i think the "schrodinger's rapist" meme actually fucked me up subtly but really badly. somewhere along the way i internalized that literally every woman started their interactions with me by assuming that i was literally the worst possible kind of man
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I think it's possible now to start asking "ok, how common is it, really, for women to start interactions with men by speculating about the risk of rape?"
it happens, but I don't think it happens as often in public places, nonsexual contexts, etc
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it's tricky to even approach the subject because:
1.) rape is a "touchy subject" that it's rude to ask about people's experiences with
2.) without personal experience, you can't imagine what it's like for someone who has actually been raped
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so if you're following 2000s-internet-feminist standards of epistemic humility and respect for privacy and sensitivity around trauma, you have to be in a state of deep, deep uncertainty about how common rape is, how most women think/feel about risk of rape, etc.
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and so you don't really...ever? feel like you have grounds for seeing some claim about the female experience and thinking "nope, this is overblown, it's not as bad or as common as she claims."
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there's a thing about "it's not ok to ASK and it's not possible to LEARN what it's like to be less fortunate/privileged than yourself, just err on the side of caution/sensitivity"
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like...I'm not sure "don't ask or presume to speculate" is even what the least-privileged people *want*, or what would help them most.
but it's what you'll do if you're trying to avoid being flamed by SJWs.
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This is a way to spread the trauma through uncertainty entanglement
Nice bougies accept the stress as a sort of guilt penance
Not so nice ones take it as permission to check out and disengage — “oh, so I don’t know can’t ask, and you won’t volunteer what it’s like, so kthxbye”
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The thing is trauma of any sort doesn’t not automatically confer sympathetic saintliness on people, so this posture on the part of the traumatized and their self-appointed (potentially undesired) champions has an apathy permissioning effect


