blood on roses

i talk about the epstein files. i am one of his victims. you don't get to know anything else about me, sorry. everything is rebloggable. don't interact from dedicated nsfw/kink/porn blogs please.

[thedreamthieves]

i think one of the worst things the left wing internet ever did was push the idea that oppression is basically a virtue, and being oppressed is a sign of your morality. it has made it like…impossible for some of you to hold the idea that most people are privileged in some ways and oppressed in others. AND a lot of you seem to have it in your mind that terrible people cannot be oppressed, and that oppressed people cannot do terrible things, which is a dangerous rhetoric to hold imo.

[victimgutz]

"there have been 0 arrests in the epstein case" the person the epstein case is named after was arrested multiple times and died in prison, someone is currently in prison in relation to the epstein case, and there has been at least one arrest since the files came out. really genuinely truly what is the point in speaking on this topic when you are going to say things so verifiably false that it makes it abundantly clear that you're not paying attention unless something happens to the one guy whose behavior negatively impacts you?

[alpaca-clouds]

Something I keep thinking about is how a lot of people consider it a good thing that children cannot by themselves consent (or refuse consent) to medical treatments. Some people do kinda get it that maybe it might be a problem with stuff like kids not being able to access trans healthcare, or kids being refused vaccination by antivaxx parents. But in general I see that most people are actually okay with this idea for the most part.

And like... you do get that that is kinda insane, right?

Because this is something that so often leads to suffering. And I am saying this as someone disabled, who had so many issues due to this in his childhood.

Just three examples: when I was 7, I was supposed to get checked for autism. My mother did not want an autistic child. Since she just could have a "neurotypical" child by refusing diagnosis, she did just that.

When I was 12, my mother had decided I needed a certain plastic surgery (one that had a minor health benefit, but still was largely a beauty thing). I did not want it. I really, really did not want it. We still went through almost the entire process until thankfully there was a doctor who went: "Wait, this is elective. I am refusing to do this on a child that does not want it."

And when I was 14 my mother refused to get me to the hospital when I had severe food poisoning. She refused me hospital treatment for almost two weeks. By the time I got actually taken to the hospital I was almost dead.

And here is the thing: all of this should just not happen. The doctor when I was 12 was cool, but... he refused to do the surgery because he had the right to make a conscience call. Legally my mother was in the right to force me into that elective surgery. And that just should not be the case.

A lot of children die and suffer due to their legal inability to consent - or refuse consent - to medical treatments. And I wish y'all would understand that.

Whenever this is brought up, people will go: "Oh, but parents will decide what is best for the child." And here is the thing: No, they are not. There is so much stuff out there showing that indeed, a lot of parents suck at this. Some out of malice, some because they are religious nuts, and some because they literally treat their kids like some sort of doll or some shit.

[swiftrunnerfelidae]

"Kill your local sex offender!" Oh, you mean the guy who went streaking at his local college football game on a dare one time? That's a sex crime.

"No, I mean-"

Oh, maybe the woman who had to pee in a public park that only had pay toilets, so she tried to hide behind the bushes but got caught? Public urination is a sex crime.

"What? No, I mean-"

Oh, maybe you mean the homeless guy who had to strip down to get his clothes in the laundromat to clean them for the first time in weeks? He tried being subtle, but someone called the cops on him, and now he's on the sex offender registry for public nudity.

"Rapists and pedophiles! Kill rapists and pedophiles!"

Oh, like the trans woman who got called a pedophile groomer for helping a trans kid escape her abusive parents?

Or maybe the black man who got labeled a rapist because he came on to another man's wife, and he decided to get back at him by charging him with rape?

How about the 17 year olds who were fooling around, fully consensually, in one of their bedrooms? That's still technically underage sex and thus rape of a minor.

Oh, or maybe you're talking about the doctor who performed genital reconstructive surgery in a state that just voted to get that classified as rape?

People will do everything they can to get you convinced rape and pedophilia are the worst crimes possible, then accuse whoever they like the least of being either a rapist, a pedophile, or both, counting on you turning on them just for being accused of the crime.

"Oh, so you're saying you don't want to kill a serial rapist?"

