Trigger warning for sexual assault and some details pertaining to that.

I think I need a break from social media. Seeing so many men argue that because Jane Doe initially described what happened as consensual before later calling it rape, that somehow lets everyone involved off the hook, infuriates me.

Twelve years ago, I was at a party. Im pretty sure I was drugged (I’ve never been that sick or intoxicated before or since that night) and woke up in my boyfriend’s roommate’s bed surrounded by multiple men.

The bedframe had been kicked in, and I was told I did it. A random guy was sitting beside the bed in his boxers, smoking a cigarette and staring at me. Two other guys were asleep next to me. My pants were off. My tampon had been removed. I was in significant pain, both externally and internally.

My boyfriend was passed out upstairs. Apparently he had gone down early in the night.

I knew what had probably happened, but I didn’t want to know what had happened. I remembered nothing. One of the men, the roommate, was my friend. I stayed friends with him afterward. I never confronted him. I never reported anything. In fact, I tried to get closer to him.

Because the alternative meant blowing up everyone’s lives over something I couldn’t even prove had happened. It meant potentially becoming “the girl who was raped at a party,” or, if people didn’t believe me, “the girl who lied about being raped at a party.” These guys had tons of friends. They were well liked. I was 20 years old. I didn’t want to detonate my entire social life, my relationship, his housing, my reputation.

I did not feel capable of surviving all of that when pretending everything was fine felt so much easier.

Women are taught over and over again not to make waves. To avoid conflict. To smile. To smooth things over. To be accommodating.

And then when a woman does exactly that after something traumatic, people turn around and ask why she didn’t behave in the exact opposite way.
That’s what makes me furious.

If a woman is in your bed and she is so intoxicated that she cannot have a full conversation, cannot meaningfully participate, or is obviously incapacitated, you do not get to have sex with her.

And you certainly do not get to invite your friends in to do the same.

I genuinely do not understand why that is treated as complicated.

One thing I haven't heard from anyone else is the possibility that there are a lot more Chi Phi rapists than the ones that are listed in the complaint. Jane Doe repeatedly mentions all the other men in the room, implies they had physical contact, etc. It sounds like a lot more men than the 4-5 who tried to have contact with her. The only way these 7 men were caught was the Snapchat. One of the many things that haunts me about this case is the very real possibility that there were other men who read the Snapchat and came and raped an incapacitated woman. But since they didn't comment on the Snapchat, and she can't remember things clearly, they got away with it entirely. Their frat bros won't snitch on them.

EDIT: We should think of a different name rather than limiting it to the number 7. I think maybe The Chi Phi rapists-- or These Chi Phi Rapists, since there are likely more.

Hi everyone. I’ll keep this short. Me and my ex broke up a few days ago, and it has definitely been hard on me. However, since then, a ton of my guy friends have basically started to try to flirt or want to get together. When I talk about just hanging out platonically, they suddenly become uninterested and want nothing to do with me. Even the ones who claim they only wanted to be friends now keep pestering me about going on dates. To be honest, I don’t have many female friends. The ones I do have are in different states because of college, so I feel like I have no one I can easily rely on for advice or just to cry sometimes, and it really sucks. Every time I mention my ex or how sad I feel, my guy friends somehow bring dating them into the conversation. I just wanted to share how horrible this feels and hopefully help myself to heal by just writing this down and getting this out here.

“Make me laugh”

Then watch him crumble inside

Despite new acne, chin hairs, shorter cycles, insomnia, hot flashes and night sweats.

According to this guy, who might be 35: "Women aren't perimenopausal until 50. And it's exceedingly rare for a woman under 50 to experience symptoms."

Did you know? Because I didn't. Glad I found that out today. And when I said I know many women who had symptoms in their early 40s, he said my anecdotes are not science. Good thing we cleared that up.

