For a while now I've gotten my daily giggles at the site FMyLife.com. Sure, it's not always in good taste, but schadenfreude rarely is. In case you've missed out on the FML goodness, people submit very short stories which begin with the word "Today" and end with "Fuck My Life" (abbreviated as FML).
I was pretty disturbed today to come across not one, but two stories that clearly described sexual assault. Below is the letter I wrote to the FML administrators:
Dear FML admins,
I've been enjoying your site for months and have gotten many laughs from it. But I was very disturbed when I checked the site today, because I saw two FML stories published that gave clear descriptions of sexual assault (copied and pasted below for your reference).
These two comments both describe situations where a man performed a sexual activity using a person's body without getting his or her consent (neither poster explicitly stated his/her own gender). This is sexual assault, and is absolutely not funny. Making light of these people's experiences is inappropriate, and contributes to a culture where sexual assault and rape are not taken seriously. I am also disturbed by a number of the comments on these FMLs, as they contain a good deal of "victim blaming" material (telling the poster that it was his/her fault because he/she was drunk, or saying that s/he shouldn't have a problem with the situation because their boyfriend has a right to use their body in this way).
FML is about taking unpleasant situations, phrasing them in a funny way, and letting people laugh at each other's misfortunes. This is all in good fun. But rape is not funny, and making fun of rape victims is not fun.
Please take these two posts down, and modify your criteria for posting on the site so that further descriptions of sexual assault do not make it to your main page.
Thank you,
Lily
TRIGGER WARNING: I'm reposting the FML's here for reference.
Today, my boyfriend decided to come clean. Apparently last week when I was drunk and asleep, he decide to wank all over me. Then laughed when I said I felt 'sticky' in the morning. FML
Today, I woke up with my boyfriend next to me, with his knob in my face. Apparently I'm a heavy sleeper, and he'd been shoving it in my mouth for months. FML
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Heads up FML: Sexual assault is not funny.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/15125
Here's the response I got from FML.
Hi,
Thanks for the input. However, the stories are written from the perspective of the person who it happened to. If they've come onto the website, and shared their stories with humour and self deprecation, this probably means that they're not scarred for life. Otherwise, they wouldnt've posted the stories. If however the stories had been written from the perpetrators perspective, we never would have posted them. That's the difference! Anyway, the website is supposed to be about funny stories, if they've been posted, this usually means that the original poster has dealt
with the events in their way, and are ok with talking about them. You shouldn't take them at face value, nor so seriously!
However, we're glad to see that people out there still care enough to write in!
Cheers ;-)
Kind regards,
FMyLife Support
I want to respond, saying that a lot of people probably make up stories, and that it's the website's responsibility to make sure that the things they are posting are actually funny, not oppressive. I agree that people have the right to tell their stories -- but the site isn't a safe space to talk about sexual assault. How do folks recommend that I respond persuasively?
One of the things you should definitely bring up in your response is that people who have experienced sexual assault are certainly reading FML all the time. Publishing these submissions, especially without any context or trigger warning, unfairly makes the site an unsafe space for survivors.
FML does not identify itself as a safe space for anyone and therefore ought not to be expected to have trigger warnings. In feminist / anti-oppressive spaces that explicitly seek to be a safe space it makes sense to have trigger warnings, moreover its just plain decent.
I don't know. I saw those stories too and I'd kill any (immediately ex)boyfriend who assaulted me in my sleep. But being that FML is a place where people post stories of their own volition, and assuming these people are telling the truth, should we really say they aren't allowed to talk about what happened to them in whatever way they see fit? Maybe posting to a "humor" site is an attempt for some to downplay it or try to laugh about it. People cope in different ways.
I've seen a lot of things on FML that I would consider more traumatic than funny, particularly things where a parent is outright cruel or emotionally abusive to the poster.
Since when do we just *accept* that the world is unsafe and leave it at that? Unless we speak up and let people know that this shit isn't cool, the world will remain a unsafe space with a few exceptions. Why should we settle for that?
We should definitely expect resistance, but if we aren't going to try to change the world, what are we even doing the whole feminism thing FOR?
One thing that I think is really important to take note of is that they do pick and choose which stories they publish. It's not like they let everyone post and if it's offensive they take it down. Many stories never even make it onto the page (I've had friends submit and they said their stories never appeared).
I'm surprised they responded, but appaled by their words! "They're not scarred for life" sounds so dismissive and it's as if they are just mocking your letter. It's seems like they are arguing that the survivor of the assaults don't think it's a big deal and there are two things I have to say to this: a.) There is no way to know how the survivors really feel, what complex emotional journies they may be going through. Maybe today they are trying to force themselves into thinking it's a joke as a form of denial. There's no way to summarize or label their healing processes. b.) Even if these specific people do not consider these events to have been sexual assaults based on the context of their relationships, this sends a clear signal that this behavior is ok without giving any context. This is like saying it's ok to commit any number of other violent crimes- which is dangerous. This isn't an issue of hurting anyone's feelings or being offensive (I think it should be but they clearly don't care of that) but it is an issue of public safety. Rape culture puts us all at risk.
b.) Even if these specific people do not consider these events to have been sexual assaults based on the context of their relationships, this sends a clear signal that this behavior is ok without giving any context.
+1
I think that's the most important thing right there.
Lily A., I think your first email to them was very well written, very measured and reasonable. I think you should definitely write them again and bring up this point that Mariposa articulated so well.
"I think that's the most important thing right there."
I totally agree.
and c) I think it's pretty obvious that many FMLs are completely made up, so the argument that the OP is not traumatized by the assault may be entirely irrelevant given that these FMLs may have just been written by some asshole who thinks sexual assaulting women in their sleep is hilarious.
I think that was the point though -- whether the FML's are made up or not, sexual assault is NOT hilarious, and by allowing them to be posted, it permits people to laugh at sexual assault and sends the message that sexual assault is funny.
Well yes of course, I completely agree. I'm just pointing out that the argument the FML admins use in support of posting these stories is predicated on the assumption that these stories were written from the perspective of a survivor of a sexual assault, and it is very likely that they may not have been. No matter who wrote them, the stories are hurtful to others and should be taken down, but I find it especially troubling to think of some sexist asshole inventing these stories for laughs.
That kind of came out wrong. It's far more troubling if the stories are true, I just hate to think that people who have no knowledge of how serious sexual assault think it's hilarious to make up stories about it.
It will allow them to see sexual assault as funny but it will also allow them to see sexual assault as okay. If they laugh about sexual assault, they wont think twice about doing it to someone. That is just as bad if not worse than just thinking it is funny.
I don't know. The concept of the site seems abhorrent enough to begin with - it almost seems disingenuous to complain that these particular entries were unacceptable.
I mean, basically people are going to this site to read about the terrible things that have happened to other people. It all seems reprehensible and unacceptable to me.
(Which is not to say that I think the site should be taken down, or that people shouldn't visit it or whatever. Just that being upset about this particular ugly nastiness on a site that you visit in order to be entertained by other ugly nastiness is kind of strange.)
I definitely see your point (and thought about it before writing to FML in the first place). But in my mind, some bad things that happen to other people are cool to laugh about in a public space, while others are definitely not. If you look at the site, a lot of the stories involve the writers' own mistakes or stupidity (someone dents their father's brand new car), unpleasant but inconsequential coincidences (someone steps in dog poop right before a job interview, etc), and embarrassing situations (someone accidentally has speakerphone on when insulting their boss).
These are all things that are stupid but can be humorous if framed in the right way, and should therefore be fair game for a site. But stories about sexual assault, for me, fall into a different category -- it's not just "ugly nastiness," but a societal phenomenon that is perpetuated by the myth that it's "no big deal" or even "funny." Stories about stepping in dog shit might be stupid or in bad taste, but they d don't contribute to a larger societal problem.
I have been reading FML since it was linked on another blog for having an entry about a girl who was pressured into sex for 4 years by her boyfriend, only to be immediately dumped for giving in.