That's exactly what I'm goddamn saying.

Once we decide a group is okay to kill, the government will do everything they can to convince you that their political enemies are either part of that group, or just as bad as that group, to get you to kill their enemies for them.

The only way out is to accept every life as worth saving.

EDIT: If you're going to go on this post to say that no, you think you really should be allowed to kill people you decide are rapists and/or pedophiles, I'm going to block you. I have already been blocking you, because it's clear that you aren't willing to engage with what I'm saying.

Also, if someone says something like that we'd be better off with rapists being dead BUT that they won't let that opinion shape their stance on public policy, and you reply to that person to accuse them of wanting to murder people, I'm also going to block you, because what the fuck that's a completely different sentence.

EDIT 2: Since so many people seem to fail basic reading comprehension, let's state it again, in different words:

1. Killing people is bad.

2. Killing someone can never be undone by any means we have.

3. If the government can kill people, they will want to kill their political opposition and other undesirables (WHICH CAN INCLUDE YOU PERSONALLY AND ANY IF NOT ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY).

4. If there is a class of people OF ANY TYPE who the government can LEGALLY KILL, they now just need to convince you their enemies count as that class (ever wondered why there's so much emphasis on claiming gay people are pedophiles? Now you know!)

5. If there is a class of people OF ANY TYPE that the public can LEGALLY KILL, murderers just need to convince people that their victims counted as that class (I murdered him because he's a rapist. Anyway now his job is free promote me into that position plz.)

6. As pointed out in the notes (thank you everyone pointing this out!), if the penalty for a crime is death, people are much more willing to silence witnesses to that crime (for example, murdering their rape victims), which is EVEN WORSE than just committing the initial crime.

7. THEREFORE the only way to keep those from happening is to have NO category of people it is considered okay to kill FOR ANY REASON.

[silvaurum]

"i would kill a pedophile to protect my child" ok but would you teach your child how to say no? even to adults? even to adults you like? would you teach your child the words "penis" and "vulva" and then use them? would you let them ask questions about their body? would you answer them honestly? would you learn how to cope with your feelings when you talk about human bodies, so they don't feel ashamed? would you set a positive example for how you talk about your body? would you tell your child they don't have to hug or kiss anyone? would you tell your family the same? would you stand by them when they refuse to hug someone? even someone you know has never done anything to hurt them? would you let your child avoid food they don't like? would you let you child avoid people they don't like? would you believe them? would you sit in the discomfort of not knowing all the answers and not take it out on them? would you love your child the same if someone did hurt them? would you make them feel valued just as they are? would you let them talk to doctors or nurses in private? would you let them express their feelings? would you show interest in their life? would you let your child say no to you? would you help your child feel safe coming to you when they make a mistake? would you apologize to your child? would you believe them? would you put aside your anger to focus on what would make your child feel safe and loved? would you put your ego aside for your child? would you take your child's concerns seriously? would you listen to your child? would you believe them?

[shychick-52]

I would both do all those things AND kill a pedo to protect my child, if I had to.

[thecourtofcaligula]

Yesss

[silvaurum]

i'm gonna add this comment by @papercrane:

"Maya angelou's family killed a pedophile that raped her, and that just traumatized her more. "I thought that I had caused the man’s death, because I had spoken his name. That was my seven-and-a-half-year logic. So I stopped talking for five years." Read I know why the caged bird sings."

and here is my comment:

the fantasy of killing a pedophile to defend your child is... an escape from reality. as with all fantasies where a single act of violence stands for a lifetime of effortful care. it lets us off the hook for the day to day labor of actually protecting the human beings around us. it gives us an excuse to look away from what abuse actually looks like.

it allows us to ignore that setting boundaries is a daily practice. it allows us to ignore the subtle ways in which we punish children for having boundaries. it allows us not to think about things we can do, the effort we can put in, in smaller repeated ways, to be kind and caring. to be safe to talk to.

it is a grand gesture that, were you to actually go through with it, would neither prevent the harm that you fear nor help your child to heal from it. it is an idea with no bearing on reality for 99.99% of people, while rape and abuse are a reality for a large fraction of people.

