Contemplating Motherhood

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Parenting and Being the Weird Kid

I watched the video below and I found myself thinking about how I was the weird kid growing up, how that shaped me, and what is and isn't considered a bad way of being weird. 

I saw the first tiktok that Brittany talks about prior to her covering it so I came up with my own conclusions. I watched the video out of curiosity on how her take may compare to mine and I think this is one of those instances where we have arrived in the same conclusion. 

Brittany talks about the difference between being Ethical and Unethical weirdos. And I remember making this distinction as a kid as well but with different terminology. I differentiated the weird kids as the cool weird kids vs the WEIRD weird kids. So the Ethical Weirdos (or in my case the cool weird kids) are the kids that might be neurodivergent, have unconventional tastes and interests, or might be gay  or perhaps part of a culture or demographic that isn't as common in that particular setting. But generally speaking, even if these kids are a little odd, they typically have basic socialization skills to find like minded weirdos and not be in the second category of the Unethical Weirdos. The Unethical Weirdos (or in my 13 year old's terminology, the WEIRD weird kid) are the kids that are deemed weird because they legit have social problems. These are the neckbeards, the incels, the school shooter types, the people who instigate problems with everyone, the people who don't understand boundaries and sexually assaults other kids etc. The lady in the Tiktok said something along the lines of how as a parent, it isn't just your job to love your kid unconditionally but you need to make sure that you correct problematic behavior so they aren't the weird kid who struggles to make ANY friends because of how poorly socialized they are. Now, what this lady means by weird and what she means by fitting in can be up to interpretation, especially since judging by her content she seems conservative leaning, but I think there is a lot of truth to what she's saying if we draw the distinction between the ethical weird kids vs the unethical weird kids who are the product of poor parenting and socialization. 

 I think growing up, especially in elementary school, I was generally an ethical weird kid but there were some unethical elements there as well as elements that came from not so great parenting. And I want to explore that a little bit throughout the years. 

Elementary School: I went to a Christian private school in Texas. This is very important context because I think the setting alone made me stand out as a weird kid even before I did anything odd. 

• I was the only South Asian kid in the school: Most of the kids didn't have any exposure to South Asian people from the area of Dallas I was from and I think while I didn't encounter a lot of overt racism, a lot of it was just them not knowing how to deal with that information because they were like 8. I had a number of kids who asked me which tribe I was from when they heard I was Indian. Some kids thought I was Mexican but the Mexican kids didn't know where to place me. I remember I wore something cultural for Halloween and told people I was a princess and they said I was a weird princess because I didn't wear one of the specific Disney Princess costumes (not because they thought there was something wrong with my dress or that it was ugly). My mom used to put oil in my hair and when I told that to the other kids, they said I was gross and smelly even though I washed out the oil in the shower after leaving it on for a couple hours. So far, this isn't anything hateful, just kids being uninformed. But the hateful stuff came from how religious this school was. My parents sent me here for the education and didn't put any thought into the way they expressed Christianity here. I was one of the few non Christian kids and I would hear about people talking about how non believers would go to hell. I remember seeing an Atheist kid getting bullied and thinking that I cannot express that I'm not Christian let alone Hindu here. And I was also pretty lost when it came to Bible study and church ettiquitte because I was just not exposed to any of that stuff at home. Like I remember one time I asked what you would wear to church and the whole class looked at me like I was stupid. So yeah, I think in these situations, I was labeled as the weird kid but it wasn't because of anything that I was doing wrong. And you know what, when I was in social situations with mostly other South Asian kids, I didn't socially struggle nearly as much because people didn't have the initial reaction of categorizing me as weird. 
• My Parents Were Over Protective: I remember kids going to summer camp and never being able to relate to any of that stuff. I remember begging my mom to let me go to camp and she would freak out on me. I remember not being allowed to go to sleepovers or any playdates because my mom especially didn't trust any parents that weren't also South Asian so that stunted my ability to make friends outside of school. I remember sleeping in my parents' bedroom every night because that's pretty common in South Asian culture rather than having your own individual room. I remember my mom would insist on doing everything for me, from helping me shower at age 6 because she thought I couldn't take a proper shower by myself, picking out all of my clothes to where I had no choice on what to wear, to literally spoonfeeding me because she thought that I would make a mess. And I remember pushing back against all of that because it felt ridiculous and like a hit to my sense of independence and sense of confidence. Also, the kids making fun of me at school when I revealed little things about my home life like how my mom wouldn't let me watch Harry Potter (not because it was Satanic but because she thought it would give me nightmares) didn't help.  I realize I'm mainly talking about my mom in these situations but my dad, though not actively overprotective, would basically stand by her and watched this happen. 
  • I think some of the stuff is cultural differences where we see parents doing everything for their kid as an expression of love rather than a way to stifle their sense of independence. You see the same dynamic when it comes to dealing with elders as well. And I think this is a product of collectivistic culture where interdependence is emphasized more than independence compared to more individualistic cultures. But I think that both parenting styles can be taken to the extreme to where it's unethical and negligent. On the individualistic side, things can get negligent when you expect your kid to be self-sufficient before that's developmentally appropriate. On the collectivistic side, things can get negligent where you do everything for your kid to where they don't learn the proper skills they need in order to be a functioning person. Like I don't think that helping your kid shower to where you teach them proper washing techniques into the age of 6 or 7, though a little late imo , is the worst thing in the world (but I have an American cultural bias). But that dips into the negligence and as a result unethical territory when you're doing this to a 10 or 11 year old. 
  • Speaking of cultural differences, while playdates are a thing, South Asian people don't really do sleepovers. So the idea of just dropping your kid off at a strangers house freaked my parents out. And I think there is an added layer of uncertainty because you're in an environment where the people don't share the same background as you and you don't know what is and isn't normal. Later on, after like the age of 10, I was allowed to do sleepovers with other South Asian kids where my parents knew the other parents well. And now that I'm older, I can kind of get why my parents were like this both from a immigrant parents perspective but also a safety perspective. The safety perspective is that if you are dropping your kid off at an unknown adult's place, you never know what they could be exposed to and unfortunately, it's not a unique experience that some people get sexually assaulted in these situations. And in my opinion, I'm not judging the parents for being hesitant in these situations, but I do think there is a better way to handle these things. I remember being frustrated about not being able to go over to people's house after school or spend the night because it felt like I couldn't develop relationships outside of school, that I was being isolated from my peers, and I got this reputation of being the weird kid with the over protective parents. And I think rather than having a strict rule about not being able to go anywhere, it's better to talk to the parents for a little bit to get a general vibe and also communicate with your kids on healthy boundaries and sex ed (i.e. no one should be touching certain parts of your body and if anything like that happens, tell your parents  even if someone threatens to harm you if you tell and you're scared). I think that's a much more ethical way to go about dealing with situations like this because you're not isolating your kid, you're teaching them discernment and boundaries, and you're allowing them to learn through experience and exposure. 
    • And speaking of having conversations around boundaries and sex, another reason why I was labeled as weird is because I didn't have any conversations around sex. I was labeled as the weird innocent kid because sometimes I didn't know when something was an innuendo or something sounded wrong. Thankfully I never assaulted a kid or did anything sexually weird. I do remember some kids saying things like *you're not allowed to touch me, that's inappropriate*. I didn't do anything super weird but I remember not really understanding that and why touching might be inappropriate. In those situations, my brain just went to *I'm just going to continue poking this kid on the arm to annoy them* because I had an age appropriate sense of naivity to a certain extent. Which is why, when kids describe a sexual assault, there is a very high chance they are telling the truth because kids don't just make up things like that and it doesn't naturally occur in their brain unless they got exposed to something. 
      • So in other words, while I wasn't a weird kid unethically due to the choices and actions I took in these types of situations, I think there is an element of things being unethical or just poorly handled due to a misunderstanding of cultural queues on behalf of how my parents decided to parent. 
• Not understanding boundaries or conflict resolution: This is an area that I think I was unethically a weird kid when I was in elementary school. I think I was labelled as annoying partially because I didn't understand boundaries (going back to the arm poking example). I also didn't understand when or how to stand up for myself (instead my parents told be that if I got picked on to tell the teacher but that made it worse because then I was a tattle tell). So to other kids, I kind of became a doormat at one point. While other times, rather than standing up for myself, I would find myself lashing out over little things and crying easily because of issues at home, which would result in some kids not really wanting to be around me. 
• Unconventional Interests: So here I think there is an ethical and unethical component. I think there were situations where I just had unconventional interests that were harmless and fine but the kids were just unnecessarily mean to me. I liked Pokemon and people thought that was weird since anime wasn't as much of a thing at the Christian private school. I liked the Powerpuff girls and kids thought I was childish for that (which doesn't make sense since we're all like 8 lol). I also liked more tomboyish things despite being a girl and kids thought I was weird for that. But the part that I think dips into unethical category is how I had this *I'm not like other girls* attitude where I thought I was better than other girls for not having girly interests. I think part of this was people picking on me for being a weird kid (so I was trying to reclaim it), part of it was internalized misogyny because of various cultural factors, and part of it was my own mother who modeled this attitude as well. But yeah, I think that I was pretty insufferable at times and I don't blame people for thinking I'm annoying. 

Middle School: I went over to a different private Christian school except in this place, the student body was more diverse and wasn't particularly religious. As a result, I didn't get the same degree of people having the knee jerk reaction that I was weird. That made me socially mixing up with other kids so much easier. Plus, none of the kids knew me so it was kind of like a fresh start. 

