The Fiction Treehouse

"Maya angelou's family killed a pedophile that raped her, and that just traumatized her more. "I thought that I had caused the man’s death, because I had spoken his name. That was my seven-and-a-half-year logic. So I stopped talking for five years." Read I know why the caged bird sings."

and here is my comment:

the fantasy of killing a pedophile to defend your child is... an escape from reality. as with all fantasies where a single act of violence stands for a lifetime of effortful care. it lets us off the hook for the day to day labor of actually protecting the human beings around us. it gives us an excuse to look away from what abuse actually looks like.

it allows us to ignore that setting boundaries is a daily practice. it allows us to ignore the subtle ways in which we punish children for having boundaries. it allows us not to think about things we can do, the effort we can put in, in smaller repeated ways, to be kind and caring. to be safe to talk to.

it is a grand gesture that, were you to actually go through with it, would neither prevent the harm that you fear nor help your child to heal from it. it is an idea with no bearing on reality for 99.99% of people, while rape and abuse are a reality for a large fraction of people.

it is not useful to imagine killing a pedophile. it is not useful to claim you would kill a pedophile. it wouldn't be useful to actually attempt to kill a pedophile in almost any situation.

it is useful to think about how you can help your child know they can get help. they can say no. they can tell adults to stop. they deserve to be comfortable. they deserve to be informed.

the entire point of the post is that your child will not be saved by your imagined wrath. the entire point is that your day to day actions, and your attitude towards children as people, are more impactful to your child's well-being. far more realistic. more important.

not least because your child doesn't need you to be wrathful. they need your love. they need care. they need attention.

meanwhile, the public performance of wanting to kill child abusers doesn't do anything to child abusers. most child abusers believe they are doing the right thing for their children.

saying you want to kill abusers doesn't signal anything good to children, either. as others have said, it makes children more afraid to speak up and ask for help. that might be their mom, their coach, their troop leader. it gives those abusers leverage; the children cannot tell if they want things to be stable.

and it makes it harder for adults to BELIEVE children, too! because if their child was really abused, then they've staked their honor on committing that violence, even if it was against their brother or spouse or grandpa or pastor or neighbor or their other kid's favorite babysitter. and if they don't want to do that, well... then they must decide whether they believe completely their child, or whether their child's boundaries must really be respected, or... if maybe it's impossible to know.

how many abuse survivors have tried to disclose, only to be told that so-and-so wouldn't do that, or they didn't mean it, because so-and-so loves you and we all like so-and-so. this dichotomy goes both ways, psychologically. if a child abuser is entirely evil and has to be killed, then someone who's not entirely evil and i don't want to kill can't be a child abuser. this must be something else. there must be a mistake.

Back then the father of said violent candidate was riling people up against the “tree people”. Fred, Barney, and other soldiers fought what they believed to be a defensive measure against the tree people. Turns out, it was actually an invasion, in order to kill off the tree people and take over their forest to build Bedrock.

That’s what Fred means when he says he and Barney participated in a genocide. They literally did.

http://readcomiconline.to/Comic/The-Flintstones

The Fence has published an exposé on Stuart Semple (of Anish Kapoor 'feud' notoriety) which they have been working on for six months.

investigation reveals Semple / his studio / his partner Emily Mann (who's described as acting as his 'enforcer' in his business) :

mishandled £400k grant of public money intended for a public gallery, allowing the money to flow freely between the public project, his own personal studio and personal projects such as Culture Hustle (his online business selling paint etc)

underpaid or failed to pay many of his assistants to the tune of several thousand pounds each.

former assistants have taken him to court and he simply hasn't bothered to show up and he's threatened to sue former assistants who asked for their back pay

repeatedly funds ambitious projects that never see release eg Abode, an 'Adobe-rivalling' suite of creative software (he claims he still intends to release this)

encouraged a cult-like atmosphere at his studio in Bournemouth

was frequently in debt and having to negotiate with bailiffs etc for his debts while at the same time crowdfunding various projects

ran fake social media accounts boosting Semple and his work

The portrait that emerges is one of decades-long scam artistry tbh and someone who's juvenile, manipulative, narcissistic.

