Me Too!

[Wind]

And apparently another one bites the dust. The Guardian reports that Morgan Freeman has been accused of sexual harassment by eight women. USA Today is also publishing an article about it, as are yet a couple of other mainstream news outlets.

Sad if it's true in this case too, part of me hopes that it wouldn't be.

[Aragorn]

And apparently another one bites the dust. The Guardian reports that Morgan Freeman has been accused of sexual harassment by eight women. USA Today is also publishing an article about it, as are yet a couple of other mainstream news outlets.

Sad if it's true in this case too, part of me hopes that it wouldn't be.

Well, ultimately, we are neither judge nor jury in this matter, but I strongly suspect that it would be true. First of all, we're not talking of one or even two allegations, but of eight separate ones. That almost sounds like we're talking of Bill Clinton or Bill Cosby.

Secondly, many people who've met Morgan Freeman have already stated that they felt intimidated by him, and from what I've seen of him in talk shows, he does indeed appear to be someone you don't want to mess with. He does not come across as a nice person, but rather as an ostensible narcissist, and for that matter, one who carries a lot of rage inside of him.

Hollywood is a cesspool, just like the music industry and politics. Who knows how many more of these cases are still hiding in the dark?

[Emil El Zapato]

this is not specific to any one location...it is the way of the world...until now, perhaps...I think that's cool...if it results in a true balance of power...that will be a long road...but when women are sentenced in the same fashion that men are for the same crimes (just one example of what I mean) then egalitarianism will have arrived.

[Dreamtimer]

So someone decided to start a Him Too movement.

This is a perfect example of creating division and sides where there weren't any before.

Me Too is a movement of both women and men. It has been from the get go.

Even member TargeT pointed out how often men get raped.

And yet some how people need to create even more division and make more false claims about side-taking.

Wusses.

[Aragorn]

[...] Even member TargeT pointed out how often men get raped.

As a strictly heterosexual man, I have luckily enough never been raped, but I have been groped by male homosexuals/bisexuals/omnisexuals or whateversexuals more often than I care to remember.

One of them was a friend of mine, and he "jokingly" touched me in inappropriate ways a few times, but he was officially straight — he was an ex-boyfriend of my ex-girlfriend/fiancée, and he was a former classmate of my brother's — and so I naively accepted the possibility that he was merely joking. However, we were always going out with a whole bunch of guys (and one girl) at the time, and as I found out later, he had also already been groping each and every one of us — except for the girl in our company, ironically enough, but he wouldn't have had to try anything funny with her. She was tall, quite assertive and just as capable of defending herself.

Eventually I started avoiding being alone with the guy, and whenever I would then still run into him at a pub, I started paying closer attention to his body language. And sure enough, even though he claims to be straight, he does have some gay mannerisms, even though he's good at hiding them.

In addition to the above, I have also been threatened with homosexual violence, during my very first day at work at one of the (now defunct) General Motors plants in Antwerp — it was my first ever job after I was released from active military duty. Anyway, I told the guy that I'd kick the shit out of him if he were to try anything funny with me. Luckily, he never did follow up on his threat. He was much taller and heavier than me, so that probably wouldn't have ended well.

Once I was also offered money by a guy if I were to have let him sodomize me. I was so freaked out that all I could do was utter "No!" and walk away. This was a guy who had dated a dear female friend of mine at the time, and even though I knew — from what he himself had told us — that he had been hanging out with a bunch of gay guys for a while, I never would have thought that he was gay (or perhaps bisexual), especially given how adamant he was that he was straight. He certainly did like the ladies, and there was a 16-year-old girl at the time whom he had gotten pregnant in the parking lot — my brother had a crush on this girl for a short time after she had already had her baby.

I was told some time later that this very same guy was having an incestuous homosexual relationship with his father. I don't know whether that was true or whether it was just gossip, but he was either way a sick bastard. He was eventually arrested, convicted and sent to jail for his participation in a violent home-jacking in which he and his two cohorts tied up and severely beat up an elderly couple. He probably got to enjoy lots of sodomy at the Barbed Wire Hotel™.

[Chris]

The Freaky thing is, just as I was reading Aragorn's post above, this video came up on my youtube feed:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHc5WdVADCc


It's worth watching, even if you disagree with it (and it's just an opinion) as it provides some balance I think.