• I was considered weird because of my unconventional interests. I was still insufferable but not so much to where I struggled to make friends. It didn't socially handicap me. I had my own group of friends and I remember as a result being considered one of the "cool weird kids" instead of the "WEIRD weird" kids. This was around the time I was really getting into anime, fanfiction, various fandomsm, Tumblr culture etc. I do think that I would have benefitted from some more guidance and parental involvement in this area. My parents weren't involved because they're boomers and didn't really know the ins and outs of internet culture or the bullshit that was out there. Thankfully, I didn't get groomed by a predator in Omegle or fall down an alt right pipeline. But I did unfortunately discover pro-ana tumblr and I think that gave me permanent brainrot. 
• Overprotective Tendencies and Mental Health Issues: I still didn't do a good job in nurturing my friendships outside of school because of my parents over protective tendencies. I don't think that contributed to people thinking I'm weird but it did stunt me a little socially and made it difficult to open up to people to develop deeper connections. I was also dealing with things like anxiety, depression, an eating disorder, and social anxiety. But it didn't cross into the unethical territory where I was harming people around me as a result. A little cringy, emo, and awkward sure. Did people think I was weird as a result, sure. But I wasn't incel level dangerous and it didn't socially handicap me so badly to where I had no peer relationships. 
• I was considered ugly: Part of it was racism. I had a South Asian guy I like talk shit behind my back and say that he "only dates white girls because brown girls are all ugly." Part of it was my mom not letting me do things like shave, pluck my eyebrows to where I didn't have a unibrow, wear makeup, and just really discourage anything that involved having an interest in my physical appearance. She was afraid that it was going to make me vain and distract me from school. And I'm glad that I was forced to develop a sense of confidence outside of my looks. But at the same time, I would have handled this differently. I liked how the video did talk about ensuring your kids fit in and that sometimes it means buying them the cool clothes, makeup etc. Peer acceptance is important at that age and while I understand wanting to teach you kid to rise above that, I think it's also important to meet them where they're at. Like we can discuss Eurocentric beauty standards and why women are expected to be hairless later on. Let's just do your eyebrows at age 11 when you're getting a unibrow so that you don't have to deal with the headache of the kids at school bullying you. It's a very quick fix lol. Genuinely, I think the eyebrows alone (and maybe a small amount of makeup) would have saved me the trauma of kids picking on me for my appearance.  At the same time, I can understand telling your kid no sometimes when they try to fit in if they're asking for something unreasonable like a designer bag that costs a thousand dollars or hell, when they ask you to buy like 10 Stanley cups. In those situations, you need to have a bigger conversation with them regarding consumerism and status symbols and point out that the kids hyperfixating on this to where they are picking on other kids is them being losers. 
  • And I also think that taking care of your appearance and paying attention to fashion to a certain extent is also about learning social queues. I'm not saying you gotta wake up at 5 am at age 14 and serve looks every day. But I don't think that having an interest in doing things to improve your appearance should be discouraged unless it's getting to a point where it's harming your mental health and your ability to keep up with your grades. Like I wish I had the mom who didn't yell at me for straightening / curling my hair, who actually taught me how to do my makeup without looking crazy, and who didn't think I was superficial for not wanting to wear certain types of clothes that honestly made me look weird. I was also a little chubby and when I wasn't in my school uniform, this lady basically made me dress business casual and like a mini- middle aged woman who might be a part of a Christian cult because she thought that the clothes that other teenagers were wearing either didn't flatter me or she thought that it made me look like a whore. And yeah, that made me look weird to other kids because me dressing like a middle aged woman socially made me look strange. 
• What / Who I Considered "WEIRD weird" (aka unethically weird): People definitely called me weird in middle school but the majority of people who called me weird didn't do it in a bullying way and more of a "she just has unconventional interests but she's like cool weird." The only people who bullied me for being weird was this group of judgemental teenage girls and a small group of teenage boys who thought I was ugly (which is only really a total of 6-10 people out of like the 75ish people in my private middle school).  But there were people who the vast majority of the school thought was weird in the not so great way.
  • One girl, we'll call her Leah, was one of the stereotypical horse girls. But the problem wasn't that she liked horses. That's not what made people hate her initially. The problem was the way that she would be possessive over her friends and get jealous when they wanted to branch out socially outside her, the way that she was casually racist, and the way that she would blow up at people and instigate conflict. Her dad also worked at the school and she would try to use that to her advantage to get people she didn't like in trouble. She also would cuss out and yell at her parents which made her look like a brat. She was also a bit overweight, probably had the tism, and was questioning her sexuality. While I wouldn't say that those 3 things were the reasons why she was hated and considered weird, I would say that those 3 things were very low hanging fruit to bully her for people who didn't like her for legitimate reasons. And I think that we (myself included at times) were very wrong for that. I get that I was literally 12, but if I could go back, I would tell myself that just because you don't like someone, that doesn't give you a free pass to behave unethically towards them.  It got bad to where she had to leave school and be homeschooled for like a year to get away from that environment. I think looking back as an adult, I don't hate this girl. I think she was neurodivergent and her parents didn't know how to handle that and as a result, at times they were too soft on her / didn't address her behavior AND she doubled down on her negative tendencies when other kids would react to her initial actions. The reason why she was possessive towards the new kids was because it was like a fresh start for her to bond with kids who didn't know her reputation. On one hand, you could say that was manipulative. But on the other hand, I do think it's a response to being bullied from before and trying to grasp at connection. But then, that sense of possessiveness became a self fulfilling prophecy that pushed those same people away. 
  • There was this other boy, we'll call Chase, who was considered weird because he was creepy towards a lot of girls. Like I'm talking violating consent and getting handsy, staring at people, and talking about people in weird sexual ways. I also have a distinct memory of this one time when he was like 10 when he bit someone so hard he drew blood. Even once he got to middle school, he had some violent tendencies.  I remember that we got a talk from the adults about how we shouldn't exclude people or bully them (low key it was about this guy since he was always being left out) and I remember having the biggest eye roll because there was a legitimate reason why we thought this kid was weird and why no one wanted to talk to him. But we were labeled as being immature kids who were bullying him. Anyways, years later I found out that he raped a girl in college and got kicked out and his parents are in denial about the whole thing. 
  • There was also another guy who was in my friend group (sort of because I eventually distanced myself from this group because they were toxic) who was considered the weird kid and the butt of the joke. He was also kind of chubby and not considered the best looking (and we shouldn't have made fun of him for that). He also had violent tendencies and was creepy towards girls because of how desparate he was (think where my hug at but on steroids). Despite working and having a glow up, he was still really insecure and creepy. He also stalked one of my friends and in high school, would make a bunch of weird sexual comments / advances despite my friend shutting him down multiple times. I also heard that in college that he drugged and raped a girl and that he was part of one of those frats that were notorious of date rape. 

Highschool: I changed schools once again and this time, I went to the nerdy public school where you could get an associates degree from a community college at the same time you graduated high school. As a result of that and where I'm at in Texas, let's just say that my school was filled with black gay nerds who were politically involved. 

• I wasn't labeled as weird in this environment. I think we were all a bit weird to where no one was considered weird regarding things like race, sexuality, gender expression, or unconventional interests. I remember overhearing a conversation where even the vice principal was joking on how our highschool was like the island of misfit toys compared to the regular highschool in our district.
• I wouldn't say I socially thrived here either (or was considered "cool") because I had other mental health stuff going on at home to where I wasn't particularly social/ was shy and socially anxious. I didn't really find "my people" here, and I just didn't always mesh in terms of values an world views. I also had a lot of shit going on at home that made it difficult for me to open up and develop deeper relationships, or feel safe/ mentally stable enough to pursue romantic connections. I didn't have any actual adults guiding me through the grief process of losing a loved one which led me to get really isolated from my friends at the time. I had a year or so where I didn't really have friends, but it never got so bad to where I was ostracized by my peers and considered weird. 
• There were a few unethically weird people here and I think they all fall into the neckbeard/ potential school shooter category. 

College: I went to college in a conservative, predominantly white and wealthy college. This was also during the pandemic. 

• I felt like I was most judged for being weird in this environment. Bro, this was worse than how weird I was considered in elementary school and how traumatizing middle school can be. I was also just surrounded by questionable characters who might have been considered "normal" by larger societal standards (again, rich, white, conventionally attractive, relatively social) but they just moved unethically. I felt incredibly isolated at this time and COVID made things sooo much worse. It's not like I experienced bullying, people being rude, or people blatantly disrespecting me, but I did feel ostracized and like I didn't belong AT ALL. And honestly, most regular people I went to college with or people who visited me from outside of campus recognized how strange this environment was. Genuinely, I felt like the weirdest person there and after I graduated and I was around regular people, I realized how much of a social experiment my college experience felt like. 

Worklife: I'm mainly around normies here. But I think a lot of normies can get into strange territory when they start believing in dumb shit like conspiracy theories or when people are just politically incoherent and/or apathetic. 

• I don't think anyone considers me weird in the workplace but I do feel out of place at times. I definitely don't think that I can be my full self at work. Here are some factors: 
  • COVID socially stunting me mixed with a little social anxiety + a touch of the tism. >> basically mental health
  • My leftist/ socially involved tendencies where I'm like thinking deeply about every little thing and I'm clocking in with an existential crisis like 90% of the time.
  • And the last part is how I don't really care about traditional motivators like saving for a house, making more money, and building my life around a romantic partner and kids. 

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Why Hitting Children is Wrong 

I have a lot of thoughts and I want to write it out to fully process it. It kinda shocks me that so many people in 2026 still spank and smack their kids given the amount of research there is that talks about the harms of hitting kids. Anyways, I'm going to list out all the reasons why I think hitting kids is fucked up in no particular order.

