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vassilissa ([info]vassilissa) wrote in [info]otf_wank,
@ 2009-12-15 18:54:00


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Satanic ritual abuse wank
I dithered about whether to put this in unfunnybusiness or here, but in the end Satanic Ritual Abuse is not real, and what the person who said it was said was so funny it belonged here.

People who blatantly deny the existence of ritual abuse after being offered solid resources to the contrary demonstrate that they don’t need evidence about its existence. Instead, when they continue to deny its existence in a seemingly obsessive manner, they are more likely trolling for new victims in hopes that responding survivors will – while more emotional – slip-up and provide vulnerable, personal information.

There you go. If you deny the existance of ritual abuse, it's because you're looking for new victims to ritually abuse.


(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]sneer
2009-12-15 06:03 pm UTC (link)
Essentially all beliefs in ritual abuse by its survivors have been traced to a suggestive and unreliable therapeutic technique known as Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT).

So someone actually found every single person in the entire world who claimed to have been ritually abused and debunked their claims?

Really?

Every single one?

Ever?

Everywhere in the world?

Really?

And you've also met and spoken with every single person who claims to have been ritually abused and personally debunked their claims, and are thus qualified to come in here and tell us that nothing like this has ever happened anywhere, to anyone, ever?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]lady_ganesh
2009-12-15 06:14 pm UTC (link)
And your proof that it has happened is...what, exactly?

Look, we should believe kids when they say they're abused, and we should have people who know what they're doing in to help, support, and get the truth. Insisting that SRA must have happened sometime, to someone is, IMO, completely unhelpful.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sneer
2009-12-15 06:37 pm UTC (link)
And your proof that nothing like it has ever happened anywhere ever to anyone is... what, exactly?

Yes, we should absolutely believe kids when they say they've been abused. So why do you insist on dismissing out of hand the claims of any child who claims to have been ritually abused? Insisting that ritual abuse has never happened to anyone ever and assuming any child who claims to have been abused in such a way is making it up or has had false memories planted is worse than unhelpful.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]melannen
2009-12-15 06:57 pm UTC (link)
The reason it's important to debunk claims of SRA is that it is, essentially, a blood libel - or at least very close kin to one.

The narratives created in SRA cases always have much more in common with narratives created (worldwide, and throughout history) to justify persecution of an outgroup than they do with any actual child abuse/murder cases - the very rare cases of *factual* ceremonial murder/abuse happen in very different ways, and are if anything hampered in their prosecution by SRA hysteria.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]sandglass
2009-12-15 11:11 pm UTC (link)
You can't prove a negative. No one has ever proven that RSA has happened, and have in fact proven that the "evidence" was manufactured with great bias, therefore it's reasonable to believe it hasn't happened.

Do crazy people sometimes abuse children? Yes. But that's not RSA.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]eilan
2009-12-16 12:40 pm UTC (link)
You can't prove a negative.

So I can't prove that there's no elephant in bed with me now?

Damn.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]inalasahl
2009-12-17 12:13 am UTC (link)
So why do you insist on dismissing out of hand the claims of any child who claims to have been ritually abused?
She isn't doing that, and it's really ridiculuous to claim she is.

One of the reasons that people don't believe in SRA anymore, is that it's never children claiming to have been abused this way. It's either adults who've had RMT, or children who've been interrogated at length until they stop denying it.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]sneer
2009-12-15 06:49 pm UTC (link)
And just to be clear: no, I don't believe there was a vast conspiracy to commit this kind of abuse. Of course not.

I am just saying that it is possible that there are or have been isolated incidents of crazy people doing this sort of shit.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]melange
2009-12-15 07:28 pm UTC (link)
And by 'this sort of shit' you mean 'flushing people down the toilet,' 'raping children in a hot air balloon,' and 'killing and then cannibalizing babies.'

Most reports of SRA are so ridiculous that I can't believe that any of them occured. Some of these children may have been abused; I just don't buy that their care-givers threw them into shark tanks to please the Dark Lord, and then flew around the school in a clown suit*.

*All real accusations made by the alledged victims of SRA.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sneer
2009-12-15 07:53 pm UTC (link)
No, by "this sort of shit" I mean beating, raping, or otherwise injuring a child in some kind of pseudo-ritualistic manner because you think that's what the voices in your head your supreme being wants you to do.

Yes, I agree that many of the reports of SRA are fucking crazy. Yes, I agree--as I have said twice now--that I don't believe there is or ever was a grand Satanic conspiracy to grab and abuse children to make Satan happy.

I am just saying that it is possible that crazy people might have abused their children in some ritual-like manner, and that it strikes me as callous at best to automatically assume any child who claims to have suffered such abuse is making it up or has had false memories planted.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sarracenia
2009-12-15 08:33 pm UTC (link)
Automatically assume? No. Investigate the crap out of it before taking it as true and convicting anyone based off the testimony, while meanwhile encouraging the kid to talk without ever letting yourself lead the conversation? Jesus fuck yes. Because unfortunately, there's been a lot of people who've abused kids by convincing them that they have suffered terrible abuse at the hands of Satanists, and so accusations of Satanic ritual abuse just can't be accepted at face value.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sneer
2009-12-15 09:00 pm UTC (link)
And I'm not saying it shouldn't have the crap investigated out of it. By all means, it needs to have the crap investigated out of it. Any claim of abuse of any kind should be investigated thoroughly. I never said it shouldn't. It DOES need to be investigated, and that also means not just blowing it off with "well, since SRA isn't real, that means nothing even remotely like ritual abuse ever happens to anyone so run along now."

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]melange
2009-12-15 08:34 pm UTC (link)
I am just saying that it is possible that crazy people might have abused their children in some ritual-like manner

And I am just saying that this is not the same thing as Satanic Ritual Abuse. Unless, of course, you think that raping a child for religious purposes is something that only Satanists do. (I'd also like to point out that, as far as I know, none of the people accused of practicing SRA were actually Satanists.)

it strikes me as callous at best to automatically assume any child who claims to have suffered such abuse is making it up or has had false memories planted.

Because that's exactly what everyone here is saying. When you're dealing with children, particularly very young children, you have to take into account that children a) will lie if they think that's what adults want them to do, and b) cannot differentiate between fantasy and reality as easily as adults can. We should not be able to convict someone on the word of a four year old, especially not one who needed twenty hours of prodding by a psychologist before they would say anything.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]jupiterpluvius
2009-12-17 02:39 am UTC (link)
What you're missing here is that the phrase "Satanic Ritual Abuse" is a term of art that refers to a specific hypothesis: that there is an organized network of adults who abuse children because it's part of their practice as Satanists, and that this network has co-opted powerful officials and law-enforcement departments around the world to conceal their existence.

Yes, there are probably individual abusers who self-identify as Satanists, and who may even link the practice to their spiritual path in some fucked-up crazy way (just as there are individual abusers who link their abusive practices to Christianity and probably every other religion).

But that's not what the phrase "Satanic Ritual Abuse" refers to. The capitalization is meant to set off that it's a term of art, like the difference between masons and Masons.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]kylenne
2009-12-15 06:30 pm UTC (link)
I think...you might be new to this subject.

Start here.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sneer
2009-12-15 06:46 pm UTC (link)
Do I think there's ever been a widespread OMGSATANIC conspiracy to steal children and do terrible things to them? No. Of course not.

Do I think it is at least possible that there may have been, at some point in modern history, isolated incidents of crazy people who think they're serving Satan doing terrible things to people? Yes, I think that is possible.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]ayezur
2009-12-15 06:55 pm UTC (link)
Yes, but we're not talking about isolated incidents of crazy people. We are talking about a deep and fervent belief held by a statistically significant part of the population that there is an active, multinational, insanely powerful and well-organized conspiracy to kidnap, enslave, and torture children in the name of the Dread Lord Satan. Many of the abuses described by those who claim to have been its victims are logistically or physically impossible. Though there is no evidence at all that this conspiracy exists - even though the activities it supposedly partakes in could not help but leave some trace behind - that lack of evidence is taken as proof of the conspiracy's power. It's a classic paranoid delusion.

