Calm

It’s so easy to take things the wrong way, as not intended when the subject is emotional. I resent being groped, being yelled at, being trapped, being physically held when I didn’t ask or wanted to be and was so scared I was frozen and then made to feel guilty that I overreacted. I resent being scared to be alone at night, having to keep keys or something else sharp in my hands while I walk to my car when I am forced to shop at night. I am having to teach my daughters the same things I learned because everything that happened to me and much much worse is still happening. I was nice to men for decades about this subject. My fellow women are typically nice to men about this subject. I am too tired and frustrated these days to put in the additional effort to control my emotions so much that I don’t trigger a man’s sensitive feelings. I may apologize when it happens the first time, maybe even the second. If they choose to take it the wrong way after it’s been explained multiple times to them, that’s on them. Iow, if you want to believe we think of you like a dog that bites or a parasite, go for it. I have no clue why you insist on going there, but after trying way too much to clarify so you wouldn’t misinterpret, I don’t care any more.

Yeah, only if you are clueless about what a good defensive position is in an attack or want your people to have a quick death. Plus Mormon said he buried the rest of the records he had been given in Cumorah, but gave the ones that the BoM came from to his son nor did Moroni say they were buried at Cumorah.

Due to a question someone had due to rumors they are seeing online, I just called the local Springville center and the Lindon one just to see if they had more info and they said the rumors are true, the Food Storage Centers are closing. Springville said they will be offering all the food on sale starting the 16th of this month until it’s gone and iirc it’s a deal (I didn’t trust I heard 50% off, but I did). I imagine they will be soooo crowded their first day and clear out fast. They won’t be open that Monday. She wasn’t sure about the closing date, but by the end of summer. My guess is they will close when the food is gone. You might want to check with your local center in case their sale starts at a different day. The Lindon assistant reassured me the Bishop Storehouses will stay open. I forgot to ask the Springville one. My speculation is some Storehouses might close if they don’t have enough volunteers or it becomes more cost effective to do what they do in areas without Storehouses and just purchase from local stores as needed, but at least the ones in Utah appear to be staying open. I asked if the food will be available for online purchase, they hadn’t heard about that yet, likely would hear on Monday when they have another meeting. You might want to call your closest center to see if they have more news on Monday…or check here. I sleep late, so if anyone is really curious, feel free to call them then and post the info when you learn…or if you have more info now. They did not tell me why. Didn’t know yet. My speculation is very dependent on whether the food items will be available online and if so, I think it is because it is just much more cost effective and requires less volunteers to simply have an online store. Less facilities to maintain and staff. If they discontinue offering canned food even online, I will be very surprised as my experience is it’s much cheaper than even Walmart. I just checked and 6 number 10 cans of sliced strawberries are 120$ online at Walmart and 84$ from the Church. I tried checking Amazon and one had it as $40 for a can about the same weight, but there were some a lot cheaper that might be around the same price if one goes by the price per oz. If that is accurate, then maybe the Church doesn’t see a need there to provide the service anymore, but the one stop trustworthy provider…I hope it stays around.

I am going to be open and say I don’t really understand why so often the first thought men have when they hear this phrase is “you think I am a rapist?” rather than “what horrible experiences has this woman had that she looks at men this way? what hurt her that much?” This is not a criticism (people don’t have much control over the first thoughts that pop into their heads), this is me being mystified.

My opinion and experience is not enough young women take the cautioning seriously enough when it is phrased in less dramatic terms. Stats demonstrate they need to be more cautious than they are. I had the usual cautionings taught me young and still there were several things I look back on and think how absolutely stupid I was And I know I was light years more cautious than most of my friends. Women didn’t come up with the phrase to crush men’s self esteem, but to save their own lives. I do believe that if I had been exposed to this phrase back in my dating years, I would not have made several choices that led to me being alone with young men way too early in the relationship. Might not have prevented all of my stupid choices but quite a few. I am not positive that even this phrase can do that given youths’ less developed brains, but I would want to see research that shows it’s not that helpful in teaching young women and women in general to raise their cautious before dispensing with it completely. In your opinion, if it leads to more women keeping closer eyes of drinks and perhaps choosing nonalcoholic ones, keeping a closer eye on their friends when out as a group, and other wise safety measures than the less emotional phrases would you see it as having enough value to stick around? I am not saying it should be used in all contexts and if used, it should also be explained why it’s being used in spite of some men and women might find it offensive and to encourage people not to use it to attack men in general, but to remind themselves of the need for caution in any situation until one knows better…and in youth remember the “until one knows better” is probably a very few situations. I just don’t think any tool of value should be thrown out when there aren’t that many effective ones available for the individual. I do want people to be more receptive in this discussion as that will more likely lead to change, but I also want young women and women to be safer and as long as our culture isn’t doing it as it should, we have to teach them to do it themselves and for each other. And I have to add that I think the vast majority of women have been nice, have been concerned about men’s feelings for probably forever…most women have men they deeply care about and don’t want to hurt. But here we are, still having to have this discussion after eons of sexual violence against women and children and men. How much longer will it take being nice about it to get the needed changes? If being calm and rational will lead to the needed changes, why are we still having this conversation? Why are so many men still surprised when women open up about their actual experiences in detail?

