My June Girl (and Boy) - tribute to Alliance of Demons

Isn't it adorable how those who consider themselves freethinkers and skeptics are often those who don't think or question anything at all, and instead swallow everything they are told because they are in one way or another attracted to the person feeding them bullshit? One could say these people are into verbal scat.

Since my beloved stalkers, the AllianceOfDemons, have created the wonderful idea of me announcing a "Girl of the Month", someone new I have "issues" with each month, I decided to pick up on this great idea and nominate them myself to save the trolls the trouble.

So without further ado, here is my nominee for the month of June:

xxxild

You may ask why. Isn't xxxild a respected member of the pro-sex feminist community on YouTube? Perhaps so, but the question should be whether she deserves the respect she is receiving. Other than regurgitating statements made by other feminists over and over again, I have yet to see her contribute anything original. But that is not my reason to have "issues" with her.

Let me elaborate on the actual problem:

Most of you by now know about the problems I had with the AoD after I left them, ranging from online stalking to calls to my house, including death threats to my children, most of which I have posted proof for on this very blog. For those of you who don't know yet, here are a few links:

Why did I leave the AoD?
Some more harassment?
Some people obsess too much...
Oh noes, all the ebegging

Anyway, you get the gist. They enjoy making accusations of all sorts without any proof whatsoever. So why my "issues" with xxxild? Because she actually sides with these trolls. While doing so, she refuses to provide any proof to their claims (as do they), while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge any evidence I provide her with. One can easily compare this to a child sticking her fingers into her ears whilst loudly screaming "LALALALA". She knows fully well if she were to examine the actual evidence, she would not be able to further support her troll friends without being completely dishonest.

How did xxxild come to be on their side to begin with? Because she is friends with their unofficial ringleader. While Zierota (also known as DunZero, some of you may remember) is the official head figure behind the AllianceOfDemons, the actual person pulling the strings is someone people may remember under the name TemoinsGirl. TemoinsGirl is the pitiful human waste that made a laughing stock of herself when threatening people that they are "on her radar"and telling them to "own their shit" while having an intro that suggested that she is either asthmatic or related to DarthVader.

Apparently attracted to the heavy breathing (or the fact that TemoinsGirl enjoys flaunting her bared arse on skype cam to anyone willing to suck up to her in exchange), xxxild was already connected to TemoinsGirl before my trouble with AoD began. While giving me minor shit in comments originally, I still tried to be patient and had quite a few talks with her in the hopes that there is some brain underneath that pretty hair (by the way, is that a bleach job gone wrong, or did you prematurely turn white? Just curious). Patience, so I found out later, that I could have applied to much more useful things such as watching paint dry.

Shit hit the fan with our colourless lady, when I took an issue with another one of her friends, MsBloodWolf, also known as FateWolf, over a video in which she not only made a lot of unfounded accusations claiming to "know shit", but also flat out told a person to kill herself, emphasizing on the fact that she never, not even in jest, told anyone to kill themselves before, but really meant it in this case. While I personally may have had issues with the person in question in the past, I have found her to be someone that is willing to listen and discuss things, and I have major issues with people who, for whatever reason, wish death on other people. xxxild apparently disagrees and thinks it is a perfectly fine thing to do, because after I spoke out against that video she went fully hostile, ending up in a comment exchange in which her only argument was parroting the accusations of the AoD trolls, failing to provide any evidence for these accusations, refusing to look at evidence provided to her and last but not least repeatedly telling me to fuck off. This complete failure of applying unbiased judgement and skepticism has earned her the honorary position of being my June Girl 2011. Congratulations, xxxild!

Inspired by the Girl of the Month idea, and not wanting to appear sexist, I have decided to also nominate a Boy of the Month. June's Boy of the Month award goes to:

SmilingSkeptic

The humour can already be found in his choice of name, since SmilingSkeptic barely ever smiles, nor is he very skeptical. As xxxild, SmilingSkeptic ended up on "my radar" (yes, I went there!), when he left some rather interesting comments on my original video in which I explained why I had left the AoD. In that video I mockingly ate some pastry and in the description linked to my blog post Why did I leave the AoD?. Without ever reading this post, he immediately accused me of trying to cause trouble, which I found a bit strange, seeing how my blog post contained evidence that I had been harassed by AoD long before I made the blog entry and video. While SmilingSkeptic left these pretty nasty comments, I was in a Skype call with DeathOfSpeech and SoretaYuki, both of whom insisted that a chat with SmilingSkeptic would get him to see reason and stop attacking me, so I agreed to have him join the call, although I already greatly mistrusted him. I found out later that until he joined us in our call, he had been in a call with none other than the very AoD trolls that had been harassing me, getting his queue from them.

