sea of red, sky of green

[the_siobhan]

I found a discussion board where you get paid to post. No shit. My theory is that they are trying to build up a big user base, get all sect-zie like LJ and then start charging people to join.

Dude, it's painful in there.

Anyway I responded to a post today that has kinda got me freaked out. Some mother was talking about how she was reading her 15 year-old daughter's dairy. "As any good mother would". And discovered that her daughter had been raped. And was afraid to tell her parents. The mother posted asking for advice on how to approach the daughter, given that bringing the subject up would be an admission that she was snooping.

Holy fuck.

My response was to ask if the girl had a trusted adult in her life - a teacher perhaps, an adult relative, a friend of the family - who could be asked to check in on the teenager in case she felt comfortable opening up. And to say as pointedly as I could, "And forget any chance that it might be you, because you've already blown that part of your relationship by reading her diary."

But what really floored me was the 5 pages of response saying, "Thank god you were reading her diary so you can force her to admit what happened to her and make her go get help."

Because you know, nothing scrubs out the sour shit taste of violation quite like another, even more intimate, violation.

Jesus.

I live in a very different world. Today, this is not a bad thing.

Comments

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

Jebus. As someone whose mother read her diary, I know how that betrayal feels. It taught me not to trust *anyone*, and to not even put my feelings down on paper as a release. And it takes a damn long time to get over that. I sure hope the girl does have someone she can trust so she can get some help.

What is the name of the discussion board, btw?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Me too. One of the reasons it took me so long to take up writing again is exactly because of that kind of betrayal happening over and over again.

The discussion board is at mylot.com (http://www.mylot.com/?ref=onesiobhan). (That's my referral link, BTW.) I'm half tempted to turn my membership into a sockpuppet just because I think it would leave less of a sour taste in my mouth.

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

You now have a referral credit or whatever it's called. I *do* wonder what they are getting out of running the site.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

Info on paid content here (http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/008295.html#008295) - it's called the "content management industry".

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I'm getting ripped off, I'm only paid 2 cents a comment!

The idea that anybody would pay anything to have strangers ramble at them still makes me scratch my head.

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

I've been looking over a few of the posts, and I'm not sure I can get past the writing to actually read the content!

[razorjak.livejournal.com]

Oh, tell me about it. I especially enjoyed the first topic that was highlighted after I joined. Another stupid idiot going on about illegal aliens and how they need to come to the country legally and learn the language first. The spelling was atrocious.

When I noticed the person had lived in Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois ... I responded with:

I agree wholeheartedly with you.

Thus, as a member of the Anishnaabeg nation, I kindly request that you go back to the country your ancestors came from and illegally squatted here.

You may return when you can speak Anishinaabemowin and will immerse yourself in the original culture of this region.

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

That's awesome! Did they have the balls to reply?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I always find it incongruous that the people who are the most rabid about immigrants speaking English seem to have the least grasp of it themselves.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I never kept a diary until I left home, because I knew perfectly well that my mother would read it, and loudly ridicule it at the dinner table in front of tne whole family.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

Paraphrasing old Willie, "First thing we do, is kill all the stupid people."

Poor kid.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

All I can do is hope there are clueful people in her life.

[raindrops.livejournal.com]

As a child, before I left home, I stored my journal in the ground, out in the damn woods. Not to keep it from my parents, but from my siblings, but either way, invading that space would have been mindrape.

Hey, give me a name + credible evidence and I'll shank a rapist without blinking; but the mindset of "parents know best, without question" is a major factor in where we are today (not a good place).

[razorjak.livejournal.com]

Definately need to line each of those people up and cockslap them. Doubly so if they are parents. Triply so if they are parents of girls.

[girfan.livejournal.com]

I was such a Tolkien nerd back then (high school), I wrote my diary in Elvish just in case my parents or anyone else found it. My two closest friends did the same and we were able to pass notes in class with no fear since no one else could read it. I still have my diaries but probably would have to re-figure out the Elvish to read them now.

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

one of my friends and i developed our own code. at first it was symbols for letters, but that was too obvious, so we made symbols for phonemes instead. i can't remember it *at all*, though i remember a note written in it getting snatched by the teacher, who was torn between delight at the fact that we'd made the code, and annoyance at not getting to read the note.