Another interesting synchronicity is that the experiences described by Aragorn have also happened to me, though never in Europe. The rather unpleasant encounters i had always involved South Asian men (from India and Bangladesh) and happened to me in India and Singapore. This is almost never mentioned by the MeToo movement, but if you want to fight genuine misogyny, patriarchy and rape culture, South Asia would be a great place to start. At least in India, the local women are fighting back and there has been some improvement, but overall, South Asian attitudes towards women, sexual boundaries and rape are appalling and much worse even today than at any time during Europe's history, including the dark ages.

Women simply cannot go outside or enjoy any form of normal life, without the threat of harassment and rape. That is without even mentioning the practice of Suttee, or Widow Burning, which has been largely stamped out by the British, but still happens occasionally in rural areas, as does corrective rape, execution for eloping and other such tasty punishments. I only wish the MeToo movement would concentrate on these issues, which are really serious and require a worldwide movement, yet all I hear is crickets.

[Dreamtimer]

There are many women's rights and human rights groups who already deal with these issues. The Me Too movement arose due to current changes associated with Western culture, i.e., Hollywood and politics.

It could expand and likely will.

[Aragorn]

This is almost never mentioned by the MeToo movement, but if you want to fight genuine misogyny, patriarchy and rape culture, South Asia would be a great place to start. At least in India, the local women are fighting back and there has been some improvement, but overall, South Asian attitudes towards women, sexual boundaries and rape are appalling and much worse even today than at any time during Europe's history, including the dark ages.

This is true. There were reports in the news a few years ago — at least, there were over here — about several brutal gang rapes in India. Some of those were tribally linked, but others were not. And by the way, you may add South Africa to that list, as well as Somalia and Congo.

There was one particular event in India which was beyond brutal. A 23-year old female student and her male companion were taking a privately run bus one night. The bus driver then deviated from his route, and then he and five other men beat up the girl and her male companion, and they each raped the girl. And not just with their genitals either. She was also raped with an iron rod.

The male companion tried to stop them but was beaten into a coma, kicked off the bus and left for dead. The girl was also left for dead after they had finished, and she did effectively die of her injuries two or three days later, never having regained consciousness. The six men were later arrested, tried, found guilty and sentenced to death. I am by no means a proponent of capital punishment, but even with the death penalty hanging over their heads for crimes like this, people still go ahead and commit them. It's sheer and utter madness.

And see, this is then one of those things again that make me contemplate that there truly is no hope for the human race. Mankind is capable of such grace and such beauty, but at the same time, it is also capable of such horrendous atrocities. And these are not satanic pedophiles in some catacomb we're talking about. These are rural people in South-East Asia and Africa — people who live everyday normal lives, and whom you would probably never suspect of such atrocities.

And they think this is all perfectly normal.

[Emil El Zapato]

As a strictly heterosexual man, I have luckily enough never been raped, but I have been groped by male homosexuals/bisexuals/omnisexuals or whateversexuals more often than I care to remember.

One of them was a friend of mine, and he "jokingly" touched me in inappropriate ways a few times, but he was officially straight — he was an ex-boyfriend of my ex-girlfriend/fiancée, and he was a former classmate of my brother's — and so I naively accepted the possibility that he was merely joking. However, we were always going out with a whole bunch of guys (and one girl) at the time, and as I found out later, he had also already been groping each and every one of us — except for the girl in our company, ironically enough, but he wouldn't have had to try anything funny with her. She was tall, quite assertive and just as capable of defending herself.

Eventually I started avoiding being alone with the guy, and whenever I would then still run into him at a pub, I started paying closer attention to his body language. And sure enough, even though he claims to be straight, he does have some gay mannerisms, even though he's good at hiding them.

In addition to the above, I have also been threatened with homosexual violence, during my very first day at work at one of the (now defunct) General Motors plants in Antwerp — it was my first ever job after I was released from active military duty. Anyway, I told the guy that I'd kick the shit out of him if he were to try anything funny with me. Luckily, he never did follow up on his threat. He was much taller and heavier than me, so that probably wouldn't have ended well.

Once I was also offered money by a guy if I were to have let him sodomize me. I was so freaked out that all I could do was utter "No!" and walk away. This was a guy who had dated a dear female friend of mine at the time, and even though I knew — from what he himself had told us — that he had been hanging out with a bunch of gay guys for a while, I never would have thought that he was gay (or perhaps bisexual), especially given how adamant he was that he was straight. He certainly did like the ladies, and there was a 16-year-old girl at the time whom he had gotten pregnant in the parking lot — my brother had a crush on this girl for a short time after she had already had her baby.