In our call I heard for the first time that TemoinsGirl accused me of having threatened to make it public that she had gotten raped. An accusation that I found rather odd, as I did not even know that she was a rape victim. Funny that the very person accusing me of threatening to make it public was the one telling me about it, eh? SmilingSkeptic kept insisting that I had made such a threat, yet failed to provide me with any evidence supporting that claim, despite my repeated inquiry. Instead he accused me of having faked my evidence, which is why I offered him access to my Skype account, so he could look at unaltered logs, an offer he turned down with the words "That won't be neccessary." Well no, SmilingSkeptic, of course not, because then you would have no leg to stand on with your continued claims that I altered screenshots, which you damn well know, don't you, you dishonest prat?

Needless to say, SmilingSkeptic joined the AoD team for whatever reason (although my guess is that he, as xxxild, is attracted to RadarGirl) and continued to throw around unfounded accusations while rejecting proper evidence. The continued accusation of rape shaming, something repeated by both xxxild and SmilingSkeptic resurfaced, when I had a discussion with TheAmazingAtheist about "accountability" of the victim, which is nothing other than "rape shaming light", and clearly took a stance against the claim that rape victims should ask themselves whether they shouldn't be partially accountable for the crime committed against them due to their behaviour leading up to the crime itself. DeathOfSpeech made a very good video as a response to mine, and SmilingSkeptic, in his continued vendetta, attacked DoS while yet again referring to me as a rape shamer, as he did in our first talk ever, while defending TJ, the very person who claimed rape victims should accept accountability! He calls me a rape shamer when I did nothing at all, while he actually defends a lighter version of rape shaming? Seriously? So to SmilingSkeptic, the boy who never smiles and lacks skepticism, congratulations for being my Boy of the Month June 2011!

Transcript of my response to TJ's blog entry

Today's rant is aimed at none other than TJ, also known as TheAmazingAtheist.

A few days ago TJ sent out a tweet, linking to a blog entry of his. The first thing you will see on there is this picture:


I'm assuming that picture was taken during the "slutwalk" protest, which originally began in Toronto and soon spread further after Constable Michael Sanguinetti, a Toronto Police officer, suggested that in order not to be victimized, "women should avoid dressing like sluts."

TJ asserts in his first line, that we are discouraged from looking at complicated multi-faceted answers when it comes to rape. This already makes me wonder in which way we are discouraged, because women stand up against some outrageous statements that still occur way too often. In just about every rape trial the sexual history of the victim is examined in order to make her claim to rape less believable. "If she is a slut anyway, how do we know she didn't want to sleep with this man?"

Since TJ later in the article resorts to comparing rape to being robbed, I will quickly resort to the same measure here. Can we assume that someone who regularly donates money to charity or gives a few coins to beggars on the street also is fine with being robbed? No, we can't. Rape is the only crime where the victim's previous behavior has an influence on the judgement of the person who committed the crime.

He continues by stating

"Don’t get me wrong, blaming a girls flirtatious nature or revealing outfit is repugnant and probably inaccurate. However, just declaring, “rape happens cuz rapists is evul!” is nearly as stupid."

Probably? There is no probably about that claim being inaccurate. The worsd should be "MOST DEFINITELY".

And fortunately nobody really makes a claim like this, TJ. As someone who accused me of strawmanning when I asked if I should wear a burka in a sarcastic exaggeration to your claim we should take "precautions" to not get raped later on in your post, I find your accusation rather hypocritical, considering you did it yourself as early as the second paragraph of your post. Nobody makes this particular claim, however, rape happens due to the nature of the rapist, not
the nature of the victim.

