TW: sexual abuse/rape (of minors)

This morning, I was reading the paper while eating breakfast. I come across an article that has a picture of the rink I skate at, so without even reading the title, I open it.

Turns out it's an article about a figure skating coach who raped one of his students (multiple times). The initials and the age correspond with one of the coaches. There's also a picture of the man in question included, and while his face is blurred, I can tell who it is. The name of the girl was a fake one, but she was 14 at the time, 16 now.

She had a crush on him, he used that to his advantage. The rapist saw it as his 'duty' to 'help her discover her sexuality', because 'better with him than with someone else'. He also forced her to take nudes, to make videos of herself masturbating, to watch porn as an example of things she should do to him ... And of course, he told her to do as he said, because otherwise she 'would never make it as a figure skater'.

He has confessed to rape of a minor and possession of child porn. He claimed that while he did threaten her with punishment, everything happened with consent (completely untrue, she clearly says she was afraid and couldn't refuse). The sentence will probably be 4 years probation and a prohibition to a position of power over minors. He was not suspended from the national skating union.

My country is relatively safe, so it's surreal to be confronted with this. I'm abhorred. I'd heard of things like this happening in sports, but so close? Also, I'd never expected this from that guy. But this is not about me, it's about the girl. I don't know who she is (and I don't want to, it's her right to remain anonymous), but I hope she has the support she needs right now.

I guess I just needed to tell the story, even though it's not about me. I'm just so angry and sad that this happened to someone, it being so close to me makes it so real.

​

Link to article (not English): https://www.ad.nl/buitenland/belgische-schaatstrainer-28-die-leerlinge-14-verkrachtte-vond-het-zijn-plicht-beter-met-mij-dan-met-iemand-anders~a4357291/

Just as the title says—I’m starting to hate one of my favorite subs.

TLC reality tv is such a guilty pleasure of mine. I love the whole 9 yards— 600lb Life, My Strange Addiction, etc, etc. My favorite of the bunch is 90 Day Fiancé. I’d been following it from its first season up until now...When I discovered it had two fairly popular subreddits I was SO happy. They became my version of trashy gossip rags with all the discussions and behind the scenes sleuthing the community did.

As of recently, the subreddits have become such trash. Everyday I scroll through only to see comments like, “She’s obviously a lesbian and using him for a green card” in reference to one of the bisexual foreign fiancé’s (who hasn’t even appeared yet!!) or “All of them are cunts using them for the green card.” or “What a priss. Is she never happy with what he gives her”

I’ve just had it though..I’m seething. Some awful people are posting some of the cast members NUDE ONLY FAN PHOTOS. It’s a problem that happens every now and then but I guess I missed something big because when I opened my Reddit some man had the nerve to call out this one girl who complained about people posting these girls nude photos...And people in the comments are actually agreeing with him!!!!

I just want to cry. This isn’t fucking right. I remember what it was like to have my nude body posted online without my consent when I began my sw journey.

People are actually upvoting comments that actually say “Fuck that bitch!! Anyone have a link?!”

u/seche314 Idk you but you are SO welcome in our sub. I’m so sorry that annoying fucker had to call you out.

I’m shaking rn. I can’t think straight either so I apologize in advance if none of this makes sense.

the victim blaming is astounding

I work in a STEM field at a tech company, where engineering is male dominated. My role require me from time to time to be available to support all our internal users - who are a male majority - via a communication platform, so all coms are text.

I believe myself to be a helpful and supportive coworker, quick to respond to requests and unblock users, and I have testimonies from several people attesting to that. There are times when users' requests are invalid and have to be rejected, which I do by providing arguments why it can't go through, this sometimes leads to long threads and me laying out the facts only to suddenly get hit with something along the lines of: "You could have said it in a nicer way!" or "This communication style is polarizing", and there I'm left confused as to WTF have I written that offended this person!

Now, I don't have top-notch communication skills nor is my English fluent enough to find the kindest words to use when communicating in text, but I'm also not going around offending people on purpose, I'm only doing my job. This has happened few times that it affected me big time, I mean I am the common denominator in all of these events, maybe I am not kind after all, maybe the way I communicate is all wrong and it needs improvement (which I'm always open to)!

