Several commenters have rightly pointed out that they don’t find the humor in the Montana woman post. This is actually an accurate response, which was really the point in doing the post. The way that the headline on the original article I referenced and excerpted from is written was the point of doing the post and trying to keep the topic light without moralizing. I obviously missed that target. So I’ve yanked the post.
Reader Interactions
94Comments
Comments are closed.
NotMax
Making light of something is not the same as saying that the something is funny.
See: Hitler, A., Brooks, M.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: I got that. You got that. But some didn’t. And this is one of those subjects were missing the target is really, really bad. So better to apologize for inaccuracy and remove what is upsetting people.
And with that, I’m going to bed.
eemom
OMFG. This is what you wrote:
In WHAT fucking world does that convey the point that you take this story seriously?
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: I will be back tomorrow night with the uplifting story of how the police in Germany managed to miss a serial killer for the past 10 plus years as he appears to have accumulated over 20 kills. We’ll laugh, we’ll cry, efg will say fuck repeatedly…
eemom
Also, if there’s a coherent logic to this
it eludes me.
Oh well. Guess I’m just confused again.
Adam L Silverman
@eemom: I’ve come to the conclusion that all my posts cold be that eemom is a wonderful, caring, thoughtful person and you’d come in the comments to bitch about not understanding it and then accuse the other commenters trying to assist you of being NAZIs. And then when I try to politely follow up offline to see if there’s some real problem that could be addressed, you blow me off, don’t reply, and just keeping being obnoxious to everyone. So maybe, just maybe, you want to go somewhere else and piss and moan about someone else. Just a thought.
Joey Maloney
This is what I was in the process of posting when you pulled the post, resulting in me getting a blank response page after I hit the button and thus confusing me mightily:
@MLC: You’re absolutely right, this is not funny. But you still have to recognize that the situations aren’t exactly parallel for kind of the same reason that White History Month isn’t the same as Black History Month.
It’s a power reversal, and power reversal is what a lot of humor is based on. That’s not the only thing going on, but that’s part of why joking about it is an automatic reaction for some.
P.S. after reading so many other people bitching about it, today for the first time I’m a victim of the disappearing-nym problem.
Joey Maloney
Or, alternatively:
Pull the other Montana Woman, she’s get bells on.
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Fuck repeatedly
Adam L Silverman
@eemom:
I don’t take much of anything seriously. You know why? I’ll explain it: my life, my professional life specifically, is about violence. Understanding it. Contextualizing it so it makes sense to others trying to make sense of it. Predicting it. Trying to manage and mitigate it. All so that less violence, and specifically violent force, has to be applied to counter it. And, when that fails as it all too often does because we’re dealing with humans, how to quickly, effectively, and, when necessary, lethally apply violence to deter or stop further violence. So I look at the world in a very, very off way compared to most people. I clearly screwed this post up. I’ve apologized. Feel free to email Cole and ask him to take my keys away.
M4
@Adam L Silverman: +1
Mnemosyne
@M4:
I saw lots of Gudetama merchandise while I was in Little Tokyo today. Have I mentioned lately that I hate you? I almost bought the socks for you. ?
Arclite
I read it before you pulled it. I didn’t find it humorous, but interesting given the role reversals.
John Revolta
@efgoldman: OMFG HOW DID HE KNOW YOU WERE GONNA SAY THAT
eemom
Dude, you threatened to ban me because I called out the incoherence of your writing style and the absurdity of an analogy you drew. That’s not how this place works. Doesn’t work that way even though I have a whole fan club of haters eager to kiss your ass for dissing me.
(On a related note, go google “little Eichmanns” and see how beautifully ironic your threat was.)
I never got any offline communication.
We clear?
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@Adam L Silverman: Don’t worry about eemom, she’s always had a stick up her butt. I get it. I do. I was amused and at the same time understood that it was a Meth abuse issue. After a while the violence we do to one another has to become amusing otherwise we would cry 24/7. I don’t blame you. Everyone’s line is different. I still found the story amusing primarily because we still live in a patriarchal society and this is the rare exception.
M4
@Mnemosyne: just as well you didn’t, my socks don’t last very long.
