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What's something you wish people would take more seriously?
- What's something you wish people would take more seriously?
- Why do you think many people downplay, overlook, or deride it?
- What are the potential upsides or advantages to changing people's minds on this issue?
- Are there any potential downsides?
- What are the downsides caused by people failing to take it seriously?
- What do you think is the best way, if any, to get people to take this issue more seriously?
Answers for this question can be anything, and they don't have to be broad, something-that-affects-everyone things like the coronavirus or climate change. This can also be stuff that's specific to your field, societal norms, health habits, technology, entertainment -- whatever you think is relevant to the question.
Also, due to the nature of the question, please extend the principle of charity to people in this thread. People will likely be answering from a place of frustration. Keep that in mind when choosing how to respond to them!
Rape, and more specifically those where the victim is male. Don't get me wrong, if the victim is female it's just as horrific, but society generally carries an attitude that men "can't" be raped.
About 3 or 4 years ago I was drinking some beers with a couple buddies at a friends house. One of the people there drugged me with a 2mg Xanax bar and I blacked out. While blacked out, I was "force-fed" (according to a friend who was there and did nothing to stop it) an orange Tesla ecstasy pill containing roughly 200-250mg of MDMA. That same "friend," who's house we were at, then decided he wanted to go to another friend's house to smoke weed and dropped me and the girl who drugged me off at the beach while blacked out because we were "sloppy" and he didn't feel like taking care of us.
16 hours later I woke up in the back seat of a car in a RadioShack parking lot at 5am, naked, with her holding me down while having sex with me.
I immediately got her off of me, not very forcefully but in a confused, ashamed kind of way, and told her to take me home. I got to my house, pupils still dilated from the MDMA, with my parents worried sick due to incoherent texts I had sent them when they asked where I was that night. I had sent very misspelled sentences saying that I was driving and that I was okay and not to worry about me.
I didn't tell anyone for years. I was disgusted in myself for some reason, and felt dehumanized. I'm a 6 foot tall man and she's maybe 5'2" at most, for reference. I felt as though I couldn't confront her about what had happened, and convinced myself that she must've thought it was consensual when it was far from it. I began drinking heavily, no less than a handle of bottom-shelf vodka every 2 days to myself, for the next 2 and a half years. I never told any friends of mine in fear that I'd be mocked and ridiculed because "men can't be raped", and if they could, surely they must be weak.
Eventually I started going to Alcoholics Anonymous, and after a few months I decided to share that in a meeting. Let me tell you, it felt like I lifted a gorilla off my back, finally. I got sober for a few months, but have since then been struggling with my alcoholism and poly-drug addiction; what was once a coping mechanism had turned into the only way I know how to live comfortably in my own skin. I've been to rehab, got some time clean, graduated rehab, then relapsed in secret and have since been using daily just to feel like myself.
But I feel as though I never will be myself again. I was far from innocent when the incident took place and had dabbled in drugs casually before that, but I loved myself. I knew who I was inside, I did things I enjoyed, and I was kind and truthful to friends and family alike. I was curious and eager to begin new challenges. I was someone you'd want to call a friend. I was me.
I don't know who I am anymore. She took a piece of me with her that day, and I'm not sure if it will ever be returned to it's rightful place. Most of my life looks good on paper right now; stable office job, beautiful and loving girlfriend of over a year, school could be better but it's not the end of the world, you get it. But I feel empty inside. I'm a shell of my former self. That day I lost the pep in my step, the charisma and drive that made me me.
I can't blame her for my drinking or the drug abuse that resulted from what happened, that's ultimately on me and my poor coping mechanisms and addictive personality. But I do blame her for taking away a crucial part of my personality, one I probably cannot get back for the rest of my life.
"But why didn't you go to the police?"
Because I'm a man, and men can't get raped. Men enjoy sex, regardless of who it is, right? I've used drugs before, surely free drugs are a welcome gift... right?
"Why don't you talk to her about it?"