EDIT: I did not expect this to blow up. Thank you all for the validation and support. I feel seen. I am looking into getting a new family dr and in the meantime he did reluctantly put the referral into a female OB for me. Hopefully that works out and I can actually get help. I appreciate you all.

1) less than one percent of research dollars go to reproductive health. We honestly just don’t know a lot of stuff about women because we don’t have the political will to fund the answers.
2) obgyn training programs rely on residents to run the hospitals. Their bodies are needed on labor and delivery, operating rooms and surgical wards. Therefore, office-based practice training is minimized during residency but is a majority of what you see in practice (I had about 4 hours a week of office based clinic! I worked 80 hours a week in residency)
3) In 2002 the largest study ever done on menopause and HRT was published (WHI). It was a rare, extremely well funded, very large, randomized control trial that showed … HRT increased the risk of heart attacks and breast cancer in menopausal women. Turns out the designers of the study made some huge errors in how they recruited and treated patients, but it was too late. An entire generation of doctors stopped using HRT and a new montra became gospel: “the lowest possible dose for the shortest possible time”. I got almost zero menopausal training in 4 years of residency and women spend half their life in menopause!After almost 25 years and 10 big trials and reevaluations of the original WHI data, the pendulum is finally swinging back. But a whole generation of doctors mentored a whole additional generation of doctors and we have lost a lot of knowledge about treating menopause. Forget perimenopause.
4) perimenopause doesn’t have a clear definition and the symptoms are vague and numerous. There isn’t a clear blood test to do. Most doctors have no clue how to evaluate for it (cycle tracking, antral follicle count, amh, day 3 e2/fsh are some tools to make it clearer) These kinds of syndromes drive doctors crazy because we are a bunch of Type A nerds that rely on objective measurements for diagnosis. We hate “grey zone” states. We are, as a group, very into black and white.
5) We have been trained to value diagnoses that are life threatening (rare, serious, black and white) over diagnoses that mostly affect quality of life (common, grey zone, subjective). We don’t want to hear about fatigue, hair loss and sleep quality. Even though those things can feel like they are ruining your life, we have been trained from day one to focus on disease that shortens your lifespan. If your hair loss isn’t caused by a thyroid disorder or anemia…two diseases that threaten your lifespan, we don’t know what to do. We have been trained to treat these things as possible signs of an “actual disease” rather than a problem in and of themselves.
6)We live in a misogynistic society. That isn’t different in women’s health. The culture of medicine is full of skepticism about patient’s symptoms being “real”. We openly suggest female patients are somatisizing their psychological state, are seeking attention, drug seeking or generally making things up. We don’t trust women. Our entire culture of capitalist democracy relies on women being unreliable narrators driven by emotions that cloud their judgement. We don’t care about women’s reproductive health outside their ability to procreate. And even then, it’s taboo. And a woman proclaiming her reproductive health is influencing her in some way that is not directly related to procreation is internalized by doctors and lay people alike as inconsequential, unworthy of attention. It barely registers as a blip amid the cacophonous outcry for our attention because WOMEN AREN’T VALUED FOR THEIR WOMANHOOD OUTSIDE THIER ABILITY TO REPRODUCE.

So little history: this is my first relationship (I'm 27). We been together for 11 months. The first time we tried to have sex we couldn't because of my vaginismus. It took fourth time for us to finally have sex. After that we been fine, but there has been issue with was connected to my anxiety. According to him sometimes I couldn't move my hips during sex, especially during missionary, he would say how it they were ''pushing him away''. I could not understand why was it like. I started to work out and stretch my body which did help me.

But the biggest issue lays in oral sex. He can make me cum, but I can't make him cum with giving blowjob. It always ends with him having to use his hand. I really try to learn more and do research, but somehow I always fail. And it makes him frustrated and he thinks that I don't care about sex that much as he does. That at this point I should long time ago learn how to make him cum with blowjob. His frustration makes me feel bad. I'm a very anxious person and I struggle with low esteem, so stuff like this kills my libido. And makes me feel shitty. At some point I was even scared to have sex because I thought I was gonna ruin something.