Men probably shouldn’t be that upset if women push the potential rapist theme if that means eventually less assaults and harassment of women because the stats typically show a safer world for women is a safer world for men. Rather than worrying about speculated emotional harm from occasionally encountering a phrase that might be taken in an offensive or diminishing way and complaining about women’s language, seems like it would be a better use of energy to invest in pushing for laws and education that lowers the number of incidents significantly. First off, if more women see the majority of men actively supporting such things, including by stepping in to stop actual harassment and even attacks rather than walking away and not just mouthing platitudes and empty compliments, they will feel like they are being listened to, change is happening, and actual dialogue that achieves something significant can work. There will be more interesting things to focus on and discuss. Second, by putting effort into better laws and education on these issues, men are benefiting themselves because every man starts out as a child. Healthier (physically and mentally) mothers mean healthier children means healthier adults when they get older. Childhood trauma is being recognized as a massive contributor to the likelihood of chronic illness as well as domestic violence. Risks go way up, even years after experiencing or witnessing such abuse. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3318917/ Now maybe that doesn’t matter much to men who don’t see themselves as fathers sometime in the future, but every man who is worried that his sons might have lower self esteem due to hearing the potential rapist phrase must also be worried about what effect a mother or sister being harassed or assaulted will have on their son as well, surely (not implying here this is the only concern a father might have about domestic or sexual violence, just saying it’s part of the picture). Kill two birds with one stone by removing the need for women to have to remind each other to be situationally aware and prepared.

No, I am thinking of the actual definition. Every descendant in my view is a direct descendant; direct descendant means the exact same thing as descendant, doesn’t it? There is no need to add “direct” unless there is an additional condition attached. I am wondering if you are assuming a condition that I am not aware of for the term. Chat did the calculations for me, so pure speculation, but it might be sometime in the 13-15 century that Abraham became an ancestor of the majority of people outside of the Americas and Australia and by now likely everywhere outside of highly isolated populations (and even there it only takes one descendant to mix with those communities to spread the connection throughout their members over a few centuries).

Good summary, imo

When I say move the needle, I am not talking about adding to the efforts for change (though that must happen), but the change we are looking for itself. I mean on the dial that shows how safe we are, the average level of safety that exists for women in this world, so moving the needle means making the world safer for women…which will lead to making the world safer for children and men as well. Think of a dial with red at the low end where every woman gets assaulted and raped many, many times throughout her life and the other side is green where no woman (or child or man) ever gets assaulted or even harassed, never made to feel uncomfortable because of their sex. Having clarified that, I agree with everything else you said. And that is why I think many women feel using “every man a potential rapist” is appropriate…because they see situational awareness and preparedness as the only available tool in the toolbox, so they try and find the most effective way to present. And it certainly has led to a lot more discussion in my experience.

What descendant is not a direct descendant?

To me this is a reasonable and logical approach to reconciling those two truths and the evidence that there are those who do good outside the Catholic faith and the natural desire to have hope of salvation for others. I think the LDS belief of being able to perform proxy temple ordinances may be seen as equivalent to offering full communion to all who desire it, thus resolving the question of salvation for those not in full membership with the LDS faith. We keep it open for even those who get excommunicated in mortality allowing God to judge whether they rejected him and his promises and covenants or not (I personally don’t see how anyone mortal can comprehend what that rejection amounts to, so I think if there is anyone who won’t get their actual chance to choose God after death but have taking that step already in mortality, it surely will be just the few who had the most complete knowledge a mortal can have, which would likely require them being fully in at some point to receive that witness, and then turned their hearts intentionally away from God as Lucifer did).

