in the Mafia subforum, because we attack each other in game and really support each other out of the game. When we don't build the out-of-game community as strong as we possibly can, we can't press each other or be mean in the game as friends. It's kind of like how it's different when your friend calls you an asshole from when a random person on the street does it.
So, please keep these things in mind, and thank you for the apology =) I really appreciate it. You've reacted much more pleasantly than some other people I've spoken with.
You also didn't react the way you are now, but I guess you were just cutting me some slack or something?
Yeah, that was your first warning. I try to make the first one innocuous enough that you can figure out my position without getting embarrassed or anything =) And, I'm sorry if I've embarrassed you this time, but I felt it was necessary to make myself utterly clear.
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Topic: Beginner's Mafia XXV - Game over, webadict wins. (Read 64682 times)