The Ogvorbis Boondoggle

A couple of days ago, I posted a piece thinking through what it means to provide a haven for rapists. Someone left this comment on the post. Pitters have poured massive amounts of time and energy into spreading this idea that it’s worth looking at in detail.

Of course, the burning issue is whether the support and protection of Ogvorbis, a confessed child rapist, here at FreeThoughtBlogs, makes some bloggers such as PZ Myers, Ophelia Benson, and you, “a haven for rapists”. This depends on what the likes of PZ means by “a haven for rapists”.

We know for sure that FTB most certainly is a “haven” for at least ONE rapist, and a couple of others who have been accused of rape. I don’t know of any rapists at Mick’s blog. I’ve checked over there quite extensively, and no one appears to be a rapist. As a result, the claim from PZ Myers seems rather odd, in fact, it seems like a big fat lie.

Only one site can be accused of being “a haven for rapists”, and that is FreeThoughtBlogs. Stephanie’s article does not seem to provide much clarity on the matter, and seems to be obfuscating to hide the facts.

So, Stephanie, can you clarify whether you believe FreeThoughtBlogs, or at least, Pharyngula, is “a haven for rapists”. Because only Pharyngula, Butterflies and Wheels, and a couple of other sites supportive and defensive of Ogvorbis (who confessed one of his rapes was under his OWN volition) fit the criteria. I need to see whether you are operating from an honest position.

You’ll notice that there’s no actual “criteria” given that we fit, just the statement that we fit it. There’s no indication what we’re supposed to be protecting Ogvorbis from, what kind of safety we offer. We’re told that this “depends” on a definition of “haven for rapists”, but there’s no resolution or even examination of that dependency. We just “know for sure” that it’s true. My post from yesterday is unclear and obfuscatory in some way that is never specified.

And that’s before we even get to the idea that everyone at FtB is the same person taking the same action. To clarify my role in this: Ogvorbis has left all of one short comment on my blog, thanking me for working to make consent clear. At one point on the backchannel, one of the other bloggers asked why pitter Pitchguest was leaving comments about Ogvorbis on his blog. I did a cursory check on the matter and answered.

Ogvorbis is a Pharyngula commenter who was severely sexually abused as a child, including being made to abuse other children. Pitchguest is a whiny little metal-head from Sweden who joins the rest of the slime pit in thinking the fact that Ogvorbis has received emotional support on Pharyngula means all of FtB is somehow corrupt on the topic of sexual assault.

Having since done a bit more research, I have slightly deeper understanding of the situation, which I’ll share shortly in detail. I’ve expressed sympathy to one of the people who left the Pharyngula commentariat after events that began with Ogvorbis talking about having raped a child while he was being abused. I chewed out Damion Reinhardt for trying to drop Ogvorbis’s first name on my blog without the courage to put it on his own and removed that information, as well as the name of someone from the pit he tried to leave at the same time, because he doesn’t get to use my blog to play his games.

I’ve also made some comments privately to people that the people trying to turn Ogvorbis into a political football disgusted me. I may even have done so publicly, though I can’t recall when or where. The people who watch my every move haven’t tried to throw it in my face, so chances are good that I haven’t. Now I’ve received this comment and am writing this. That’s the extent of my involvement in these matters.

The closest any of that comes to protecting a rapist from consequences is my failure to uncover the full story about Ogvorbis before commenting to another blogger privately and removing the information from Damion’s comment. Under the discussion I provided yesterday, the first would be misrepresenting the situation, albeit unknowingly, and the second could be protecting the reputation of a rapist if a first name would tell us who Ogvorbis is. It doesn’t.

So here’s what I know about Ogvorbis as a rapist. Here is the first comment I know of in which Ogvorbis discusses having recovered a memory of having raped other children:

I keep remembering more and more and more. Details. Nothing earth shattering.

Many of you know of my history. Some don’t.

I was raped, repeatedly, by my cub scout leader for a period of about two or two-and-a-half years. I was forced to rape others (including a toddler girl (and I still feel like shit for doing that (yes, I know it wasn’t my fault . . . ))). I was used for child porn. I told once and was informed that I was a liar and then sent to my rapist to apologize and he raped me again to punish me.

The new memories include being forced to ask, forced to beg, for rape. I remember being forced beg to be allowed to hurt others. I remember the scout leader that I told, the one who told me I was lying, walking through a room to pick up something from a desk and seeing me, and another boy, doing things to the rapist. And ignoring what was going on — no comment, just a glance and a smile.

And I just realized that the time that I tried to kill myself was the same time that Boy, my son, was in Cub Scouts. Shit. Even then I knew. I was successfully lying to myself, denying what I did, but, in some way, I knew. Shit.

There are elaborations in that comment thread, where Ogvorbis answers questions. They don’t change the situation significantly.

Here is the second comment in which Ogvorbis discusses a later rape he participated in, also as a child, but after his abuse ended.

One day, he asked if I could watch a third girl who was 6 years old. I said, sure. There was extra money involved. She was dropped off on Friday morning and would be staying with the family until Sunday night.

When she got there, all three disappeared into the girl’s bedroom for about an hour. I knocked and asked if they were okay. They said they were.

Fuck. I started this, I need to finish it. Deep breaths. Shit.

After anhour, I knocked again and heard the third girl say to come in. I went in.

They were

I was invited to jointhe sex play. TThe third girl had the 3 year old tied up. The tow older ones were taking turns doing things to her and I joined in. THey didn’t invite me but or maybe they did but that doesn’t matter. I joined in. And we sent the day, except for when their dad was home for lunch, doing everything. The things I already knew what to do. And all I could thnk was that this was normal.

This was the only day it happendd. And I remember thinking that I had become a man. THese were girls and I had done what I was supposed to do and told myself I would never do that again that I was a man now and didnt have to do it again and I remember deciding this didn’t happen. None of it happend.

