BS or just part of the story? Because there definitely was a move to free yourself from the moral code of the day…but that had NOTHING to do with abuse of minors. While there were some groups that decided relations with children were fine, I’m not sure the larger ‘free love’ movement was on board with that idea…as is being suggested.
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I am having a lot of trouble understanding why people are falling all over themselves to vilify SafeSport when it is obvious they have ZERO clue about the actual careful process that those listed are well aware of and instead think it is some kind of a slam dunk where any so-called victim can fabricate a story and that is all to takes to “ruin” someone. Seriously - pull your heads out…
That is not how any of this works - but apparently very few of the I Stand With George types could care less about actual facts and procedures and instead use a carefully constructed PR release as their “truth”. You actually believe there was only one incident 50 years ago - that was mentioned in that PR release? SERIOUSLY? I may not be anybody anyone cares about in the H/J world - but even a nobody like me heard the tales and whispers and tsk-tsks. And they were not from 50 years ago.
Where there is smoke there is fire. We need MORE smoke alarms - not less. But some seem to want to run around and take out all the batteries, put the detectors back together so it looks as if they are working, and call it good. NO.
ETA: I can sure as hell remember every detail of an incident that happened 50 years ago. I was walking my dog off leash on a hot summer evening. A white Camaro with blue racing stripes pulled up alongside us, the guy leaned over and opened that passenger door and called my dog - who loved car rides and jumped right in. He then grabbed the dog and told me he would hurt her if I did not get in that car. I yelled and cried, the dog struggled and tried to pull away and her collar pulled over her head and she ran to me. We cut across a nearby field so we would not be on the street - and from the trees I could see that Camaro go slowly around that big block a few times, looking for us. He gave up before I did. But I suppose some here would say it was my fault for wearing shorts and a halter top, walking my dog off leash etc. etc. etc.
How about 40 years ago? I can tell you every sordid detail about being cornered in a photographers studio in Old Montreal when I went to drop off some proof sheets in my job as a graphic artist. That guy was my art director’s best friend. I can tell you every feeling. Every smell. Every detail. Most of which I will take to my grave - the vile jerk died 30 years ago. How dare some of you seek so hard to minimize those types pf experiences… HOW. DARE. YOU.
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In purple
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Thank you for this.
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Smoofox, thanks for sharing your experience. I’m sorry you and your dog had to go through that. It sounds awful.
The other thing I will point out is that if you were the only one with that story, and you came forward with it today, many people might say it was your word against his. That car is long gone, there were no surveillance cameras back then, and there’s no proof. But when five other women hear your story, and tell the same story about their own encounters with the same car and driver, that gives the authorities a lot more to go on. Then when that guy gets pulled over and dragged out of his Camaro in handcuffs, all his friends will say, “Why are the police arresting him?!? He’s a fantastic guy! I’ve known him for years.”
If just one person told that story, it could be viewed as he said/she said. When a lot more people come forward with the same story, like Hillary Ridland and the other women who had the same experience, that’s an entirely different matter. Even after many years. Even if that guy is driving a newer Camaro.
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It never got mentioned back then because ANY child or teenager who dared to mention something like being sexually abused immediately lost their reputation since they were no longer a virgin. This went 100x more for boys who were abused. Back then even a suspicion of homosexuality was enough for a boy child to be thrown permanently out of their home and family for being a disgrace to the family, even if it was not the boy’s fault at all.
Right now I am wondering how many of the truly wonderful hippie/freak men I knew back then had been sexually abused as children and how many of the many women who flocked to Women’s Lib had also been sexually abused as minors. We would tell each other our stories about how awful our parents were to us, but even back then the punishments for speaking out about sexual abuse were simply overwhelming and I heard nothing beyond how horrible a parent was, no specifics.
When I was young my parents would not let me do a lot that my brother could, and their excuse was that he was a boy, as if being a boy would protect him from any sexual abuse.
I have come to the conclusion that the American culture back then did everything it could to protect the reputations of child rapists, always blaming the victim, branding the victim for life, and doing everything society could to punish the victim for being raped by an adult male, while the adult male rapist was often defended as being an innocent pillar of the community being libeled by the children they abused, and got off completely, rarely even charged legally. An adult’s man reputation was considered infinitely more valuable that the children/women/men who that man sexually abused.