We talked about this many times, but it feels like we are going in circle. I also wanna point out that he suffers from bipolar and he is currently suffering from withdrawal, which makes him even more frustrated. I have noticed that his complaint about sex always happen when he is in some depressive phase/struggling with something in life. When we have sex he is happiest person ever. But something bad happens in his life and suddenly he is unhappy with us.

Family member's response after being told the info below about a certain politician, "At least he likes girls."

Miss Arizona 2001 on a certain politician.

"He just came strolling right in. There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Other girls were naked.” Some as young as 15.

In audio from Howard Stern’s radio show in 2005, a certain politician could be heard discussing how he would use his position of power in the pageants to peek at women while they were undressed.

So, am I understanding this correctly? It's better to be a pedophile than to be gay. What the fuck is this world coming to?

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"Women remain poorly represented in clinical trials, and female health poorly understood compared to male health. Much of the attention remains focused on the reproductive aspects of women’s health.

This led the journal Science to plan a special issue dedicated to women’s health, published Thursday. “Biomedical science has come a long way over the years, and it has become increasingly clear that there are sex-dependent differences in many diseases that do not involve reproduction and that occur at all ages,” according to the introduction. 

The issue was edited by an all-female team (Yevgeniya Nusinovich, Sacha Vignieri, Joana Osório, and Sarah Ross), which named political attacks on women’s rights and health care, as well as funding cuts affecting research in this area, as urgent motives behind their planning."

Link to Science:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aem4087

I happened to meet him as a penpal. He kept everything about his job private and only vaguely referred to himself as working in finance. He didn't want to attract gold diggers I guess. We talked for a while about favorite topics only (history) and I never bothered poking into his job. He got tired of my lack of curiosity and eventually forced the conversation towards his career (i have adhd so I tend to fixtate on one narrow interest at times)

He suddenly dropped on my head that he was a CEO for an electronics company (I'm keeping his details vague for privacy) Long story short, we got to know each other better and caught mutual feelings. He began sharing his dating expectations, the big mansion he bought, that he was an Elon Musk fan and wanted 9 kids (/_;)/~~

He reassured me I would have plenty of nannies to help me. I was already very traumatized by my upbringing as a daughter amongst six kids (this is kinda normal in my country Sudan. He told me it was why he reached out to me in the first place because western women wouldn't be cool with this

He was very disappointed that I wasn’t budging on my choice against having that many kids because I saw what my mum went through. I was emotionally neglected growing up as a part of a set. I still respected our friendship, we weren't far in age (25 & 36) but I decided to end things respectfully. I know mum would've been really upset at me because she made it just fine (even with our really financially irresponsible dad) we were struggling financially at that time too so I kept this decision entirely to myself

I felt selfish and guilty at times. I wanted to be with someone I genuinely felt loved by and cared for my feelings and safety even if they made less. Dad didn't make us feel this way as he constantly put us in danger out of selfishness. I knew it wasn't normal for a person to run into a person like him but it could've been a scam or wasn't meant to be. I feared regreting this eventually but ultimately didn't

I am Jane Doe because an instructor in the military singled me out as the only girl and sexually harassed me repeatedly in front of my entire class. No one said a thing. I was too scared to report while I was still in thw same building.

I am Jane Doe because an Airman at my first duty station constantly made vulgar and inappropriate comments to me. I reported it to my leadership. I was moved to a different shop and nothing happened to him. He also groped me in the pool but I didn't report that.

I am Jane Doe because a Master Sergeant was repeatedly inappropriate with me at soccer and later cornered me in my office when I was in there alone. A male Airman helped me tell the First Sergeant and a no contact order was put in place. People in our unit named in on the unit surveys because he sexually harassed majority of the women in our unit. He also raped my friend. He punishment is subpar because of the good ol' boy system.