But who cares about Gudetama? Aggretsuko is the new Sanrio hotness. She’s an adorable red panda office girl, who gets so fed up with patriarchy and capitalism that she has to go sing death metal karaoke every night to stay sane. Now on Netflix!
West of the Rockies
FWIW, I always find your posts edifying and worthwhile. I didn’t see the now-pulled post, but I would urge you to let it go, let it go…
LynnDee
I don’t suppose I could get someone to tell me what the “Montana woman post” was, eh?
West of the Rockies
@M4:
Wait… For reals? That sounds awesome! What is the show’s name?
Mnemosyne
@M4:
Now I realize I should have looked for Inazma Delivery merchandise, or at least alerted VFX Lurker and her friend to keep an eye out for it on my behalf when they went to the anime shops. Feh.
West of the Rockies
@West of the Rockies:
Oh, I see it’s an eponymous character. Nevermind.
M4
@West of the Rockies: Aggretsuko.
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: Adam, may I make a suggestion? A better, more thoughtful way to approach the topic of female on male rape…or sexual assault of males by either gender would be to take the article that eemom posted in the pulled thread along with Terry Crew’s Senate testimony and work up a post on that.
cwmoss
@eemom: Hagahahaha! You so funny!
Yutsano
@M4: @West of the Rockies: It’s on Netflix!
Chetan Murthy
Adam, I just thought I should say, that I know you’re trying, and while I can see the point of people who think the post wasn’t so ….. sensitive, you pulled it, and you really are trying. You’re a good den mother. *grin*
And now, OT: I had a thought today: More and more, WE are the the threat that NATO was created to combat, eh? Oh, sigh.
Ruckus
Adam, I didn’t see the problem with the post.
Yes it’s not a nice subject, it’s not something that anyone wants to happen to them. That didn’t stop it from happening. Did we maybe think about it differently if the 2 people had changed roles in this drama? I don’t recall anyone making fun of the victim or of the perp. Several of us made comments about how the functionality of the process might be difficult but when I last checked in I don’t recall anyone making light of it being wrong no matter who was the perp or the victim.
We can’t help that some people are going to do things that are violent and illegal. We can talk about them, even if we do so in less than a perfect light. Shedding that light on things is part of the process in getting this to happen far less. Women have been dealing with this crime far more often as the victim since time started. Some of the talk about it brings the size of the problem into focus and shows that it is an ongoing problem that may never be totally resolved but not talking about it didn’t help in slowing it down and attempting to lessen it. The issue of course is rape and sexual abuse.
I for one am sorry that you felt that you had to pull the thread.
RedDirtGirl
Wow. A lot of rancor tonight.
sukabi
@RedDirtGirl: it’s been a very shitty week politically, folks are on edge. It’s understandable considering there have been 18 months of shitty weeks in a row.
Quaker in a Basement
There was a big piss up and I missed the whole thing?
Well, good!
hervevillechaizelounge
Does anyone else here think Huffpo might be in the ratfucking business? They hired that ex-Breitbart writer Kurt Bardella which has always struck me as peculiar, and there’s a hit piece up now on a democratic MA rep (link).
I always found their fawning coverage of Chelsea Manning and Wikileaks odious as well.
Apparently I can no longer discern the difference between leftier-than-thou and Russian interference; Putin has won:(
MagdaInBlack
Appears the heat and the political climate are making us all a wee bit testy.
Ruckus
@sukabi:
Folks really are on edge. I’m not sure many of us know how far out on that edge we are. As bad as this or any country can and has been, this seems to be one of the worst times of my life. It’s not just affecting a portion of the country, 99% are or will suffer. Some far worse than others. It is a real crisis of governing/governed and there is really not a good answer.
Chetan Murthy
@Ruckus: It’s been a long, long 16 months of crises, but I think these last three weeks, and still not knowing what’s happened to the toddlers and girls, and the fear that something awful has been perpetrated in our name, is wearing too. It’s certainly costing me sleep. Even with the family separations, if the Red Cross and a few other NGOs were visiting all the children and parents, keeping careful records, I’d breathe a little easier. As it is, I’m just cringing, waiting for the awful news to arrive.