1. It teaches kids that people who love them will hit them or that hitting people is an acceptable way of showing love: This is a receipe for normalizing abusive behavior to where the kid will grow up and either get into abusive relationships because they think it's normal and legit way of someone showing that they care about them OR the kid will grow up to abuse others because they think it's a normal and legit way to treat someone they care about. Basically, it primes kids to either be victims of abuse or become abusers themselves.
2. It teaches bad conflict resolution skills: Children learn more from watching people rather than being lectured to so the fact that you, the adult/ parent is hitting them, it teaches them that they should also hit other people and that it's a legit way of expressing themselves. If you want the kid to be calm and learn to express themselves using their words, then it needs to start with you as the adult being calm and expressing yourself with your words even when disciplining your kid. 
3. It desensitizes the kid to where normal communication becomes less effective: If you get into the habit of yelling at your kid, unless you correct something, at some point the only way they will listen is when you yell at them because you basically taught them that unless you're yelling that you're not serious with what you're saying. And I think hitting your kids can have a similar effect to where if you get into the habit of hitting your kid, hitting is going to be the only way they will respond to anything and normal discipline won't work on them anymore. That's why parents who start off with hitting their kids or adopting a more authoritarian way of parenting struggle with transitioning into gentle/authoritative parenting versus if they were already gentle/authoritative from the first place. As a result of the damages of their initial bad parenting, they think that if they were to be gentle, their kids will walk all over them and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. It's hard being a good parent but it's even harder to correct bad parenting. 
4. It teaches them that if they want someone to do something, they need to be domineering towards them: Similar to reason number one and how hitting your kid primes them to be abusers themselves, parents often hit their kids because they think that hitting them will get the kid to do what they want the kid to do out of fear and pain. Then, the kid also learns that if another person isn't doing what they want, the way to manipulate them is to assert their power by scaring them or hurting them. That's why a lot of kids end up bullying other kids (physically or even emotionally). They first learn it from their household that teaches them that it's okay to hurt people to get them to do what you want. 
5. It teaches kids to not trust their parents: When you're hitting a kid, you're not teaching them good and bad behavior by explaining how things work, you're just teaching them fear. Like say you hit a kid because they cheated on a test. In that situation, you're not teaching them WHY cheating on a test is wrong and the morals around that. It teaches them *hey, if you want to avoid getting hit, you can't cheat on a test.* And sure, in both instances the kid decides not to cheat anymore. But in the second situation, you're not nurturing your kid's moral development and you're also inflicting fear and trauma as a by product. And that can in turn damage your future relationship with your kid. Then, the kid learns that if they make a mistake, instead of being guided on how to handle this situation, you're going to hurt them, berate them, and overall freak them out even more. And that becomes a breeding ground for all types of issues and hiding things once they get older and into their teen years. 
6. It makes them more likely to develop anxiety and depression: It goes without saying getting hit is scary. The kid is also more likely to feel depressed because of the isolation, lack of trust, and disconnection this breeds with the most important relationships they have in their life. It also makes them more scared of confrontation, constructive criticism, and uncomfortable conversations because they associate those very normal aspects of life and relationships as either a direct attack on them or a situation where they are going to be abused. And this also goes back to reason 2 and 3 where the kid has worse communication skills and worse conflict resolution skiills as they get older. 
7. It futher reinforces colonial/ racist systems: I don't think it's a coincidence that POC families and Black families in particular are more likely to hit their kids. I think it's a mentality of *it's better if I as the parent hit my kids and keep them in line versus having the kid be harmed by the police or by the forces that be in the future.* It's also an extention of the normalization of violence through things like slavery and colonization. Like you're further reinforcing the violence of young black and brown bodies when you hit your kid. It's a form of generational trauma. 
8. It reinforces the already massive power dynamic between adult and child: I'm going to talk about this more in another post but using your power as an adult, as the party with more tools, life experiences, and ability to regulate, to hit a child is fucked up. As an adult, you should know better and be able to handle that situation better than to hit a kid. The adult has a multitude of more responsibility to act in a reasonable way when they are in a position of authority over a kid. Plus, let's be real, most adults that hit kids would never hit another adult. Most of the time, they stop hitting their kid once the kid is big enough to defend themselves (and then, how do you communicate/ discipline your kid, it goes back to reason #2). So tell me why it's alright to hit a kid who is physically smaller than you, has less life experience then you, and is much more vulnerable than an adult, but it's fucked up to hit an adult? The double standard simply doesn't make sense. 
9. It can be as bad for the kid neurologically as being sexually assaulted: There is new evidence that has reported that the neurological affects of spanking can be similar to sexual assault. I'm just going to leave this section with a link and a quote from Harvard: 

   Quote

   "spanking elicits a similar response in children’s brains to more threatening experiences like sexual abuse. “You see the same reactions in the brain,” Cuartas explains. “Those consequences potentially affect the brain in areas often engaged in emotional regulation and threat detection, so"

    https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/21/04/effect-spanking-brain
10. It stunts their ability to learn how to process/ communicate their emotions (especially things like anger) and calm down: Kids learn by watching the adults around them. So if the adults around them fly off the handle, lash out, and hit people, the kid is not going to know how to handle emotions like anger, fear, or sadness within themselves. As the adult, you need to model self regulation and emotional processing, and hitting your kid is the opposite of that. If the kid is freaking out, you need to be the stable and calm one grounding them. Even if they're pissing you off, you cannot feed into that and add more chaos to the mix. Sure, there will be times when you lose your temper. And in those times, you need to walk away, calm down, give the kid a sincere apology, and then continue disciplining your kid. But I believe that if you lose your temper so badly to where you hit a child, that's something you need to address before becoming a parent. 

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Some Interesting Videos I Have Watched Recently

 

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Children as Property 

I have been educating myself on parenting and I have come across the concept of childism and how children are a marginalized group in society. I know one way that women and people of color deal with when it comes to discrimination is being infantilized. Or in other words, being treated like a child. And don't get me wrong, I do think it's a legitimate form of dehumanization, but then I asked myself, what does it say about how we treat children if being treated like a child is a bad thing?

I started reading about childism and a lot of bad parenting or fucked up reasons to have kids can factor into childism or childist thoughts. The one that I want to talk about today is this notion of treating children as property. Other marginalized groups like women and people of color have been thought of as property quite literally throughout history. And I think there is a subset of people who literally see their child as property, but I think there are more people that subconsciously see children as property and have adjacent thoughts about it.

1. People who see their children as an extension of themselves: These kids aren't allowed to be their own person or a human being. I feel like a chunk of people that say they're having a kid because they want a "mini me" falls into this category. The kid's successes are their parents’ successes. Their failures are their parents’ failures. The parents can also take things waay too personally to where any feedback on the child's actions can cause them to feel attacked as parents or they're overly concerned with their family's reputation. 

They also start treating the kid badly the moment the kid wants to do their own thing by expressing their independence or self-expression. This can range from being upset when their child decides to get a haircut, they don't like all the way to their child deciding they don't want to go to Harvard med school (enter the Disney Channel trope of *I'm not giving up on my dream. I'm giving up on YOURS. *)

It can also look like an inability to accept your kid having a different opinion than you, an inability to accept your kid being gay, or having a VERY specific idea of what you want your child to turn out as. I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting to instill certain values to your kid to where you would be concerned if they came out with a concerning world view (i.e. raising your kid in an accepting home but for whatever reason they get poisoned by Andrew Tate and the manosophere), or you are disappointed with how unempathetic your kid came out. But, depending on what your expectation of the kid is, it some instances, it can take an objectifying turn.

Hell, there are some parents who have very strict expectations of what they want their kids to look like beyond the kids' stylistic choices of hair, makeup, and clothes. Of the top of my head, I think of the weirdos who fetishize having mixed babies, the weirdos who take out their body image issues on their kids, the weird short women who have a complex around being small so they mate with a man who is 6'5" and 250 lbs and then they're shocked that their daughter isn't as petite as them, or the weirdos who are protective over their kid's blond hair because they're closeted white supremacist. I have met people like this and those are the examples I can think of off the top of my head. 

There are many examples of how this can turn out which I think will show up in the following points. 
 

2. People who see their kid as a retirement plan: I feel like this is common in immigrant family circles or people who grew up poor. And I think it often leads to those kids becoming impoverished themselves when they're older because they have so many other people to take care of to the point where they cannot build their own savings. And don't get me wrong, I don't think there is anything wrong with adult children who decide to help out their families. But I do think it should be their choice rather than an expectation. I also think that the subset of parents who see their kid as a potential retirement plan often tends to either push the kids too hard growing up to the point where they leave some kind of overachieving trauma, OR they had bad financial planning going into having children from the first place. 

I'm not trying to drag people who are in a lower socioeconomic status. I realize that there are also situations where people did financially prepare for parenthood but then for whatever reason their families ended up poor anyway. But there are also a lot of people who either neglect financial planning, have babies by accident, or they raise these kids when they themselves were already personally struggling. And then these people will look at you and say *well there is no perfect time to be a parent. * And yeah, I agree, there is no perfect time to become a parent since parenthood can be incredibly inconvenient. It's not good to become a parent in your 20s because you're still figuring out your life. It's not good to have a kid in your 30s because you may have additional responsibilities with your family or a career. It's not a good idea to have a kid in your 40s and beyond due to health reasons or because of a lack of energy. But there are definitely better and worse times to have a kid and my thing is, why tf would you have a kid in a bad situation when parenthood is already hard enough as it is? Why would you make parenthood harder than it needs to be by bringing a baby into a struggling situation?

Sure, I'm talking about the financial responsibilities before you have a kid. But I think that also extends into taking financial responsibilities as you parent as well. Like I don't think it's good to burden your adult child if you didn't prepare for retirement and you didn't put anything into a 401k or a Roth IRA. I don't think it's a good idea to not save money in case of medical issues. And sure, it's good to have enough money to ensure that you can cover the expenses of having a baby and feeding, clothing, and providing shelter for the next 18 years. But I think that's the bare minimum and it isn't enough. If you can do that but the margins are so thin to where you cannot plan for saving for the kid's college, you can't plan for your own retirement, or accommodate other emergencies, then having kids might not be financially viable for you. 
 

3. People who see their kid as their legacy: Like sir, you are not in Succession or an episode of The Crown. You are a regular, everyday civilian... act like it. No but for real, I think this also ties back to seeing your kid as an extension of you. I feel like it be the bummiest of people who talk about their kids being their legacy because they didn't build anything other than a family and the only time, they heard the word "congratulations" in their life was when they got pregnant. There are so many examples of people that I can think of who have a legacy, but they don't have a kid OR they have kids, but no one knows who those kids are / they don't think of their kids. The best example I can think of is Dolly Parton. 

And I think this goes along with the notion of kids bringing you fulfillment. Don't get me wrong, I can see how being a parent can be a fulfilling endeavor, but I don't think it should be the only form of fulfillment in someone’s life or even the biggest. And I think a lot of parents have trouble wrapping their head around that concept to where they look at you crazy when you say you don't want to have a kid. 