While you refer to rates of rape, what constitutes rape and attitudes towards victims being different from society to society, a discussion which I will gladly enter at another time, it has not much to do with the way your blog entry continues. Plenty of studies have by now shown quite well that rape is not just about the sexual act, but about exerting power over the victim without the victim's consent. If sex were all rapists are after, chemical castration, which is applied in some countries, would be a success in stopping repeat offenders, but it has clearly failed.

So while in Sweden you can be declared a rapist for a burst condom during consentual sex, which I personally find highly ridiculous, it is still perfectly legal in some other countries to force your wife to have intercourse, if needed by applying physical violence. We are all aware of that, but I am fairly sure that the Saudi wife who was married off at age 14 feels just as violated when the husband she never knew before forces himself on her as the woman who had a drink too much at a dinner party in NY and is raped by some stranger that abuses her vulnerability.

It appears to me your little discourse into various ways of dealing with rape in various societies is more or less a decoy to take attention away from the issue you really wish to address later on, and that is the accountability.

You claim that while you know the accountability rests on the shoulders of the rapist, this is out of pragmatism rather than honest inquiry into where the blame lies, and that is where you journey off, slowly, into blaming the victim for the crime committed against her or him.

It starts out with the subtle hint

"I’d say victims are nearly entirely ruled out as being anywhere near responsible or “to blame” for what happened to them."

Is that really so? Why then, do police investigations in a rape always dig into the sexual history of the victim? Why is it such a common procedure in court to display the victim as someone who is "sleeping around" and "easy"? When you get mugged on the street and your wallet is stolen from you, are you questioned about the possibility that you actually wanted to give the robber money, because you have a history of helping out others financially? The fact remains that people such as Constable Michael Sanguinetti are not that rare, on the contrary. Rape victims worldwide still have to deal with being partially blamed, whether it is because they were drunk at a party or because they "didn't fight back enough". The latter one often being a reason for dismissal of a legitimate rape case, since no signs of injury can be found that resemble anything worse than rough sex. It appears that rape is the only crime where you are expected to put up a fight even if this means your life may be in more danger. Nobody will put any blame on you if you hand your wallet over to a robber, on the contrary, fighting back is considered stupid.

"But we’re in denial if we think that environmental factors, genetic abnormalities, mental illnesses, societal attitudes, belief systems and particular subcultures don’t have an impact."

And who ever claimed they do not? However, what impact do these factors have on the amount of blame you wish to impose on the victim? Environmental factors occasionally make it easier for a rapist to get away with rape, yes. Genetic abnormalities may play a part in tendencies to becoming a rapist, yes. Mental illnesses, societal attitudes, belief systems and particular subcultures... What influence does the victim of a violent crime have on these factors? Close
to none. I call this paragraph yet another decoy to take away from your final assertion. While you can positively assert from these factors that the rapist is influenced by them and hence may be less aware of his wrongdoings, in the most extreme cases to the point where he will not be able to be blamed at all, either due to severe mental illness or because the form of rape he committed is considered acceptable in his cultural and religious society, none of this is anything the victim has any influence on, unless she severely limits her own freedom and personal rights for the sake of safety, and even then these measures often are futile, as a large amount of rapes actually happens within a close circle of friends and family, people you trust or are subject to regardless of precautions.

"Saying someone didn’t take the proper precautions to prevent getting robbed isn’t going to upset them—someone who was robbed, even though they’re not directly responsible for what happened, are usually able to accept that maybe they didn’t take proper precautions."

It is your proposed but undefined precautions I originally wanted to hear about when I sarcastically asked you whether I should wear a burka, and you have so far failed to elaborate on the precautions you suggest people should take to avoid being raped. We all learn not to accept candy or rides from strangers as children. We are all taught to say "NO" in a loud voice and call for help to put a potential rapist off. A lot of us took self defense classes. But looking at the majority of rape cases, it appears that these precautions are not enough. How do you defend yourself when you are a child or adolescent being molested by a family member? How do you defend yourself when someone puts a knife to your throat? Do you trust your self defense abilities enough to be faster than your rapist's flick of a wrist? Do you suggest we are to be partially blamed for leading social lives, going out to parties and occasionally consuming alcohol, sometimes perhaps a bit too much? I really am curious which precautions you assume rape victims are not taking for you to keep insisting that we SHOULD question whether the victim is to be partially blamed.

