I’d like to talk today about boners. Boners and society, boners and sex, and the odd, odd fascination with Reddit’s sudden defense and martyrdom of a self-admitted pedophile. 

/r/Creepshots was a Reddit community centered around taking photos of women in public without their permission and posting them online to share in a sexual context, for masturbatory purposes. Violentacrez was a moderator of this, /r/jailbait, and other communities. He’s an out and out pedophile, and an awful human being. 

However, what Creepshots and Violentacrez represented was the concept of women, regardless of age or sexual preference or consent or anything beyond their physical appearance and the crime of being out in public, existing solely for sexual gratification. For masturbation material. For the idea of sex as consumption, of sexual release as something more important than anything else in the world.

I don’t know how this happened, how this awful idea came into the world, that sex wasn’t a mutual, consentual act between two (or more!) people - but it needs to stop, and it needs to end now, not later. The harm it’s caused, the damage it’s done, and the righteous indignation of boners above all is a pathetic excuse to take a stand against victims of sexual assault. 

I would ask you, men of the Internet, to do better. To self-actualize and criticize your ideals of how and what sex is, and how your need for dopamine and endorphin release somehow trump any and all decency, right to privacy, or human rights. I mean, look at nerd culture, look at the blatant consumerism, the need to have things now, how we’re tapped in to our smartphones, our laptops, our wi-fi everywhere - we have this need for everything, now, and without barriers.

I strongly feel this has come to infiltrate our ideals of sex, as well. With creepshots, with the photobucket hacking of a woman who’s only crime was posting a photo with Gabe Newell, with the community cheering said behavior on, it’s become a newfound fascination with undressing women, either mentally or digitally, without their consent. Consuming their bodies for sexual gratification. 

Is this the level of pathetic we’ve fallen to? Why has sexual gratification become such a one-sided, boner trumps all ideal? Greed, selfishness, orgasm at any cost? This is awful, and it’s unacceptable, and I wonder, do they, they being Reddit, know this? Violating bodily autonomy in such a way? The shared experience of sexual violation? 

Of course, these are all rhetorical questions, because there’s no legitimate  or acceptable answer that would make these behaviors redeemable or acceptable. They’re more the ramblings of a sad man, ashamed of his gender for their actions, trying to get to the root of an issue and end these behaviors. Possibly a pointless endeavor in the dark hole of the internet, but still an important one to embark upon.

All I can really say is that our society needs to take a critical look at how it fails to prioritize consent when it comes to sexuality, and that the physical act of flesh upon flesh, or shared sexual gratification, is something that should be treated in an entirely different manner than pirating the latest hit film or videogame release, that a woman, regardless of how she’s dressed, is not for one’s own masturbatory material without proper consent. 

Reddit’s defense of /r/Creepshots and Violentacrez is a display not of their solidarity with “free speech,” but instead a sign that boners, and what enables them, regardless of the cost, are what are most important to nerds these days, and it’s shameful and pathetic. 

semebay:

Predditors was a tumblr set up by some woman named Samantha to list personal identifying information about redditors who posted on a sub called /r/creepshots. Thank what you want about the subreddit, the personal information was uncalled for and dangerous, and because Samantha decided to witchhunt those people, one of them was hunted down and attacked last night and had to go to the hospital.

Please, please contact tumblr (support@tumblr.com) if you see another tumblr blog that releases personal info (dox) on redditors out of spite. Feel free to contact me to do it for you (then I can pass the information on to the proper parties at reddit.com).

Thanks.

If you did a little research and critical thinking you’d discover that this supposed “attack” is hardly true. “Out of spite,” are you fucking serious? Being a creep taking and posting unsolicited photos of women in public in a sexually unwanted context is a “think what you want,” but identifying these people and outing them for their crimes is somehow “out of spite?”

Instead of realizing that this might even be a handy resource for people to protect themselves from these sort of creeps, the same creeps that dug up and hacked child pornography of a woman who’s sole crime was to post a photo of her with Gabe Newell to /r/gaming, you want these supposedly poor and oppressed people, who make up ludicrous stories of them being “witchhunted,” and that predditors was somehow “dangerous.”

You know what’s dangerous? Reddit, and spineless fucking people like you who defend it’s worst offenders. 

(Source: magicbayleaf)

angelicainpoland:

I have no idea why he’s so known in the fashion world, and I hate seeing re-blogs of his photos on the feminist tumblrs I follow. Maybe they honestly don’t know about 

this

and this

and this. 

It could also be my own fault for not being able to separate his photography from who he is as a person; however, I feel like exploitative photography is his thing. 

Am I the only one that feels this way about him?

Signal boost. Terry’s a creep, you weirdos. Stop enabling people like him to get away with what they do. 

(Source: petitsirena)

This is going to be the time in our history remembered as when everyone pulled their guns and shouted each other down - over the Internet, ironically enough, in a dispute and disparaging display of information manipulation and distortion on multiple sides, both for and against the figurehead of an organization which strives to pull back the curtains on atrocity and the governments and corporations which enable them.