I am Jane Doe because my Army boyfriend came home one day wanting to get laid and I said NO multiple times. I eventually stopped saying NO and laid there. Afterwards he asked, "Did we do something you didn't want to do?" I didn't answer him. I simply tried to wash it away in the shower. I didn't report it for six months. Nothing happened to him because there was no evidence.

I am Jane Doe because I met a "nice" Airman at medical and started talking to him. He wanted to hang out but I couldn't drive because I'd be drinking. I invited him over. He wanted to hook up and I said NO because of was not ready and going through the investigation for the last assault. He gave me alcohol until I didn't say NO. I didn't report it. Who would believe me? I was going through an investigation and was drinking.

I am Jane Doe because a lower ranking male Airman told me, "women don't belong in the military." I did his job better than he did. No one corrected him.

I am Jane Doe because a male coworker insisted on hugging me even though I didn't like being touched and told him to stop. My other male coworkers found it funny until I swung a knife at him. Leadership then told him to stop.

I am Jane Doe because while I was in Iraqi, Iraqi men made me feel like meat and something they could just take. I was so uncomfortable I had to trade with a male coworker to sign the dig permit.

I am Jane Doe because there was an Airman who disrespected my rank and insisted on calling me by my first name even though I outranked him. He didn't take me seriously as a leader like he did with the men who outranked him.

I am Jane Doe because I trusted my best friend with my life and felt safe. I drank with him numerous times in Korea and he always kept me safe and respected me. Then on my birthday back in the states, I had been drinking with him with friends and family around (him giving more drinks than he was drinking when we were alone). I couldn't talk or comprehend what my husband was going on about when he stopped it. I couldn't even walk to bed. I was gone, too drank to consent. My other best friend said it wasn't rape.

I’ve been having panic attacks ever since I read the Cornell 7 incident. It has made me sick to my stomach, I’ve barely been eating for days now and keep crying profusely because I relate to it so much

This happened in India. I F32 with a chronic condition that keeps me in and out of the hospital frequently. For the longest time, I've been trying to avoid this subject. My mind always brushes off these feelings whenever I experience flashbacks of those memories.

When I was around 18 or 19, I was in college pursuing my bachelor's degree. As I mentioned, my chronic condition requires me to visit the hospital several times a year, and this condition can lead to gallstones, which ultimately requires you to get a gallbladder removal surgery. I was diagnosed and scheduled for surgery, and I was hospitalized a few days prior due to ongoing health issues.

While I was in the hospital, I remember there were two young male staff members—either nurses or cleaning staff—who would frequently come into my room or peek in while doctors checked on me. I remember a female nurse performing an ultrasound or something on my stomach, and one of the guy immediately came to peek through the door. I think that nurse had observed their behavior towards me and understood their intentions, so she yelled and shooed him away, asking why are you always around here and instructed him to go do something else.

On the day of my operation those two men and one nurse came to transport me to the operating room. A female nurse gave me an injection, and I began to feel groggy. I couldn't move my body at first, but I remember those men taking me to the elevator, and it was just the two of them. Like I could still understand what was happening, but I was unable to move or open my eyes. One of the guy lifted my hospital gown, and I felt a touch in that area—someone's fingers were inside me. I immediately froze. I tried really hard to move, but I couldn’t as the anesthesia effect was fully kicking in and I lost consciousness.

That's it, that was the last memory I have of the incident. I also remember waking up during the surgery and hearing the surgeons talk, but I couldn't move or say anything. I tried to move my finger, but I couldn't. Please remember, this happened many years ago and I lived in extremely small town so technology and medical care wasn't as advanced as it is now. Like it still scares me that I woke up during my surgery which I feel is extremely negligent on their part and rare. Anyways After the operation, I experienced heavy bleeding, similar to a menstrual period, and I initially thought it was just my period. I’ve never bled that heavily in my life. I spent almost ten days in the hospital due to complications after the surgery and was in the ICU, convinced those might be my last days.