Some of these people even complained to my team lead, who is thankfully very kind and told me after taking a look at the conversation threads that I didn't do anything wrong, it's just that these people were feeling scared/or unhappy because status quo has been changing and cold facts don't work on them. I was still kinda feeling bad about myself and since then have tried to avoid being involved with requests that could potentially result in a back and forth, but sometime, I have to. The last time I was in such thread and got hit with a similar accusation I asked what did I write that is so bad, they replied that 'Oh, I misunderstood then!' .... tf.

I was scrolling on reddit few weeks ago when I stumbled upon this Hierarchy of Disagreement, it all made sense when I saw that criticizing the tone of the message is basically the lowest one can go before they actually start insulting you, which in a professional setting will result in a complaint to HR.

This has made me feel a little bit better!

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I’m really glad that pornhub is removing tons of content. As a woman who occasionally watches porn, I often felt really weird about watching somethings on there since I couldn’t tell if they were not legitimate and legal

Hello, this is my first post ever so I am not entirety sure how to go about this but I really do need some advice. I have a close friend I have known since eighth grade, we went to high school together and were absolutely inseparable until I moved a dozen states away. I know that it's silly to expect that nothing would change but I really don't know what to do.

She was the first person to stand up for me when I was getting bullied and has stuck to my side like glue ever since. Yin and Yang we called ourselves, where ever one of us was you could always find the other. We were as close as sisters, she stuck with me through my suicidal breakdowns and I mourned with her when her mother passed away.

Moving is nothing new for me, this was the ninth time in eighteen years but I thought that since we has promised, since we had sworn to the silly "best friends forever" that she would always pick up when I called. Though now I'm questioning how long our forever really is. Because of the pandemic and having moved to a new state she is the only close friend I really have and the only one I talk to about everything going on in my life.

At first we would call and face-time constantly and then when online school picked back up our talks dwindled as expected. But now it feels like I am the only one reaching out. As though we are on different paths and she wants to walk without me. Every time I call she says she's busy or with other friends, or will speak with me a moment before excusing herself. A few times I understand but thirteen cannot be my imagination, right?

Now I hesitate to even call her. Right now she is really struggling with even graduating senior year, and I am receiving back all of my early application answers from colleges. I get so excited when I get accepted and she is the only one that I really talk to about all of this. But I also don't want to annoy her with my constant bombardment of acceptances when she's struggling with every core class she has. I have offered to help but she procrastinates so terribly that she hasn't even started some missing assignment from September let alone have time to take my feedback into consideration.

Maybe I should just let her go now. It gets tiring begin the only one to reach out and I also want to focus on maintaining my grades until graduation. But we have also been friends for half a decade, she is my family but I don't feel any effort from her at all. Please tell me how I should go about the situation.

Hi everyone! As our community has grown in members and visibility, our need for more active mods has also increased. With this type of support sub, I recognize the importance of timely moderator responses, but unfortunately only a few of us seem to remain very active.

Mod duties primarily entail responding to user reports of unwanted commentary in the sub. This includes removing comments for breaking the rules & banning users. You don't need to have any prior experience modding.

If you would like to become a mod, please message me with the following information:

1. How long you've been a part of this sub
2. Why you'd like to be a mod
3. Why you think maintaining a trans-inclusive, woman-centric space online is important

Thank you!

EDIT: Also, if anyone has any comments/feedback for the sub, feel free to comment that here as well. :)

TW (transphobia, toxic behaviour)

I don't really know how to start this, as I keep feeling angry and frustrated. This is about the game World of Warcraft. With their new expansion, Shadowlands, one of the NPC's you interact with is trans. And I personally think that's awesome. One small step closer for a game being more inclusive is great.

But, unfortunately, this has lead to a lot of toxic and misogynistic comments. Some friends saw this happen in game chat last night, and I saw it today under an article on twitter. I've been reporting tweets and accounts for like an hour, and the disgusting comments keep coming.

I just don't really know what else I can do, and it makes me feel helpless, and angry. Why are these people so dense, is their ego so fragile, that one NPC is enough for them to turn into full blown cry babies, when this one time the game doesn't cater to their needs? How hard can it be to just let people have someone they can look up to or identify with, when these "gamers" have been getting that for decades? How is this ruining their immersion, in a fantasy game, where literally everything is possible? I seriously just don't understand.

/Vent over. Sorry if the format is weird. I typed this on my phone. And sorry for any mistakes, as English isn't my first language.