Aleta
@Adam L Silverman: You mention violence as something you like to study. Sometimes violence is a way of exaggerating a conflict. Maybe instinctive or automatic in some, like a hope that the other side will feel threatened and go away. Exaggeration doesn’t work for ending verbal conflicts either. To me this is exaggeration: @Adam L Silverman: and (though not violent) the exaggeration goes in the opposite direction of “trying to manage and mitigate.” There’s always the taoist way of looking at one’s actions to fall back on. To make the point be not ourselves but the effects of our actions.
Amir Khalid
The deleted post didn’t seem to me any more objectionable than the usual Florida Man/Woman/Creature post. It was unusual in that the sexual assailant was a woman and the victim a man, which led some to react with somewhat nervous but not outrageous jokes, and some others to take offence. But for my part I would have been fine if it had been left up.
TS (the original)
@Adam L Silverman: Your posts are the best – in tone, explanation and reality. I didn’t see the pulled thread, I did read about the incident. It makes me think more than ever that trump has our minds turned upside down and turkey if people are being upset about the post.
And a million thanks to google for saving my nym & email – first time missing for me today
Odie Hugh Manatee
I wasn’t bothered by the post or the tone of the comments.
HeleninEire
I miss everything.
OzarkHillbilly
I’m sorry I missed the whole kerfuffle.
M4
@OzarkHillbilly: Adam removed it before it was even at kerfuffle level.
Mel
@Ruckus: It’s even having an impact on children too small to fully understand what is taking place. My friend’s son, who is four, has been sticking to his three year old sister like glue for the past week, and started crying hysterically a few days ago when he couldn’t immediately find her.
Their mother does an excellent job of giving very age appropriate explanations about the world, and being honest with them without creating fear or exposing the to things that they are too young to process. They’ve always been happy, very independent and cheerful kids, so his behavior was notably out of the ordinary.
It turns out that he was afraid that someone was going to come and take his baby sister away from them, because she was adopted when she was a year old. The saddest part is that their mom has begun to wonder if she needs to be carrying every bit of her daughter’s paperwork with them, every time they leave the house, just in case.
When a parent’s “better safe than sorry” plan involves packing the family’s entire legal record for a quick trip to the store for milk and eggs, you know we’ve gone down the damned rabbit hole.
Viva BrisVegas
@Adam L Silverman:
The event in the original post was both tragic and absurd,
If we can cry for the tragic, we can laugh at the absurd. Or at the very least give it a wry grin.
If somebody is too half-witted to understand that distiction, that’s their problem.
John Revolta
@hervevillechaizelounge: I don’t know if she’s still running the place, but I never had much faith in Arianna’s “liberal conversion”.
Okay, I see they’re being run by AOL now, who are owned by Verizon. (It’s so hard to keep up.) Draw yer own conclusions.
OzarkHillbilly
@Aleta:
It’s not a hobby, it’s his job.
Cathie from Canada
Thanks for pulling it. Rape just isn’t ever funny.
OzarkHillbilly
@M4: Too bad.
Brachiator
Was this about the Montana woman, her boyfriend and the machete?
It reads like a tale of obsession that was going to escalate into a homicide.
Or maybe it was a different story.
Mnemosyne
@Cathie from Canada:
I think Adam was aiming for gallows humor, like cops at a homicide scene cracking jokes about the corpse, but it fell very flat.
Mary G
I said it was rape and didn’t want to be funny about it, but I wasn’t triggered and didn’t want to have it pulled. You are a mensch, Adam.
sukabi
@Brachiator: very same.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Yep, that one. Several people were guessing that she’s probably a crystal meth addict based on the known details of the crime.
ColoradoGuy
@Ruckus: Ruckus is right on the mark. The whole thing feels like a run-up to a full-blown Kristallnacht of unimaginable dimensions. What makes it more unsettling is the conscious knowledge that anyone with a functioning conscience are the targets of a psychological warfare campaign intended to demoralize and horrify.