This was lurking in the back of my mind until I read commnt 143 and realized that this

It’s what happened later that devastated me. I touched the underwear of a child I was babysitting – about 4 years later, the child was about the same age I was when my sister raped me. I only touched the outside of the underwear, but I knew it was wrong when I did it.

was me doint things to three little girls and that I really am a rapist.

I am so sorry. I feel like i’ve let down everyone who thilngs I am a nice person. I;m not. Im sorry.

Four little girls. One little boy. Plus the ones who were scouts with me. I;m so sorry.

Again, there are elaborations in the comment thread in response to questions.

That’s it. That’s what I know. Again, I’m relatively sure that’s all there is because no one’s been hounding me or leaving comments at Mick Nugent’s blog about anything else. We have two recovered memories, recovered under circumstances I haven’t looked into, so I can’t say whether the memories are likely to be true (not all recovered memories are false, but some “therapeutic” practices are much more likely to lead to false memories).

Now, you’ll notice that those comments are on Pharyngula for anyone to see. They haven’t been deleted. No one denies that they exist. No one is saying they weren’t rapes.

Frankly, I can’t find anyone here at FtB providing haven. We don’t have the power to prosecute, even if someone could prosecute an adult for actions taken decades ago at age 12. He’s not a danger to anyone commenting, so there’s no reason to apply the one administrative remedy we have as bloggers. And the threat to his reputation is right there, unhidden. There’s nothing I can see that Ogvorbis is being protected from.

What has happened and continues to happen at FtB is that Ogvorbis receives compassion from commenters at Pharyngula. Several of them regularly express sympathy for him as a survivor of sexual abuse and confidence in his ability to successfully cope with his “demons”.

As far as I can tell, that’s the root of the complaints aimed at FtB around Ogvorbis. People here express compassion for him instead of punishing him, and this is somehow hypocritical given how we’ve treated Michael Shermer. That they’re now expressing it in the same words PZ used for Mick Nugent’s behavior is simply a function of their “Nuh-uh. You!” level of argumentation. They can’t engage with even a basic definition of the terms.

But is it a fair charge? Is it hypocritical to treat someone who admittedly raped as a 12-year-old who had been groomed to the task more compassionately than a 50-something-year-old who was credibly accused of raping while in full control of his faculties? Is it hypocritical to decline to punish one by banishment while not even being in a position to ban the other?

It isn’t in my book, but it’s possible that someone could make a case for why those situations are equivalent. It’s possible that a pitter could make an argument that doesn’t rely on hiding the differences between the situations and still convince people that the Pharyngula commentariat is in the wrong.

That isn’t what they’re doing, however. None of them are saying that people are treating a sexual abuse victim with compassion despite rapes he committed as a child groomed to the task. Of course they’re not. They never will. It doesn’t make us sound evil.

Saying, “Mick Nugent provides a haven for rapists”, isn’t a significantly different statement from “Mick Nugent won’t allow people accused of rape to be named on his blog in order to protect their reputations. He will, however, allow people to grossly mischaracterize the circumstances of the accusations in his comments in order to suggest the accused person is innocent.” Saying, “FtB provides a haven for child rapists”, is a significantly different statement from “Commenters at Pharyngula provide emotional support to one of their own who admits to having raped other children after having been sexually abused himself.”

It differs in the behavior described. It differs in the breadth of behavior. It differs in the disclosure of mitigating circumstances. It’s simply different from start to finish.

In other words, this story slime pitters have poured to much time and energy into is a lie. It’s also yet one more lie that Mick Nugent continues to allow in his comments.

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The Ogvorbis Boondoggle
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51 thoughts on “The Ogvorbis Boondoggle

  1. 1

    I’m one of the many Pharyngula commenters who shows support for and empathy with Ogvorbis. It disgusts me that the Pitters are using him in such a way. That they fail to distinguish between sexual assault committed as a child after being groomed for years by rapists and the sexual assault committed by Shermer makes me want to puke.

  2. 2

    I am getting so fucking sick and tired of them going after Ogvorbis.

    Og was fucking 12 YEARS OLD! OG WAS FUCKING ABUSED AND RAPED! OG WAS FUCKING GROOMED INTO THIS! OG DIDN’T HAVE A FUCKING CHOICE!

    And yet here these pathetic little fucking shitweasels are using Og as a political cudgel.

    This is what’s wrong with the fucking Slymepit. This is why they are evil beyond words. They are fucking sick human monsters. Yes, they are humans. That doesn’t make them any less monsters. Fuck them. Fuck them all.

  3. 3

    I don’t believe that the Pitters care a jot for Ogvorbis or the people he victimised as a result of his own abuse. They simply think that they have a threat and a smear to hold over FtB, and a cudgeol against PZ specifically.

    They wouldn’t care about Shermer had it not been for the fact that he is on their side of the rift and PZ who set against him.

  4. 6

    I must also point out that there’s even more to the story: Ogvorbis also demonstrates compassion in his comments, and expresses a deep guilt and remorse for his past actions…and not in a manipulative way. This is a guy who was a victim first and foremost, and also once did great harm, and now suffers for it.

    No one “forgives” his wrong actions — we can’t do that — but we do know that the story is a lot more complicated than the slymers make it out to be.

  5. 7

    Now, you’ll notice that those comments are on Pharyngula for anyone to see. They haven’t been deleted. No one denies that they exist. No one is saying they weren’t rapes.

    That’s really a major point. I saw a ‘pitter making the What about Ogvorbis? argument somewhere around here. Well, what about him? Besides the points you raise in the bit I’ve quoted, nobody’s claiming the victims don’t deserve to be heard. Nobody’s asking what they were wearing, or how drunk they were, or how they should have just left. Nobody’s saying that if there’s no conviction it can’t even be talked about. Ogvorbis isn’t suing the pit for libel. It’s being talked about.

