(TW) Just dumped my partner for saying the most horrendously misogynistic crap and I have no regrets.

I was reading out the details of a news story about a prison in DR Congo. The male prisoners broke in to the women’s side of the prison and subjected them to rape for 3 days before anyone even knew what was going on. My heart breaks for those women.

He just shrugged and said, “I can’t feel sorry for them. They’re in prison, they’re not good people so they deserved it”. I kept repeating that no one ever deserves to be raped but he stood his ground. I can’t be with someone who legitimately thinks like that so he’s upstairs currently packing his stuff and going back to his place. I want nothing to do with a man who thinks like that.

My mum and sister think I’m being dramatic and should give it until tomorrow morning to calm down but i feel duped. I thought he was an ally.

EDIT: thank you for all of the awards. This post was me venting after a shitty encounter with him. I didn’t intend (or want) it to blow up like this.

EDIT 2: to all of the men DM’ing me to ask me about my stance on male prisoners being raped: my opinion is the same. No one (male or female) deserves to be raped, and especially not in prison where they are already trapped and can’t escape. The prison sentence is the punishment. It’s not for anyone else to decide they need to be further punished with rape.

EDIT 3: for the other men asking me “but what about rapists? Do they deserve to be raped?” Jesus wept. Fucking no.

I feel sorry for them, because so many are forced. They may not be hurting anyone, but many of them do get hurt.

Right now I am at the point where I am in favor of decriminalizing selling, but still have procurement and buying be illegal. Because those women (and men) need to be able to get help when they are abused, they need to be able to get help to get out if they want it. I made another comment in this thread, but this is like a Russian nesting doll of red flags.

Thinking rape is an ok punishment, thinking all criminals are bad people, assuming all people in prison are guilty, assuming all laws are reasonable and fair. and being willing to double down on shit they know nothing about since the first 3 things most people know about the Congo are just a list of human rights abuses.

The fact it took them 3 days to notice male prisoners had escaped and we’re raping female.prisoners should probably key you about the quality of their legal system. so doubling down on a system incapable of basic prison management being infallible deciders of who does and doesn’t deserve to get raped is just….what.

It’s crazy because I practically guarantee this dude has done something that would get him locked up in the congo (or even here probably) but if you suggested that he deserved to get raped, I bet he’d feel quite differently.

People who lack empathy are incapable of being good people let alone good partners. My mom is in prison right now. She’s seriously mentally ill and got a couple DUI’s and just decided to go to prison instead of paying the insane amount of fines that had accumulated. She mostly reads books, writes letters, and tries to stay out of the way. She cries a lot.

Yes, what she did was wrong, but she’s an old lady with overwhelming mental illness just trying to survive each day while being abused by guards and fellow inmates. She’s a human being, and she’s suffering an awful lot for someone who never hurt anybody but herself. And there are thousands of inmates like her, and they deserve compassion. This exactly. Thinking anyone deserves to be raped -in any scenario- is absolutely unconscionable, full stop. And not that it even matters, but not all -and I’d even go out on a limb and say not most- incarcerated persons are bad people; so his “point” is stupid, misogynistic, & misanthropic all the way around. Fuck that guy (not literally of course, because again no one, not even him, deserves to be raped). My gut feeling is that this ex-bf read too hard into the “raped in prison” trope, what with murderers and such getting “rightfully” raped in prison. In reality, noone should ever be raped. There is no good moral reason nor legal justification for cruel and unusual punishment. You can call for the death of certain criminals but nothing can ever justify sexual assault. This is how I feel about it. If prison rape is ok, then we should be fucking honest about it and straight up sentence people to rape, because that’s what’s actually happening. If you can’t say it’s ok to give someone a rape sentence, you can’t say it’s ok for them to be raped in prison. People who think rape is fine in any context should stop being cowards and fucking own it. We all know you’re a piece of shit.

Also to add the majority of people in most prisons aren’t there for murder? Like idk about that country’s legal system at all, so maybe jail time for nonviolent offenses is super low and that skews things, but most likely, a lot of inmates are like, thieves, drug dealers, assault charges, manslaughter, criminal negligence, ect.