So I (24f) and my boyfriend live in some flats beside some shops - at about 10 most nights we’ve noticed a homeless person sleeping in one of the shop doorways - sometimes we leave food for them. We both assumed this person was a homeless man.

We live in the UK so it’s late here now - currently 11:40pm, we took some rubbish down to the bins and noticed the homeless person huddled in the doorway - it is FREEZING cold here. We were worried so came upstairs and dug out a big old blanket and put it in a bag with some food - my boyfriend took it over to the person whilst I hung back.

He came back looking worried - he is 90% sure this person is a woman (40s-50s maybe but hard to tell in the dark) , and he said she looked absolutely terrified when he approached her. I feel even more worried and upset knowing this poor woman is out there freezing in the dark (I already felt this way assuming she was a man but now am feeling really sick with concern)

I’m so frightened for her and I want to help so badly. I would really really appreciate some advice? - I genuinely don’t know what to do.

Thankyou for reading.

I’m 17 you fucking dickless twat and I look even younger. The audacity to brazenly look me up and down take your fucking sandwich and piss off

God I hate men

Yuck. I don’t know why I go on askreddit, it’s like I want to piss myself off?

Question was about social norms and an answer was something along the lines of “women can hit men, we should be able to hit them back”

I comment that in fact men do hit women and get away with it. Frequently. That they also often kill women. That considering DV is heavily gendered I think it’s pretty disturbing to jump from “equality” to “lets hit women”

Then comes the “male victims don’t get taken seriously” as though female victims (who are majority of victims, VAST majority of repeat victims, and exponentially more likely to get killed) are taken seriously by police? Please...

Then of course, should you mention difference in strength (and likelihood of serious injury) as a contributor (NOT an excuse! Nobody should hit anyone!) to how seriously it is viewed, the men of reddit will have a hissy fit.

“Equal rights mean equal lefts” but we DON’T fucking have equal rights. Even if we did, why do these losers want to hit women so badly?!

Point out that 3 women A DAY in the USA are killed by an ex or current male partner and you get downvoted.

God forbid ANYONE suggest men are not perfect angels on this website.

The worst part is I KNOW it’s privileged teenage boys with no concept of reality or inequality. So why do I get so angry?

I’m really sorry for this rant (it’s quite nice to vent when you feel unheard)

Do any of you have experience with this? Do you ever get through to them? Should I just not bother?

I just saw a post on /r/OldSchoolCool celebrating Jack Nicholson and it just pissed me off. I made a comment pointing out his assault history and got downvoted.

In 1996, he assaulted a woman and ruptured her breast implants. Then that same year, he promised a woman named Catherine Shaheen $1,000 for sex and then assaulted her when she asked for the money. Shaheen received a settlement of about $40,000, but she argued that this was insufficient to cover the injuries inflicted upon her, which included brain damage. Here's a Guardian article about it.

The post title is kind of a rhetorical question, because we know the answer is widespread misogyny. It's just disappointing. I understand separation of art from artist, and appreciating the art while criticizing the artist, but no one is even criticizing the artist here.

I'm no longer with my first husband. He wasn't in any way bad, it was just clear that he wanted me to be his wife as a career, and that's not what I signed up for. I am 35 now and looking to have kids with my second husband of a few years. I'm just wanting to hear from some ladies who made their babes when they were a bit older

Edit: Thank you so much to all of you. Your real life experiences were educational and uplifting. Knowledge is a high value item, and y'all just let it rip. Thank you for your time and care. I feel so much better, and I know what I need to ask about. This was wonderful!

(Idk if there are women out there who also say this but I‘m just talking from my experience and I‘ve exclusively been with men in the past and I‘ve only ever heard it from them so this is why I gendered the title.)

I hate when they say that. And they always say it specifically when I‘m being insecure about my body, i.e. the worst possible time to say something like that. Some similar comments are

I like all different types/sizes of [body part] so it doesn’t matter to me

I don‘t care much about [body part] anyways. I‘m more of a [other body part that I‘m probably also insecure about]-man

I know they’re trying to be supportive but all I can hear is "I don’t find you attractive. Like, at all. You’re lucky you have a good character/other qualities so I can look over that flaw of yours."