    Yes, someone could make an argument for certain equivalencies. But that someone won’t be a pitter. They really don’t have much in their bag of skeptical thinking tricks beyond tu quoque.

  6. 8

    There seems to be a trend in anti-social justice circles to try to play this sort of reverse “Gotcha!” game. Conservatives don’t give a damn about institutional misogyny or rape culture or reproductive freedom, but the minute Bill Maher says something sexist, they’re all making noise about “ZOMG LIBERAL SEXISM”. People who haven’t given a damn about racial inequality since MLK Jr died will be the first to howl about the “racist” treatment black conservatives ostensibly get from the left. They’ll ignore all manner of terrible things on their side, and than pounce on the first problematic statement they can find from The Enemy, just for political leverage. So of course once the Pit thinks they’ve found some “hypocrisy” on the rape culture thing, they’re going to milk it for all it’s worth.

    It’s not a novel or surprising tactic. But in this particular case, it is breathtakingly cruel and depressingly cynical, and just demonstrates that the real issues are not nearly as important to them as their anti-SJW war deep concern about ethics in video game journalism.

  7. 9

    This was honestly one of the situations involving the ‘pit and associated people that sealed the deal as far as my opinion of them goes. I have had reason to investigate some of the darker portions of brain science in this area because of characteristics associated with my mental issues.

    After reading about grooming I came to the conclusion that it is the closest thing we have to brain washing. Having never been abused myself, the mental simulation that I have of the reality of grooming and child sexual abuse is utterly horrifying. I’m disgusted enough that society does not take grooming seriously, rejecting a community that was willing to use it as a weapon in a social struggle was an easy choice. Anyone willing to let that happen in their community without criticism is simply not a good human being in my opinion.

  8. 12

    I’ve noticed an odd dynamic with Shermer’s defenders, perhaps others can verify. On occasion I noticed a several people say how terrible rape was, and post elaborate execution fantasies for what we should do with rapists. However, there simply wasn’t enough evidence to support punishment.

    So we’ve got the following disconnect. Our position is “The balance of evidence supports the probability that Michael Shermer is a serial sexual harrasser/rapist. Based on his defence of his behaviour, it is appropriate to revoke his attendance from places where he can prey on other women.”

    Their position* is “Rapists are terrible and deserve to be punished severely. Since we cannot conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Shermer is worthy of these terrible punishments, he should be assumed innocent.”

    With Oggvorbis, we have the reverse. “By his admission, Oggvorbis committed rape as a minor. Based on his admission, remorse and the circumstances surrounding the rape, we do not believe he is a continuing threat in this forum.”

    And the reverse from the ‘pit*: “Oggvorbis admitted to being a rapist, therefore he is guilty and deserves terrible punishment.”

    *Charitably. I think there’s probably a number there who are sexual abusers who are being willfully dishonest, but I tend to think idiots outnumber and amplify the actions of dedicated monsters.

  9. 13

    Weird, and I was just talking about dehumanization.

    If there is one defining feature of a hate group, that’s it. They may offer some level of empathy to their opponents, but when you look more closely this reveals itself as a facade used to justify their actions. Skeptics, in contrast, tend to agonize over humanistic questions: should I try to dissuade grandma from taking homeopathy to soothe her chronic arthritis, and risk lowering her quality of life, or let it slide and indirectly support a quack cure? They recognize our human flaws, almost by definition, and think carefully over the consequences.

    There is one thing I can say against OgVorbis: he picked a bad time to come forward. That thread had a lot of sexual assault victims coming out to share their tales, and while OgVorbis was one too he was also a perpetrator. This triggered a number of the victims, and put other commenters in a bind: should they sympathize with OgVorbis as a victim, and risk further triggering those victims, or stay silent and appear to isolate a victim looking for sympathy and support? I’ve talked with a few people who stopped browsing Pharyngula because of it, and they have my full sympathies.

    But just because I sympathize with them doesn’t mean I can’t sympathize with OgVorbis, either. The man has experienced far more trauma than I’d wish on the worst person in the world, and dealt with a situation pulled straight from nightmares. That he’s even functional suggests he has more inner strength than most of us. His actions can be easily explained through conditioning and extreme abuse on an impressionable young mind, allowing us to also sympathize with his victims. People are complex and multifaceted, so there’s no contradiction in extending that much sympathy around.

    Sympathy is difficult if you don’t view your “opponents” as human, though. What’s to sympathize with? The same applies to empathy. This allows you to shift the moral calculus around: OgVorbis’ trauma becomes a footnote, an “I’m not racist but” that can be cast out, but it’s otherwise of no concern. He is reduced an object, a tool to bash your enemies with. Revealing his name is no big deal, or chanting “rapist” over and over and over again, because an object can’t be hurt. So why not use him as a pawn in your plans against the “enemy?”

    The glee that the SlymePit takes in invoking OgVorbis’ name, and their casual denial of his humanity, is another strong piece of evidence that they’re a hate group. That some leaders in the atheist/skeptic community support or tolerate them, by extension, means that our leaders support or tolerate hate groups.

    And they wonder why so few people want to support their organizations.

  10. 14

    Excellent post and comments, thanks a lot. Ogvorbis’ stories are horrifying beyond words. It’s truly a shame to use them so casually, especially in an argument that doesn’t make sense in the first place.

    @leftwingfox (12), that’s an insightful analysis. It also applies outside of this specific setting (Shermer and FTB/slymepit). I’ve heard things like “there is no rape culture, that’s bullshit, the real problem with rape is that the law/justice is too easy on these rapist monsters”. It probably has to do with how reactionaries, in general, tend to think: they focus on the severe punishment that their “othered”, dehumanized, fantasized rapist deserves, but then this very severity prevents them from applying it to the real-life people they know (family, friends, celebrities—and of course themselves). This also sheds light on their off-putting disagreement over the definition of rape and consent. I suppose this is all well-known, but it’s the first time I see it so clearly.