I am SO GLAD all of this is coming out now. The fact that many (not all) adult males sexually exploited children is finally coming out into the light. ALL of society hid this fact, the churches, the law, the government, the schools and everyone including women, for thousands of years. This was a topic that decent people just did not talk about, as if it would go away if nothing was said.
Bring it all out. Maybe, just maybe, this culture will finally decide that childhood sexual abuse is truly horrible. I hope that in the decades ahead that men will decide that sexually abusing children, women, or other men is a sign that the man is a truly horrible person and will go down in history as a truly horrible person.
If straight men do not want to be automatically assumed to be rapists, these straight men should start LOUDLY, VEHEMENTLY & REPEATEDLY telling the world that this is totally unacceptable behavior for a real man. Otherwise, by their silence, they could be seen to be giving consent to these horrible crimes.
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How do you know there are no legal charges pending? There may well be a criminal investigation underway. Time will tell.
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They don’t know but they can’t have it both ways…to claim a statue of limitations should apply to Safesport but then want a criminal investigation.
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“Something really bad happened to you 50 years ago, you should be over it by now. I mean, I can’t even remember what I ate for breakfast, and since you didn’t speak up at a time when no one would have believed you anyway, then too bad so sad! Buck up and move on!”
That’s what I feel like is being said to victims of sexual abuse. I mean COME ON. I was never sexually abused. But I had an incident that happened when I was maybe 6-7 years old that I remember like it was yesterday. Every time I drove under that particular underpass I remembered it. I remember the old man looking at me, smiling, winking, and using a “come here” wave trying to get me to leave my mother’s car, walk over to his, and get in his car. I do not know what in the hell that man was thinking, did he actually believe my mother wouldn’t notice? That in stopped traffic, he could somehow get away? I don’t want to even think about what that man would have done to me. It sometimes haunts me to think that he could have abused other girls, and I was lucky that I didn’t follow his promptings. Was I the first? Was I an experiment? Like literally, what the actual fruit bat?
I also wanted to add, that I lived in the next town over from where Jaycee Dugard was found. Across the street from the house she was in was a window tinting place. My parents used that place anytime they needed anything. I remember times when my dad was there for tinting windows on his trailers or boats. I sat in the car alone, which was parked right in front of the house she was at. She was there while I was right there. Lots of people were around. Everyone was SHOCKED when her story came out. And of course the “Why didn’t she just leave?” people came out of the woodworks. Same basic concept. Sickens me. My bio dad is also buried in a cemetery that is just across the cross-street from that house. I used to go there at night and sit by my dad’s grave. Gives me chills to think about it now.
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To the person who related being abused at age 7 by the boyfriend of your best friend’s big sister, you were amazing at protecting yourself by curling up in a sleeping bag in a way he could not get to you. I know you said you were haunted by not telling but you were an amazing kid and innovative and sensible and self protective and aware. Huge mental hug to the kid you were and the adult you are. Suicide is awful for everyone. I have no doubt the friends and family of Mr. Gage are devastated. I lost a friend and family members to suicide and a friend to a serial rapist/murderer and it was and is a howling grief. However, the pain owned by victims is immense. I thank all the survivors who told your stories and appreciate those who did not. You have my respect.
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Crashing Boar -
Do you understand the meaning of the word “ethics”? It’s not a synonym for “inhibitions”.
The absence of a statute of limitations indicates that SafeSport is not just about addressing a current threat, even if that is the primary goal. USEF banned Jimmy Williams 25 years after he died. Whether the victims managed to have successful careers after the abuse or not, why should they have to live with seeing their abuser lauded for all his fabulous equestrian achievements with no acknowledgement of his crimes?
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I was very briefly on ISWG and am convinced that a major reason that it is a closed group is that they want to guard their bubble of misinformation from any nasty facts that might creep in. You need a bubble of misinformation and ignorance to maintain your belief that GM is innocent and SafeSport is irresponsibly assuming every flimsy accusation is fact.
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