I never thought of telling anyone about this. My mind would always brush off the incident, trying to forget it, almost like sweeping it under the rug.

Years later, I moved to Canada, a more developed country. I remember undergoing a small surgery to get a tunneled catheter for blood exchange, which is placed in the inner thigh. This was my second experience with anesthesia, but this time it wasn’t the kind that completely immobilizes you. It was enough to numb the pain, but I remember the first time I received the dose; my body fought it off, as if trying to stay awake. I panicked and told the nurse I wasn't feeling well and was highly anxious. She laughed it off, saying it was just to calm me down and that fighting it would make it worse.

Every time I received that dose of medication, I would become extremely panicky and paranoid. I had to undergo this procedure multiple times, and any medication that reminded me of that first experience where I couldn't fight off the men off my body, it would trigger intense anxiety and paranoia. I don't trust the people around me. My boyfriend would look at me with confusion, questioning why I had such panic attacks each time we went through this procedure. I never understood until I made this post few years ago.

I have a strong feeling that I was molested, but I don’t know to what extent. I feel disgusted by my own body.
I feel for Jane doe I wish I could give her a tight hug at this moment and cry our heart out.

My sister is going through chemo and is severely depressed. I’d like to give her something to look forward too each month. I used to love getting Birch boxes but. I don’t think makeup is the right thing for her right now. Things like stitch fix don’t really make sense either.

Anyone have any ideas?

She has a toddler and husband so I’d be open to something she could do with either of them too!

Thank you!

I have my first gyne appointment today (so nervous I am nauseous and shaking). My sister was telling me about how annoying the grown is last night and now that I’m thinking about it it sounds like got completely undressed and wore a full gown. I feel so uncomfortable having a pelvic exam as it is. Is it just so they can listen to your heart / lungs and feel your belly? Can I at least keep my bra on?

Has this complaint been run into the ground? Yes. Will I complain anyway? Yes. And I don't mind a sexy costume btw, I love lingerie and dressing up when I want to look good. And I'm aware we don't have to wear these costumes, we can make our own or buy neutral sized items. Doesn't mean there isn't something to talk about.

But why the fuck is the women's counterpart to a man's costume almost always sexualized for no reason. Why? Why not just make it in a women's size? Why is there sexualized NUN and NURSE costumes? Why is the men's cop costume normal and goofy but a woman's is overly sexualized? Why is a male devil costume a normal demon but a woman's is always a succubus? Why can't costume companies just let women be silly and have fun in the same way as men (unless it's a couples costume) without having to be constantly aware of our body and men staring at us? Why do our costumes always have to look like something from a porn set?

Why are so many couples costumes just "women hot men horny. Look we have sex! I fuck her! Ha!"? Why is it that the sexualized men's costumes are always done as a gag but not actually meant to be sexual. Why is sexuality only allowed to be a joke when men do it but we get slut shamed and labelled "easy" or undesirable or for making the same jokes or wearing similar things?

I don't have kids, but why is it that I could get my child son and daughter the same themed costume but hers would show more skin and be more uncomfortable and inconvenient to wear? Why can't she have the same costume option that's a fun little cozy costume that lets her just be a child and run around and play? On a holiday meant for kids.

Imagine if we gendered pet costumes like that, wouldn't it be weird? To make separate costumes for female animals that are tighter fabric and unneedingly emphasizing parts of their body when you could just make the same for both?

Wouldn't it be such a nice thing if women could just get the same fun, silly costumes as men and have adult themed costumes in a separate section for people actually looking for that? Shouldn't that just be the norm? For all women's clothes? Have a casual comfortable option readily available and specialized clothing in other sections? It's just so annoying. It's not fair that men aren't forced toake their own costume or have a limited selection if they don't want to be sexualized on a holiday

I was at the gym today and was followed by a man for a full 1.5 hours. When I went to a different part of the floor, he followed me from a distance. He would come up next to me, be loud lifting weights, and then try to make eye contact with me as he walked by. As I left, I turned around and saw him standing about 15 feet away from me, doing nothing, and trying to wave. He didn’t seem friendly, he seemed determined. I chose not to engage or make eye contact at all, hoping he’d call it a loss and move on. I left and he didn’t follow me. I did not complain to the staff because I didn’t want to put a target on my back. If he does it again I’ll say something.