  11. 15

    Dehumanization is utterly foolish. It’s a perceptual lie that prevents one from understanding just how horrifying human nature can really be. It’s a knowledge killer. It’s as much of a fantasy as heaven and hell. It leaves us in ignorance with respect to preventing human monsters.

  12. 16

    I don’t know if this will go through mod, in which case I type it at most for Stephanie. I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding here about how the SlymePit operates. Purity filters don’t apply there, for the most part. For the record, if anyone cares, I’ve never signed onto the anti-Ogvorbis campaign. In fact, I go further than PZ in that I would forgive him entirely, inasmuch as it’s my prerogative to do so. One opinion on the pit is that it’s a fabricated bullshit story, and another is that if it were to originate on another forum, like the SlymePit, that FtB and others would have totally different opinion of it. I’m willing to at least give FtB the benefit of the doubt and say that you’d be consistent about supporting Ogvorbis. However, once again, we’re talking about a forum “having an opinion” which is only possible in places like FtB, and not SlymePit. SlymePit does not actively purge non-consensus opinion, even if the subject suggests one. You can be a raging SJW and still get a hearing, though I suspect the queue to challenge you assumptions would be lengthy. If someone on the Pit can come up with a reason I should give more weight to the anti-Ogvorbis opinion, I might consider it, but for the moment, my silence is not consent, a generally accepted principle there.

  13. 17

    sff9

    It probably has to do with how reactionaries, in general, tend to think: they focus on the severe punishment that their “othered”, dehumanized, fantasized rapist deserves, but then this very severity prevents them from applying it to the real-life people they know (family, friends, celebrities—and of course themselves).

    Yep. The problem isn’t that people don’t think rape is wrong, it’s that they don’t think rape is rape.

  14. 18

    It’s weird indeed and I can’t fathom it even after reading Hornbeck’s comment. From my point of view, the strangest (and at the same time the saddest) aspect is that the fury concentrates on a behavior which (without much difficulty) can be seen as decent. I can only repeat that it’s really very strange. I mean: the Horde is not a bunch of angels and if you detest the Horde, you could certainly find something better for the object of your criticism. But no, no way, it is exactly an example of a decent behaviour that is chosen. For me, all of this is completely fucked up and barely understandable.

    By the way, the whole case could be used *just as well* for arguing that “providing a haven for rapists” is *not* employed here as a synonym for “having a person who raped someone in the comment section”. Reverse the hypocrisy argument and you obtain exactly that: “accepting Ogvorbis is fine by our standards, providing a haven for rapists is not fine by our standards, therefore – since we are reasonable enough – we must have meant something else by “providing a haven for rapists”, don’t you think?”.

    But of course no one in the pit will buy such a reasoning and presenting it to them in this way is a waste of time. As I came to see it, the pitters do not argue for the hypocrisy of the FtB-ers; they just assume it in advance, with every possible example being bound to confirm it.

    It’s really sad.

  15. 19

    Yeah, in the early days of the infestation of his blog, Michael Nugent actually made an effort to shield Og. He even went to the extent of blanking out his name (O______ ) and asking that people do not make their nasty comments. But that was way back in 2013.

    Now the ‘pitters have been given free reign in this regard.

  16. 20

    Obviously Pitters don’t believe in age of consent and statuary rape.
    Because they obviously believe that a 12yo can make meaningful decisions about sexual actions.

    Also, they keep a neat list on Nugent’s blog about who expressed support for Ogvorbis and will happily point Nugent to it. A rare beast, a true ad hominem. Don’t believe this person because they’re having compassion with a victim of child abuse.

  17. 21

    Thanks for gathering the relevant data and laying the story out so clearly and concisely, Stephanie.

    QFT:
    jynnan_tonnyx #8

    It’s not a novel or surprising tactic. But in this particular case, it is breathtakingly cruel and depressingly cynical, and just demonstrates that the real issues are not nearly as important to them as their anti-SJW war deep concern about ethics in video game journalism

    And Ariel #17

    I mean: the Horde is not a bunch of angels and if you detest the Horde, you could certainly find something better for the object of your criticism. But no, no way, it is exactly an example of a decent behaviour that is chosen. For me, all of this is completely fucked up and barely understandable.

    .
    My prediction: nobody from the ‘pit will respond to this post.

  18. 22

    Giliell @19:

    Also, they keep a neat list on Nugent’s blog about who expressed support for Ogvorbis and will happily point Nugent to it.

    I went looking for that list, and couldn’t find it. I hope I’m on it.

  19. 23

    Yep. The problem isn’t that people don’t think rape is wrong, it’s that they don’t think rape is rape.

    It’s astonishing the stretches people will make in order to rationalise how what their friend/relative/beloved/mentor/leader/fancrush etc did couldn’t possibly count as rape. When it’s someone people identify with, then it’s always just a misunderstanding or day-after regrets.

    By contrast, the commentariat at Pharyngula (or FTB more widely) is NOT saying that Og, as a sexually abused child, did not commit rape and sexual assault on other children. Expressing compassion for him over his own self-loathing and shame and horror for having been compelled to perpetrate these assaults is not denying that the rape was rape.

  20. 24

    Remember, women are responsible for anything that happens to them when they’re drunk, and people are responsible for anything they do as children, even after being groomed and abused to normalize abhorrent behavior.

    But the moment that a prominent straight white guy is accused of any wrongdoing, up to and including saying something unflattering on Twitter, it’s not his fault. It’s that he was drunk (or not drinking, depending on which version of the story), or misread signals, or was misunderstood, or was limited by the medium, or was willfully misinterpreted as part of a smear campaign, or was the subject of distressing locker-room banter, or or or.

    Privilege comes with a freedom from responsibility, it seems.