I feel our primary task, right now, is taking care of our mental health. We are under attack by professionals, and some of the attackers are coming from a hostile nation with a century-long record of psychological intimidation and terror. The campaign is intended to disorient and demoralize, using the Internet and news media as the tool. Trump is using his skills as Troll-In-Chief to disorient the whole world, which is just fine for Putin’s operatives in St. Petersburg.
I strongly feel we need to stay grounded in reality. Their tool is fear, intimidation, and confusion, which obscures the fact we are in the majority, and WILL NOT accept dictatorship by a quasi-religious cult. Jeff Session’s fantasies of a return to the 1950’s notwithstanding, this country is not going to tolerate a return to the bad old days of legalized segregation, kicking women out of the workplace, and shoving LGBT’s back into the closet and the gay bars.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
RE: Yep, that one. Several people were guessing that she’s probably a crystal meth addict based on the known details of the crime.
Sounds like the Balloon Juice Irregulars were on the case.
If the woman is a drug user, I would hope that she gets treatment.
Adding to the potential for tragedy is that the woman is supposedly 19 years old, but had been “dating” the guy for 7 years.
Also scary is that in a previous incident, it was claimed that she bit the guy and tried to strangle him. I don’t think he could survive a third strike.
Dorothy Winsor
I appear to have missed something, which is ok by me. Ruckus is right about us being on edge already.
We are moving next week. We have not yet sold this house. My realtor lies to me. Oh well, my nym is sticking at least.
snuffcurry
Yes, the post was a joke*. That’s an explanation, not an apology. A man was raped and we got a Swipe Left joke about his “frisky” rapist ex-girlfriend, because, tee-hee, dating sites sometimes help violent rapists wielding a life-ending weapon meet their future victims, ho-ho. Sometimes, ha ha, you need more than condoms to protect you on a date, big lolz. Chortle, sometimes you even are raped in your own home, just minding your fucking business when your rapist breaks in, rolling on the floor while ass-less.
Thank you for removing it, but my mind is boggled at the commenters shrugging here.
*that Barstool fucking Sports made first, which should have been your first clue that this was not funny, just douchebaggery. The Florida Man genre of comedy is reserved for “kooky,” fairly benign news items, not a horrific rape; that the rapist is female and her mugshot defiant and creepy does not suddenly make this Stranger Than Fiction. And to reiterate, you fucking linked to Barstool Sports engaging in their usual bullshit of wishing THEY’D been the ones raped and calling the victim a “hero” because he “got laid.” Jesus.
zhena gogolia
@LynnDee:
Yes, man, am I curious.
Adam, I love all your contributions to this blog, both front-page and in the comments. You are a treasure.
Saurs
Also:
WHY? Why would you need to “lighten” a discussion about rape? What does “moralizing” have to do with anything? What is with the relativism? Are you suggesting that condemning this is an act of virtue-signalling or something?
I don’t get it. “Without moralizing” implies you’re adopting a centrist attitude to rape. Like, some people might have an opinion on it but you’re staying neutral. That can’t be what you’re trying to communicate because it just sounds insane.
If you wanted a light tone, choose a light topic, literally any topic under the sun. People are not harshing your buzz because they’d prefer an open thread that isn’t announced with the mugshot of a violent rapist and an accompanying tweet mocking her victim’s ordeal as a comedic situation he’s lucky to have been in.
Dorothy Winsor
@LynnDee: I know a LynnDee who’s a writer. Is it possible that’s you?
MLC
Thank you. This is the only time I have voiced concern about anything on this site. I read this site regularly and appreciate Adam’s insight and clear writing in complex issues.
Nelle
@Dorothy Winsor: Are you still in Iowa? We’re you hit by last night’s storms?
debbie
@Ruckus:
I didn’t have a problem with the post either.
ETA: Amir has it exactly right.
debbie
@Brachiator:
It put me in mind of Kathy Bates in Misery.
Lyrebird
@Mary G: I was glad to see your telling it so plainly, and I feel the same way. A dreadful story, and also evidence in Adam’s response that, as @Chetan Murthy said, he is a good den mother.
Plus, in case anyone is still reading, I will vent and second this from
@Mel:
…chalk up another one here – I haven’t started carrying my child’s paperwork yet, but I have been wondering if I should. No travel to TX, AZ, or I guess Maine can be in the works for us, I guess.
