Understanding Victim Blaming

[00:00:00]

Simone Collins: We're, we're just talking hypothetically and taking on characters in this episode because.

Malcolm Collins: Because, yeah, yeah. No, this is not us. If somebody quotes us in this episode and they're like, can you believe they said this? I was like, could you not tell this was a comedy episode? Could

Simone Collins: you not tell? This was a deep fake

Malcolm Collins: I am saying these are the type of questions that in a hypothetical world where victim blaming was not a concept that was shamed, somebody might ask. How would we test whether the phenomenon of men physically abusing their wives is caused primarily by the wives or caused primarily by the husbands? And then the other person would say, ah, of you and weird science world where we only care about data.

I guess what we would need is a control situation. We would need a population where some women. dated women, and some men dated men, and then we would need to look at the level of physical abuse within these two populations. What are the physical abuse rates in lesbian relationships? What are the physical [00:01:00] abuse rates in male gay relationships? Oh, oh no, they're much lower than in straight relationships in male gay relationships, and much higher in lesbian relationships. Oh no, this is not what the data was supposed to say.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: So we were like, well, I mean, we're not, we haven't ruined our careers enough as it is. And why would you let someone else cancel you when you can just cancel yourself? So today we talk about victim blaming and why, why there's a case to be made. Oh my God, we're going to hell.

Malcolm Collins: Blaming is one of these really interesting things where.

I think it started as a good concept for people, right? Way that like, don't be ashamed to see a psychologist movement was really healthy to start. You know, some people needed to see psychologists back when psychologists were still healthy. And then it became a never ever criticize a psychologist. For doing [00:02:00] anything and never ever say somebody should stop seeing a psychologist that they're seeing because that person is employing cult like abusive practices and then that allowed cult like abusive practices to begin to proliferate within the psychologist community because you are not allowed to tell somebody anymore.

Hey, actually the things that psychologists are doing with you are actually very similar to cult tactics, building dependence, you need to get away from them, how dare you shame me for seeing a psychologist, it's always valid to go to somebody who affirms anything I do, no matter the It's very useful.

The cause to myself or my community that's what I need, my affirmer. Or the person who tells me, oh, you have some deep seated thing in your past and you can only fix it by coming to see me repeatedly. But then the same thing happened to and, you know, that's dependency right there, right?

And then the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the same thing ended up happening with this other group. Which is victim blaming, right?

Simone Collins: And we're not talking about victims of, you know, systemic [00:03:00] racism, natural disasters, blah, blah, blah. We're talking about typically

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. But, but there was a reason.

Like, it used to be too common in the past. I'll admit. It used to be too common. People would see a woman Who'd get great. And they'd be like, well, you know, look at the way she was dressing. Right. Um,

Simone Collins: and totally inappropriate situations. You know, these are women who are going about their work, going about their lives, you know, who are being attacked.

And yeah,

Malcolm Collins: and they would say something like. How could this have happened? Right? And, and, and then their initial reaction is to say, well, it must have been the victim's fault. And this is something that happened in society. Like, this is a natural inclination that humans have to want to blame the victim.

And so it was important that we had a movement that pushed against this, but. The movement went insane and ended up creating a prohibition because you know, if you look at our big bill on signalers, if people are status signaling, they realize they can [00:04:00] raise their status within their group by pointing out this behavior and others, even when it was a justified behavior that ascribing any fault.

On the part of a victim of something i. e. that in any way they contributed to the probability of that thing happening to them was an immoral thing to do and lowered your status was in the community. Now, this is a problem because. Like, obviously, there is always some level of I did something that increased the probability that a negative thing happened to me.

You know, I'm reminded of the Die Hard scene, right? I don't know if people remember this. I think it's from Die Hard 2 or something, where the guy's walking around a black neighborhood with, like, racist billboards on him or something. And you're like, Oh my God, because the bad guy is making him do this.

 Not to get too personal, but a white man standing in the middle of Harlem wearing a sign that says, I hate niggas, has got some serious personal issues you got about ten seconds before those guys see you.

When they do, [00:05:00] they will kill you, you are about to have a very bad day.

Malcolm Collins: Right? You know, you are scared for this individual in this environment. And, you know, somebody comes by and is like, Hey, you shouldn't be doing this and try still, you know, and that's how he ends up with his, I think, partner for that movie. So yeah, it's a good movie. But the point being is if that individual ended up getting shot or injured in that community, you can be like, well, how dare you say that the fact that he was walking around with a racist sign in a predominantly black community how dare you say that influenced the crime?

But even woke people wouldn't say that. They'd be like, yeah, of course that influenced the fact that he was injured. It's the same thing with children. You know, you have a child, right? Like a child gets hit by a car because they ran across the street without looking both ways and waiting for their parent.

That is a tragedy. Is it partially the child's fault? Yes, it's partially the child's fault. Like, I'm sorry, that is a horrible thing to say it is partially that child's fault. You could be like, well, the child wasn't fully sentient yet or [00:06:00] anything like that. It's really the parent's fault. Fine! Let's talk about an adult.