I find myself in disagreement with you that these posts should be omitted.
I read the comments on the posts you asked FML to delete, and there are comments that do identify these actions as rape.
While I hope posts like these are, as they have been to this point, rare; I hope that they continue to be included, that they continue to be identified as terrible deeds in the comments, and that the women who have gone through these experiences realize that their boyfriends need to be dumped immediately.
I see it as a recognition of having been made a victim, and sometimes recognizing "this is wrong" is a huge step.
Those entries only contained a few comments that identified the instances as rape; the vast majority of them went along the lines of "You deserved it for not putting out," "It's your fault for getting drunk," or they'd call one of the few people who identified the incidents as rape "feminazi dykes." But, you know, TWO people identified it as rape, so it's all good! /sarcasm
Sometimes all it takes is one person to identify rape as rape for the realization to click.
There are many, many trolls on FML. I have to hope that anyone who submits there/reads regularly would recognize the nature of the site. I also hope that by submitting to the site, that the women (and even a guy who posted how his girlfriend raped him) are ready to admit to themselves that something is dreadfully wrong in their relationships.
Regardless, I hope that submissions detailing sexual assault from the victim's side are not wholesale omitted/deleted, because I feel it would be a greater disservice to not include them. Victims are constantly silenced and, even if the forum is not one I would ever submit my story to, I am glad to know that these victims are speaking out.
Saying that it's "not funny" is surely not the best criticism, regardless of the crudeness of the subject matter, to counter such stories with, considering how subjective "funny" is. What I don't want either way is to be told what I can or can't laugh at, regardless of what the "societal problems" are.
I read those too, they pissed me off. When did it become okay for men to do these things and think that it is funny? I applaud these women for talking about it however, because it means that they have some semblance of proof that the incident happened and if they choose to press charges then it is there for evidence
Assuming that these are real stories from real survivors, and assuming that these survivors really think it's not that big of a deal and not just pretend to think so. Just because some people deal with it exceptionally well and aren't "scarred for life", it doesn't make it any more okay to sexually abuse anyone. And I think that such stories on this kind of site give boys and men who read it an argument for sexually assaulting their partners (or an excuse if they already did it) - "Oh, she'll find it funny too!"
I e-mailed them myself, and I got some e-mails back that said that FMyLife had taken them down. Maybe, once they heard from more than just one person (who they oh-so-casually dismissed), they realized "Hey, either we take them down, or even MORE people will be complaining."
That being said, great job! I'd noticed those two FMLs and had immediately thought, "Um, that's rape! Why are they on here?" But you took that initiative to do something about it. And it looks like it paid off!
One thing I'm curious about...
Why is it up to YOU to determine when, and where people can tell their stories? Why do they need to choose you-approved places to tell them?
That said, FML, much like "Texts from Last night", is largely fake.
Anything can be sent in by anyone, and most of the stories are bunk that people made up.
I love that you and the other commenters are cheering for censorship. If the stories are true, and those individuals are fine with what happened, all you've done is silence them for your own pleasure.
Oh STFU with the whole censorship thing. We are not the government. FML could have refused to take them down after we expressed our displeasure and we wouldn't have had the power nor the money to make them do it.
I found this one even more disturbing:
"Today, I tried to break up with my boyfriend. He said no. FML"
What kind of dumbass thinks you can say "no" to a breakup? If that had happened to me, I think I would've laughed in his face. I hope she didn't go along with that BS! I hope the FML was more like "Jesus my ex is a self-absorbed moron" rather than "Now I'm trapped in this relationship :(".
Ultimately, FML chooses which stories to post which sends a clear signal about what they think is funny and what they think is "no big deal." Rape isn't funny. End o' story.
BTW, there's also this case of sexual assault: http://www.fmylife.com/love/3890479 as well as male-male attempted rape: http://www.fmylife.com/miscellaneous/2243
Then this one's posted by a voyeur upset that the woman he's peeped on bought curtains to stop his fun: http://www.fmylife.com/intimacy/2394807