MIND IN THE VOID

Every time a new story like this comes out, I feel it in my chest. That heavy mix of anger and disgust and "not again."

This time, it was the CNN article about what people are calling a "rape academy." A website. With over 60 million views a month. Let that number sink in for a second. 60 million. That's not a fringe corner of the internet. That's a massive organised system built around violating women. And the men using it genuinely seem to think there's nothing wrong with that. I don't even have words for how twisted that is.

This is personal for me. I’ve lived through it. As a child, as young as three years old, I experienced abuse. And later in life, during a moment where I was completely vulnerable, someone I trusted said something to me that I will never forget. Something that made it clear exactly how little they saw me as a person. And then they carried on like it wasn’t serious. Like it was nothing. Like, I was the wrong one for reacting and pointing it out and still hear “oh, it was just a joke.” No. Of course, you don’t see how wrong it was. From your perspective, it’s not wrong. You’re the one benefiting from it. You’re surrounded by people who normalize it, who laugh it off, who make it seem acceptable. In your world, it’s not a problem.

But it is.

And the fact that you can’t even recognize how wrong it is, how damaging it is, how dehumanizing it is, is exactly what makes it so twisted. That level of blindness is not innocence. It’s part of the problem.

The only joke here is a mindset that thinks women exist for someone else’s pleasure.

That's the part that stays with you. Not just what happened, but the casualness of it. The fact that for them it was nothing. Just another moment in their day.

And my story is not the only one. The CNN article is full of women who experienced exactly that. Violated by someone who felt entitled, who felt no shame, who just moved on with their life while the person they hurt carries it forever. How does someone do that and sleep at night?

It's not just family. It's relationships. It's people in positions of trust who decide that trust means access. That being close to someone, or responsible for someone, gives them the right to take whatever they want.

And the worst part? They don't even think they did anything wrong.

That's what I can't get past. The complete absence of shame. The normalisation of it. The idea that if no one said stop loudly enough, then it must have been fine.

It was never fine. It is never fine.

Since Me Too, we've been living through this cycle. Story after story. Victim after victim. We share, we react, we say how disgusting it is. And we mean it. But then another story comes, and we do it all over again. I used to call it waves. But I don't think that's the right word anymore. Waves pass. This doesn't pass, and it has to stop.

Where is the accountability? A website with over 60 million monthly views built around content that destroys real people's lives, and it just keeps running. I've seen hackers take down organisations for far less. Where are they now? These people's identities, their activity, and their uploads should be exposed. Every single one of them. Because hiding behind a screen doesn't make you less responsible for what you did/do.

The men who used that website, who filmed without consent, who shared without consent, who watched without asking where that content came from. They all made a choice. And they all need to answer for it.

But this isn't just about a website. It lives closer than that.

It lives in homes. In relationships. In families. In the people you were told to trust. The funny uncle. The controlling partner. The person everyone defends because that's just how they are. The person who crosses a line when you are at your most vulnerable and then acts like it never happened.

And somehow, those people still get protected.

The same excuses come up every time. It wasn't that serious. You're exaggerating. Don't ruin everything over this. But abuse is what ruins things. Silence is what destroys people. Pretending not to see what you clearly saw is what keeps this going.

Nothing changes because it's easier to be angry at a headline than to confront someone in your own life. When it's close to home, people get uncomfortable. They deny. They choose their comfort over someone else's pain. And silence wins again.

So what do we actually do? We stop acting like this is only a problem when it shows up in headlines, on big platforms, in articles we can share and react to for a few minutes before moving on. Because the truth is, this does not start on websites. It starts much earlier than that.

It starts in silence.

It starts in the moment someone crosses a line, and no one says anything. It starts when someone speaks up and gets dismissed, laughed at, or told they are exaggerating. It grows in families where people choose comfort over truth, where keeping the peace matters more than protecting someone who was hurt.

That is where this actually lives.

So maybe the question is not when we riot in the streets. Maybe the real question is when we stop protecting people who should have been held accountable a long time ago.

When do we start saying things out loud, even when it makes everything uncomfortable? When do we stop brushing off comments as jokes when they are clearly not jokes? When do we stop excusing behavior that we know is wrong just because it comes from someone we know?

Because this is not going to change through one big moment.

It changes into smaller, harder, more uncomfortable ones. It changes in conversations people avoid. It changes when someone finally refuses to stay quiet, even if it causes tension, even if it shifts relationships, even if it breaks something that was never healthy to begin with.

Silence is what allowed this to continue for so long.

And breaking that silence is where it finally starts to end.