On 02/08/07, jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I think that
sums up my feelings on this matter, too. I just cannot
understand why Slim Virgin is being described as "a net detriment to
the project" on account of attacks that are made by *her* by people we
all recognise as either severely unbalanced or having an axe to grind.
It quite disturbing.
The response you've described is so astoundingly lacking in empathy,
and, frankly, wrong-headed and immoral on so many levels, that I find
it frightening.
...and this is talking about an email which directly compared my
comments to being a wilful apologist for rape.
It is six o'clock in the morning. I first recieved a copy of that
charming email at two. I have been unable to sleep because of it. It
is monstrously insulting, it is at best tangential, and it is
completely inappropriate.
It is an smear and an allegation I cannot reply to, because of its
scale, its implications, its emotive power, and the ability to glibly
say "well, yes, but you would say that" to any response. It is an
escalation of this discussion by several orders of magnitude, from a
reasoned attempt to say "please stop" straight to "fuck off, you
scumbag". I can't reply; I can't leave it hanging there.
I got it by email, sent both to me and to the list; it didn't get
through, and I assumed it was moderated for one of the many possible
reasons someone might object to its content. But you also, it seems,
were sent a copy; you chose to send it here. And then you have the
temerity to refer to a glib rewriting of my argument as "lacking in
empathy ... wrong-headed and immoral".
I would have thought that would be better used to refer to the person
who chose to equate me with a rape-apologist on some spurious analogy.
I had, seriously, hoped for better from this discussion. I don't
*like* the fact that I had to stand up and complain; it's not the kind
of man I am, and not the sort of thing I ever want to do again. But I
felt it needed said, and there does not seem to be a shortage of
others who feel just as frustrated by it.
I have tried to keep the discussion on a sensible level; I have tried
patiently to explain my position and do so in what is as
nonconfrontational a manner as possible, considering the rather
uncomfortable nature of what I felt needed said. I am finding it hard
to describe some of the responses as anything other than deliberately
inflammatory.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk