An Experience of "Kira489"

Mitch Haile has submitted a feature that I need to put a disclaimer in front of. This is quite different then usual Slashdot fare, but I think its worth sharing. It contains somewhat graphic (but real) stuff, so if you're squeemish, just keep scrolling past the link. It discusses meeting people over the internet, and a frightening story that sounds like the bad stereotypes, but happens to be true. Many of us have met people over the net, and this is food for thought. The following was written by Slashdot reader Mitch Haile An Expierence of "Kira489"

Rape. It's a violent crime, arguably the most violent crime, even more savage than murder. The psychological repercussions are severe to the victim, causing even years of trauma. It's frighteningly common--and it's often associated with the Internet. We've all heard the story in which a fourteen year old girl living in Maine is given a plane ticket to Arizona by a forty-seven year old man claiming to be a eighteen year old boy in an America On-line chatroom. She accepts--heck, she's in love and her parents are a pain--and flies to meet him. Of course, upon seeing him, she knows he's not the eighteen year old stud she'd fantasized about, but being alone and lost in a foreign city leaves her with no obvious choice but to leave the airport with him. Of course, he takes her to the local motor lodge and rapes her.

Unfortunately, the media loves these stories, the more horrible the better. It's the media that establishes ideas in people, but I did not realize strength of the current attitudes about Internet users until a friend of mine was raped by someone from the Big Bad Internet. After the rape, which had taken place in her house, she went to her local hospital, where she was tested for sexually transmitted diseases, and her physical wounds treated. The rapist remained in her house, and she was advised to call the police. The police escorted the rapist off her property, and persuaded her to press charges, claiming she had a rock solid case. To this, she consented.

Apparently, the detective in charge on her case didn't agree that the case was closed when he learned she had met the rapist on the Internet. "They [Internet users] are nothing but relentless sex addicts," he told her. "Furthermore, every conversation on the Internet is logged. I can get access to these logs, and if I find that you ever hugged him on the Internet, I will show that this is not a matter of rape, but consentual sex." He proceeded to ask if she had met others from the Internet, which she had. Upon finding out that she had met me on numerous occasions, and even had sex with me, the "slueth" felt satisfied he had proved his point, "No one on the Internet ever wants to do anything but have sex."

Despite the fact that my friend was injured to the point that, according the documented hospital report, she had bruises and tears in her vagina, and the fact that people willingly having sex usually do not injure one another, the police threatened my friend with the possibility of putting her in jail if she was lying!

It is ludicrous to believe that all people associated with the Internet are sex-crazed maniacs, or that meeting someone in real-life is recipe for disaster. I've met a great deal of people from the Internet, for both personal and professional reasons, and I've yet to be raped. Yes, like a few of my real-life friends and relationships, I even slept with a few people I met from the Internet. I even spent a week with one Internet pal snowed-in together during the blizzard that hit the midwestern United States this past January.

Was I concerned about my safety at any of these times I met someone from the Internet? No, I wasn't--no more than I would be meeting someone I didn't know very well in person for dinner and possibly spending the night together. I've never met someone from the Internet expecting sex, and while I'm sure there are many that do, I would hazard a guess that the number that do is not any higher than people who know each other in real-life would in a similar situation (e.g., sharing a hotel room in a distant town).

I once met, with the permission of her mother, a girl in high school, since I happened to be traveling through her town and had some extra hours to spare for dinner. She later mentioned that a real-life friend of hers admonished her for meeting me, claiming she hardly knows me. Well, how much do two people know each other on a first date for coffee or dinner? Interestingly, the media refuses to acknowledge this similarity.

It's important to be careful when meeting someone from the Internet--just as it's normal to be careful in any situation where you've not spent a large amount of time together in person. It's important to realize that a person's remarks and responses in a chatroom or a MUD may be contrived, no matter how fluent they seem to flow. Likewise, there are plenty of phony men and women in every community, and you're just as likely to encounter them in real-life, rapists or not. Regardless, it is certainly not in the interests of society for those who enforce the law to ridicule rape, no matter the circumstances of how the involved individuals initially came in contact with each other. Rape is rape; it's a matter far too serious for qualification.

Comments

internet communication - - all about image

[Kozz]

Indeed, it seems that many people are so much less introverted when conversing upon the 'net that they don't really take heed to the fact that there is a real person on the end of the conversation. They'll spill their guts about anything and everything, and often telling the things about their personal lives we don't want to hear.

Through many different ways I've met people from online games, IRC, etc and despite the fact that the conversations were purely ASCII, using all those characters like (* ! $ _ etc) help to emphasize sarcasm, humor, sadness, etc. And many times, you really can get a good idea whether or not the person you're speaking (typing) to on the other end is really who they say they are, or if they're just "blowing smoke up your ass".

For example, I'll describe to you someone who I've worked with a bit, and have known only via the web. He runs some websites, and I occasionally write small, custom Perl scripts for his sites. Now, when first meeting him I found that he was 15 years old. Okay, that's fine. I can respect anybody as long as they can be somewhat mature whilst conversing and avoid talking like a "warez d00d'. But then he goes on to tell all sorts of tall tales. They're not all impossible or unlikely, but take them all together and you see what I mean. A few of them are:
His dad makes $350,000 per year. (not hard to believe all by itself)
He makes literally thousands of dollars per month without hardly any effort because he runs all of his porn sites so well. (Wow, thousands? that's some site!)(
He expresses his concern about being able to pay me for my scripts (very inexpensive), yet says he's got this really expensive sports car. (strange finances, fast cars?)
Talks way too much about how many "girlfriends" he's got and how often he's "getting a piece". (*UGH* like I care or need to know)

And you get the idea. Why do people try so hard to impress others on the Internet? Or in any other way, for that matter? Shit, I've always been more impressed by a simple friendliness and honesty than tall tales of money & sex. If I find a person whom I can hold a "geek-ish" conversation with, that's enough for me. I'm not interested in their personal lives' details that supposedly describe how popular they are or how successful they are.

Give me some simple intelligent feedback amongst all the noise on the net. Then I'll be impressed.

The fallacy of "consent"

[BlackHawk]

First, please allow me to express the deepest outrage for Kira489's predicament. The fact that she was raped, then raped again by our so-called "justice system" is nothing less than a moral catastrophe on the part of both rapists. And I purposely use the term for both the criminal, and the detective, assuming that what I've read is what happened.

It brings to light, however, a growing possibility that such Internet crimes might escape adequate prosecution, due to the detective's "logic". That is, the ludicrous proposition that a person who "hugs" someone virtually has opened the door for a claim of consensual sex.

Let's bring it closer to home. I'm a man. For a moment, let me pick a volunteer, another man; You, sir! Yes, you with the buzzcut and the goatee. Thanks for volunteering, pleased to meet you. There, we shook hands. We made contact, in fact, of a physical nature. I put out my hand, and he clearly consented to touch it. Now, on occasion, I hug other men, usually close friends and family, but I'll make an exception here for this fine fellow. There, he again consented. Does that mean I can now engage in anal sex with this man, whether he protests or not, at any point in the operation, based on his "consent" to the hug? Of course not! (Gee, look at 'im run...)

The point is, we have the ability to refuse to comply with any action at any time, whether we ever performed the action before or not, whether we planned to perform it or not. We are not required, nor should it be assumed we are willing, to engage in sex just because we once did. Kira489 probably did virtual-hug her rapist. She might have done alot more than that, virtually. She might have done more than that physically, and it means nothing! The second she said "Stop," and the assailant refused, it was rape. Period. Frankly, I say execute the rapist, but that's my opinion.

Back to the medium of the Internet. Folks, we can't say this enough: all those people who have been raped, robbed, beaten and killed by people they met online probably either never thought about the possibility, or simply figured that "it won't happen to me." Just like we all do. The fact that it can must weigh heavily in our decision to meet someone. I know it's titillating to chat with some people on the wire. I know several people who, in fact, invent elaborate personas to role play online, with unsuspecting people. Many of whom, I'm sure, are being just as fake as my friends. But when we take the chance of opening up to someone online, and exposing ourselves to a meeting in "meatspace", then all those defenses we have collapse: IP masqing, finger-deactivation... none of that works when the person is standing right in front of you.

Be not as these, I say. Think. Be a little paranoid. The cost of serious misjudgement of character is too high.