I was told some time later that this very same guy was having an incestuous homosexual relationship with his father. I don't know whether that was true or whether it was just gossip, but he was either way a sick bastard. He was eventually arrested, convicted and sent to jail for his participation in a violent home-jacking in which he and his two cohorts tied up and severely beat up an elderly couple. He probably got to enjoy lots of sodomy at the Barbed Wire Hotel™.

that's just normal give and take Aragorn...the only difference is that it isn't heterosexual.

The Freaky thing is, just as I was reading Aragorn's post above, this video came up on my youtube feed:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHc5WdVADCc


It's worth watching, even if you disagree with it (and it's just an opinion) as it provides some balance I think.

Another interesting synchronicity is that the experiences described by Aragorn have also happened to me, though never in Europe. The rather unpleasant encounters i had always involved South Asian men (from India and Bangladesh) and happened to me in India and Singapore. This is almost never mentioned by the MeToo movement, but if you want to fight genuine misogyny, patriarchy and rape culture, South Asia would be a great place to start. At least in India, the local women are fighting back and there has been some improvement, but overall, South Asian attitudes towards women, sexual boundaries and rape are appalling and much worse even today than at any time during Europe's history, including the dark ages.

Women simply cannot go outside or enjoy any form of normal life, without the threat of harassment and rape. That is without even mentioning the practice of Suttee, or Widow Burning, which has been largely stamped out by the British, but still happens occasionally in rural areas, as does corrective rape, execution for eloping and other such tasty punishments. I only wish the MeToo movement would concentrate on these issues, which are really serious and require a worldwide movement, yet all I hear is crickets.

there is a big enough problem here and they have been squawking for many years...

[Dreamtimer]

There was a problem with men in South Africa raping girls and even babies thinking it would cure their AIDS. Horrendous.

[Aragorn]

There was a problem with men in South Africa raping girls and even babies thinking it would cure their AIDS. Horrendous.

Yes, and they have a multiple-offense rapist, polygamist and fraud, Jacob Zuma, for a president. He has been accused of various crimes many times — including by his predecessor and fellow ANC member Thabo Mbeki — but every time, the investigation was side-tracked and eventually dropped. Nelson Mandela's probably rolling in his grave.

Zuma once had sex with a prostitute who had AIDS, but he said that taking a shower after sex was enough to get rid of the danger.

[Chris]

This is true. There were reports in the news a few years ago — at least, there were over here — about several brutal gang rapes in India. Some of those were tribally linked, but others were not. And by the way, you may add South Africa to that list, as well as Somalia and Congo.

There was one particular event in India which was beyond brutal. A 23-year old female student and her male companion were taking a privately run bus one night. The bus driver then deviated from his route, and then he and five other men beat up the girl and her male companion, and they each raped the girl. And not just with their genitals either. She was also raped with an iron rod.

The male companion tried to stop them but was beaten into a coma, kicked off the bus and left for dead. The girl was also left for dead after they had finished, and she did effectively die of her injuries two or three days later, never having regained consciousness. The six men were later arrested, tried, found guilty and sentenced to death. I am by no means a proponent of capital punishment, but even with the death penalty hanging over their heads for crimes like this, people still go ahead and commit them. It's sheer and utter madness.

And see, this is then one of those things again that make me contemplate that there truly is no hope for the human race. Mankind is capable of such grace and such beauty, but at the same time, it is also capable of such horrendous atrocities. And these are not satanic pedophiles in some catacomb we're talking about. These are rural people in South-East Asia and Africa — people who live everyday normal lives, and whom you would probably never suspect of such atrocities.

And they think this is all perfectly normal.

This case stuck with me in particular because the girl in question was treated (unsuccessfully, in the end) in the same Singapore hospital I used to attend (Raffles) and she was from Delhi, a city I've visited many times and know quite well. Unfortunately, it is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg and such cases are fairly common in a country with 1.3 billion people. As much as I'm a fan of certain aspects of Hinduism, I'm afraid religion is partly to blame here.

Hinduism was not a particularly misogynistic religion to start with, but that changed probably with the advent of Islam and possibly Christianity. One big change in Southern India for instance (where I used to live), was that with the arrival of the British and the Portuguese, women had to start covering up. Previously, they walked around bare-breasted, but Christians found this scandalous and introduced laws that stopped this practice, which in a tropical climate is rather inconvenient. Previously, this was also the case in the North, but the Islamic invasion outlawed it much earlier than in the South.

[Dreamtimer]

Looks like the chickens might be coming home to roost for Andrew Cuomo. He's been, apparently, getting away with some pretty bad sexual harassment for quite some time. It may be that his time has now come.

Perhaps it's time to pop a little