"It’s a lot harder for a rape victim to accept that level of responsibility, due to the psychological trauma associated with rape."

You assume it is a lot harder for a rape victim to accept a level of responsibility, and I have to ask: Are you joking? The large majority of rape victims falsely blames themselves after a rape. A large amount of rapes never even gets reported because of this. The victim feels ashamed, guilty, filthy and it often takes extensive therapy to get over the feeling of self blame for something she or he had absolutely no control over. And you dare claim they refuse to accept a level of responsibility? Either you really slacked on your research before posting this blog entry, or you are being completely dishonest. I hope it's the first of the two.

"But at the same time, to act as if victims are totally powerless and there is simply nothing they could have done is usually somewhat factually and intellectually dishonest. And it doesn’t really serve the best interest of women as a whole to adopt the attitude that they’re in no way accountable for their own well-being when it comes to rape."

And again, I have to ask you which precautions you propose. In the majority of cases the victim IS powerless. It is a crime based on exerting power over someone who is defenseless. There is nothing factually and intellectually dishonest about this, unless you know some miracle defense system that will not restrict the freedom of a potential victim. Because personally, I refuse to give up freedom for security, else I may as well wear a burka and lock myself up in my house. And you can call that strawmanning all you want.

Video to this script
TJ's blog entry
TJ's YouTube channel
What is SlutWalk?
Rape Myths
My main YouTube channel

Recap of the Liverpool YouTube Meetup

Hello YouTubers and other readers,

I am finally taking the time to write about the Liverpool meetup, which was a weekend of great fun with awesome people. So here is my little diary of the weekend:

Friday, 27th of May 2011
Flying out from Frankfurt Airport, I first headed to Amsterdam, as there are no direct flights to Liverpool. Let me tell you that Schiphol is quite a large airport, and despite a layover of almost an hour, I had no time to relax at all. Arriving at the airport in Liverpool at around 9:30PM I waited for the arrival of my ex-boyfriend Gerard, who also flew in from Amsterdam, but with a different airline. Seems Easyjet knows some kind of shortcut, since his plane arrived 20 minutes before schedule, which was a good thing, as it meant 20 minutes less waiting time for me.

Gerard and I took the bus to Lime Street Station and with the help of a map of Liverpool that we grabbed at the airport we actually found our way to the Travelodge without having to resort to any kind of GPS. Amazing achievement for two geeks! After checking into our hotel room and a quick freshening up, we headed to the Ship&Mitre to meet up with the others fairly late. I can only recommend this place for anyone travelling to Liverpool. For the first time ever I was actually able to drink a proper beer in England!

After a fun time at the pub we headed back to the hotel, while Shredder and a few others went to fetch pizza for all of us, which we ate in the hotel lobby. The fact that our hotel lacked a hotel bar was the only downside to this gathering, but we coped and spent the rest of the evening in Shredder's hotel room, doing a blogTV show.

Saturday, 28th of May 2011

Considering Gerard and I both had a rather exhausting Friday, we opted out of joining the others for the visit of the Metropolitan Cathedral, but met up with them for lunch at The Pump House . Afterwards people opted to see a variety of museums or just hang out. Since coffee at the hotel was horrible, Gerard and I joined Landon and had some coffee while waiting for our turn on The Yellow Duckmarine. We didn't quite know what to expect and originally thought it was going to be a simple sightseeing tour on land and water, but it turned out to be a fun mix of sightseeing and genuine entertainment. Our tour guide was quite a comedian, and I can only recommend you try this out yourself, should you ever stay in Liverpool.

Gerard and I met up with my friend Gareth in the late afternoon, picking him up from Lime Street Station, then we re-joined the others for the rest of the day. Our pub for the evening was The Baltic Fleet, which wasn't too bad, but could not quite compare to the Ship&Mitre. We were however able to take this wonderful picture here:


While at the Baltic Fleet we were also able to finally perform the collaring ceremony of Shredder, something we had been wanting to do in London already. Shredder, being my "blogTV bitch" (ever since I realized that having him co-host gives me more viewers) jokingly agreed to wear a collar and leash, which we put on him that night.