Private contractors pimping out children in foreign lands.
The wanton slaughter of unarmed innocent people by air, followed by the murder of a man taking his children to school who simply saw his fellow man in need and tried to help.
Spying on diplomats and officials as ordered by the secretary of state.
Torture in faraway nations.
So on, and so on, and so on.

This has yet to be seriously acknowledged in the international discussion.

There’s those who would say Julian Assange and Wikileaks are a danger to national security, that he should be tactically eliminated by the very best of the best of our men at arms - who’ve yet to bring us the head of the individual leading an organization that killed 3k+ innocent people. High standing members of the American political process arguing the elimination of foriegn nationals for the simple act of educating the world. They say he’s put lives at stake, yet no information to back this up. Quite simply, a white lie in reaction, unable to compute possible good done by a questionable deed.

This has yet to be seriously acknowledged in the international discussion.

There’s the foreign government which has taken the allegations of two women against this Assange character, and toyed with them, played with them - made a mockery of their own legal system. The original prosecutor dismissed the charges within 24 hours of hearing them. Assange left the country with permission, not running from anything. Later, these allegations were refiled under a new prosecutor - not charges, mind you, but simply seeking to question Assange. Not to arrest him. Assange made an offer to do this multiple times and was rebuffed. Of course, after the latest leak of documents and the aforementioned reaction by high standing members of the United States Government, Assange’s biggest worry was a legitimate one - being put in US custody, put in a black site, held without trial… All of these things Obama said he would cease continuing. Even so, Assange turned himself in to British authorities in time when the warrant for his extradition to Sweden for questioning.

This fact has yet to be acknowledged in the international discussion.

There are those who rally to Assange’s side that discredit and spit upon the two women who have made allegations - a sad reminder of how little we’ve come in gender relations. Distorting the severity of the allegations, saying they’re a CIA honeytrap, mistranslating Swedish law into “sex by surprise,” arguing it wasn’t rape. In a civilized society one party may revoke their consent even during intercourse, and if the other party does not cease their advances then yes, it is rape. A horrible, damaging thing, an atrocity which our society, especially in America, have yet to be able to seriously combat as adults. 30 Rock and Glee, popular American television shows joke about rape. He raped that final. They raped the other team. I just raped your face with my noob tube, you fag. This is a common state of discourse in our privledged, first world nation. America doesn’t know how to talk about rape like grown adults. It’s a common joke. So facts and allegations are distorted and Assange is the supposed victim of an international conspiracy and a lot of us are led to believe this is all simply COINTELPRO. Rape apologism becomes a common defense in discourse on both sides of the political aisle, from Beck to Olbermann.

This fact has yet to be acknowledged in the international media.

Finally, there are those who claim to be advancing the feminist cause, arguing that Assange is most likely guilty, assuming guilt; directly ignoring and misrepresenting facts, saying he was on the run when he left Sweden. This is quite simply, not true, no matter how you frame it. There is an argument he should see his day in court, when that day in court has yet to even be officially announced - Assange turned himself in for questioning. Apparently however, because the allegations were made there is a presumption of guilt, a bloodlust, a rallying cry. Sady Doyle would have you believe he is guilty, regardless of one of America’s, the mutual country me and her share, founding principles - innocent until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. She would have you throw this out to satisfy her own bloodlust, which is to some extent justified due to the reaction a great number of people have distorted the facts and watered down the allegations - but Assange himself didn’t do this. His lawyer mistranslated Swedish in his defense. Olbermann did harm and Moore used a poor choice of words. Yet she herself is convinced Assange did these horrific things and due to the comfort bubble of the Internet will probably never be convinced otherwise, and watching her actions is horrific and disparaging from the perspective of someone who saw her as inspirational react in such a way.

This fact has yet to be acknowledged in the international discussion.

However, I beg you to understand - innocent until proven guilty is a founding principle of modern society because we value a free, just society, even with its many failings. We can’t presume Assange’s guilt, or the possibility of him being guilty, just as we can’t presume these two women, one of whom has stopped pursuing the allegations, are lying radical feminists who weren’t really raped. That is a serious injustice to our society on multiple levels. Women who have suffered will be less likely to come forward, rape in our culture will remain a common joke, we’ll leave black marks on possibly innocent people’s records, and the discussion of rape in American society and what to do about it will only get worse.

This fact, more important than all, has yet to be acknowledged in the international discussion.

Our children will look back on this, and most likely look down in shame in how we have on all sides embarrassed ourselves. Instead of leaving this as a private matter, and focusing on the global injustices revealed through the hard work of Assange and Wikileaks, we concerned ourselves with the completely wrong subject and fought over it and made a spectacle over the possibility of two women undergoing suffering that would stay with them forever. This is not our matter.

Our matter, in America, is how the hell do we deal with our tax dollars going to contractors who used child prostitutes to deal with Middle Eastern locals, among other atrocities. We as a civilized society have failed our children, and we should all be ashamed of ourselves.