Sexual Assault: Discussion

[BigJetDriver]

Folks,

The case has been investigated by PADI to the point that confirmation of the incident and the police action have been made.

Any further speculation along the line of: "If this incident occcurred..." will be dealt with by removal of the entire offending post.

Cross-posting of anyone's remarks from another site will be dealt with the same way.

The suspects name has been removed from previous posts.

Discuss this from the standpoint of: "How can we, as divers and instructors, prevent ourselves from being involved in this kind of event?" This was begun by Heather (Chickdiver), but the issue was side-tracked.

Offer support for Fonfon if you will, but stop the "if" and "maybe" stuff.

 

[H2Andy]

You assume too much, if you want to discuss what I know or don't please take it off line and PM me.

i'm not assuming anything. it's clear from your post that you don't know much
about trauma and healing. you might have experienced trauma, but you don't know
much about healing. nothing personal, just a statement of fact. the school of
thought that went "don't think about it and it will go away" is no longer a viable
option these days

also, if you post on a thread, you probably should expect people to respond in the
thread, don't you think? if we PM'd responses to posts, our board would be infintely
smaller

 

[Matthew]

ok... everyone, if you want to do discuss sexual assualt, here's
a thread for you:

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthrea...d=1#post1053861

otherwise, please stay out of fonfon5's thread, which is about her experience
and how others have dealt with it.

IMHO that original thread was as much about fonfon5's experience as about vilifying the alleged perpetrator, as well as bashing anybody who expresses the slightest hint of interest on hearing what the accused has to say. The victim deserves all the support she can get, but what I cannot agree with is allowing several pages of attacks on a certain person (who was named) yet pulling out his posts when he tried to speak.

 

[aquaoren]

And no, I am not saying a woman's pain is greater than a man's pain. I am saying the trauma of rape/sexual assault under threat of death, which is something that BOTH men and women have suffered, can cause a greater depth of emotional suffering than the EMOTIONAL suffering caused to the accused (note the word "emotional", not legal repercussions, not business damages).

And if you think this is a sexist issue, I would urge any of you to talk to a man who has been raped/assaulted. Sadly, there are plenty of them.

How comes that you think that legal repercussions or business damages can not have deep emotional suffering. Can you imagine yourself walking for the rest of your life marked as a sexual predator (possibly without your fault)? How about having your life work destroyed?

 

[ScubaNorth]

There are no facts, only interpretations. - Nietzsche

 

[H2Andy]

what I cannot agree with is allowing several pages of attacks on a certain person (who was named) yet pulling out his posts when he tried to speak.

we don't even know if it's him. i have PM'd him personally, in Spanish, and have
had no response.

 

[HammerNoMore]

Yet you seem to withhold compassion in favor of prioritizing the poor man?

Nope. Never done that.

The victim brought the thread here, you seem to conveniently ignore the response of PADI and the local law because it doesn't fit into your picture, or you dismiss them as insignificant, and I see it important to support her rather than interrogate her.

I'm ignoring nothing. I have seen nobody provide any proof that this guy was every jailed, much less convicted of anything. And since both parties seem to agree they were alone on this dive the best that can be said about PADI's position is that they are in full CYA mode and are hanging one of their members out to dry based on nothing but speculation. If there is evidence of a crime here then by all means present it. The fact that some lawyer decided it was better for PADI's reputation to expell the guy than to wait for a legal outcome is in no way proof of anything other than the fact that the woman is always assumed to be right in these cases.

You seem to think it better to go with the assumption she is lying and ignore support even once the accused has a representative post his side of it.

No, no no. I think it is better not to assume anything and not to censor everyone who questions the story.

You also haven't posted your impression of his letter, which makes it *appear* as if you are going to great lengths to portray the accused as the innocent victim in this without any particular reason to do so.

Again, I have never done anything of the kind. You seem to be so wrapped up in something you read on the internet that it must be true and anyone who would question it is evil. Man have I got some real estate...

I do not feel that recriminations from a false accusation ON A MESSAGE BOARD are as traumatic as what the victim is describing, having been the target of them myself. I find it less damaging to lend support with the assumption the victim is not lying, since most of them don't then to respond to her with "Well... IF you're telling the truth, that's a shame, but a lot of women..." Ick.

Again you are deciding that it is better to do harm to one person over another based on nothing that has any proof.

To sum up your arguments, you think it is better to treat female rape/assault victims like self serving liars rather than risk offending the sensititivies, on an internet message board, of a man who is not present, who has been arrested, and booted by his representative organization unless of course, one of the people offering sympathy to the assumed victim can sufficiently prove to YOU that the attack took place, though proof would likely consist of video footage of the incident providing I could prove the tape was unedited.

Ok, with you I'm done. You have accused me multiple times in this thread of things I have not done. And your posts are filled with mistruths. Makeing up facts is a bad way to disagree. Fact: there is no proof the man was arrested. Fact: The man may very much be present. Fact: I think it is better to allow open discssussion and not to kill every post wich may question the truth of the accusations. Nothing more.

I think when someone is seeking group support, it is important not to treat them like a liar, particularly in rape/sexual assault cases, because it adds to the trauma and guilt of the entire incident which is disempowering, frightening, and humilating.

Ok so according to you anyone accused of rape should be considered guilty until proven innocent. That's fair.

 

[H2Andy]

There are no facts, only interpretations. - Nietzsche

at the connotative level, yes.

at the denotative level, there are facts. for example, i can quantify the temperature
at which water freezes and turns to gas.

and i can do that a 1000 times. that's a fact

Nietzsche is so 19th century

 

[HammerNoMore]

Folks,

The case has been investigated by PADI to the point that confirmation of the incident and the police action have been made.

Any further speculation along the line of: "If this incident occcurred..." will be dealt with by removal of the entire offending post.

Cross-posting of anyone's remarks from another site will be dealt with the same way.

The suspects name has been removed from previous posts.

Discuss this from the standpoint of: "How can we, as divers and instructors, prevent ourselves from being involved in this kind of event?" This was begun by Heather (Chickdiver), but the issue was side-tracked.

Offer support for Fonfon if you will, but stop the "if" and "maybe" stuff.

Of course everyone is still entitled to their opinions, right? As long as they don't vioate the TOS, right?

 

[ScubaNorth]

i'm not assuming anything. it's clear from your post that you don't know much
about trauma and healing. you might have experienced trauma, but you don't know
much about healing. nothing personal, just a statement of fact. the school of
thought that went "don't think about it and it will go away" is no longer a viable
option these days

also, if you post on a thread, you probably should expect people to respond in the
thread, don't you think? if we PM'd responses to posts, our board would be infintely
smaller

Report after report has detailed the post-traumatic stress suffered by the US population after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC, but a study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine suggests it may be better to suppress those feelings.

“The findings of this study suggest that a repressive coping style may promote adjustment to traumatic stress, both in the short and longer term,” Karni Ginzburg of the Bob Shapell School of Social Work at Tel Aviv University in Israel, who led the study, said in a statement.


I checked it out and I don't think Karni is a diver.