She has moved on and probably didn't think twice about it. Telling her would either result in a years-late apology over text, her completely forgetting that the day even happened, or her telling me I'm a liar and to never speak of anything of the sort again.
I will never get closure. I will always be someone who has been drugged against their will and raped in the back of a car in a RadioShack parking lot. I may learn to better cope with my past guilt and emotions, but I will never be myself again.
Please, listen to men when they say they have been raped. Don't immediately assume the accused is guilty, but please just listen to their story. I didn't have a voice when I was raped and it cost me so much of my life. Give those with the courage to have a voice a chance to be heard.
I am so very sorry that happened to you.
One of the worst experiences of my life was when I was drugged by someone else at a party, and I was lucky enough to be surrounded by people who took care of me, including a nurse who sat with me, checking my vitals every so often to make sure I was okay. Nevertheless, I was shaken for months after the event. I felt embarrassed, shamed, and broken, even though I had done nothing wrong. I cannot imagine how much greater my personal fallout would have been had I faced a situation like yours.
I wish I could say something to help heal your scars, but I don't have the words. I don't know if they exist. All I can say that I wish you the best, and in no way does what happened to you diminish who you are. What those people did says everything about who they are as people, not you. Their actions are not a reflection of your character.
What you've written here is an act of amazing courage. To come forward in honesty and share your trauma, especially in the face of stigma, and as a way of advocating for and bringing understanding of this to others... I can't articulate how much I admire what you've done here. I know that you probably feel powerless right now, but please know that at this moment you are showing us incomparable strength and conviction. Thank you for trusting us enough to share your story. I sincerely hope you are able to find peace. You deserve peace.
Thank you so much for the kind words, it really does mean so much to me. Behind this mostly-anonymous profile I'm able to share my story with the world to try de-stigmatizing the rape of men, but I definitely wouldn't share that story in it's entirety (or at all) to those around me in person. Maybe someday I'll build up that strength, but today is not that day.
I'm so sorry that you went through that and couldn't be more thankful that it didn't end up worse for you. You've got a great set of friends who almost certainly saved you from a life changing disaster that night, which isn't to minimize any effects it had on you as is by any means; I'd never wish being drugged against your will on my worst enemy. The fear of not knowing what could happen is soul-crushing, and the fact that you are helpless against whatever happens is absolutely terrifying to the core.
This is something I never understood was possible until it happened to me. I didn't comprehend how someone could feel like that while being the victim in the situation who hadn't done anything wrong. I understood feeling scared and traumatized by it, but not really the extent of what that meant. It really does make you feel like you are the one at fault, like if you did one thing differently it wouldn't have happened to you. In reality, if someone wants to take cruel advantage of you in that way, they will find a way and there isn't a whole lot you can do to stop it unfortunately. I know a stranger on the internet like me can't do much to change how you feel, but just know that it absolutely was not your fault in any way, shape, or form; and the same applies to myself.
Again, thank you so much for your response, I had to hold back tears reading this; it may have happened some years ago, but any time I put it into words it feels like I'm living it all over again, and your kind sentiments really hit home in reinforcing that I can't beat myself up over something that was entirely out of my control. It's easier said than done, but I need to learn to let go and come to terms with what happened, striving to be my best self while possibly sharing my story to those that need to hear it. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
We need a new economic system that puts people over profits, that doesn't dehumanize human beings. I just wish people took this more seriously.
My fiance is in the middle of an MBA program right now and had to take a couple of economics classes. There is very little emphasis on the actual people that are affected by economic policy or strategies, at least from her curriculum. The emphasis was centered on economic growth and spoke very little, if any, on the negative societal implications from different forms of economic policy.
I've done Micro, Macro, Advanced Macro, and Comparative Economics, and honestly the first time I saw any mention of actual benefit to the people powering the economy was Comparative Economics, unless it was my Micro/Macro professor (same professor for both classes) offering an opinion.
I did an MBA and my favorite, by far, class was public economics for business leaders. I have a public policy background already from undergrad, so I've always thought about cost-benefit analyses and applying ethical frameworks as part of that work, but a graduate level economics class with policy and human impact at the center was just a fantastic academic experience. I hope I have enough influence someday to put what I learned into practice.