  21. 27

    Here’s another data point: there was a person on Pharyngula who was, in person, sexually harassed by another Pharyngula commenter. When the harassed person made it clear what was going on, the commentariat stopped interacting with the harasser, and he left. And that was a few years ago. So yes, when a person is actively and unrepentantly causing harm, there is a track record of not providing a “haven” for that person.

  22. 28

    HJ here you go
    It was Aneris who reminded Nugent of my terrible crime on Twitter and noticably Mr. Chatty Twitter Nugent ended the conversation with me then.

    There are also some more noticable differences here:
    -Nobody denies that the horrible things have happened indeed
    -Nobody denies that they were horrible indeed
    -Nobody has tried to blame the little girls for what happened or claimed that they really wanted it after all
    What people have said is that the moral (and legal) responsibility is not the same. And we don’t only say that because we like Ogvorbis, but because we have solid scientific evidence that children are not smallish adults. Legal systems that are less based on the idea of revenge actually reflect that.

  23. 29

    I was wondering what impact this article would have over at Nugent’s, so I decided to have a peek. Before reading down, though, I recommend you re-read Ogvorbis’ original words above.

    Now, here’s what people were saying about Ogvorbis before they knew of this blog post (with links, so you can verify the context):

    Crackity Jones: There are NO rapists here or at the Pit. The only rapist we know of is Ogvorbis, and he posts and is very much welcome at Pharyngula, Butterflies and Wheels and a number of other FTB blogs. This is a very important FACT.

    MosesZD: And, unlike you, Mr. Myers does ‘shelter’ a poster at his blog named Ogvorbis (sp) who claims to have raped/molested three young girls. And this was an action he took while young, but of his own free will. So, in the war of blogs who ‘shelter rapists’ you’re behind Mr. Myers — one – nil. And that, of course, is good for you.

    john welch: How is, given PZ’s ardent defense and provision of a “safe space” for Ogvorbis, his behavior, along with honestly yours and everyone else at FTB who have not explicitly spoken up against said provision and defense, not hypocritical?

    Shatterface: Jesus wept: Myers accuses Michael of providing a safe haven for rapists. There are no rapists on Michaels blog but there are on Myers blog. It’s not fucking rocket surgery.

    At which point Ariel points to this blog post. This results in:

    Stephen Carr: I see Zvan actually posts Ogvorbis confession to raping 3 young children while babysitting them, years after this abuse occurred. And then claims Freethought is not providing a haven for him. The hypocrisy stinks.

    Jan Steen: This says it all, though: “Commenters at Pharyngula provide emotional support to one of their own who admits to having raped other children after having been sexually abused himself.” “One of their own.” Indeed, that must be it.

    tina: Nope. Ogvorbis is a rapist. Deal with the principle in question, not the person. […] Who is providing the emotional support and therapy to Ogs victims? Pharyngulites?

    piero: Things that I consider irrelevant (not insignificant; just irrelevant to this thread): 1. Ogvorbis. It has already been established beyond reasonable doubt that FtB bloggers are hypocrites.

    Rashiv: In an alternate universe where everything was the same as this universe, except that Ogvorbis didn’t comment on Pharyngula, but rather the Slymepit, people PZ, Stephanie, and Ophelia would declare him a completely evil and monstrous rapist who should be locked up. With the People’s Republic of FreethoughtBlogs, it’s all about the tribalism, not the behavior. Rape is OK when they do it.

    Phil Giordana FCD: Ogvorbis. Admitted rapist who posts on the Slymepit all the ti… no, wait, he posts at Pharyngula. Seriously, he’s the only, ONLY self-admitted rapist to post on any atheists forum/blog I’m aware of. And it turns out it’s the one blog, or blog group, that attacks anyone based on “rape culture” (scare quotes intended).

    Looks like I got it right upthread:

    Sympathy is difficult if you don’t view your “opponents” as human, though. What’s to sympathize with? The same applies to empathy. This allows you to shift the moral calculus around: OgVorbis’ trauma becomes a footnote, an “I’m not racist but” that can be cast out, but it’s otherwise of no concern. He is reduced an object, a tool to bash your enemies with. Revealing his name is no big deal, or chanting “rapist” over and over and over again, because an object can’t be hurt. So why not use him as a pawn in your plans against the “enemy?”

    The glee that the SlymePit takes in invoking OgVorbis’ name, and their casual denial of his humanity, is another strong piece of evidence that they’re a hate group.

  24. 30

    Ibis3, #5

    It’s like comparing a child soldier in the Congo with a person who grows up in Canada but joins up with ISIL and commits atrocities as an adult.

    If there was a one sentence definitive response to all this, that is it.

  25. 31

    THIS? This is what all those backhanded “what about OgVorbis” posts I’ve been seeing lately?

    1: Flat-out, I’d say to OgVorbis that the initial assaults–the ones conducted under the direction of the person abusing him–were not him raping anyone, but rather the rapist scoutmaster acting by proxy. If you have no agency, if it has been stolen from you, then at most you’re not a brave resister willing to withstand any punishment. If I put a gun to your head and tell you to commit a crime or I will shoot you, then the ethical and moral responsibility for that crime (and, I would hope, the legal responsibility as well) should fall entirely on me.

    2: Obviously, the last confession is more complicated. But very clearly, we’re talking about an abuse victim, still a child himself, having been trained to view the world through a horrific, damaged lens, and these vile fucking sacks of worthless shit want to judge him MORE harshly than we’ve been judging a adult who deliberately exploited his privilege, authority and power to abuse others?

    Fuck, the parents of every last slimepitter seems to have failed in bringing a decent human being into this world….

  26. 33

    Someone pointed me to this Tweet, and it made me laugh out loud:

    Hornbeck calls it. Nugent’s on the ropes and the count-down has begun ……

    Brive obviously chopped off part of my comment:

    Given the volume of his output, that’s highly unlikely. With Myers ignoring him, though, he’ll be starved of new material to yell about. So either he runs out of steam, or continues to feed off tidbits slipped to him by the ‘Pit or critique the works of other people that tangentially relate to Myers.

    In short, he’s stuck in a positive feedback loop: since admitting he’s wrong isn’t an option, he’s forced to search for ways he’s right. But if those keep getting disproven by himself or others, he’ll be forced to make greater and greater leaps to avoid admitting he was wrong. Thus he’s driven towards cycling around a treadmill of lies and half-truths, racing to keep ahead of his doubts.

    Just like most of the SlymePit. The long list of grievances they keep, as well as the ease with which they transition between them, are not a symptom but a necessary defense mechanism. The more items they have, the less cognitive dissonance they experience and the easier it is to convince themselves they’re not part of a hate group.

    Now why would he do that? You would think the quickest way to piss people off would be to say they’re part of a hate group, but you’d be wrong; the actual quickest way is to say they’re part of a hate group with arguments and evidence to back up your statement. By the same token, the quickest way to discredit yourself is toss around the “hate group” label carelessly. So whether the SlymePit is a hate group or not, it was in Brive’s best interest to include the portion where I discussed hate group psychology.

    But he didn’t include it. I can think of two reasons: either Brive recognizes on some level that he’s part of a hate group, and was dodging cognitive dissonance within himself and others by excluding that passage, or he thought the accusation was so wild as to be self-defeating. But the second possibility is unlikely, as he went out of his way to delete it even though it was evidence in favor of his view.

    So Brive probably realizes, at some level, that he’s part of a hate group. Sharing just that portion may have been a set up for an ad hominim, trying to argue that because I think Nugent is mistaken, my opinions on hate groups are invalid.

  27. 34

    Oh, it’s way simpler than that. They’re all hoping beyond hope that Nugent will sue PZ for libel (and win, of course). Everything they see or say is filtered through that.

    They read my post about Nugent having PZ’s email that told him he was wrong in thinking PZ meant rapists = commenters. The only part of it they could see was the part where I also said Nugent had created a haven for rapists, because they hoped that would get me sued too. They can’t see the part where PZ told Nugent what he meant or that it’s not remotely tortious.

    They’re laughing about your statement because Nugent suing would prove it wrong. They don’t care about any of the rest of it right now. They’re just as focused on their incipient victory as they were when Shermer was totes going to sue.

    Think of them as four-year-olds unable to focus on anything except the fact that someone has promised them cake.

  28. 35

    So I’m kind of curious what the assclams think of this hypothetical:
    Muslim man forces muslim boy to rape. Authorities execute the muslim boy (and the girls, of course.) Muslim man goes free. How much injustice was done to the involved parties?

    Actually I’m not curious, I just want them to be preoccupied with figuring a way to be externally consistent while realization of the compartmentalization they are engaging in creeps into their brains, and they decide they can no longer live as the shameful hypocrites they know they are, then remove themselves from skepticism altogether while they figure out where the fuck they went wrong as human beings.

  29. 36

    Think of them as four-year-olds unable to focus on anything except the fact that someone has promised them cake.

    This also explains Nugent’s keyboard spewing behavior. I wonder if Shermer will put in a good word for Nugent during the next “new fellow nomination” meeting of the Global Secular Council in return for his most gracious fealty.

  30. 37

    Steersman is trying to comment. For once, he has something of a point, though not enough to let his comment through. I’m letting an older comment of Hunt’s out as the one example I’ve seen of a pitter saying he’s not part of the anti-Ogvorbis campaign.

  31. 38

    Hunt:

    If someone on the Pit can come up with a reason I should give more weight to the anti-Ogvorbis opinion, I might consider it, but for the moment, my silence is not consent, a generally accepted principle there.

    The irony, it burns….

    That ‘principle’ is essentially a get-out-of-doing-jack-shit-free card. As you note, an “SJW” who showed up in the ‘pit would have a queue lined up to pick apart their position (I suspect a number of personal attacks would also be deployed, but we’ll set aside that for now). So why not call out someone who is engaged in an active harassment campaign?

    If you’re not part of the solution, at best, you’re fucking worthless.

  32. 39

    Oh how cute, Steersman tried to post on this thread. I’m sure we all missed out on some Top. Thinking. by his comment being suppressed in this forum.

    The members of the Slymepit aren’t known for being stunning intellects, but even for them this hypocritical bashing on a person’s past actions is a shameful example of bad thinking that obviously demonstrates the fallacy of false dichotomy. If one considers that there is a population of people who are victims of rape, and a second population of people who are rapists, then there is nothing preventing an individual like Ogvorbis from being in the intersection of both sets of people. Ogvorbis being made welcome on Pharyngula was not because he was a rapist, but because he was a victim of rape. If we also consider two further populations, the third consisting of people who are sympathetic to victims of rape, and the fourth of people who support rape apologetics, it is again not difficult to imagine someone fitting into more than one set, even in spite of cognitive dissonance; none of those groupings are dichotomous, so that a member of one cannot be a member of another.

    The Slymepit commentariat despoiling Michael Nugent’s blog have demonstrated attitudes over a number of years that would tend to mark them as members of the fourth group I supposed, irrespective of whether they are also members of groups one, two, or three: their odious opinions were heard long and loud last year when Alison Smith’s allegations surfaced. In respect of group three, they may be supportive of some victims of sexual assault – but obviously not all victims, since to them Ogvorbis is merely a convenient political football to kick for furthering their regressive agenda, rather than a person deserving respect and dignity. This is the actual group dynamic underlying the claim about what “defending & providing a haven for harassers, misogynists, and rapists” is about. Contrarily, Pharyngula’s commenters tend to be sympathetic to victims of rape, as well as there being a number of commenters who have been raped, but it is also the case that anyone offering rape apologetics (even if a victim themselves) will be given short shrift, because rape apologism is not tolerated there.

    Even so, not everyone who comments at Pharyngula has been comfortable with the support offered to Ogvorbis, especially so in the thread for supporting victims of sexual abuse that HJ Hornbeck mentioned above at comment #13, where it had the effect of triggering other commenters who felt unable to continue commenting. I would tend to side with those who deplore losing so many commenters who find themselves triggered in order to support Ogvorbis, since I don’t think Pharyngula should be a therapeutic outlet for him at such a cost to inclusivity. The only slight qualification of the claim about “a haven for … rapists” that I consider might be necessary is perhaps inserting the word unrepentant there, but obviously there are too many people on the Slymepit side with bad reading comprehension to grasp the nuances of ethics that are involved when a perpetrator of a crime, who themselves is a victim, expresses remorse for having committed it, as opposed to someone who unashamedly denies any wrong-doing. That Michael Nugent allows loutish twits spouting off on his blog doesn’t say much for him.

  33. 40

    Tony @ #32:

    And now, thanks to these hyperskeptical, Rape Culture enabling shitspigots, Ogvorbis may have decided to stop commenting at FtB.
    Fuck, but the Pitters just keep trying to top themselves.

    godfuckingdamnitfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

    I hate them so much it’s not even fucking funny.

    I don’t know if Og is reading this, but he does not have to stop commenting at FTB. Don’t let the Slymepit dictate this shit. They are a group of disgusting, worthless excuses for human beings.

    You can post here, Og. Don’t stop posting here. Don’t give those fucking little shits what they want.

    I know it’s wrong to dehumanize. I know they’re humans.

    But god fucking damnit they make me wish I was a different species, on a different planet, in a different fucking universe.

    This is why I’m a misanthrope. Fuck them all. Fucking fuck them all. I don’t want to live on this goddamn planet any more.

    And Hunt? I’m really glad you would forgive Og. I actually would, too. But don’t fucking sit there and say “my silence is not consent”.

    Yes it fucking is. Do you hear me? YOUR FUCKING SILENCE IS FUCKING CONSENT!

    Please fucking speak up. At that fucking shit hole slime pit. Or at the very least leave it. If you actually do think they’re wrong, fucking tell them. Don’t come trying to fucking claim your silence isn’t consent. When shit like this happens, SILENCE IS INHERENTLY FUCKING CONSENT.

    Get it?

  34. 41

    Stephanie Zvan @34

    They’re all hoping beyond hope that Nugent will sue PZ for libel.

    [keels over to the floor, laughing] Oooooh boy, even if Nugent somehow stumbles onto a spare $20,000 and files in Great Britain, he’d have a tough time. If Nugent met the defamatory requirement, all Myers has to do is point to his now-public email and say “didn’t mean it that way, here’s where I publicly clarified my words,” and the case would be over. Not worth the cash and bad press.

    They’re laughing about your statement because Nugent suing would prove it wrong.

    So they think it’s laughably false, if we assume a hypothetical is true? Even I am having a tough time wrapping my head around that one…

  35. 42

    Giliell @28: Ah, thanks for that! It’s bizarre, Aneris gives a decent summary of Ogvorbis’ past then tacks on something like “and that’s why they think he’s a rapist.” Uh, no, they think he’s a rapist because they think it makes PZ Myers looks bad. My wall of quotes above made this pretty obvious. It has nothing to do with the effect of years of sexual abuse and grooming on a young, impressionable mind, because that detail merits a footnote at best.

  36. 43

    NateHeavens @40:

    You can post here, Og. Don’t stop posting here.

    Careful there, you don’t get to dictate what Ogvorbis does. You wouldn’t want to push him into a triggering or emotionally damaging situation, I’m sure, yet it’s quite possible that would happen if he continued to post here. I don’t know if that’s the case, and nor do you, but Ogvorbis does. He makes the call, “winning” be damned.

    There are better ways to channel your anger.

  37. 45

    Hunt @16:

    I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding here about how the SlymePit operates. Purity filters don’t apply there, for the most part. … SlymePit does not actively purge non-consensus opinion, even if the subject suggests one.

    I think Damion Reinhardt would disagree.

    In less glib form: there are more ways to being exclusionary than explicit bans. A fair number of ‘Pitters take advantage of the mute button, blocking posts from other ‘pitters they don’t like. I remember Oolon mentioning he discovered this by temporarily switching ‘nyms, and in an instant went from being ignored to having everyone yelling at him for morphing around their filters. You can also do it by fostering a hostile environment. How many people would be happy to hang out in a place where porn is openly shared, and sexist epithets flow like candy? Wasn’t Mykeru posting images of mass murder to try and encourage other ‘pitters to rally around Ben Radford? When your opponents have to wade through casual dehumanization in order to get a word in edgewise, almost none of them will bother.

    For the record, if anyone cares, I’ve never signed onto the anti-Ogvorbis campaign.

    I’m getting a faint whiff of “we’re not walking in lockstep, because we disagree on some things.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy your views of Ogvorbis are more nuanced than most of your peers, but that’s just one item. Do you also disagree with them, and think that “social justice warrior” is not an insult? Or that feminism is not trying to conquer the atheist/skeptic movement? Total agreement isn’t part of the definition of “hate group.” It’s the core values and tactics that make the definition, not agreement over every talking point.

    we’re talking about a forum “having an opinion” which is only possible in places like FtB, and not SlymePit.

    Do you honestly think Greta Christina and Ally Fogg are in total agreement? Or PZ Myers and Thunderf00t? He was a blogger at FtB, remember. If you object to that comparison, then how about PZ Myers and Avicenna? Some quick googling also brings up Ed Brayton and Kaveh Mousavi, and I could probably come up with more if pressed. We haven’t even considered the diversity of commenters over here, either. This “forum opinion” you accuse FtB of seems to exist only in your head.