And like, there’s a huge difference in how bad those people are compared to a first degree murderer already, so even if you’re fucked enough to think that’s a justified punishment for a first degree murderer, it isn’t for second degree or manslaughter, let alone for tax fraud or selling drugs. Just scanning through the comments on any article about someone who committed a crime — be it assault, murder, dealing drugs, etc., — and you’ll see there are a LOT of people who believe prison rape is an appropriate punishment for criminal behavior. Do they really, seriously believe this, or is it just mob mentality? I don’t really know, but it never fails to surprise me how many people make these public comments. Are they really all bad people, or have they just fallen into this unfortunate belief that it’s socially acceptable to expect rape in prison? The idea is pervasive and I have to think that most people just haven’t taken the time to think seriously about it.

Nobody deserves to be raped, but some people struggle to extend compassion to bad people. If a child rapist gets beaten to death, I’m not gonna feel.bad for him. I don’t support beating pedophiles to death, but it’s hard for me to be very sympathetic to a vile person. Even though it’s fucked up, we all engage in a little bit of vigilante justice apologist from time to time. Nobody deserves to be robbed, but if someone broke.into Jeff Bezo’s house and stole all his stuff I’m not exactly gonna feel.broken up.about it.

Saying anyone deserves to be raped or that some peoples rape doesn’t matter is a red flag, because sexual violence feels quite different than physical violence to most people. Clearly that person doesn’t take the unique violating nature of sexual violence seriously.

Saying some criminals deserve to be raped is a.red.flag.because it means they believe that sexual violence can be a form of justice. Which is quite a serious escalation from “just doesn’t feel bad for them”. This is them saying they’re not only not sad it happened, but wouldn’t care to intervene if it happened again. It’s a just punishment in their mind.

Saying all criminals have earned rape is horrifying because it included everything above and shows an incredibly black and white, authoritian style of thinking. Maybe some people think rapists and child molestors and whatnot deserve whatever they get. But for someone to think it’s ok to use brutal punishment against someone for any disobedience whatsoever shows a distrurbing lack of nuance for an adult.

To think any criminal in a foreign country you know nothing about deserve to get raped is even worse because it involves everything invovled above and shows an incredibly shallow and narcissistic worldview. To assume, with absolutely no information, that the justice system is reasonable and fair to women and only imprisons those who are truly “bad” shows that they just flat out don’t think about the world outside their immediate proximity’s. Again, super stunted emotional development for an adult. To not even question that a moral framework that you have found to be true for your life might not apply to a wildly different context is just…..what.

The Congo especially is notorious for human rights abuses and brutal regimes. Literally the only things I know about the DRC are just various crimes against humanity that have been done to it’s citizens for centuries. So add on “literally just stupid about basic geopolitical issues” to the list.

Guilty people don’t deserve to be raped, and someone who thinks they do is showing a major red flag. But this particular example of that thinking is like a Russian nesting doll of red flags, except each red flag somehow manages to be worst than the last. Obviously no one in the world deserves rape of course. But like you said, the Congo has notoriously poor civil rights, which extend to their prison system. It’s a country where the police can just arbitrarily arrest you and the prison system is full of corruption and bribery. When he states all prisoners deserve rape, he’s saying innocent people or someone arrested for protesting or someone a senior police officer had a personal grudge with, not just lifelong violent criminals. That shit is weird, don’t go back or let him back. Your ex has some deeply rooted fucked up morals and you don’t want to play with that. Holding your ground on that particular opinion, while talking to a woman (your gf!), and being given ample chance to see the errors of your way is a red flag of * WTF nope!* I’d honestly be asking your mother and sister “why would you want me to get back with a man who thinks rape can be excused in certain circumstances?”. If they try to play the “he wouldn’t do that though!” card, hit them back with “and I wouldn’t have believed he condoned rape up until now, guess people aren’t always who they appear to be”.

You’re doing the right thing. His thinking is abhorrent.