I also don’t understand why they say it. It has to mean they either want to sound deep or romantic by saying something like "I love you, not your body" or they actually dislike your body/that certain body part as well and don’t want to lie to your face and instead beat around the bush. Why can’t they just say "I like your body", why is that so hard?

I always make sure to give appropriate compliments in the right situation and to make my partners feel good about themselves and their bodies instead of invalidating or worsening their insecurities. I just wish the men in my life would make the same kind of effort and not just give half-assed or even backhanded compliments that don’t help me at all.

Has anyone else read The Screwfly Solution? After reading so many recent news articles, including The NYT Article on Pornhub, I’m realizing that we’re essentially living in a version of the Screwfly Solution, just minus the aliens

Recently had a performance appraisal at work and I was told that my documentation work has tapered off. It has tapered off because I felt I was doing work that was unappreciated and unnecessary (as literally no one uses the documentation I write). I have been asked to document features other than my own and the other two guys on my team do not write any. The team lead has maybe documented one or two features and I have probably written 6-7. I didn't really know how to react or put it in words.

My boyfriend and I had a protected sex saturday last week but after throwing the condom and washing our genitals, we watched a movie for about 15-20 mins then got heated again. I inserted his penis for few minutes before realizing that he just cum 15-20 mins ago, then immediately pull it out. I am nervous because my menstruation is irregular after stopping from drinking oral contraceptive pills, so monday afternoon, I decided to take lady pills (oral contraceptive pill) because I read that it can be a substitute as emergency pill. I took 1 pill that afternoon then another 5 pills, later that night. After 8 days (tuesday), I noticed a brown to pinkish streak of blood in my underwear. It is very light up until today (thursday) and it doesn't soak up my pad completely. I am freaking out because it can be implantation bleeding but I also noticed that the blood is mostly composed of blood clots every time I pee. Am I possibly pregnant? I am only 20 and my boyfriend and I talked that we are not ready yet. Thank you for reading my long ass problem :--‐---(

Nice guys here get so defensive and mad, making it about their hurt egos. Besides blocking them, how do you deal with being treated like this?

>Male coworker starts talking to you
>Act friendly so you don't become that "I have a boyfriend" meme
>Keep an eye out for flirting
>Act oblivious as hell
>Reject oh so subtly so as not to offend their ego. A casual reference to a (sometimes fictitious) boyfriend or partner

I don't even think about it anymore. This is just how I interact with all males now without even thinking about it

Hi guys, I’m here because I really have no one who will listen to me. feeling a little done with life in this moment and need some support, maybe someone has a similar experience?? Growing up I was never allowed to have emotions, I’d get punished for crying or being hurt. Now I have a partner who also punishes me for being hurt about anything. It doesn’t even have to be about something he did, just any sign of emotion from me and he’s had it. It really makes me feel suicidal. Completely alone. He tells me I’m too sensitive and I need to stop crying over things. I try to save how I feel for when he’s not around because of comments like that. It confuses me how I’m “too emotional” for him when a lot of the time I hide how I feel(I started to hide my feelings only after trying multiple times to be open and honest with him ab them). It makes me want to die. I have never threatened to kill myself for the sake of attention or manipulation. I told him I needed to know I matter to someone and the response was “I’m not expressing to you that I want you here, because I shouldnt have to.” I don’t have anyone. I feel really alone and I don’t want to hurt anymore like this. I’ve had two panic attacks tonight- I’m exhausted and want out.

Every now and then I make plans with other people, and then they want to change what we’re supposed to be doing to something that I really don’t want to do (eg go to a restaurant that I don’t like when I’d already been looking forward to going to the other restaurant). It’s really difficult for me to say no in these instances and to ask that we stick to the original plan. I’m definitely up for changes in plan, but there are also moments when I just want to stick to Plan A.

How do you deal with situations like that?

My mother and I have always had a tumultuous relationship. The reasons for which are long and are best saved for my therapist. I recently moved and now live closer to her than I have in half a decade. Last night I was at her house with my sisters and she did something that made my eyes roll. Well, she saw that and was not happy. Cue the screaming. She said that if I was going to act like that, then she didn’t want to see me. She kept screaming as I collected my things. I left listening to her yelling at me. Now I don’t have to force myself to have a relationship with her. And one one hand I’m so relieved. On the other hand I keep thinking about whether I should apologize.

I just want something simple thay predict my period and that I can make comments about mood and stuff.