    You can be a raging SJW and still get a hearing, though I suspect the queue to challenge you assumptions would be lengthy.

    Can you give me an example of this happening in the ‘Pit? I’m curious to see how it went.

  38. 46

    However, once again, we’re talking about a forum “having an opinion” which is only possible in places like FtB, and not SlymePit.

    I know HJ already dealt with it, but it’s just worth repeating for the ridicioulesness of it.
    Here’s the thing: If you talk about FtB as if it were the Borg, you automatically lose, since people can easily point you to a number of different voices and positions and opinions. And that’s just the bloggers. If you go to the level of readers and commenters, you get an even broader range with some people being banned at one blog and regulars at another blog.

  39. 47

    ?However, once again, we’re talking about a forum “having an opinion” which is only possible in places like FtB, and not SlymePit. SlymePit does not actively purge non-consensus opinion, even if the subject suggests one. /blockquote>?this is pure self-delusion. the pit is a highly toxic environment and consequently filters out everyone who does not thrive in toxic environments. It’s “chilly climate” turned up to 11.
    But of course I can’t expect people who are libertarian-ish social science deniers to do any better than this. Of course they’d think that the only social structures in existence are those explicitly spelled out in rules and explicitly enforced by an explicitly defined authority.

  40. 48

    I hate my new keyboard. let’s try this again, w/o the blockquotefail.

    However, once again, we’re talking about a forum “having an opinion” which is only possible in places like FtB, and not SlymePit. SlymePit does not actively purge non-consensus opinion, even if the subject suggests one.

    This is pure self-delusion. The pit is a highly toxic environment and consequently filters out everyone who does not thrive in toxic environments. It’s “chilly climate” turned up to 11.
    But of course I can’t expect people who are libertarian-ish social science deniers to do any better than this. Of course they’d think that the only social structures in existence are those explicitly spelled out in rules and explicitly enforced by an explicitly defined authority.

  41. 49

    Hj Hornbeck (to Hunt):

    I’m happy your views of Ogvorbis are more nuanced than most of your peers

    Yes, it’s nice to hear this, even with all the baggage. To Hunt: maybe it would be a good idea to challenge the dominant view instead of remaining silent? Personally I wouldn’t expect wonders, but it’s worth giving it a try, don’t you think? Anyway, other slymepitters might be more receptive seeing the opposition coming from one of their own. This could also give a chance to other people like you, who at the moment remain silent as well: who knows how many of them there are!

    (Alright, *I know* that this is basically what NateHevens said in #40. I simply consider the message important enough to be worth repeating in various styles and languages.)

    Stephanie #34

    Oh, it’s way simpler than that. They’re all hoping beyond hope that Nugent will sue PZ for libel (and win, of course). Everything they see or say is filtered through that. […] Think of them as four-year-olds unable to focus on anything except the fact that someone has promised them cake.

    I find nothing here to quarrel with, it’s only that there is also this other stuff at Nugent’s place. Sorry, obviously we all have our own perspectives: as for me, when I read the discussions over there, I concentrate on the ‘other stuff’, because the excesses of the pit are nothing new to me (no surprises).

    They (the pitters) may be hoping for a lawsuit alright, but what is Nugent hoping for? And where is the cake for the participants which are not the pitters (Sharon Madison and others)? That’s what I find really intriguing.

    From recent comments by Sharon:

    calling the pit’s detractors by silly nicknames, using dehumanizing terms like “baboon”, and talking about FTBers like they are the devil incarnate should probably stay at the pit.

    And, quite frankly, this narrow focus on the bleeding obvious has made the battle that sophisticated adults have been waging far more difficult because bad players who aren’t P.Z. Myers & Co. are getting support solely because they express opinions which are anti-FreeThought blogs. We sophisticated adults know better than to fight against one kind of bad behavior by giving our full support to those who are engaging in other types of bad behavior.

    Earlier I gave Sharon some links to the dehumanizing stuff coming from the pit. She wrote this being already in the know. She doesn’t want to give “full support” to the pit but – as I gather – she is happy with a partial support as long as the “bad behavior” doesn’t spill over to other places.

    Where is the cake and what are they trying to do? I try to read people like Sharon and to form a picture but at the moment I can’t claim I have one. Helpful suggestions will be appreciated (especially that I still think such people are worth talking to).

  42. 50

    I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding here about how the SlymePit operates. Purity filters don’t apply there, for the most part.

    Actually, I don’t think there is any misunderstanding at all. We know this. It’s not like the “NO PURITY FILTERS FREE SPEECH LOL!!!!! C*NT C*NT *CNT!” claim has never been made by ‘pitters before.

    We know that it’s a loose collection, and that pitters don’t all agree with each other. The problem with this “we’re a collective; no, I mean we’re all individuals, but my silence is not consent” stance, is that it allows for all sorts of bullshit in the name of the pit, unless the pit thinks something makes the pit look bad, in which case all opinions are of the individuals themselves and not necessarily representative of the pit in general. (We know, from experience, that the pit thinks this is a feature, not a bug.) Of course, the pit doesn’t apply this principle to other groups. All of FtB is a homogenous collective, obvs.

    The pit is much like gamergate in this fashion. Ask a gamergater what gamergate is all about, and they’ll recite the mantra. Ask a gamergater about the death threats sent by gamergaters and they’re like, all just, like, individuals, man.

    It’s a cop out.

    So I think you’re completely wrong, Hunt. There’s no fundamental misunderstanding here about how the SlymePit operates. You’re not some mysterious underground group spoken about in whispered myths and legend, like unicorns and Tru— gamers. Most of us have interacted with pitters. And we’ve seen how the pit represents itself as a group when it’s politically convenient, and as individuals when it isn’t.

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