Dinner for that night was consumed at Pizza Hut, and I think I discovered Liverpool's filthiest bathroom there. Having entered said bathroom before dinner, I noticed a lack of usable toilet paper in most of the stalls, since someone with a warped sense of humour had decided to unroll it all onto the floor. Having informed the staff about the situation, I was promised it would be handled, but when I went again after dinner, nothing had been done at all. I hope their kitchen is in better shape than their bathroom.

While some of us (mainly Abby and GingerGreek) went out clubbing later that night, I was still fairly worn out from the day before and had an early night, hugging my pillow instead.

Sunday, 29th of May 2011

We once again skipped out of morning fun with the others, missing the Ferry 'cross the Mersey tour, but joined them for lunch, which we planned to have somewhere in Chinatown. It took us a while to find a restaurant that was able to accomodate all of us, and the food could have been better, but the service was friendly enough.

Afterwards we again split up into little groups, having time for museum visits, shopping tours, etc. Being worn out from walking around (damn you, arthritis!), Gerard, Gareth and I joined Landon in sitting at the café inside the Walker Art Gallery, because what could possibly be more relaxing than having a cup of Latte Macchiato while surrounded by art?

Our pub for Sunday evening was Rigby's, where I devoured Shredder's nachos while he was busy snogging various people (see video). While the food and beer could have been better, the location itself was very nice, with a large outside area in the back. Finally a place where I was able to drink my beer and smoke at the same time.

We ended the evening with yet another blogTV show in Shredder's room, beer courtesy of Rhysz. Having to get up at 6AM the next morning to catch my flight back home, I didn't stick around too long, but still had fun.

Monday, 30th of May 2011

Getting up early sucks. Oh, and did I mention yet that the "business breakfast package" served by the Travelodge is a joke? You get a muffin, a crossaint, cornflakes and orange juice and pay over 4 quid for that. Really not worth it at all.

Anyhow, having to catch my flight, I took a taxi back to the airport. Taxi driver was quite chatty with a typical scouser accent. Hard to understand, but nice fellow. I even had time for some real coffee at the airport before boarding the plane that would take me back to Germany. My layover in Amsterdam was a bit longer this time, so I actually had time to sit around and begin editing my footage. The final result can be seen here:



All in all, this gathering was epic. The people were great, and we had loads of fun.

Just because I know you are curious, here is a list of those who attended:

http://www.youtube.com/abbynormal0ne (who can sing like an angel despite a horrible cold)
http://www.youtube.com/bespokegroupuk (who is really silent in real life)
http://www.youtube.com/bossman103 (who always smiles)
http://www.youtube.com/collinmaessen (who has a cute grin)
http://www.youtube.com/christinepeace (who got screwed over in Bulgaria)
http://www.youtube.com/dlandoncole (who arranged this entire thing! THANKS!)
http://www.youtube.com/gingergreek (who is still the most cuddly man of the bunch)
http://www.youtube.com/gunderson002 (who got his first kiss...from Shredder!)
http://www.youtube.com/habulinec (who looks like FakeSagan)
http://www.youtube.com/hospitalier14 (who is the brother of fakefakesagan)
http://www.youtube.com/latumway (who does the most heartmelting lipsynching)
http://www.youtube.com/mrsoprano0125 (who wasn't around enough)
http://www.youtube.com/mslauwein (who needs to start making videos)
http://www.youtube.com/nauroticdax (who is ticklish)
http://www.youtube.com/nightmare060 (who was only there the first day)
http://www.youtube.com/paulchartley (who had to leave way too early)
http://www.youtube.com/rhysz1 (who got beaten up by girls)
http://www.youtube.com/shredderneverdies (who looks good on a leash)
http://www.youtube.com/stanmarsh1 (who found his feminine side)
http://www.youtube.com/stealthbadger (who can think fourdimensional)
http://www.youtube.com/stefzula (who eats pizza like a real Jersey girl)
http://www.youtube.com/ujames1978 (who made us all feel like midgets)
http://www.youtube.com/watercrane (who can give epic massages)

Without channel:
Katie (who is a total sweetheart and StanMarsh1's girlfriend)
Gerard (whose hair fascinated Katie)
PaulCHartley's wife (whose name I didn't catch, shame on me!)

See you at the next gathering,
Fel