Then there is the whole thing about again, how the kid is their own person. Upbringing does matter a lot, but your kid isn't going to be a carbon copy of your opinions, morals, and lifestyle. So as a result, I don't think your kid can really be your legacy because of how much variability there is solely in how they can be their own person. 
 

4. Some people have a kid because they want to "mold a life": I wrote about this before. It's weird and kind of controlling. I think it makes more sense and seems healthier to want to guide someone as opposed to going into the experience with the intention to mold. Again, this isn't everyone but I feel like there are a lot of narcissists that insist on having kids (and a lot of them) because they like the idea of molding someone into their own image and also having absolute control over a baby that has no agency and has to depend on you for everything.  People love to call child free people selfish, but a lot of selfish people are parents too and once they become parents, they don't magically turn selfless. Instead, their selfishness is then extended on to their kids to where they don't give a fuck about other people's kids so long as their kids is taken care of. 
 

5.The whole concept of "having a kid" instead of "being a parent": I noticed as I was writing in my journal that everyone loves to ask, "do you want to have kids" instead of asking "do you want to be a parent." And I think on a societal level, that is very telling and this is what inspired me to write entry in the first place. There is more of an emphasis on acquiring a kid like they are an object as opposed to whether or not someone wants parenthood as a role or lifestyle choice. And ever since I had this realization, I have been monitoring my language in this journal but also in my real life when this subject comes up. 

There are lot of people who want to have kids, but they don't care about being a parent. They want a cute little baby or an adorable toddler, but they don't care to read to that child every night. They don't want to pick them up and drop them off from school every day. They don't sit down with the kid as they do homework. They don't care to fulfill the responsibilities of parenthood and the way that parenthood structures their lives is incompatible with the kind of life they want to build for themselves. Because at the end of the day, they saw the kid as a cute little accessory to have an image of a perfect life, or they saw having a kid as a box to check off rather than a role and set of responsibilities they are signing up for a lifetime.  

And I think for me personally, I have always tried to frame it as "do I want to be a parent?" instead of "do I want to have a kid?" as I'm introspecting my desires around parenthood and what it actually takes to be a good parent. And even on a biological level, I never had the desire to get pregnant. I'm fine if my life turns out in such a way to where even if I don't have my own biological parent, I end up being a stepparent or a foster parent, or hell, just any trusted adult in a child's life.
 

6. Then there are the creeps who have a kid and sexually abuse them: This is pretty dark and I wouldn't say it's as common as the previous reasons I have listed. But I think any sexual exploitation fundamentally comes down to people not seeing the other person as human due to objectification to where they violate their consent, their bodily autonomy/ safety, and their overall wellbeing. And I think children fall into this as well because you're literally objectifying them. That same objectification routes back into seeing children not as their own person but as property. 
 

7. There are also the weirdos that don't understand the concept of privacy when it comes to their own kids: This can range from sharing the child's personal information like a jokey joke to their friends and family, taking the door off their kid's bedroom because *it's my house, my rules*, reading your kid's diary, or being weird about them keeping secrets in general. I think there is some grey area here and there to where if you think your kid is doing something questionable and you need to get more information (i.e. you found out your kid is doing drugs and you tried to have a conversation about it but haven't been able to get information, you're going through your kid's phone to monitor their internet usage regarding what content they are consuming, or your kid is keeping secrets because they got sexually assaulted.). I'm not talking about monitoring your kid when it comes to safety precautions at an age-appropriate manner.  But generally speaking, I think a lot of parents who are big on the *no privacy* rule either have really bad, unchecked anxiety OR they are power tripping. And I think the latter points back to reason number one which is seeing their kid as an extension of themselves. 
 

8. The Right Wing "Parent's Rights" Movement: There is a subset of people in the right wing who advocate for "parent's right" and a lot of it comes down to things like homeschooling their kids in religious fundamental households with no supervision from the state, book bans, fear mongering about trans people and gender affirming care, dismantling child labor laws, and trying to dismantle CPS. A lot of the ideology comes from the notion that children are property and that they can be molded, beaten into submission, and heard like an animal for their uses. I feel like this really parallels the way that these people view other marginalized groups throughout history. I found a pretty good article summarizing the Parent's Rights Movement and it goes into more detail than what I have written here: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/04/children-are-not-property.html
 

9. Some adults have a messed-up sense of respect: I think the word "respect" often means one of two things. It refers to people seeing it as a standard of treatment that is baseline for people to treat them as human beings. Or the word refers to a sense of authority and deference. So, when some people (especially adults to children) "if you don't respect me, then I won't respect you" they're basically saying "if you don't treat me as an authority, I won't treat you as a person." I feel like a lot of adults don't treat kids with basic human respect, but they expect kids to have this sort of blind obedience towards them and every time a kid acts out in an age-appropriate way, they lash out at the kid and take everything personally. I think there is already a huge power dynamic between adults and kids since adults are bigger, have more life experience, have more money and autonomy etc. while kids are developmentally vulnerable and are dependent on the adults around them. And the way that some people have a fucked-up attitude around respect really just doubles down on that power dynamic. 

Edited September 23 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

People Are Weird About Only Children 

I don't know whether or not I want to be a mother but I know that if I decide to be a mother, I'm only having one child. I don't want to go through preganancy and the baby phase multiple times. I'm only pushing a watermelon out my pussy once in my life and that's it lol. 

But even when I say that, even though I'm not even saying I want to be a mother for sure, people still side eye me. They're just like *oh but who will your kid play with?* or *your kid needs the character development of having a sibling* or *your kid is going to turn out weird.* And then that's when I look that person straight in the eyes and say "I'm an only child," and then they shut the fuck up. 

There is a weird stigma with being an only. Some common stereotypes include how only children are spoiled, can't share, are socially awkward due to a lack of socialization, lonely, entitled, lacking in conflict resolution, or attention hungry. And a lot of them have been debunked, especially the notion that only children are some how deficient in terms of socialization and other developmental milestones. Turns out, that perspective originates in the 1800s when most kids were homeschooled, the nearest family was like a mile away, and you would go into town like once a week. But in the modern day, even an only child gets plenty of socialization just by going to school and interacting with other kids their age there (so yes, they do learn to share, they aren't lonely by default, and the can develop conflict resolution skills with their peers lol).

As far as the attention hungry aspect goes, I think there is this notion that only children are accustomed to being the center of attention all the time. First of all, that's usually false. There's a tiktok that explains it perfectly and it's shown in the video below from 12:02 to 15:17. The video overall is pretty good but I want to highlight this specific thing: 

Quote

"Being an only child is like third-wheeling a childfree couple":
It's not really all about you. You're still competing for your parent's attention but instead of competing with siblings, you're competing with your parent's lives. Because a lot of people who only have one child, they fall into this category of like they want this experience of having a child but they don't want their entire lives to be about children. They aren't family oriented. There's almost a child free energy about them. Their idea is *I'm still going to do me but I'm also going to have a child tag along.*

The vibe is less that your parents created this wonderful children's world that's just for you and more like you're third wheeling two adults in an adult world.  Like I spent a lot of my childhood in situations that were not built for children. Often times I was the only child there. I went to a lot of *wine and cheese* type of events. I would tag along with my parents to like business meetings, business dinners, going to their stores after work. My mom was an artist so I would sit in the corner while she pitched her stuff to an art gallery for an hour. A lot of family vacations weren't really to a family friendly place. It was usually to an adult place and my parents would throw in a few child friendly activities for my benefit. And the expectation throughout all of this was that I was supposed to either act like an adult or stay kind of quiet and out of the way while the adults did adult things.

So consequently, when I was a kid and I met a kid who had siblings, a lot of times they would come across as a little bit feral to me. Like they were always like running around, screaming, jumping, doing all this stuff. Because they lived in a children's world. They didn't know how to function in the adult world because their parents left them at home. And they have a stay at home mom with a minivan who was a 100% focused on the family. And I would just see these kids and be like *this kid doesn't know how to act. This kid could never sit quietly in the back while their parents had a business meeting.*

I feel like I fall into this category of *if I choose to be a mother, I wouldn't want my entire life to center around children and I want to still be a formed person outside of motherhood* I wrote about this in a previous post: 

And yes, I went to a lot of events that mainly centered adults. ranging from tagging along with my parents at their work place, to going to various social events where my parents had friends who had kids but they were all like 15 years older than me. My family also travelled quite a bit as I grew up and we never went to places like Great Wolf Lodge, waterparks, themeparks etc. I only remember going to Disney World once when I was 6 with another family friend who was an only child as well and it was our two familes on this trip together. All the other trips would be like going to the Grand Canyon, visiting New York, going to Gettysburg, going to Mount Rushmore etc. 

And yes, people with siblings always seemed a bit feral to me. Like I would go to their houses and everything would be sticky, the house would have toys and junk everywhere, and dishes were always piled up. The environment always felt a bit chaotic, but depending on the family, not necessarily dysfunctional. Especially when I would see siblings fight, that always felt awkward for me and tbh, it still feels a bit weird because how is some behaviour considered unacceptable or even abusive when it's coming from other people, but then when that's coming from your sibling, you scream at each other and then get ice cream 5 minutes later?? I know that if I did even 10% of that with a friend, I would be cut off immediately. Also, I think it's telling that in all the episodes of Supernanny, they only feature familes with multiple kids because they tend to be more chaotic and feral. Also, I think it's telling that Jo Frost, Supernanny herself, is child free lol. 

Going back to the claim of only children being attention hungry, I always felt that it was the opposite. I feel like you're more likely to be attention hungry if you see attention as scarce and like it's something to compete for. I feel like if your needs are met, you're not going to further continue exert yourself to be at the center of attention. A lot of the most attention hungry people I know are usually siblings who were neglected and then that adds to their sense of feralness. On a similar note, I felt like I didn't have a problem with sharing as a kid mainly because when I would share, I was always sharing willingly rather than out of obligation or because another kid was going to snatch something from me. if anything, I liked being able to share because that meant 

As for your parents having lives and other commitments, that's another thing that I related to. My dad was self employed. My parents were also taking care of elderly relatives. So as a result, again, it wasn't always about me. They were adults who had other shit going on. 

