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[sockitty]

A query to the members of debunkingmale:

Can a man truly claim to be a social justice warrior if he knowingly remains friends with a rapist? Is it different if the rapist is female? Under what circumstances can this man wave the incident away by saying "It's complicated"?

Comments

[bestdaywelived]

I really don't think that anyone should call themselves a "social justice warrior" unless they are actually doing something other than commenting on blogs and whatnot. If a dude is spending time with a rapist and claiming that "it's complicated" in defense of the rapist ... it would make me question him as a person.

Most rapists are not female, so I'm not even going to address that. Since over 90% are men harming women, bringing up the hypothetical lady rapist is more often than not just used to disrupt a conversation about men abusing women (see: NOT ALL RAPISTS ARE MEN / I KNOW THIS ONE DUDE WHO WAS RAPED BY A WOMAN AND NO ONE BELIEVED HIM AND IT WAS AWFUL).

[sockitty]

She's not a hypothetical lady rapist.

[sockitty]

Go back one post.

[adirtylollipop]

Knowlingly remaining friends with a rapist doesn't just make you a shitty "social justice warrior" but a shitty human being. "It's complicated" is not an excuse because it's really not that complicated- rape is WRONG and DISGUSTING. End of story.

[mokele]

I'd say that someone can't remain friends with a known rapist and consider themselves a decent human being. The only possible exception is if the "friendship" is a ruse to enact some sort of elaborate and merciless revenge scheme that leaves them a desolate, ruined shell of a man.

[wildeabandon]

I find this question difficult.

I can't say that I've ever thought of my self as a social justice warrior, whatever that means, but I do try to speak out in the areas where I have privilege.

However, much worse that being friends with a rapist, I'm also a man who has in the past committed sexual assault.

I was, without doubt, a shitty human being. I was also badly mentally ill, and recovering from being on the other side of the coin a whole bunch of times, which is not in any way an excuse, but is perhaps a little bit of an explanation.

I like to think I'm better than that now. I do what I can to support feminism.

I would probably stay friends with someone I knew was a rapist, because I think that changing the way rapists think is perhaps the best method of challenging rape culture available to us.

[sockitty]

Oh.

[wildeabandon]

*reads back*

Ah, you weren't actually looking for responses, were you. You were just using debunkingmale to attack a woman. Which is, I agree, not nearly as crappy as some stuff I've done. But really, that isn't a very high bar.

[sockitty]

That's not what I was doing at all (I was under the impression the person I was attacking was male -- the friend, in this case, not the rapist), but if you want to whiteknight for women while blasély bringing up your past as a rapist -- without even expressing any remorse for your victim(s) -- then sure, you do that.