seananmcguire:

angelsaves:

toastyhat:

don’t just believe people who turn up in your inbox telling you shitty things about other people.  I know it’s scary but you’re allowed to sit back and say “I’m not going to acknowledge this until I have all the facts” instead of instantly folding and apologizing and taking their “information” at face value (possibly because you don’t want to be considered shitty by association).  that is some red scare witch hunt bullshit.

uh. as a rape victim, this makes me really uncomfortable what “facts” exactly am i supposed to produce?

“The person you just reblogged sexually assaulted me,” or even “directly assaulted me” if you don’t want to disclose the exact nature of your trauma, is producing the facts.  “I, the person telling you this, was directly harmed.”

The trouble is that the inbox drive-bys are almost always, at least when I receive them, “um, that person eats kittens.”  And there’s no proof given, there’s no explanation, just “eats kittens.”  Even if I have the time to check the OP’s blog for myself, which I don’t always, who’s to say that the kitten-eating incident is anywhere I can find it?  “I, the person telling you this, heard from someone else who heard from someone else that this person made a joke about swallowing a cat once” is not the same as “I was directly harmed.”

We absolutely need to be cautious with one another, and no one is saying that first-hand trauma doesn’t count somehow.  But believing unsubstantiated whispers is also harmful.  I believe people when they say they were harmed or harassed.  I have to.  I can do that and also want evidence when we’re not talking about first-hand harm.