[kest]

we used runes for the same purpose.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

Drawback of this being that JRRT's stuff is now at least two generations old, and it's as likely that any given authority figure would be able to read elvish script as any given friend...

[markeris.livejournal.com]

see, my mum just reads my LJ.

[markeris.livejournal.com]

though I daresay she`d prefer me to have a diary. It`d probably be less explicitly confrontational

[redbird]

So does mine. But I told her about it, and specifically set up an account so she can read some of my filtered posts.

Some are to different groups, including one that's only visible to my partners.

[unagothae.livejournal.com]

I had more faith in humanity when I thought most of the world was doomed to eternal hellfire.

Who needs hellfire when people rip each other apart daily?

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

I'm floored that her mother is so firmly convinced that reading her daughter's diary is something that "any good mother" would do.

My father used to go through my sister's backpack every day and listened in on our phone calls regularly. If I hadn't kept my diary well hidden, he would have read it too. Not being allowed any privacy really poisoned my relationship with him for years.

I'm also disturbed that so many people think that it's a good idea to force the girl to admit that she was raped, and that they think help can be imposed on her. This isn't a scrape that can be healed by some Bactine and a band-aid.

Gah. That poor fucking kid. I think your advice was spot-on.

[medakse.livejournal.com]

My response was to ask if the girl had a trusted adult in her life - a teacher perhaps, an adult relative, a friend of the family - who could be asked to check in on the teenager in case she felt comfortable opening up. And to say as pointedly as I could, "And forget any chance that it might be you, because you've already blown that part of your relationship by reading her diary."


It just breaks my goddamn heart. Hopefully the mother will do the right thing and approach a teacher or older cousin or aunt/uncle, and ask them to check in. Excellent advice, Siobhan. Has there been any reaction/backlash to your last part? I'm sure none of these people feel as if the mother blew her relationship with her child by so completely violating her trust *and then posting about her rape on an internet message board*.
*shakes head*
Thanks for being a voice of sanity in the void, yeah? Hopefully this girl will get the help she needs.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

My post didn't get any reaction, unfortunately. The responses ended up taking up several pages, so it may have been completely buried.

The posting is weird - it's called "discussion" but there doesn't seem to be any way to respond to anybody except the original poster.

[the-fury.livejournal.com]

Reading that site feels similar to jamming a wood rasp in my ear. Looks like Sprocket Pump is back in action.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

That was the name. We were wracking our brains the other night trying to think of Sprocket Pump

[the-fury.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I found the anagram generator again.

Made me very happy to find it.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Sprocket Pump?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Sprocket Pump (http://groups.google.ca/groups/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=alt.gothic+%22sprocket+pump%22).

[the_axel]

It's an anagram of 'Mr Sock Puppet'.

[the-fury.livejournal.com]

Sprocket Pump!

Grrrr.

[(Anonymous)]

In grade school the teacher made us write in this "journal" which we would leave open on our desk when we went out for recess. It confused the hell out of me. In highschool a friend gave me this french book on witchcraft that he wasn't reading anymore that had the theban alphabet in it. I started writing everything in that code because sometimes someone would peek in my journal and use my thoughts against me. People just called it windings when they saw me writing it. It made things simple. People suck.

Jenn

Grrrr.

[(Anonymous)]

In grade school the teacher made us write in this "journal" which we would leave open on our desk when we went out for recess. It confused the hell out of me. In high school a friend gave me this french book on witchcraft that he wasn't reading anymore that had the Theban alphabet in it. I started writing everything in that code because sometimes someone would peek in my journal and use my thoughts against me. People just called it windings when they saw me writing it. It made things simple. People suck.

Jenn

um

[(Anonymous)]

sorry, didn't mean to post that twice. My bad.

[individuation.livejournal.com]

ack is right.
I think that it's just such a scary world out there for parents that they feel like keeping intimate tabs on their kids will be a way to save them -- but doing that and then acting on info in there is so authoritarian... I agree with you, and what you said...

[notmostppl.livejournal.com]

hmm... that reminds me of the reason i never actually used any of the diaries/journals my mother gave me.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Given what you've told me about your mother, that sounds like an entirely sensible choice.