I could not have believed that my view of Sessions, Miller, etc could get any worse, but I was wrong!
ETA: I mean I despise them more for what they are doing to those children and mamas and papas at the border, not because of the much smaller inconvenience and distress we are going through.
Aimai
@Amir Khalid: the usual florida man/woman stories don’t involve sexual assault. Usually incompetence/incoherence/cars/alligators/robbery.
Its hard to make rape funny.
LAC
@Saurs: this is the best response i read here. I was getting discouraged by all the usual cheerleader hair flipping “omg,(Adam/john cole/insert author’s name) haters be hating, you are so funny” responses to another somewhat defensive “apology”. It is this echo chamber effect that can make this blog unwelcoming and man, right now, we could use a good space.
Dorothy Winsor
@Nelle: We’re in Iowa until Thursday. We got a ton of rain and my new sump pump failed. I am stressed out.
debbie
@Aimai:
Nor Washington, nor Wall Street, nor plenty of other things in this country. Adam’s post was more eye-rolling than fall-down funny and in no way mocked rape.
PST
I hate this kind of newspaper story. There is only one source, the affidavit of the police officer on the scene who accepted the man’s story 100 percent and rejected the woman’s as incoherent. Then scores of media sites around the world pick it up, never checking it out in any way, rewriting at times but adding nothing, because the story is just too perfect the way it is. It satisfies a hunger for the bizarre, in this case woman bites man rather than man bites dog, complete with a scary, angry photo. Who would risk a couple of phone calls that could kill such appealing click bait. Yet some of the details suggest that there is more to the story. I’m suspicious of the reported seven-year “relationship” with someone who is now 19, of an alleged victim who pauses to snap naked pictures on his way out the door, and of an alleged perpetrator who lies in bed and lets him leave. Her incoherence and incontinance could suggest to some a person who has been drugged, not someone whose side of the story should be dismissed out of hand. Obviously I don’t know what went on in that room, and maybe it came down just as the anonymous man described it to police, but I question the motives of a press that takes the story at face value and repeats it around the globe in multiple languages with no due diligence of any kind. The utter and irreversible humiliation of the alleged perpetrator, complete with photo, calls for a little more. To do this without the tiniest fraction of the care taken before exposing the misdeeds of powerful men strikes me as misogynistic.
A Ghost To Most
@LAC:
“It is this echo chamber effect that can make this blog unwelcoming and man, right now, we could use a good space.”
Good space, or safe space?
::ducks out::
Steeplejack
@PST:
Good post.
chopper
@Saurs:
yeah, this.
Nelle
@Dorothy Winsor: That sounds miserable, especially when you are trying to sell. My son in Drs Moines has chunks of blacktop on his driveway from the roads around flooding and the nearest HyVee flooded but his house is still dry. It sounded like they got 10 inches in two hours. Climate change means more severe storms.
JWL
“I [tried] to keep the topic light without moralizing”.
You must have forgot about the Texas Big Shot that torpedoed his own gubernatorial campaign when he publicly stated that while it was always a shame, rape victims might as well relax and enjoy the experience. He tried to keep it light, too. Didn’t work for him, either.
chopper
@eemom:
yeah, when i read the “swipe left!” bit i thought it sounded like a “joke” from mike huckabee.
J R in WV
Well, Google, showed me the NY Post story, picked up from some western rag.
@PST: This is an interesting interpretation of the events… She doesn’t look like the tweakers I’ve met in my life, who usually look decades older than they really are.
eemom, I’ve pied her, but I still use the little bug to interpret the actual posts sometimes, I don’t know… just shrill about stuff she doesn’t really understand? Probably not a real Russo-Troll, not from a recipe of the day. I dunno… better not to engage while enrage..
I didn’t think the actual events of Montana Woman were funny, and like PST I suspect there is far more to the story than the guy’s side of it. Hoping a good lawyer helps her out. Obviously if she has been girlfiend of the guy since she was 12 there’s room for an indictment there for illegal contact with a minor.
I can also see how Alan would use this to hook a piece about odd violence. Sorry I missed it.
