Thanks for the thoughtful and persuasive reply. You're right, I'm male. And I was an adult (at least chronologically). However, although we were both just anonymous cowards on Usenet, I had "known" him for years, when this started. Basically, I stood up for others that he was attacking, and that pissed him off.
> It looks to me like you are saying "Well, I was able to handle it myself, so she is just a loser that she couldn't."
Sorry if it comes off that way. I did manage to handle it. But it took months of tedious work. Yet I didn't mind, because I was extremely angry about it. And I knew that I was learning stuff that would be useful later.
I'm not saying that she's a loser. I'm saying that she was socialized to be nice. To find aggression distasteful, as you said. I do strive to be peaceful, and I seek peaceful friends. But unfortunately, entirely nonviolent and peaceful people can end up as victims.
So what can victims do? Going to authorities doesn't seem to work very well. Filing a lawsuit, as Hatena did against Hill, is expensive. That's why I floated the idea of private enforcement. Rather like PIs that take direct action against attackers. Instead of doxxing attackers personally, as puellavulnerata and I did, victims could hire consultants to manage it.
To avoid liability, there could be "Assassination Politics" type services. Attackers typically have multiple victims, so there would be multiple contributors. Who would, of course, be kept anonymous. The front end could be an easy-to-use app. And the service would be compartmentalized, with staff who verify allegations being fully anonymous, and firewalled fully from anonymous staff who handle action against attackers.
> To take that to its logical conclusion, if you are being harassed by a serious nutcase, it may be a situation where killing them is the only real way to put a stop to their behavior.
Well, the first draft of my first post in this thread did include a sentence about having a group of friends with baseball bats pay this jerk a visit ;) But arguably, measures well short of death will stop most stalkers. Shaming to family and friends often does it. Or trashing their career, as puellavulnerata did. My stalker was a well-respected academic, and he was utterly freaked when I confronted him at his university email address.
I posted a link elsewhere in this thread suggesting that women need to learn to give pushback sooner rather than later. That is in the category of trying to not let yourself become a victim to begin with.
If you do become the target of something like this, well, it gets a lot more complicated. Your idea about shaming to family and friends is not necessarily effective. In the past, I have been moderately harassed online by a man who alternated between verbally feeling me up and verbally assaulting me. Any time he verbally felt me up, his girlfriend would attack me in some other discussion on the same forum. I complained to the mods. They saw no reason to intercede on my behalf.
Horrible people often have friends who are either horrible themselves or basically a good pawn. It is not unusual for a romantic interest to treat the object of desire as if they are intentionally being temptresses. There are complex reasons behind that.
But, yes, contacting them at work or implying/threatening that you will make it public in a way that materially harms them can be useful. If it is ugly enough, making it clear that you understand you can't win, but you can make them lose harder can be a useful way to get some breathing room.
But all of that requires you to understand what they want from you in specific and from life in general. Victims are often emotionally warm people with a lot of empathy. Coming to terms with how cold hearted, callous, manipulative, uncaring horribly assholes stalkers really are is an uncomfortable process for such people. Some of them will fail to get it through their thick skull because they would literally rather believe the world is a nice place and people are really good at heart than to let their delusions of that sort be destroyed by coming to terms with the truth of their situation.
And that is probably a rather muddled, hand-wavy comment. My heart isn't really in this discussion today.
> Victims are often emotionally warm people with a lot of empathy. Coming to terms with how cold hearted, callous, manipulative, uncaring horribly assholes stalkers really are is an uncomfortable process for such people.
I can only vaguely imagine that. I mean, I'm friendly and empathic enough. But I also have a short temper, and tend toward keeping grudges.
And about stalkers. They aren't necessarily cold hearted, callous, manipulative, and uncaring. Sometimes they're just unconsciously selfish and childish. I know because I've been there. I lusted for a close friend, for years. But she just wasn't interested. And yet, we apparently remained friends through it all. Later, I learned that her thesis adviser was harassing her sexually. And I got that I'd been a jerk, to not see it, and to be another problem for her.
> It looks to me like you are saying "Well, I was able to handle it myself, so she is just a loser that she couldn't."
Sorry if it comes off that way. I did manage to handle it. But it took months of tedious work. Yet I didn't mind, because I was extremely angry about it. And I knew that I was learning stuff that would be useful later.
I'm not saying that she's a loser. I'm saying that she was socialized to be nice. To find aggression distasteful, as you said. I do strive to be peaceful, and I seek peaceful friends. But unfortunately, entirely nonviolent and peaceful people can end up as victims.
So what can victims do? Going to authorities doesn't seem to work very well. Filing a lawsuit, as Hatena did against Hill, is expensive. That's why I floated the idea of private enforcement. Rather like PIs that take direct action against attackers. Instead of doxxing attackers personally, as puellavulnerata and I did, victims could hire consultants to manage it.
To avoid liability, there could be "Assassination Politics" type services. Attackers typically have multiple victims, so there would be multiple contributors. Who would, of course, be kept anonymous. The front end could be an easy-to-use app. And the service would be compartmentalized, with staff who verify allegations being fully anonymous, and firewalled fully from anonymous staff who handle action against attackers.
> To take that to its logical conclusion, if you are being harassed by a serious nutcase, it may be a situation where killing them is the only real way to put a stop to their behavior.
Well, the first draft of my first post in this thread did include a sentence about having a group of friends with baseball bats pay this jerk a visit ;) But arguably, measures well short of death will stop most stalkers. Shaming to family and friends often does it. Or trashing their career, as puellavulnerata did. My stalker was a well-respected academic, and he was utterly freaked when I confronted him at his university email address.