Would you please take everything I say into account and not just treat each sentence as if it exists in a void. I have already talked about how women are required to do exactly that because the world is not safe for them, so I am not arguing that we should never make those recommendations. What I am tired of is when societies act as if the onus is all on women as if women taking wise precautions is enough. If that will continue to be the dominant approach we will never get to a point where we can stop advising women to not trust anyone until they know better. At best, this is a stop gap measure and plenty of women still get assaulted no matter how prepared they are. More needs to be done. The Green Dot program I added to my previous post seems like a step in the right direction as it mobilizes the community to participate through education and encouraging and possibly rewarding active involvement in spotting and stopping red flag behaviors and assaults themselves by everyone. I am condemning any recommendation list that begins and ends at or whose primary approach is restricting women’s freedom. That is what I mean by dumping it on the women, if it wasn’t clear before by my use of “dump”. Think of it like people complaining they don’t feel safe in their own neighborhoods and the response they get from others over and over again is to put bars on their windows and locks on their doors and ask for ID when people come to the door…be situationally aware and prepare to avoid harm…as if that means they will feel safer in their neighborhood when the advice is in essence to avoid the neighborhood by isolating oneself. It’s bare minimum help…acknowledgment they don’t feel safe, but making it the victim or potential victim’s responsibility to be safe. How many times does situational awareness need to be validated before we can move on to something that moves the needle further than it already is? We have been taught situational awareness at least since I was born back in the 50s, likely way before that. Moms have probably been telling their daughters since they first left the cave to keep an eye out for the wolves in sheep clothing. There’s a reason for certain fairy tales. Little Red Riding Hood (which is more sexually explicit in older versions), Bluebeard, Robber Bridegroom, etc. Unfortunately there are plenty of fairy tales justifying sexual assault, such as Snow White (the older version wasn’t just a kiss…that wasn’t consensual), Sleeping Beauty is a repeat, the original she gets pregnant with twins while unconscious and one of the babies sucks out the piece of flax from her finger that caused her to sleep. Apparently it’s not rape if the guy is powerful and “good”, but a happy ending.

Amen

For example, places that put curfews on women when attacks on women are happening rather than the men, among who the perpetrators hide. Anything that restricts women, tells them to change their behaviour and ignores any behaviours of men that might be increasing likelihood of atracks. Tell women they need to learn self defense…guess what, it’s not enough. Even when it might help one woman avoid assault, what about the woman the rapist then turns to as his next victim? https://broadview.org/self-defense-violence-against-women/ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/12/stop-rapists-not-change-who-gets-raped Better to make society responsible for prevention, including messaging the men it’s as much as their job as the women. https://www.lindsey.edu/campus-life/Greendot-LWC.cfm I don’t know how effective this can truly be, but it is a step in the right direction.

No responsibility. I am talking about responsibility for change.

Good analogy. It applies to so many things, imo.

It is very hard to change minds when one is not respected or the aggressor thinks of one as less than they are or is not in the habit of listening to one. One might get the law to coerce behaviour, but how long does that take to change hearts rather than build up resentment? (Not saying we shouldn’t have laws as if fear is the only way to prevent violence, then use fear imo). But as Nehor pointed out, the laws we have managed to get so far aren’t that great. Took us to 1975 to get laws against spousal rape on the books and there are still states with legal loopholes making it harder to prosecute marital rape or even just a previous relationship. https://abcnews.com/US/minnesotas-repeal-marital-rape-exemptions-highlights-existing-legal/story https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/making-sense-of-chaos/202005/the-bizarre-legal-loopholes-surrounding-spousal-rape/amp https://www.womenslaw.org/about-abuse/forms-abuse/sexual-abuse-and-exploitation/marital-partner-rape/basic-info-about-0

I don’t know why anyone thought that was a clever answer. The Cross means more than just the weapon that killed the Christ (or perhaps I should say he allows it to kill him). Especially with all the scriptural and hymnal language about taking up one’s Cross and other phrases. I see that mocking, dismissiveness in the gun comparison as insulting scripture. The Cross is venerated not because it killed Christ, but because of what Christ accomplished through it. There is also some very poetic and meaningful, imo, symbolism of the Tree of Life mirroring the Tree of Death (the Cross). And no doubt other meanings I am not aware of.

If one had to choose between food and rent, didn’t want to go to shelters because you wanted something that felt like your own space for awhile even if one knew it wasn’t and one would eventually have to leave, I can easily imagine why it might happen. Squatters who do it for the fun of it, that would not appeal to me on the least. Squatters who do it because it’s the best of a short list of bad options, I can easily understand that.

Think up ideas that will persuade or teach men not to think of women in terms of property or domination, not to think that violence and abuse is acceptable as well as that figure out how to self police. Women are unlikely to be able to change the minds and hearts of men who devalue and dismiss them already, but maybe other men can find a way to communicate that those who will tend to be violent may listen to if they still respect other men in some fashion. It will no doubt require thought and effort.

I already did. It’s the sentence that follows.

The high cost of resources is unfortunate and the need will likely always outstrip the cost until technology drastically changes, but greener options are being used now and will expand, so hopefully it’s not a disaster waiting to happen.

‘But can also be achieved in others ways’…assuming you mean this, but thought it’s worth it to make explicit.

How about collective responsibility? As in all men should proactively and seriously consider what they can do to change our culture to one that is safer for women and children…and men as well and not just dump it on the women as the ones most affected (as too often happens in response to raised threats).

She analogizes the response to the unknown risk of getting a parasite to the response to the unknown risk of men until one knows them better, imo; not men to the parasite.