 

Then there is the whole claim of only children being lonely. And don't get me wrong, I did go through a phase of wanting a sibling when I was a little kid. But I eventually grew out of it. Plus, I always had friends in school so that stopped me from being lonely. I also think that when you have siblings, it's harder to put yourself in the shoes of an only child. My mom is the middle child and as a result, never knew a life without siblings. And I remember she would sometimes watch me play by myself and project a sense of lonliness to me. My dad on the other hand, was the youngest sibling with quite a big age gap with his siblings so as a result, he kind of had an only child experience in his childhood. And when my mom would look at me lik *omg my kid is so lonely, this is so sad* my dad would just jump in and be like *she's fine, she's just chilling in her own world* which was true lol.

I also feel like a lot of people who have a significant age gap with their siblings to be like these *honorary only child of sorts* because even though they had the same parents, they often got very different versions of those parents and they don't share the same childhood. My dad for example has a brother who is 8 years older than him and a sister who is 11 years older than him. Once he was like 10, both of his siblings moved out. Before then, it's not like he played with his siblings or really spent much time with them. He didn't get the perks of having siblings until he was an adult. I also listened to this podcast of this lady who said that rather than saying she has 3 kids, she says that she has 3 only childs. She had the first kid at 21, the second kid at 33, and the third kid at 46. And each kid had a very different version of her and a very different upbringing / lifestyle. 

I can see the whole only children being more lonely in adulthood thing because it's harder to maintain a social life after you leave the school environment and a lot of people default to their immediate family as their community instead of seeking out community. At the same time, even in those situations, I think it's only a problem if the only child in question is coming from a dysfunctional family or parents who aren't healthy. I think only children can become very close to their parents if they are healthy. I can see my boyfriend as a good example of this. However, if the household is unhealthy, then you're kind of fucked (like me). But I don't blame my situation on a lack of having siblings. I blame my situation on my parents not being good parents. My parents also do this thing about blaming my problems on not having siblings instead of taking responsibility on the ways they have contributed to this situation. Like yes, my hypothetical, non-existent sibling is the reason why I'm traumatized smh. 

If anything, I feel grateful that I don't have any siblings because of my dysfunctional family. I feel like if I had a sibling, there would be no gurantee that we would get along or bond over this shared experience of a fucked up childhood. Yes, I have seen situations where siblings stick together, but I have also seen plenty of situations where siblings end up being part of the problem and each person handles trauma very differently. Or the parents, since they already have a toxic dynamic, put that toxic dynamic onto the siblings as well. Some examples can including: 

• parentifying the oldest kid to where they have resentment/ take it out on the younger siblings
• one sibling being the favorite golden child and another sibling being the scapegoat to the family's problems 
• pitting siblings against each other 
• boy moms favoring their sons and reinforcing patriarchial doublestandards on their daughters 
• some siblings being completely neglected when they're struggling quietly while the other sibling is more outwardly crashing out so the chaotic sibling gets help but the other ones don't
• parents never correcting problematic behavior with some kids and then that kid creates a toxic dynamic with their sibling 

Even if the parents aren't dysfunctional, there are other reasons why siblings might not get along including: 

• a sibling falls into addiction or an abusive relationship for reasons outside of the family's dynamics, 
• the siblings just not really clicking or vibing like that so they're more like roommates who share the same parents 
• some siblings getting along well but one sibling is just a little weird and doesn't relate to the others for whatever reason so they're like the black sheep (I know so many siblings who probably wouldn't talk to each other if they weren't related). 
• political issues or difference in values / morals 

So the whole *siblings are built in friends* bit always felt overly idealistic and just not a good reason to have multiple kids. There's nothing wrong with having multiple kids (more on that in a little bit), but make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. And I think as I grew up and I got to know my parents more, I didn't see siblings as a sure fire way to solve all my problems and have a good life. I'm pretty sure that given the way that my mom treated me, if I had a sister, we would be pitted against each other, and if I had a brother, she would be the boy mom final boss. And even if that wasn't the exact case, I think having more kids in my family would create more complications in the family dynamics and the types of trauma that were present. If anything, I'm glad I don't have siblings because that means they don't have to deal with the bs of my family. 

Then there is the arguement of how once the parents pass away or they have to care of their parents in their elder years, the only child is left completely alone to bear the burden. And I think this is another thing that lacks nuance. Again, there is no gurantee that the siblings are going to be close first of all. Secondly, each of the siblings can experience grief very differently based on their relationship to the parent. Thirdly, while it is ideal that all the siblings pitch in someway to care for the aging parents, often times one sibling ends up getting most of burden due to various life circumstances. I have seen all three of these situations play out with my own parents who have siblings. 

As a result, I don't romanticize the notion of having siblings nor am I putting an expectation to myself to have more than one kid if I do decide to be a parent. I've also been recently innundated with a number of posts of people being sad about being an only child. And I cannot relate to a lot of it. Don't get me wrong, I do feel a sense of lonliness and I think there are some cons to being an only child. But I don't think having siblings is the solution. A lot of the shitty experiences around being an only child often root back to the overall family or parents in some way. Usually, the problem is child neglect rather than the kid not having siblings. So when these posts have comments like "this is why if I have kids I'm having multiple" I just find myself cringing because it doesn't seem like it's coming from the healthiest of places and because it often feels like that person is misdiagnosing the problem at hand. 

There is also a lot of factors that I can see leading people to decide to only have one kid including the following: 

• A traumatic or complicated pregnancy 
• Miscarriages
• Health issues 
• Not having the funds to properly provide for multiple kids 
• Single parenthood 
• Realizing that while you can provide for multiple kids, their over all quality of life (and your quality of life) would be compromised severely
  • In my opinion, a kid needs stable, healthy parents, a college fund, and family trips more than a sibling.  
• Knowing your limits and what you can handle as a parent
  • In my case, I'd rather be an amazing parent to one kid than a mediocre parent to multiple kids. 
• Timing (usually having a kid earlier or later in life) 
• Or hell, people have one kid and a few years later they realize that rather than trying for another one, the 3 of them feel like a complete family. 

So the whole question of *when are you gonna give your kid a sibling* feels rather inappropriate because you don't always know what the other person is dealing with. Like for all you know, they wanted to have multiple kids but some of the pregnancies ended in miscarriages and you just asked a dick question. 

Edited September 28 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

It Takes a Village to Raise A Rapist 

I have been following the case with the Cornell 57 (I know a lot of people call them the Cornell 7 because 7 of the men were part of the gang rape but the group chat had like 57 people). It's a horrifying case and as a woman, I do feel impacted emotionally by the sentiments that are being shared. I have been feeling a sense of depression and hypervigilence wash over me this past week. I can't say that it's debilitating or that I'm surprised. Men are capable of committing some heinous acts. I also think that my educational background in Human Rights makes me better equipped to handle such things emotionally because I basically spent 4 years studying the worst aspects of humanity. 

That's where I'm at emotionally. Intellectually, as a way to make sense of something like this, I catch myself wondering how something like this could occur in the first place and how someone could think that this kind of behavior is acceptable. I also catch myself trying to make sense of other people's reactionary views around this as well and the general sense of emotional literacy some people have. 

Because I'm at a stage of life where I'm really thinking about the prospect of being a parent, I find myself thinking what I would do if I had a child who was gang raped like this or what I would do if my child turned out to be a rapist (and how to prevent something like this). I think what happened to Jane Doe was horrific. I remember reading an account where she was doing the ketamine hoping it would knock her out so that there would be more of a basis and a case that this was indeed rape that can be held in court as opposed to coersion that might not yield to imprisonment. It wasn't just a drug fueled orgy. I read accounts of her trying to get away and pushing people away as they made their advances towards her but not being able to fight them off because she was so heavily drugged. I read accounts of her initially consenting to a threesome but also, it's questionable if she wanted it or if she was talked into it after she was drugged up. But even if she wanted a threesome, that doesn't give consent to having 7 other people involved. 

And then there is all the ways that the school adminsitration and the justice system failed her. The whole thing about the university having the rapists write a fucking essay about what happened is infuriating and makes light of the situation. The way that the rapists still got their degrees from a prestigious institution while the victim couldn't even finish college because of the trauma is tragic. The way that people are trying to dox the victim or downplay what she went through is horrifying. The ways that people are slut shaming her, saying that she's lying, or victim blaming her is abhorrent and appalling. The only thing that seems a bit promising is that at least from what I gathered, her parents are supportive of her and are trying to get justice for her. I know damn well that if I was in this situation, I wouldn't be able to go to my parents for something like this. And that feels scary and depressing on a personal level. 

As for the boys involved, the leaked messages were absolutely disgusting. The way they referred to her as "free pussy" and the way that one of the guys was like "you can just whip your dick out" or "shop still open" was dehumanizing and nauseating. And all of these boys came from relatively well off families and look like normal people you encounter. This is why I hate the narrative that a rapist is some weirdo in a back alleyway. Most of the time, it's a relatively normal looking person you know or have considered a friend. And sexual assault isn't always something like gang raped or being raped at knife point. Most of the time, it's that guy who is being really clingy and is guilt tripping your for not putting out. It's the guy that gets a little to handsy and because he's like twice your size, you think it's easier to go along with it. It's a guy who cannot take no for an answer and instead sees it as a negotiation point. It's the guy who gets you drunk enough to where you let your guard down and you agree to things you otherwise wouldn't have agreed to. It's the girl who you cannot fight off because she's significantly smaller so any amount of self defense is going to make you look like the agressor. It's the girl who was your baby sitter or your teacher who groomed you and then when they made sexual advances towards you, people congradulated you for losing your virginity at 12 to an older chick. It's the girl who ignores your no's or takes you lack of advances personally because of the notion that all men want it all the time. It's the girl who flashes herself at a concert and throws her underwear at a performer while saying vulgar things. Like another thing that pisses me off is how people assume that women cannot be abusers or rapists or that they cannot be a part of the problem as well. Men can also get sexually assaulted and women are also capable of doing fucked up things. The Ghislaine Maxwells of the world exist and there were women in part of the university administration who were also part of the problem. 

