One of the responses to this guy was very interesting:
I've been a fan of Reddit for a while. I've never joined because I am a woman and well, while I like reading the memes and other ideas, it seemed like a guy's hangout and why ruin the fun. But this thread is gaining traction and is being forwarded, liked, disliked and otherwise discussed on all of my feeds.
So gentleman, I offer the following from the perspective of...I'm known for being a beautiful woman, friendly and easy to get along with, a community/political activist, a fervent volunteer in the community, and a person who rises through the ranks quickly due to successes at work.
But this is MY mask. Because beginning at the age of 10 yo, I was sexually abused, which set me up to become a girl who "was a bit damaged, had a shitty ex-boyfriend, or family issues, came from a small shut in town, that sort of thing."
Psychologically damaged wouldn't begin to describe what I was during my teens and into my twenties. But I was/am also independent, strong-willed. How did these two sides of my personality live as one? Who knows? But they did.
As a result of a childhood with financial resources, I attended private schools. Quarterbacks and popular guys were all I knew. But as a result of my sexual abuse, I had been given an awareness of people's underlying selves - the masks, as the contributor wrote. It made me an observer of people. It made me aware of danger. It made me aware of masks, because I was wearing my own.
And there were several of these types throughout high school and college: many had daddy issues. It was typically a father who was successful combined with a son who was made to feel less than. Moms who weren't strong enough to protect their sons, but also moms who worked shame on their children really well.
I have often wondered, because masks aren’t full proof, if the fathers of these types of sons weren't aware on some level the types of sons they had - those sons behind the masks. And if their fathers were responding with judgment and condemnation, not because of whom the fathers were at heart, but because of what the fathers worried their sons were at heart.
Sure, there are a lot abusive dads and moms in this world, people who don’t need reason to dislike or mistreat their children; but, I was always curious…did the steely, hard-ass fathers know that their sons were “off” somehow? Did their fathers sense a sinister and secretive side to their sons and were their fathers responding to that? I guess the person who wrote of raping women would have to ask himself those questions. In any event, it wasn’t as if these boys/college students were 100% successful in hiding or masking their true selves and predilections. People knew.
So, if this story is true, I’d like to offer that I doubt people don’t know something is off. I am sure there are people surrounding this individual, people like myself, who sense a darker side. If he were to do anything now, I suspect his wife will review her history of marriage with him and will be able to pinpoint incidents or activities that she questioned at the time, but wrote off.
So, his story…
“I'm somewhat remorseful for what I did to those girls”: You either are or you’re not and if you qualify your remorse as “somewhat”, I doubt that you are. It’s not a judgment. You don’t owe me an apology. But if, when you wake with a bout of insomnia one night and you’re wondering if you’re a good or bad guy, I might suggest that you come to terms with that “somewhat” apology. If you’re not sorry, don’t pretend because pretending is really just masking and that’s kind of what gets you into trouble.
“I didn’t know how to stop”: I believe that, but I also believe that you did not want to stop because it wasn’t about you and the girl that was squirming on your futon; it was about you and what you felt about you. It was about power. It was about making someone pay for the impotence you felt in your life. Impotence, I would suspect, that raises it head a bit here and there for you, even now.
“I’m a good looking guy…” Most of the guys like you that I have met also believed themselves to be good looking guys. Some were, some weren’t, some were but then were not. But I doubt it matters whether you were physically attractive or not. You believed you were. But then something would happen right? A girl would reject you? A professor would dismiss you? A parent would shame you? Someone would piss you off and it would send you off balance. And the way you restored your confidence – the way you got back that power that the girl or the professor or the dad took away – was to rape young women. It made you feel strong because you had been strong by making someone else weak. Criticism was your kryptonite; sexually abusing women was your remedy.
“It became boring to go after the sluts and sorority girls…” Careful. Your true self is beginning to show.
“I would find attractive girls that were self-conscious…” You read people, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to target the vulnerable among us. You grabbed girls who wanted to be popular. You targeted girls who seemed enthusiastic to have been the subject of your charm. You’re were/perhaps still are, a predator. Use concrete words to identify the components to yourself. If you’re going to be saved (or “help” others) you’re going to have to do some more work. Also, it's not lost on me that you wrote that you find "attractive" girls. Goodness, you wouldn't want readers on Reddit to think that you, the rapist, was looking for unattractive girls to target. For example, "I may be a rapist, but I looked for good looking girls."