My nym etc is gone…
A Ghost To Most
Is a front pager considering a post on the shenanigans yesterday in Portland? Things got out of hand there.
Julia Grey
@M4:
WHY is the current Japanese culture so saturated with this kind of only semi-ironic childishness? See also, grown women in pigtails dressing like Catholic schoolgirls.
It’s…creepy.
Wild Cat
@hervevillechaizelounge: huffpo was co-founded by Dead Breitbart.
Ruckus
@Mel:
Yes.
This is the kind of reaction that drumpf and his kind wouldn’t even consider. (Of course he never considers anything that doesn’t affect him personally but still)
There are a lot of people that still don’t realize how much chaos that drumpf has caused by just being himself. This dipshit has been causing chaos his entire life. But now of course he has the ability to spread that far and wide, and because his seemingly only ability in life is to spread chaos, hate and destruction……
Aleta
@OzarkHillbilly: Studying it and talking to others about what he learns is part of his job as he describes it. ‘Liking to study’ isn’t a putdown, it’s what interested people do. Teachers (fortunate ones) get paid to keep learning their subject.
The Pale Sc.......
@Mnemosyne: Not everyone can be Lennie Briscoe
Did I ever mention that Jerry Orbach is my Gary Cooper?
Seanly
I took Adam’s post of the woman in Montana the same as I take Betty’s posts about Florida men or women. That said though sexual violence isn’t an appropriate topic for humor, so I commend Adam for just pulling the post. I’m afraid to talk about how Mel Brooks making fun of Nazis as an ideology and as individuals is different than making light of an act between 2 people – just figure whatever I say won’t be right for someone, but there is a difference to me.
Adam, please don’t let this deter you from future posts. I appreciate your well-informed insights.
The Pale Scot
@Aimai: We just keep those stories to ourselves, tourist industry and all that.
Fair Economist
@hervevillechaizelounge: I don’t think HuffPo is a ratfucking organization but they look for writers who work for free and edit lightly and that attracts ratfuckers.
Ruckus
@Dorothy Winsor:
When I left OH I of course put my house up for sale. I left the day it went on the market, in fact the realtor showed the house as I drove off. Houses in the neighborhood had been selling within 2 weeks of going on the market. Now here is the part you won’t like.
It took a year to sell my house. I was on the leading edge, time wise, of the great (or shitty, depending on your point of view) recession. The market had been flooded with new builds (This of course was part of the reason for the great recession in the first place), at low pricing, so depressed the market there badly. A new subdivision, built in a cornfield, had just come on market, less than 1/2 mile away. Had I tried to sell a month or two earlier I probably would have done OK.
I was going to delete rather than comment with this but I saw your second comment about your sump pump and had to relate. After I moved my realtor was pretty good and watched the house. Of course I had replaced the sump pump just before I left but wouldn’t you know, the damn thing was crap and about 2 months later we had to call a plumber and replace it a second time. The realtor took the bad new one back to HD and got my money back!
I’m hoping that you have better luck than I did. I’m hoping that everyone has better luck than I do.
Fair Economist
I agree with the people who have pointed out the is probably more to the story here than the *alleged* rape victim’s version and the full story is probably even more grim with less material for humor.
ChrisGrrr
@Adam L Silverman: I trust you.
Ruckus
@Fair Economist:
I don’t think it was ever a real left leaning place. Arianna just doesn’t seem to have that direction. And while it has grown from it’s start, and does cover some stories in a different light than the hard right, it just never seemed to me to be on our side. It’s an online “news” outlet that seems to want to titillate rather than inform the truth. It’s supposed to make money for her and nothing more.
Wild Cat
@Fair Economist: They also treated Trump’s campaign as “entertainment.” They’re’ at best, stupid as shit
Jacel
@efgoldman: “Fuck repeatedly”? In my younger years, perhaps.
Shalimar
@eemom: I have no idea how he would get a negative attitude from someone “calling out” his work. How wonderfully constructive of you, as always.
Brachiator
@Wild Cat:
RE: They also treated Trump’s campaign as “entertainment.”
There was a lot of that. Even from people here.