The Cornell 57 case is one of the more egregious versions of this. The more subtle stuff that I listed above happens all the time. And because it' s more subtle, a lot of people don't realize how wrong it was or what kind of trauma it caused until much later. I think this adds to how people don't realize how common sexual assault is. It also yields them to make excuses for victims because they don't want to come to terms with how widespread of an issue this is. Because acknowledging that a lot of drunk sexual encounters, a lot of ambiguous circumstances, a lot of pressure falls under the umbrella of assault is hard to admit as the perpetrator because you don't want to think of yourself as the creep in the back alley way and it's hard to admit as the victim because that means sitting with the gravity of the situation and any difficult emotions that may come up. A lot of people still end up dating their rapist and convince themselves that what happened was okay because they cannot cope with the trauma or the rapist emotionally manipulated them to downplay what actually happened. Even in the Cornell 57 case, one of the guys contacted Jane Doe and asked if "they were still good?" That wasn't them trying to make amends with her, that was them trying to avoid responsibility and morally justify their heinous acts to themselves. Then there is the typical ways that victims of sexual assault tend to act ranging from having a spotty memory, having their brain block certain things out, and again, being in denial of the severity of the case and as a result, not coming out with charges until much later. 

And I think a lot of sexual assault issues needs to be addressed at the level of prevention as opposed to handling them in court (that also needs to be addressed, but more on that later). Yes, consent education is good in the university level, especially when it comes to the normalization of more subtle / ambiguous circumstances. However, the most heinous people who are capable of doing shit like getting someone hooked on ketamine so that they can gang rape them are not going to attend such discussions. They will think that shit is stupid and go about their day. The Cornell 7 and the 57 men in the group chat didn't get to where they were due to some innocent misinformation. They were likely enabled all their lives to where, by the time they go to university age, it's too late to employ an intervention to change their behaviors and world views. 

It's start as early as telling little girls on the playground that if a boy is being agressive towards you, that means they like you. It starts as early as letting your boys be rowdy and agressive instead of correcting that behavior at the root. It starts as early as coddling your son and saying your little boy is "just a little misunderstood" wheras you would never use that term with a little girl who was acting out. It starts with little boys growing into their middle school age without any proper role models so they default to Andrew Tate or whatever the fuck is going on in the media and how society portrays masculinity. It starts with telling children of both genders that they should ignore their personal boundaries and hug / kiss any older relative even if they aren't comfortable with that. It starts with telling children to blindly follow authority which then ends up priming them to accept abuse later on in life. It starts with not educating your kids of both genders the difference of appropriate and inappropriate touch. It starts with your kid getting sexually assaulted or groomed by some adult in the family or community and you not handling that shit properly whether that is you accuse your kid of lying, you continuously bring their abuser around them, you reprimend them for acting out their trauma, you not getting them a mental health professional, or you say it's some how their fault because they must have made a move towards the perpetrator. 

Ultimately, all of the things above that could have been addressed to create prevention measures against raising rapists or victims boil down to neglect; whether that be regarding how you don't discipline your kids, how you don't pay attention to your kids and what they are watching, and how you don't teach you kids what is right and wrong in terms of the way that they are supposed to treat others or how they are supposed to treat them.  And unfortunately, I don't think a lot of parents pay attention the above enough because they aren't introspective enough to address their own biases and how it might impact their parenting nor do they observe their surroundings to learn about how situations like this can occur. Thankfully, as I'm following the discussions of the Cornell 57 case, I see a lot of women calling out the "boy moms" and the ways that mothers reinforce the patriarchy and make excuses for their son's behavior. I'm also seeing a lot of mothers who have boys who are having conversations with their sons about this matter and how they are incorporating practices into their parenting so their son doesn't end up becoming a misogynist or someone who would assault someone/ get assaulted. Speaking of boys getting assaulted, I'm also seeing a lot of good discourse about Greek life as a whole and the psychological impacts of hazing that results in normalizing awful shit. I also see some men who are talking about their experiences with sexual assault, their experiences with Greek life and how it selects for people who are weird and psychologically vulnerable to mold them into monsters, and the way that this also translates into homophobia.

But I don't see enough fathers joining the discussion around this matter. And I think that's telling. Don't get me wrong, I get that social media tends to skew towards more female creators so that bias already exists. I'm sure that some people are having these conversations IRL and just aren't posting about it (my boyfriend included since he just doesn't have social media). But, I still think the silence is telling because a lot of fathers are part of the problem in the way they perpetuate fucked up ideals about masculinity and consent or they don't have nearly as much of an active role in their kid's life to teach them these sort of things. 

Then there are other adults who are just, for a lack of a better way of putting it, emotionally and socially illiterate. They might be generally functioning in society but they are incredibly stunted, lack introspection, and just plain don't know how to deal with a multitude of issues if a child came up to them. I put my parents in this category. I look back in my childhood and I think that there were some very obvious symptoms of my poor mental health. And it's not that I don't think my parents didn't notice at all. It's more of they saw the signs and they didn't know how to connect the dots, put two and two together, and realize that their child is suffering from depression and anxiety due to a strained relationship they build with their kid and how they raised the kid in a dysfunctional marriage. They just wrote me off as lazy, as antisocial, and as "the problem child." And thank god I never got sexually assaulted as a kid. Even if I acted out and showed textbook symptoms of the assault, I don't think they would be able to put two and two together and get me the help I need. Hell, given some things my parents have said to me in the past, I'm pretty sure they would have blamed me or claimed that I was lying instead of understanding how sexual abuse works.

I would categorize things like not understanding how to communicate in a healthy way, not knowing how to resolve conflicts, not knowing how to identify and share emotions and regulate them, not knowing how to open up to create closeness, not knowing how to build a relationship, misusing therapy terms to weaponize them, all fall under the umbrella of being emotionally illiterate. I would also include not being able to introspect and understand how certain parenting tactics can lead to long term harm and shaping your children in a bad way as also part of being emotionally illiterate. Overall, I think being emotionally illiterate comes down to not knowing how to identify, cope with, or communicate emotions in a healthy way and how to build relationships where people feel heard and understood. 

I would categorize things like not knowing how sexual assault works, not knowing how teen pregnancies work, not knowing how to handle gay relationships, not knowing how to handle people from different cultures, not knowing how trauma and mental health isssues work, not knowing how eating disorders work, and not know how being neurodivergent works as being under the umbrella of being socially illiterate. I would say being socially illiterate has to do with not understanding broader social issues, how they can manifest in your personal life/ community, and how to interpersonally navigate such things. Like you cannot take something like *sexual assault is bad* and see how various mindsets can lead to someone becoming a rapist and how they originate in the way that we treat one another or raise our kids. 

You can love your kids and still be emotionally and socially illiterate. My parents are an example of that. There are situations where they mean well but they just poorly handly situations left and right because they don't have the skills to emotionally deal with things nor do they have the social skills to effectively address what's going on. And I think a lot of parents fall into either of these umbrellas based on what I'm seeing with the people among my peers who choose to have kids as well as the result of the types of people we have in our world today. These days, I find myself looking back at various situations in my life where I probably needed some kind of comfort or guidance from my adult figures and even though I have dealt with said issues effectively, I still think it's fucked up the ways the adults around me either failed me or set me up to fail. There are a lot of old people on this earth, but there aren't a lot of people who are elders or safe adults you can go to. I wrote about this before in the post below: 

And it's crazy as I'm moving into my mid-late 20s and I'm observing the early stages of people's dysfunctional marriages. I remember seeing a statistic when I was a teenager about how 50% of marriages end in divorce. At the time, that stat freaked me out because the whole thing felt like it was up to chance and I could be part of that 50%. Now that I'm in my mid-20s and I'm going to some of these weddings, I'm sitting at the table thinking *yup.... I know who that 50% is.* If anything, I hope the stat is higher because some of these relationships are ratchet as hell. And I think as a kid, you see how these relationships turn out in 10-15 years time because you're observing your parents from the standpoint of your childhood rather than observing them from the beginning of their relationship (because you simply didn't exist at the time or you were a baby who couldn't process anything). But it's freaky to see your own peers getting into their own dysfunctional dynamics and being able to think *yup, I can see how this can fuck up a kid in the future.*

Going back to the preventative measures to ensure your kid doesn't end up becomeing like the Cornell 57; it baffles me how parents of rapists are like sitting there looking surprised when shit like this happens. I know a guy who is a few years younger than me in my broader community who got kicked out of university after he assaulted someone. I remember when he was in middle school, he did not understand what was and wasn't appropriate and he made a lot of other girls his age uncomfortable. I remember when this kid was in elementary school, he straight up bit another kid and left bite marks. His mom laughed it off like a little jokey joke and said "oh, poor baby was just a little hungry." And the parents at the time were like "Lady, you're crazy. That's an 8 year old boy capable of using his words, not a wild tiger." Even outside of parenting, the parents in this situation were also questionable individuals morally even though they were relatively well off and well educated. I don't know much about the dynamic between the parents, but I'm sure there is some dysfunction there as well.  

I know I talked a lot about general misconceptions around sexual assault, the various social factors from childhood that can become a breeding ground for things like the Cornell 57, the ways that the way that people parent, their social/ emotional skills, and their overall relationship can factor into things like this. But even if you control for a lot of these things, your kid can still get assaulted becaus other parents didn't do what they were supposed to do.