If an adult crosses a road without looking both ways, and they get hit by a truck, and I'm like, look, obviously the truck shouldn't have hit them. But, it is partially their fault, and they're like, well that's a horrible thing to say. It is, okay, it's a horrible thing to say, but there is a reason we need to be able to victim blame.

Hmm. Let me explain what that reason is. It is because if we don't do that, then I cannot learn from that incident. I cannot say, oh, it is dangerous to cross the road without looking both ways. And then I cannot teach my children about that. I can't say if you don't look both ways before crossing the road, you may be hurt.

And so he's like, come on, nobody's saying that. Okay. Imagine I say to my daughter, if you go to a nightclub dressed like that, yeah. You make it great. And then somebody's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's victim. Well, the crime hasn't even happened yet. [00:07:00] I am merely pointing out an increase in statistical odds due to a behavioral pattern.

If you go down a dark alleyway by yourself at night, this bad thing may happen to you. And so he would be like, nobody is actually out there. Occluding people learning about these risks in a fear of victim blaming this, and I would say actually

Simone Collins: not true. Super not true. Yeah. So like I, cause I can give that personal example, so I can speak from personal experience on this because I was raised in a culture where victim blaming absolutely 100 percent was not permitted.

But then I also was Completely blithely unaware that doing certain things was going to put me at risk of certain things happening or that there were even like implied expectations to certain things. So, um, I mean, a lot of this, this happened, like when I was traveling and whatnot, like I would walk around Beijing or Tokyo, like wearing a mini skirt and fishnets.

And then be surprised if [00:08:00] someone fondled my ass like, well, of course, because I was walking around alone as a teenager in a major city wearing a mini skirt. I mean, okay. There was, there was another instance when I was in college where a guy invited me to go to a concert with him and it was we went to school in DC, the concert was in New York and I'm like, Oh yeah, that sounds great.

And he's like, okay, great. Like we'll take this 5 bus there. So like the plan was to just bus up and then bus back and then like sort of pull in a letter and call like the first bus in the morning. And then like later he updated me like, Oh, my dad got a hotel room. So, you know, we're not going to be out on the streets all night and I'm like, okay, great, fine.

We'll just do our homework there. And then, you know, like. It, you know, surprise, surprise that like I get to the hotel room, pull out my homework and start doing it. And he starts hammering back screwdrivers. And I'm like, oh, okay, whatever.

I decided to cut the meat out of this story because it's very uncomfortable to listen to. All you really need to.

take away is that the situation was very, very dangerous for Simone, but [00:09:00] nothing ended up happening. However, if things had been slightly different, it could have gone very poorly for her.

Simone Collins: it was a very awkward night and nothing ultimately happened, but it, it did then lead to him being really mad at me and me feeling really like confused and kind of scared by what happened.

And like, that's because no one had told me, like, if you put yourself in this situation, If a guy

Malcolm Collins: pays for a private room for you, and you go into

Simone Collins: the hotel room and then, and then you, you get into a bed and then he starts drinking, like, you know, and I went, I still didn't realize that this was an issue when I came back and I told, you know, like my roommate would happen.

Cause she was like, Hey man, what's wrong. Then he's just like, Oh, that, that is not okay. Like, I can't believe that happened to it. It was never like, wait, you didn't know. Like no one said that to me, which is

Malcolm Collins: insane. Well, and if people can't understand, so Simone, you got really lucky. This guy understood like no means no, et cetera.

Yeah. [00:10:00] But a lot of women end up putting themselves and people don't understand. They can be like, that should have been the most obvious thing in the world. Simone is an intelligent person. You guys are an intelligent. Thoughtful person, because she grew up in an environment where this view of slut shaming or sorry, where this view of victim blaming was so extreme that she was never saw basic things around expectations that may be set by her actions.

She put herself in an incredibly dangerous situation. Yeah, it is not, this is not like a joke point. Like this is when you fight against this, when you fight to say, actually we do need to victim blame a bit. You are fighting against women getting great.

Simone Collins: You're fighting against female victimhood. You are fighting for female safety.

And this isn't a female versus male thing. You know, this goes both ways. Like, people who put themselves in very risky positions are going to be subject to this regardless of, you know, who they [00:11:00] are and, and what race or gender or background or educational level or IQ they are. It really doesn't matter.

This is about what risks are you subjecting yourself to, right?

Malcolm Collins: We need to understand that risks are not fair. It doesn't mean you shouldn't be educated about them. If you are X ethnicity, you probably shouldn't go into Z neighborhood and do B. That historically we understood it. It's not good that that happens, but it is good that we teach our kids that that happens if they're at risk of it.

Now we have entered a society where you cannot do that. And that creates enormous, enormous risk for young people. But hold on, it gets. that. So I'm going to talk about some statistics that are shocking. And that, that allow you to investigate issues that we as a society are told we are not allowed to investigate.

Okay. So we're going to talk about spousal abuse. [00:12:00] Oh boy,

Simone Collins: we're really going to hell for this. We're talking about

Malcolm Collins: white abuse, worse than that. Okay. So I, as an outsider, somebody who is not concerned about whether and keep in mind, all of this is just a hypothetical framework here. I'm not saying this is what I think.