The only evidence there ever was for the Satanic Conspiracy was the memories recovered through hypnosis, a technique which has been thoroughly discredited many times and in many ways.

Of course, to adherents of the conspiracy theory, all that means is that the Satanists are in the mental health profession, too.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


tetradecimal
2009-12-15 09:46 pm UTC (link)
So, you're arguing that:
* it's possible that at some point, somewhere, someone might have abused a child in a ritualistic manner
* therefore, no one should dismiss claims of such abuse out of hand

But I don't think anyone is actually contradicting you. What everyone else is saying appears to be:
* SRA as the giant Satanic conspiracy does not exist
* claims of abuse, including those that involve ritualistic abuse, should be investigated

Which I think we all agree on, so... why are we arguing?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sneer
2009-12-15 10:16 pm UTC (link)
It doesn't look to me like we all agree that it's possible that someone somewhere might have abused a child in a ritualistic manner. Or maybe I just misunderstood this.

Did I misread the part where she said "all beliefs in ritual abuse by its survivors have been traced to a suggestive and unreliable therapeutic technique known as Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT)" and "this shit did not happen?" Or her response when I pointed out that I found it very, very hard to believe that not one single solitary case of ritualistic abuse had ever been confirmed? If I did--wow, shit, I really am sorry and I'll clean that up on the way out.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]white_serpent
2009-12-15 11:03 pm UTC (link)
Yes, you did misunderstand. She is talking about the "Satanic panic," and is quoting someone else's wording exactly.

In context, it's certainly clear to me that the person she's quoting using "ritual abuse" as a shorthand for "Satanic Ritual Abuse" featuring secret conspiracies, sensationalized and causing hysteria. The two bullet points are prefaced by "the 'Satanic panic.'"

In her follow-up response to you, she once again references SRA, in caps-- which, once again, is a reference to the secret conspiracies of Satanists.

You're fighting against a strawman here.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


tetradecimal
2009-12-15 11:24 pm UTC (link)
Only [info]lady_ganesh can clear this up, but I read her post as "Essentially all" cases = all cases that she knew of and which alleged SRA, and her general "this shit did not happen" tone as probably coming off from an overall frustration with the continued low-grade "Satanic panic" that some people still cling to.

I suspect she was talking strictly about SRA and not abuse of children by individuals that does not connect to some sort of Rosemary's Baby-esque conspiracy.

I read it this way because I think if you were to ask her, "Do you think we should ignore a child who says they were abused ritualistically, or do you think we should investigate those claims?", her answer would a big fat, "INVESTIGATE."

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]lady_ganesh
2009-12-16 01:02 am UTC (link)
Yes, and thank you. I'm not sure why my follow-up comment, which, to repeat, included:

Look, we should believe kids when they say they're abused, and we should have people who know what they're doing in to help, support, and get the truth

seemed to suggest something otherwise to [info]sneer.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - tetradecimal, 2009-12-16 03:11 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]lady_ganesh, 2009-12-16 03:20 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]nevadafighter, 2009-12-16 05:51 am UTC

[info]ecchaniz0r
2009-12-16 12:42 am UTC (link)
Hey, baby?

A little sumpin sumpin to thinkydink on, if you please:

No one denied that the latter case is impossible.</font>

Take your straw man and throw it out a window.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sneer
2009-12-16 01:15 am UTC (link)
The very first person I replied to said: "this shit never happened." Which I--apparently wrongly--took to mean all forms of child abuse that could be called "ritualistic."

One straw man to the dumpster, coming through.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]duraniedrama
2009-12-15 09:38 pm UTC (link)
Well, tell you what--how about you find a verifiable claim that hasn't been debunked. I've yet to come across one. Waving your hands and insisting it's possible in theory proves nothing. Show me an example of such--a legitimate news report of such an incident that doesn't turn out to have been faked or debunked.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


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