I think in the state of New York, the law that says that even if you consented to taking drugs, if you engage in consensual sexual activity afterwards, it's still legal. And I think on an institutional level, that law is bullshit. I get that it's supposed to refer to things like *if you had a couple of beers and then had sex, that's not rape* but I think in practice, this section of the law can be weaponized to discredit victims of sexual assault like Jane Doe in this situation. At the same time, even in the case of having a couple of beers and having sex, I think we need to have a higher standard for what is considered consent to decrease the number of ambiguous situations. We need to normalize clear, blatant communication. That's not possible if both of you guys are under the influence. And I think a reason why a lot of people don't want to have proper explicit conversations, is due to things like purity culture which is a whole nother can of worms to unpack. Do I think having drunk sex is inherently rape? Not necessarily. But I do think it can fall under the umbrella of nonconsensual consent. Other examples of nonconsensual consent include:

• rape fantasies
• having a safe word so that you can say no in sex and still have it to play into a fantasy without it being an actual violation of consent
• having sex when you're half awake or waking someone up with a sexual act
• having sex while on drugs like weed or psychedelics 
• engaging in bdsm in a way that would otherwise prevent you from explicitly communicating (i.e. being gagged so you can't talk, being tied up so you cannot physically communicate/ get a way, being choked etc. 

And I think all of these fall under the umbrella of kink so it's kind of seen as a fringe sexual practice. But the thing we can learn from this is how in situations like this, before people engage in these practices, they have very clear and explicit conversations if they are doing this in a healthy way. There are parallels between these things and having drunk sex even though the later is much more normalized in society. I was taught that in order to have sex, you need to have FRIES. That means that consent is Freely given, Reversable, Informed, Enthusiastic, and in a Safe environment. Being drunk and not having a conversation before hand disqualifies you from giving informed consent. Hell, you can't even sign contracts if you're drunk and have them be valid. So why are we treating sex in a different way? 

And of course, in order to handle situations regarding sexual assault effectively, it's important to believe the victim. It's very rare that people lie about things like this. It takes a lot of courage to open up about things like this because of the amount of trauma that is there, the stigma associated with victims of sexual assault, and the victim blaming. In addition to believing the victim, I think in order to do that, it's important to know how sexaul assualt works. I wrote about this earlier but it goes along with how most victims knew their assaulter before hand, that people don't typically get raped by randos in back alleyways, that the victim misremembering things is not an indication of them lying rather it's a symptom of the trauma itself, and how consent works.  Like, it's crazy to me seeing how many people are trying to justify this rape by saying "oh, she's freaked out, she wanted a threesome" as if she consented to 7 men having sex with her for 8 hours straight or how people are calling her a "ket whore" and saying she brought this on to herself because she was doing drugs and she was at a frat house at 2 am. 

I can also understand the sentiment of wanting to protect women and trying to find ways to take control of the situation so that it could have been prevented. It's a way to try to cope with what happened.   But that can turn into victim blaming so you want to be very careful about that. Hell, this is another reason why victims don't come forward, why they internalize what happened to them and blame themselves, or it takes them a while to realize what happened to them was not alright. Like I get the knee jerk reaction to not want to go out at night or to cover up, never have sex, and hide your daughters, but that's often a very reactionary take. Because women deserve to walk alone at night, wear what they want, socialize with friends at 2 am, and explore their sexuality without having the threat of gang rape hanging over their heads. Not to mention in societies where this does get implemented, they tend to have a bigger issues with rape because we're blaming victims instead of holding their perpetrators accountable. 

In conclusion, horrific acts like this doesn't happen in a vacuum and it's due to a culmination of personal and societal factors. And as a result, it's so important for people who could be seen as a trusted adult to be the type of person that puts preventative measures in place and also knows how to handle such cases effectively when things like this occur. 

[soos_mite_ah]

It Takes a Village to Raise A Rapist 

I have been following the case with the Cornell 57 (I know a lot of people call them the Cornell 7 because 7 of the men were part of the gang rape but the group chat had like 57 people). It's a horrifying case and as a woman, I do feel impacted emotionally by the sentiments that are being shared. I have been feeling a sense of depression and hypervigilence wash over me this past week. I can't say that it's debilitating or that I'm surprised. Men are capable of committing some heinous acts. I also think that my educational background in Human Rights makes me better equipped to handle such things emotionally because I basically spent 4 years studying the worst aspects of humanity. 

That's where I'm at emotionally. Intellectually, as a way to make sense of something like this, I catch myself wondering how something like this could occur in the first place and how someone could think that this kind of behavior is acceptable. I also catch myself trying to make sense of other people's reactionary views around this as well and the general sense of emotional literacy some people have. 

Because I'm at a stage of life where I'm really thinking about the prospect of being a parent, I find myself thinking what I would do if I had a child who was gang raped like this or what I would do if my child turned out to be a rapist (and how to prevent something like this). I think what happened to Jane Doe was horrific. I remember reading an account where she was doing the ketamine hoping it would knock her out so that there would be more of a basis and a case that this was indeed rape that can be held in court as opposed to coersion that might not yield to imprisonment. It wasn't just a drug fueled orgy. I read accounts of her trying to get away and pushing people away as they made their advances towards her but not being able to fight them off because she was so heavily drugged. I read accounts of her initially consenting to a threesome but also, it's questionable if she wanted it or if she was talked into it after she was drugged up. But even if she wanted a threesome, that doesn't give consent to having 7 other people involved. 

And then there is all the ways that the school adminsitration and the justice system failed her. The whole thing about the university having the rapists write a fucking essay about what happened is infuriating and makes light of the situation. The way that the rapists still got their degrees from a prestigious institution while the victim couldn't even finish college because of the trauma is tragic. The way that people are trying to dox the victim or downplay what she went through is horrifying. The ways that people are slut shaming her, saying that she's lying, or victim blaming her is abhorrent and appalling. The only thing that seems a bit promising is that at least from what I gathered, her parents are supportive of her and are trying to get justice for her. I know damn well that if I was in this situation, I wouldn't be able to go to my parents for something like this. And that feels scary and depressing on a personal level. 

As for the boys involved, the leaked messages were absolutely disgusting. The way they referred to her as "free pussy" and the way that one of the guys was like "you can just whip your dick out" or "shop still open" was dehumanizing and nauseating. And all of these boys came from relatively well off families and look like normal people you encounter. This is why I hate the narrative that a rapist is some weirdo in a back alleyway. Most of the time, it's a relatively normal looking person you know or have considered a friend. And sexual assault isn't always something like gang raped or being raped at knife point. Most of the time, it's that guy who is being really clingy and is guilt tripping your for not putting out. It's the guy that gets a little to handsy and because he's like twice your size, you think it's easier to go along with it. It's a guy who cannot take no for an answer and instead sees it as a negotiation point. It's the guy who gets you drunk enough to where you let your guard down and you agree to things you otherwise wouldn't have agreed to. It's the girl who you cannot fight off because she's significantly smaller so any amount of self defense is going to make you look like the agressor. It's the girl who was your baby sitter or your teacher who groomed you and then when they made sexual advances towards you, people congradulated you for losing your virginity at 12 to an older chick. It's the girl who ignores your no's or takes you lack of advances personally because of the notion that all men want it all the time. It's the girl who flashes herself at a concert and throws her underwear at a performer while saying vulgar things. Like another thing that pisses me off is how people assume that women cannot be abusers or rapists or that they cannot be a part of the problem as well. Men can also get sexually assaulted and women are also capable of doing fucked up things. The Ghislaine Maxwells of the world exist and there were women in part of the university administration who were also part of the problem. 

The Cornell 57 case is one of the more egregious versions of this. The more subtle stuff that I listed above happens all the time. And because it' s more subtle, a lot of people don't realize how wrong it was or what kind of trauma it caused until much later. I think this adds to how people don't realize how common sexual assault is. It also yields them to make excuses for victims because they don't want to come to terms with how widespread of an issue this is. Because acknowledging that a lot of drunk sexual encounters, a lot of ambiguous circumstances, a lot of pressure falls under the umbrella of assault is hard to admit as the perpetrator because you don't want to think of yourself as the creep in the back alley way and it's hard to admit as the victim because that means sitting with the gravity of the situation and any difficult emotions that may come up. A lot of people still end up dating their rapist and convince themselves that what happened was okay because they cannot cope with the trauma or the rapist emotionally manipulated them to downplay what actually happened. Even in the Cornell 57 case, one of the guys contacted Jane Doe and asked if "they were still good?" That wasn't them trying to make amends with her, that was them trying to avoid responsibility and morally justify their heinous acts to themselves. Then there is the typical ways that victims of sexual assault tend to act ranging from having a spotty memory, having their brain block certain things out, and again, being in denial of the severity of the case and as a result, not coming out with charges until much later. 

And I think a lot of sexual assault issues needs to be addressed at the level of prevention as opposed to handling them in court (that also needs to be addressed, but more on that later). Yes, consent education is good in the university level, especially when it comes to the normalization of more subtle / ambiguous circumstances. However, the most heinous people who are capable of doing shit like getting someone hooked on ketamine so that they can gang rape them are not going to attend such discussions. They will think that shit is stupid and go about their day. The Cornell 7 and the 57 men in the group chat didn't get to where they were due to some innocent misinformation. They were likely enabled all their lives to where, by the time they go to university age, it's too late to employ an intervention to change their behaviors and world views. 

It's start as early as telling little girls on the playground that if a boy is being agressive towards you, that means they like you. It starts as early as letting your boys be rowdy and agressive instead of correcting that behavior at the root. It starts as early as coddling your son and saying your little boy is "just a little misunderstood" wheras you would never use that term with a little girl who was acting out. It starts with little boys growing into their middle school age without any proper role models so they default to Andrew Tate or whatever the fuck is going on in the media and how society portrays masculinity. It starts with telling children of both genders that they should ignore their personal boundaries and hug / kiss any older relative even if they aren't comfortable with that. It starts with telling children to blindly follow authority which then ends up priming them to accept abuse later on in life. It starts with not educating your kids of both genders the difference of appropriate and inappropriate touch. It starts with your kid getting sexually assaulted or groomed by some adult in the family or community and you not handling that shit properly whether that is you accuse your kid of lying, you continuously bring their abuser around them, you reprimend them for acting out their trauma, you not getting them a mental health professional, or you say it's some how their fault because they must have made a move towards the perpetrator. 