it is not useful to imagine killing a pedophile. it is not useful to claim you would kill a pedophile. it wouldn't be useful to actually attempt to kill a pedophile in almost any situation.

it is useful to think about how you can help your child know they can get help. they can say no. they can tell adults to stop. they deserve to be comfortable. they deserve to be informed.

the entire point of the post is that your child will not be saved by your imagined wrath. the entire point is that your day to day actions, and your attitude towards children as people, are more impactful to your child's well-being. far more realistic. more important.

not least because your child doesn't need you to be wrathful. they need your love. they need care. they need attention.

meanwhile, the public performance of wanting to kill child abusers doesn't do anything to child abusers. most child abusers believe they are doing the right thing for their children.

saying you want to kill abusers doesn't signal anything good to children, either. as others have said, it makes children more afraid to speak up and ask for help. that might be their mom, their coach, their troop leader. it gives those abusers leverage; the children cannot tell if they want things to be stable.

and it makes it harder for adults to BELIEVE children, too! because if their child was really abused, then they've staked their honor on committing that violence, even if it was against their brother or spouse or grandpa or pastor or neighbor or their other kid's favorite babysitter. and if they don't want to do that, well... then they must decide whether they believe completely their child, or whether their child's boundaries must really be respected, or... if maybe it's impossible to know.

how many abuse survivors have tried to disclose, only to be told that so-and-so wouldn't do that, or they didn't mean it, because so-and-so loves you and we all like so-and-so. this dichotomy goes both ways, psychologically. if a child abuser is entirely evil and has to be killed, then someone who's not entirely evil and i don't want to kill can't be a child abuser. this must be something else. there must be a mistake.

you can not adequately protect your children from abuse if you hold on to this idea. i am telling you. your insistence that killing pedophiles will protect your children is holding you back. it is not useful. it is not cute to talk about how much you want to do a single act of violence to abusers as if that would ever be enough to outrun the culture of abuse and the dehumanization of children in our society. you cannot cling to this like a talisman that would ward off any harm your children may come to. you cannot escape reality by telling yourself you'd be a total badass and kill that bad guy dead. this is not helpful.

[hyumjim]

You actually just have to accept that it is possible for people in your social group to be abusers even if you are not literally Jeffrey Epstein and in fact even if you have no money and all of the odds stacked against you.

It is true that money and power enables abuse on a grand scale, but the converse is not true— having no money and no power does not make abuse less likely. I think many of us know this from experience. There is no special moral quality to being poor or being oppressed. Oppressed people abuse each other all the fucking time, in families and relationships and friendships. People of color abuse each other. Women abuse each other. Gay people and trans people abuse each other.

Cesar Chavez raped the women and girls of the labor rights movement throughout his career, using worker solidarity as a bludgeoning tool to ensure their silence.

If you say “people in my group don’t do this, it’s the powerful men that do it” then you harm yourself in several ways.

1. You signal to your social circle that you do not hold them to any standard of behavior. You have preemptively pledged loyalty, which means that if they behave objectionably, any objection on your part will mean a betrayal of your community.

2. You mark yourself as socially permissive. People in your social group know that you are, at baseline, unwilling to accept or act on allegations against them. To be frank, this makes you very easy to take advantage of, whether in service of abusing someone else or abusing you directly.

And you harm other people by telling a lie. What about all of the people who have been abused by a person within this oppressed group? They have it reiterated that their abuse cannot be spoken about, for the sake of solidarity.

Everybody on this earth has the potential to do immeasurable harm to another person just as they have the potential to do good. You can— and in fact I would say you must— advocate and fight for the rights of your people without making yourself into a useful tool for bad actors within your community.

[anothergayghoul]

"People are not property!" - *loud cheering*

"This includes prisoners! They are not suddenly property of the state when they're convicted!" - *a little less cheering*

"And that includes children who are not their parents' property!" - *almost no cheering*

"What? I thought we said people aren't property?"

[peach-paradox]

having being anti death penalty as one of my core beliefs is fun because it really makes me realize how even progressive people want soooooo badly for there to be a category of people they can kill. I'm sorry but "group of people okay to kill" does not exist.