“cold enough so that when we started watching the movie…” Premeditation. Thought. Predator.
“those nights were usually consensual and boring sex…” Because it wasn’t what you wanted right? You wanted them to be scared. You wanted them to be hurt. You wanted to trade your feelings of inadequacy for power. And the quickest route to power is to take it from another.
“the great nights were the ones who squirmed…” Much like your leading a board of readers to squirm right? And your describing those nights as great? Interesting. Would not a remorseful person say something along the lines of, "in my warped, reality, I thought the best nights were the nights they squirmed."
I would suspect that you get your jollies somewhere. Without intense therapy (some argue it helps, others argue it does not), what you have will not go away. You know it (if your story is true); and, I know it. I suspect you watch porn, probably focused on college aged subjects or younger. You may have ventured into “barely legal porn”; and, you might have ventured into child porn. You are someone who is hiding things and it is not just the past. You played mind fucks as much as you raped young women. It was the mind games that gave you a sense of true power, right? You sure you’re not engaging in a little of that in your life now, maybe here, on this board?
“you never know who someone truly is, so be careful…” Mind fuck. Jollies.
You say that you and your wife enjoy a fulfilling and regular sex life. No way. You’ve done things that have made her uncomfortable. She sees you sometimes. She knows; she just doesn’t understand what she’s seeing. And if you are not tapping your wilder side with her, you are getting wild somewhere. You’re venturing into it. If this story is real, why not just open the door and let it out? Are you taking pictures of girls? Are you watching lots of porn? Are you fantasizing about rape? One could argue that your post was a bit of reliving it, right. To call women, whom you now claim to share some empathy with, “sluts” and “cunts”, doesn’t strike me as someone who has spent the last many years “in another country”, “with a great wife”, studying yoga and who now is fully empathetic with his victims.
And as far as your comments that your victims went on to live fulfilling lives: You’re entitled to your mask, but they are not? It’s called rationalizing or normalizing behavior that you know is outside societal norms. I do not believe that you’re sorry. I’m laughing, but when you begin a post that claims to contain feeling for one’s victims, you may want to reconsider the verbiage, i.e., “sluts” and “cunts”. Liken it to a former/reformed Klan’s member still using the word ngg* in his commentary. See what I mean?
Humility – going within – as you imply, begins by honestly assessing what you have done. It’s being truthful with yourself and about who and what you are NOW. I almost don’t give a shit about who you were then (which is not the equivalent of lacking strong concern for your victims)…but you’re a ticking time bomb. I also liken it to the women who have killed their children and they go in front of the TV cameras and they cry and they beg for the return of their children. Go to YouTube. Look at their faces. 95% of them don’t know how to cry. They are pretending. They cannot experience real emotions, because they do not have real emotions for the event at hand. So they are left attempting to demonstrate those emotions through acting – they try to mimic the authentic behavior they have seen. And it’s rarely successful. There are people like me on every police force. There are people like me in your office. There are people like me on this board. We know.
If your story is real, you’re going to slide, but I suspect you already have. And I suspect that the only reason you're not coming totally clean, is that you're smart enough to know that what you do today, can hurt you.
And what you have will be taken away. And what you have worked for will disappear. And then all those people who you think didn’t know, are going to walk out of the wood work with sentences like, “he sometimes made me uncomfortable”; “he was a nice guy, but I was uneasy.”
Because if your story is real, you will not successfully pretend your way through life. The falsity that you feel (which, I assume you have felt since you were a kid) – is what makes people like me, nervous around people like you. And people like me are a bit animalistic as well.
So, you’ll bump up against one of us one day. And as a final note: I do not think I am able to believe you are unable to have children. Let's assume you are a rapist - former or current or fantasy rapist - you have got to know that the fastest route to bring the power of courts and law enforcement on your ass is to admit that kids are living are living under your roof.
But who knows? Maybe you are a reformed rapist who just likes to call women "cunts" and "sluts" and maybe you grew empathy. But that sounds suspicious doesn't it?
Until then, I’ll just keep my eyes focused on the morning paper. Because I have a feeling, I’ll be reading your story elsewhere.
Oh and here is the link to the Reddit page:
www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/x6yef/reddits_had_a_few_threads_about_sexual_assault/c5jtt3p