(BTW, not defending the MBA degree at all, but the hate it gets is unfortunate...)
Communication
Too often, people feel that they best way to communicate is to be the loudest, most sarcastic, smart sounding, etc... I see more people talk past each other because they feel they need to make their point the most rather than communicate why they have their viewpoint and then investigate why the other person has their viewpoint.
People would be more empathetic to others and understand their own beliefs more.
Conversations take more effort to get on the same page. People will also have to allow themselves to be more vulnerable and open when communicating, which if you have a particularly nasty person, they could try to abuse to their gain.
The downsides are what we see today in the realm of online communication. Sarcasm, the drive towards participating in echo chambers, "othering" of those with alternative view points, a general lack of empathy and compassion in discussions.
Educate people on communication styles. Highlight conversations that show good-faith communication. Intervene in conversations that are showing bad-faith communication styles by having a mediator. Work to get people to answer the question "What do I hope to get out of this comment? What am I trying to communicate? Why is this important for me to share?"
Great post, and I'm in full agreement. I think the internet has promoted a lot of very destructive self-centered and inconsiderate methods of discourse. So much of communication is about understanding other people, but we're often incentivized online to ignore or reject others' feelings.
I wish people were more curious about the world and took questions more seriously. I'm just going post this again: A Day at the Park.
Oh man, I haven't seen that in a good many years, thanks for that.
Critical thinking skills. If you don't know how to think properly by applying some rationality and logic, how in the hell do you ever expect to know anything? Every time you open your mouth you'll be wrong. You're just a memetic junkyard with a head full of nonsense at that point. This would bother me less if I wasn't convinced that 49/50 people fall into this trap.
Not a video, but a free very readable book with pictures. It has versions in a bunch of languages: https://bookofbadarguments.com/
It’s awesome.
Overfishing and general neglect/destruction of our oceans
I think people generally are uninformed about the actual magnitude of the problem. It is easy to ignore since most if it is out of sight (also tragedy of the commons). It is an issue that requires coordinated effort from multiple nations.
Not to be too bleak, but if we somehow managed to solve the destruction of our oceans my great grand kids might inheritva livable planet.
Severe angst
In the long run the utter destruction of the ecosystems we rely on.
Literally have no idea...
I don't think humanity as a species is going away that soon. We're a pretty resourceful bunch. Will modern society be similar to today? That probably is dependent on what we mean by similar.
The unexpected. We're pretty bad at predicting (or planning for) the unexpected. It leaves us vulnerable to the sort of systematic fractures that can massively disrupt and end life in some cases. If we were more mindful of what we don't know, we might be more inclined to invest protectively in systems and institutions that can better absorb the range of catastrophic failure when the need rises.
The structures of power we live under.
Less vaguely, politics/civics and business/economics. (Or more specifically economic incentives.)
Because it 'works well enough for them' or doesn't matter as long as it doesn't touch that one thing they care about (or else they will go reactionary) or 'doesn't affect them' if they have a stable life and job.
If everyone knows the rules, democracy forces those changing them to do it for the better. This applies to antitrust, welfare, human rights, Congressional apportionment/electoral systems, new technology, emergencies, political/societal cleavages (yes, that's real usage of the word cleavage) and general accountability.
This guy turns out to be the majority of the Republican base.
The rules are written for those who can understand/change them. Usually this tends to be large corporations or the politicians themselves. This makes politics inherently undemocratic.
Hard question.
"Whenever something is wrong, something is too big." (Leopold Kohr)
Because they attribute to "bigness" much more beneficial effects than it really has (mainly improved efficiency, which we use in order to produce mostly-useless goods), and don't see the bad ones (no one can anymore understand quickly enough to act adequately).
More happiness for all.
Slightly less material comfort.
Huge, fast, dense... things. Nearly everyone of them. Towns, nations. Goods.
Ranting about it is the 'best' I can do.
Listening.