[victimgutz]

being a csa victim (and especially an epstein victim!) in the world right now is so awful because everywhere i look everyone is using csa, oftentimes specifically my abuse, as a rhetorical tool for why we should do this or that or why suddenly now we should be trusting cops and it's just like. The Parent! The Parent! are you not haunted by the specter of The Parent? are you not surrounded by adults who are haunted by the specter of The Parent? are you completely brainwashed by popular media and your "good" "normal" parent friends? what? when was the last time you talked to a child? what?

[butchboromir]

a sentiment that i sometimes see expressed when people discuss adolescent psych abuse &/or the troubled teen industry is "many of the people in the system weren't even that troubled/weren't a danger to themselves or others, they just had parents who wanted to punish them". this, on the surface, is true. but the implicit message in sentiments like these is, at worst "those who were 'troubled enough' to be sent into these programs deserved to be there" and at best "it is at least understandable why those who were 'troubled enough' got sent to these programs (even if we agree that said programs are bad)". like, do you all realize that you can discuss these systems as mechanisms for parental abuse without throwing us bad kids under the bus, lol? "many of those in the psychiatric or troubled teen industry are there because their parents use these institutions as a way to further their abuse" see how easy that was?

[victimgutz]

i understand the desire to want your abusers punished, but i think a lot of people conflate punishment with justice. going to the police about abuse may result in punishment, but it won't result in justice.

i see a lot of people rationalizing their decision to report by saying things like "this may be really difficult and dangerous and hard on me, but at least if i do this it'll protect other victims from my abuser." that's not true. i'm not saying you shouldn't report! but if you're going to report please do it for you, not because you think it will protect someone else. because odds are it won't, and it's fairly likely to actually harm other victims.

[victimgutz]

please.

if you want or need a restraining order, for your safety and your healing, go to the police. if you want or need your abuser arrested, convicted, or imprisoned, for your safety and your healing, go to the police.

you reporting might lend credibility to other victims! it might! it might even be the tipping point that gets your abuser convicted later down the line! ...and then what happens when they get out of jail? what happens when they get out of prison? what happens between the time they find out and the time they get locked up?

prison doesn't reform abusers. it also generally doesn't scare them straight. they just find new ways to scare their victims into silence.

don't report for anyone other than you. it does not save future victims.

[victimgutz]

genuinely vile how much "critique" of melania trump i've seen recently has just been open slut shaming and aggressive objectification from the same people who claim to care about victims. i promise you you can come up with something more substantial to say than a "critique" which is also word for word what was said about me when i was thirteen years old by the people sex trafficking me. you claim to be against them but you talk exactly like them. come on.

[victimgutz]

it really gets on my nerves when people act as though the war in iran is a distraction from trump's involvement in the epstein files. he is continuously threatening the deaths of large numbers of people, many of whom are children. that is its own issue, not a "distraction" from the harm he caused to other children.

people don't need a distraction either, they already don't care. i have been disbelieved by people i know personally, who have similar politics, when i told them i was raped by trump (repeatedly during his first presidency and, for the first time, significantly before). people "care about" csa victims only to the point that they can be used against people they already hate. they see pedophilia (not child abuse!) as the ultimate evil and see victims' stories as proof of what the perpetrators are rather than seeing victims as people harmed by what the perpetrators do.

the war in iran isn't distracting you from the fact that trump raped kids. the man who likes to hurt people is actively continuing to make decisions that hurt people. you are throwing everyone harmed by him under the bus when you frame other harm he's causing as just a distraction.

[victimgutz]

i think it's really worth considering if you're posting about or talking about the epstein files publicly, especially if you're posting about them on a social media where your friends and/or family follow you or discussing them openly in public, how you would respond if a loved one told you they were a victim of epstein and/or that trafficking ring. and if you can't genuinely honestly say you would wholeheartedly believe them, and if you can't genuinely honestly say you would wholeheartedly support them regardless of how they choose to move forward (even if they don't go public! even if they don't talk to the fbi!) then you really need to rethink talking about the epstein files at all.