Ultimately, all of the things above that could have been addressed to create prevention measures against raising rapists or victims boil down to neglect; whether that be regarding how you don't discipline your kids, how you don't pay attention to your kids and what they are watching, and how you don't teach you kids what is right and wrong in terms of the way that they are supposed to treat others or how they are supposed to treat them.  And unfortunately, I don't think a lot of parents pay attention the above enough because they aren't introspective enough to address their own biases and how it might impact their parenting nor do they observe their surroundings to learn about how situations like this can occur. Thankfully, as I'm following the discussions of the Cornell 57 case, I see a lot of women calling out the "boy moms" and the ways that mothers reinforce the patriarchy and make excuses for their son's behavior. I'm also seeing a lot of mothers who have boys who are having conversations with their sons about this matter and how they are incorporating practices into their parenting so their son doesn't end up becoming a misogynist or someone who would assault someone/ get assaulted. Speaking of boys getting assaulted, I'm also seeing a lot of good discourse about Greek life as a whole and the psychological impacts of hazing that results in normalizing awful shit. I also see some men who are talking about their experiences with sexual assault, their experiences with Greek life and how it selects for people who are weird and psychologically vulnerable to mold them into monsters, and the way that this also translates into homophobia.

But I don't see enough fathers joining the discussion around this matter. And I think that's telling. Don't get me wrong, I get that social media tends to skew towards more female creators so that bias already exists. I'm sure that some people are having these conversations IRL and just aren't posting about it (my boyfriend included since he just doesn't have social media). But, I still think the silence is telling because a lot of fathers are part of the problem in the way they perpetuate fucked up ideals about masculinity and consent or they don't have nearly as much of an active role in their kid's life to teach them these sort of things. 

Then there are other adults who are just, for a lack of a better way of putting it, emotionally and socially illiterate. They might be generally functioning in society but they are incredibly stunted, lack introspection, and just plain don't know how to deal with a multitude of issues if a child came up to them. I put my parents in this category. I look back in my childhood and I think that there were some very obvious symptoms of my poor mental health. And it's not that I don't think my parents didn't notice at all. It's more of they saw the signs and they didn't know how to connect the dots, put two and two together, and realize that their child is suffering from depression and anxiety due to a strained relationship they build with their kid and how they raised the kid in a dysfunctional marriage. They just wrote me off as lazy, as antisocial, and as "the problem child." And thank god I never got sexually assaulted as a kid. Even if I acted out and showed textbook symptoms of the assault, I don't think they would be able to put two and two together and get me the help I need. Hell, given some things my parents have said to me in the past, I'm pretty sure they would have blamed me or claimed that I was lying instead of understanding how sexual abuse works.

I would categorize things like not understanding how to communicate in a healthy way, not knowing how to resolve conflicts, not knowing how to identify and share emotions and regulate them, not knowing how to open up to create closeness, not knowing how to build a relationship, misusing therapy terms to weaponize them, all fall under the umbrella of being emotionally illiterate. I would also include not being able to introspect and understand how certain parenting tactics can lead to long term harm and shaping your children in a bad way as also part of being emotionally illiterate. Overall, I think being emotionally illiterate comes down to not knowing how to identify, cope with, or communicate emotions in a healthy way and how to build relationships where people feel heard and understood. 

I would categorize things like not knowing how sexual assault works, not knowing how teen pregnancies work, not knowing how to handle gay relationships, not knowing how to handle people from different cultures, not knowing how trauma and mental health isssues work, not knowing how eating disorders work, and not know how being neurodivergent works as being under the umbrella of being socially illiterate. I would say being socially illiterate has to do with not understanding broader social issues, how they can manifest in your personal life/ community, and how to interpersonally navigate such things. Like you cannot take something like *sexual assault is bad* and see how various mindsets can lead to someone becoming a rapist and how they originate in the way that we treat one another or raise our kids. 

You can love your kids and still be emotionally and socially illiterate. My parents are an example of that. There are situations where they mean well but they just poorly handly situations left and right because they don't have the skills to emotionally deal with things nor do they have the social skills to effectively address what's going on. And I think a lot of parents fall into either of these umbrellas based on what I'm seeing with the people among my peers who choose to have kids as well as the result of the types of people we have in our world today. These days, I find myself looking back at various situations in my life where I probably needed some kind of comfort or guidance from my adult figures and even though I have dealt with said issues effectively, I still think it's fucked up the ways the adults around me either failed me or set me up to fail. There are a lot of old people on this earth, but there aren't a lot of people who are elders or safe adults you can go to. I wrote about this before in the post below: 

And it's crazy as I'm moving into my mid-late 20s and I'm observing the early stages of people's dysfunctional marriages. I remember seeing a statistic when I was a teenager about how 50% of marriages end in divorce. At the time, that stat freaked me out because the whole thing felt like it was up to chance and I could be part of that 50%. Now that I'm in my mid-20s and I'm going to some of these weddings, I'm sitting at the table thinking *yup.... I know who that 50% is.* If anything, I hope the stat is higher because some of these relationships are ratchet as hell. And I think as a kid, you see how these relationships turn out in 10-15 years time because you're observing your parents from the standpoint of your childhood rather than observing them from the beginning of their relationship (because you simply didn't exist at the time or you were a baby who couldn't process anything). But it's freaky to see your own peers getting into their own dysfunctional dynamics and being able to think *yup, I can see how this can fuck up a kid in the future.*

Going back to the preventative measures to ensure your kid doesn't end up becomeing like the Cornell 57; it baffles me how parents of rapists are like sitting there looking surprised when shit like this happens. I know a guy who is a few years younger than me in my broader community who got kicked out of university after he assaulted someone. I remember when he was in middle school, he did not understand what was and wasn't appropriate and he made a lot of other girls his age uncomfortable. I remember when this kid was in elementary school, he straight up bit another kid and left bite marks. His mom laughed it off like a little jokey joke and said "oh, poor baby was just a little hungry." And the parents at the time were like "Lady, you're crazy. That's an 8 year old boy capable of using his words, not a wild tiger." Even outside of parenting, the parents in this situation were also questionable individuals morally even though they were relatively well off and well educated. I don't know much about the dynamic between the parents, but I'm sure there is some dysfunction there as well.  

I know I talked a lot about general misconceptions around sexual assault, the various social factors from childhood that can become a breeding ground for things like the Cornell 57, the ways that the way that people parent, their social/ emotional skills, and their overall relationship can factor into things like this. But even if you control for a lot of these things, your kid can still get assaulted becaus other parents didn't do what they were supposed to do.

I think in the state of New York, the law that says that even if you consented to taking drugs, if you engage in consensual sexual activity afterwards, it's still legal. And I think on an institutional level, that law is bullshit. I get that it's supposed to refer to things like *if you had a couple of beers and then had sex, that's not rape* but I think in practice, this section of the law can be weaponized to discredit victims of sexual assault like Jane Doe in this situation. At the same time, even in the case of having a couple of beers and having sex, I think we need to have a higher standard for what is considered consent to decrease the number of ambiguous situations. We need to normalize clear, blatant communication. That's not possible if both of you guys are under the influence. And I think a reason why a lot of people don't want to have proper explicit conversations, is due to things like purity culture which is a whole nother can of worms to unpack. Do I think having drunk sex is inherently rape? Not necessarily. But I do think it can fall under the umbrella of nonconsensual consent. Other examples of nonconsensual consent include:

• rape fantasies
• having a safe word so that you can say no in sex and still have it to play into a fantasy without it being an actual violation of consent
• having sex when you're half awake or waking someone up with a sexual act
• having sex while on drugs like weed or psychedelics 
• engaging in bdsm in a way that would otherwise prevent you from explicitly communicating (i.e. being gagged so you can't talk, being tied up so you cannot physically communicate/ get a way, being choked etc. 

And I think all of these fall under the umbrella of kink so it's kind of seen as a fringe sexual practice. But the thing we can learn from this is how in situations like this, before people engage in these practices, they have very clear and explicit conversations if they are doing this in a healthy way. There are parallels between these things and having drunk sex even though the later is much more normalized in society. I was taught that in order to have sex, you need to have FRIES. That means that consent is Freely given, Reversable, Informed, Enthusiastic, and in a Safe environment. Being drunk and not having a conversation before hand disqualifies you from giving informed consent. Hell, you can't even sign contracts if you're drunk and have them be valid. So why are we treating sex in a different way? 

And of course, in order to handle situations regarding sexual assault effectively, it's important to believe the victim. It's very rare that people lie about things like this. It takes a lot of courage to open up about things like this because of the amount of trauma that is there, the stigma associated with victims of sexual assault, and the victim blaming. In addition to believing the victim, I think in order to do that, it's important to know how sexaul assualt works. I wrote about this earlier but it goes along with how most victims knew their assaulter before hand, that people don't typically get raped by randos in back alleyways, that the victim misremembering things is not an indication of them lying rather it's a symptom of the trauma itself, and how consent works.  Like, it's crazy to me seeing how many people are trying to justify this rape by saying "oh, she's freaked out, she wanted a threesome" as if she consented to 7 men having sex with her for 8 hours straight or how people are calling her a "ket whore" and saying she brought this on to herself because she was doing drugs and she was at a frat house at 2 am. 

I can also understand the sentiment of wanting to protect women and trying to find ways to take control of the situation so that it could have been prevented. It's a way to try to cope with what happened.   But that can turn into victim blaming so you want to be very careful about that. Hell, this is another reason why victims don't come forward, why they internalize what happened to them and blame themselves, or it takes them a while to realize what happened to them was not alright. Like I get the knee jerk reaction to not want to go out at night or to cover up, never have sex, and hide your daughters, but that's often a very reactionary take. Because women deserve to walk alone at night, wear what they want, socialize with friends at 2 am, and explore their sexuality without having the threat of gang rape hanging over their heads. Not to mention in societies where this does get implemented, they tend to have a bigger issues with rape because we're blaming victims instead of holding their perpetrators accountable. 

In conclusion, horrific acts like this doesn't happen in a vacuum and it's due to a culmination of personal and societal factors. And as a result, it's so important for people who could be seen as a trusted adult to be the type of person that puts preventative measures in place and also knows how to handle such cases effectively when things like this occur.