FWW. I’m a man. I went through something similar years ago. I was seeing a woman who seemed nice — she was a friend of several friends, everyone seemed to like her.

We were finally able to go out for a whole day date and that’s when I learned a whole different side of her. It started when she started airing her opinion about abortion (“murder” according to her), then people who get abortions (stupid murderers who deserve the death penalty). That was enough to put me off. I thought I’d just see out the end of the day and not see her again.

Big mistake! We went to a Chinese restaurant (her choice) and she started racially abusing the service staff! I’d seen enough by that point. A person who started the day looking incredible in my eyes transformed into the most horrendous person I’d ever seen. I asked her to leave because I wanted to make up to the waitress and other servers, but of course she refused. I left instead and never, fortunately, saw her again!

All this’ll is to say that the way you see someone is also about the expectation that they share certain fundamental values with you. You’ll never see this guy the same again.

Anyone who ever thinks there is such a thing as a “justified” or “deserved” rape is a creep and definitely not an ally or even a very nice person.

ETA: Your mom and sister aren’t dating him, and they don’t get a say in who you date, when you end relationships, or your justifications behind them. Only you experience your relationships, and so only you get to call the shots about the relationships you do or don’t have.

It sounds like he didn’t even consider the possibility that not all justice systems are equal before making that statement. To me, that’s a huge indicator that he lacks empathy.

For example, in this article, a woman was put in prison in DR Congo for organizing an anti-rape protest. Did she deserve to be raped because she was a “criminal”?

Stick to your decision. You are not being dramatic. You deserve a real ally. It made me wonder how he would feel if I was raped, how would he try to justify that? Would he blame me? I worry enough about being raped anyway. I don’t want the additional burden of worrying if my partner will try to blame me for it or not support me afterwards.

It’s nice to see other men share my view. Seen far too many in the comments defending him 🙄 Soooo besides the obvious point that NO ONE deserves to be sexually assaulted under any circumstances, this guy shows a stunning lack of empathy for people in prison. It’s honestly super weird to me that anyone could be of the opinion that only “bad” people are in prison. There’s a lot to unpack with this guy, but I think your decision to toss the whole suitcase out was a wise one.

That’s a fundamental mismatch in values, and I’m proud of you for recognizing that.

The casual idea that prisoners deserve to be mistreated is disturbing for so many reasons:

It denies the humanity and human rights of people who are labeled “criminals,” giving more power to any state to deny human rights through increased criminalization
It conflates all kinds of wrong; someone accused of possessing something illegal is lumped in with a rapist and murderer
It conflates innocence and guilt, since we know that at least some people convicted of crimes turn out to be not guilty of those crimes
It supports rape culture, in that it provides a rationalization for rape being OK based on how “bad” a person is

If he couldn’t understand that, or at least listen to what you’re saying, then you’re not being dramatic by dumping him.

How can people deny that rape culture exists when we talk about prison rape as a deserved punishment?

It’s insane that people deny it’s a thing, if it’s ok to rape someone under this circumstance, where else is it ok?

I know that the deniers do it as a response to fears of losing the patriarchy but it’s so incredibly easy to prove it does exist with this one trope..

There is never an exception to rape. Hearing someone make an excuse, a “reason” etc., is a huge red flag and immediately makes me wonder if they have themselves crossed the line of consent in way, or are contemplating doing so. At the least, they are okay with it. That is enough.

Breaking a law does not make okay to “punish” someone. As if they are no longer human. Where is the line? What if they were innocent, but were still found guilty (which happens a lot more than people realize) because of being poor, human error, prejudice and so on? How about people in prison for stupid stuff like making a judge or cop mad? Or low level offenses, or non violent crimes? How about the laws that are just nonsense? It used to be illegal to run from your captors if you weren’t the privileged color, there’s still a bunch of laws all over the world that are just another version wealth hoarding protection.

I’m sorry for the rant but this one got my hair up. All that disgusting social conditioning seems insurmountable at times. As a woman it’s exhausting just existing sometimes.