[victimgutz]

something that's been bothering me about how this has been playing out online that's really not a big deal in the grand scheme of things is that i do genuinely find some of the jokes funny, but i can't engage with them because i know any uninvolved party making jokes about it is laughing at me, not with me. and i can't make any jokes myself because then i give up any chance of being taken seriously about this, even though as one of the victims, i'm one of the people who has a right to make jokes! and so i'm stuck here looking like a buzzkill because i don't want the entire world to be mocking my trauma, but i am making a million jokes about it in private i just can't share them. it's frustrating.

[calebsane]

everyone making jokes about the epstein files needs to step back n realize their role in subtly (not so subtly) sensationalizing n trivializing the horrors he n his friends inflicted

[victimgutz]

wondered if you’d seen this and what you thought of it if so https://www.tumblr.com/mariacallous/811540215125688320/he-built-the-definitive-epstein-databaseand-it

okay so to start i want to say that my stance on the epstein files is that i don't think the vast majority of them should've been made public. emails that don't discuss child abuse, plane and boat records, and property search photos (with the exception of victim photos and letters, sexually explicit items, and photos of living people's legal documents) are all fine in my opinion, but even victim testimony from victims who have consented to their testimony being released to the public is iffy because basically all of it involves details about other victims. i don't think the public should have access to details of abuse that the victim of that abuse hasn't chosen to share publicly, even if the victim's name and identifying details have been redacted. and i think i've made it clear i don't think victim photos should have been released, especially csem and csam, even redacted. i really really don't think it's necessary to make all of this public in order to get "justice," it just feels like throwing the victims who haven't come forward under the bus. i'm aware this is not the stance the public facing epstein victims hold so i'm clarifying upfront so you know where i stand.

i had seen that before, and to be quite honest i hadn't fully read about it because it felt exploitative. i've seen multiple similar databases pop up and my opinions on most of them are the same. i understand the logic behind it i think, the way the files are uploaded on the doj website is terrible and impossible to search, and they are actively obscuring information and messing with the redactions so it makes sense for people to want to have a searchable archive. but as with everything else about how this has been going down, it feels exploitative and gross. the public doesn't need a searchable archive because the public shouldn't have access to this information in the first place. and especially with how the releases were botched and how it seems like this database was done, this probably includes archives of unredacted csam and files with unredacted victim names.

"the public deserved better" in particular really upset me. i don't think the public is a party in this that deserves anything and the public's entitlement to my trauma is quite genuinely actively retraumatizing. the fact that he's getting letters from victims telling him to take down documents should be his sign that what he's doing is wrong.

this is a tool that people behind the scenes should have, absolutely. this is something that should be available to the people who need to be searching the files in order to prosecute. this isn't a tool that the public should have. this isn't information that the public should have. (also i have really strong feelings about the fact that i have no control over who sees unredacted csam of me in a legal setting and that that's considered fine and normal and good and part of getting me justice. despite the fact that i never reported. but i digress.) (also, nuance here: i don't trust the legal system, this will not bring me justice. clearly many of the other victims feel that it will bring them justice. hence there should be tools to allow that to happen behind the scenes, and the rest of us shouldn't be put under this public spotlight.) it's strange to me that one of the positive use cases listed is victims searching their own names to confirm what they experienced is real when victim names are supposed to be redacted. the information in the files confirming what i experienced is real are photos of the insides of his properties. i searched my full legal name on the doj website to make sure it was not listed.

there's a lot of giant glaring red flags here. he feels the need to use a fake name because he's concerned he's in danger by doing this, but he has a wife and kids. that hes willing to have mentioned in the article. he seems to be so focused on "helping girls and young women" that he is forcing his wife (who seems to not want him to be doing this) into extra domestic labor, which feels obsessive and deeply misogynistic. he is getting paid for this. his past of having been csa-ed seems to have made him feel entitled to have all the information about this case (a phenomenon i see in a lot of people). i'm not saying he doesn't think he's doing a good thing but this seems like a terrible idea from all angles and again, massively exploitative of the victims' trauma.

hopefully that answered your question adequately and thank you for asking, i do appreciate you looking to get my input.