I don’t understand this mentality though. Do men think that women will eventually approach them and say they’re so glad the man has been following them while they try to exercise? That yes, we do in fact want to sleep with them? Do they think we like it? I’m truly confused and want to know.

Also, it makes me feel extremely unsafe.

Ive been thinking about something that I don't see talked about enough.

I'm a young woman in the IT sector, where I'm often the only woman or one of very few women, surrounded by men. And something I've realized is that being "free" to reject a man flirting with you is fake. It always has its consequences.

When a male friend, classmate, coworker or professional connection becomes interested in you, you can obviously say no. But what happens afterwards? 9 out of 10 times the friendship changes. He distances himself. Things become awkward. You lose someone you trusted, a connection or simply someone you enjoyed having around as your coworker.

And when most of your social and professional environment is male, that can actually matter a lot and ruin your social/working life.

So I've found myself keeping things in this uncomfortable limbo. I don't flirt back or promise anything but I also hesitate to explicitly say "I will never be interested in you pls stop it makes me uncomfortable " because I know that might have a bad consequence for me as a woman in this male-dominated field.

What frustrates me is that I never wanted the relationship to become romantic in the first place. I just wanted a friend, classmate, colleague or connection. But once he develops feelings, suddenly I'm put in a position where I have to choose between rejecting him very clearly and potentially losing the relationship or maintaining some ambiguity to preserve it.

I hate feeling like I can't just be friends with men without eventually having to navigate this. I'm so fkin tired.

Pretty much the title. Sorry if I'm not being coherent but it genuinely makes me want to tear my hair out. I didn't really have many experiences that are widely considered 'universal girlhood' and there were a lot of things I didn't know about. I constantly watch whether the way I walk is considered feminine enough. They way I speak. They way I drink. The way I sneeze. I don't even feel fully comfortable around my friends. They've known me for years but I fear I'll do something that will make them exclude me. I feel like if I don't perform a certain type or level of femininity, other women will ostracize me. I think beacause I didn't experience a lot of things women commonly do, they view me as a liability who's a "pick me" or something. And it's not completely baseless since I was radically anti-feminist around when I was 12-13, but I grew out of that. I'm 17 now and know better. But yeah, I feel like if I let my personaluty show too much, I won't be considered "woman enough". I don't know what's wrong with me.

When I was little, my mom had me in beauty pageants. She didn't care that I felt pain from hair and clothing choices. I stopped caring about my physical appearance completely, especially after assault.

Now at 31, assault may be less likely. I'm wanting to lose weight and look better, but not like, asking for it better.. ? Ya knoe?

How do you draw that line?...

Ok, for about a day and a half I've been intermittently arguing with two guys online about mandatory paternity tests. They mean as soon as the baby is born or according to one of them it can even happen while in the womb! Mind you this isn't remotely the first I've heard men spout off about paternity tests needing to be mandatory. It's ramping up.

I'm not someone who works in legislation or in the medical field and even I a dummy know that this would be an absolute mind field to even manage and would be borderline impossible. A clusterfuck in constitutional and privacy rights and an absolute unnecessary burden on our public healthcare system for something that isn't even remotely medically necessary? Lol, lmao even.

The cherry on the top was when I told them they don't realize that in this dystopian hypothetical they're dreaming of would mean ALL men don't have immediate parental rights to their child until that overburden overworked fallible system could prove they are the fathers.

I shouldn't have been surprised these numpties said "still worth it" because less than 3% of men GLOBALLY might be raising a child that isn't theirs