The Fence btw is a decent fairly small-circulation quarterly magazine from the UK which specialises in satire, investigative journalism, culture, and fiction. You can read the piece in its entirety if you register (which is free).

a few links:

The Fence's newsletter from April discusses this article & how Semple has tried to muddy the SEO waters

Semple threatened to sue The Fence for publishing this story - many of you are American so here's the relevant UK law on defamation.

Generally you unbutton and re-button a suit coat when you sit down and stand up.

You’re supposed to hold wine or champagne glasses by the stem to avoid warming up the liquid inside. A character out of their depth might hold the glass around the sides instead.

When rich/important people forget your name and they’re drunk, they usually just tell you that they don’t remember or completely skip over any opportunity to use your name so they don’t look silly.

A good way to indicate you don’t want to shake someone’s hand at an event is to hold a drink in your right hand (and if you’re a woman, a purse in the other so you definitely can’t shift the glass to another hand and then shake)

Americans who still kiss cheeks as a welcome generally don’t press lips to cheeks, it’s more of a touch of cheek to cheek or even a hover (these days, mostly to avoid smudging a woman’s makeup)

The distinctions between dress codes (black tie, cocktail, etc) are very intricate but obvious to those who know how to look. If you wear a short skirt to a black tie event for example, people would clock that instantly even if the dress itself was very formal. Same thing goes for certain articles of men’s clothing.

Open bars / cash bars at events usually carry limited options. They’re meant to serve lots of people very quickly, so nobody is getting a cosmo or a Manhattan etc.

These events are almost always open bar. They're not trying to make their money back on alcohol. They want you to drink and eat and donate generously.

If there are cocktails, there will be at most two on offer, pre-made in large tubs. You cannot order a different version, it is what it is.

There are two types of events: cocktail style or seated. The first includes roaming hors d'oeuvres or a fancy buffet with tiny plates called a grazing station. For a long night, the roaming food will get a little bigger throughout the evening and have a 'main' at some point based around a protein.

A seated event will usually be more structured and may include multiple courses. Silver service is not in vogue anymore. You are likely to get either alternating meals brought to you like at a wedding, or served banquet style. A good caterer can get a plate to everyone in a 300 person event in about three minutes.

Drunk people are the same no matter how expensive their suits. They still laugh too loud, spill their drinks and slip on the dance floor. They are usually less embarrassed about doing coke in the bathrooms.

A full scale event that starts at 6pm will have staff arriving at noon to begin setup. Earlier if there's a light show or pyrotechnics. Typically venues don't just have 30 tables and three hundred chairs lying around, let alone table cloths, chair covers, etc. It's all rented and brought in on the day. Bands and DJs will be running audio tests in the background throughout.

Most heritage buildings that host these things, like museums and manor houses, aren't really designed for them. They might put down mats so you're not walking in stilettos over two hundred year old wooden floors, the kitchens are weirdly far away, and there are not enough taps. There is never anywhere for staff to sit, so if you open the wrong door you might find half a dozen waiters sitting on upturned milk crates in a room full of million dollar paintings, eating the left over bread.

Really old buildings don't have enough bathrooms, which means the staff will be sharing with the guests.

Clean up starts the second the event ends, if not sooner. Unattended glasses will start to disappear first, then table decorations. When the timer ticks over, the lights come back on and exhausted staff strip the tables, pack up dirty glasses and unopened wine bottles and have to Tetris it all into the back of a van. The venue is booked for that day only, so everything has to be gone before anyone can go home. A large event that finishes at midnight might take until 3am to be cleared away.

The Rodeo Rule: you only have to do it for the first time once.

The Rohan Rule: if you are at a social function full of new people and you want to be liked, find someone doing important work like setup or food prep and offer to help.

The Tutorial Mode Rule: to navigate an unfamiliar situation where you fear you will mess up an interaction, preface the interaction by mentioning that you've never done this before, and let them know if you have a specific concern or question.

The Rocket Science Rule: most new things you want to try seem very complicated but are simple when taken step by step.

The [X] Will Remember That Rule: if you need to make small talk with the same person on a regular basis, try to save one fact or current event in their life from a given conversation and bring it up next time you talk.