When A Victim-Blamer Cries Victim

I received an email from Cristina Robinson today in response to my article about her mockery of me.  Apparently, I am just supposed to be okay with her weak apology and she is now the victim because the person (me) that she humiliated with her victim-blaming and denial actually had the gall to be offended.  Wow.  Her comments are below in the indents:

 

WOW!! You're one angry and resentful guy. I have apologized to you, learned about your plight and the plight of others and yet, you vilify me on your blog. You talked about me lacking compassion, when you should take a look at yourself. At least, I was ashamed of myself, I apologized, mended my ways, learned and took down the offensive posts. What else did you want?

 

When you've been raped and talked about it publicly and then been told you are a liar and humiliated by an "advice blogger" then you can tell me what level of anger I'm allowed.  Until then, you don't get to decide for me what I am supposed to feel about YOUR actions and involvement in furthering rape myths with your mean-spirited comments.

 

You mocked me PUBLICLY in front of your readers, called me a LIAR on Twitter without so much as a retraction, and then offered a weak one sentence apology on Facebook.  Does that truly seem sufficient to you?  You are the person who arrogantly said those things about a rape survivor who told his story publicly and now you are crying victim?  Do have the slightest idea how hard it is for people who have been raped to talk about it publicly?  Do you have the slightest idea how badly society wants us to be silent and hidden?  Your own words contributed to that shaming and silencing.  You humiliated me and now you expect to be handled with kid gloves, with a simple "oops, my bad" apology?

Really?  

What you did was not only done in ignorance, but you were mean about it as well.  It was mocking and humiliating – but yeah, I'm the bad guy for talking about it.

Wow.

 

Also, do you think by your people sending me hate emails, that is going to help your plight? Do you think by your people sending me threatening emails, that is going to help your cause? Do you really think by adding hate, foul language to the mix, that really is going to help this cause? I thought you, being a marine, would be smarter than that. At least I am doing something more constructive about it and thanks to your personal blog post, I got many followers to my page but I'm not interested in that kind of following. I want people to follow me because they think that the posts I personally write on my blog help them and not because you wrote something that picked their curiosity.

 

Who in the world are "your people"?  I don't have my own "people".  I wrote about my experience as someone who was victim-blamed.  You are the victim-blamer.  You did THAT.  Your weak apology on a Facebook thread is hardly on the same level with how you humiliated me with your mockery and denial.  I didn't have anyone send you emails and unless you can prove otherwise, you are lying.  You may have received angry emails, but I didn't tell anyone to send them, nor did I put your contact information online or link to it in any way.

 

I'm glad you got more followers.  I hope you do something useful with that traffic that doesn't involve humiliating and mocking male rape survivors in ignorance.  You don't get a free pass on that behavior simply because you claim to have learned your lesson.  Your actions were just plain hateful and inexcusable.  YOU have more to learn if you think my anger is invalid.

 

What are you doing about it that is constructive?  I see a woman who doesn't think she did anything wrong and who offered a very weak apology.  I actually do work to counter the effects of sexual violence in the real world – not just on a blog.  Your contribution in that regard has been to mock and humliate rape survivors and then to complain that your "oops, my bad" style apology wasn't accepted readily enough.  What in the world are you talking about?

 

Anyway, no sense to me apologizing to you again, since you clearly are not going to let this one go anytime soon and have not accepted my previous apology, when it was heartfelt and sincere, even if you don't think so, I know what it's in my heart and you don't.

 

Instead of complaining that the person YOU WRONGED is not letting it go soon enough, try doing something positive for male rape survivors instead.  Your prior comments were ugly, demeaning and inexcusable.  A one sentence apology doesn't make it all pretty and perfect again.  My reaction is based on YOUR behavior, not the other way around.  You caused this with your arrogant, ignorant and mean-spirited comments.  That is 100% on you.

 

Wishing you a healthy and much happier 2013 sir. Oh … and thanks for your service.

 

Happy New Year to you as well.