I am saying these are the type of questions that in a hypothetical world where victim blaming was not a concept that was shamed, somebody might ask. And so somebody in this hypothetical world might ask a question like, is it women's fault that they are abused by their husbands? And then another person would say, how dare you ask that?

You know, but that doesn't exist. So somebody can't ask in this world, how dare you ask that? Instead, they would ask. How would we test that? How would we test whether the phenomenon of men physically abusing their wives is caused primarily by the wives or caused primarily by the husbands? And then the other person would say, ah, of you and weird [00:13:00] science world where we only care about data.

I guess what we would need is a control situation. We would need a population where some women. dated women, and some men dated men, and then we would need to look at the level of physical abuse within these two populations. And

Simone Collins: unfortunately, lo and behold,

Malcolm Collins: this is possible. Ah, yes, yes, yes. Let me pull this up.

Okay. What are the physical abuse rates in lesbian relationships? What are the physical abuse rates in male gay relationships? Oh, oh no, they're much lower than in straight relationships in male gay relationships, and much higher in lesbian relationships. Oh no, this is not what the data was supposed to say.

Now,

Simone Collins: caveats, caveats throat clearing, etc. It may be that men are just far less likely to report abuse. It may be that women are far more likely to over report abuse. But the numbers are very

Malcolm Collins: distinct. It's not just true in [00:14:00] our world. I'm not saying that in our world, lesbian relationships are much more likely to have physical abuse or that gay relationships are much less likely to have physical abuse or that this would mean anything.

I'm just saying you, as a viewer, hypothetically, if you were to look this up, what conclusions, and you did live in this alternate world where all these things were true, which obviously isn't true in our world. What would you take away from it? But it gets more interesting than that because I also look in my own life of instances where I have seen physical spousal abuse, which have been rare, but I know of really only one in my larger friend network.

Oh, no, two. One, it was because his partner kept stealing things from people and he kept telling her to stop doing it, and she didn't listen, and then he became physically abusive. The other the partner this guy was living on a very tight budget, like, they were not doing well financially, and she went out and splurged on designer purses without his permission and he had asked her to not do that before.[00:15:00]

And sometimes I wonder, obviously, these are all hypothetical situations that didn't really happen. And I'm not discussing my real opinions here. But these are all situations where I just have to wonder, like. I don't abuse Simone because when I went into a relationship, I vetted for a partner who I respected and who I admired and whose actions I always knew were motivated by a desire to make the world a better place and to achieve her personal value set, which I align with.

And if my partner, if Simone, ever strayed from that path, I would leave her. If she ever started acting in a way that was optimized around personal vanity or hurt other members of the family, I would leave her before I would ever physically abuse her. However, there are certain people in this world who just are unwilling to do that.

They are primarily concerned about themselves and their vanity and how they signal to the world. And there are certain other people in the world who can't get a better [00:16:00] partner than that. And I think that this is partially why physical abuse happens within relationships where people are on the lower quality of partner.

Um, well,

Simone Collins: and I think often there, there is abuse on multiple ends. Sometimes One partner physically abuses after being emotionally abused. I would also, I mean, yeah, I think a lot of personally would see if, if I, I had very limited funds and somebody without my consent spent my money. So, I mean, I think another issue with, with some forms of spousal abuse is that the abuse that gets prosecuted reported and seen as societally most unforgivable has been triggered by other forms of abuse that society. Doesn't for whatever reason see as, as egregious, but this is a cultural thing [00:17:00] and I, I do, I do think that like, this is a very, very difficult moral situation because for example, you have honor killings where like a family will kill a female relative because they feel that she, you know, dishonored the family in some way, which most to most people that would be entirely like.

She didn't do a thing. She just acted, acted normal. Right. And then they think it's right to kill her as a result. So, I mean, like, I do think that it's, it gets very, very dangerous when violence is the retaliation that people choose. And often people Violence is

Malcolm Collins: a retaliation that people choose often, not as a first resort, but either because they are mentally impaired.

So, let's be clear. I think usually when violence is chosen, it's either because the person is mentally impaired because of drugs or alcohol. Or they're just generally mentally impaired, or they feel that they have no other way to effectively communicate with their

Simone Collins: partner. Right, like they've tried everything else and they

Malcolm Collins: They've tried telling them, don't take the family credit card and spend all our [00:18:00] money, they've tried everything else, and they feel that it would be Better to be physically abusive than it would be to leave their partner.

However, I want to be clear. I think that this is a minority of cases of spousal abuse. I actually think that the majority of cases of spousal abuse are due to mental impairment, drugs, alcohol and stupidity. And lack of emotional control. But I also think that there is a level of reciprocality to this as, as Simone pointed out, is one partner is abusing the other partner in a way that is socially accepted.

And so we don't see that a lot of really terrible people deserve each other. And, and we're not allowed to, you know, somebody comes to me and they go. Look at all these horrible things my wife did to me, right? And, and I know this is terrible because now, oh gosh, this is going to really piss off the red pillars where I'm like, what?

Even men are responsible for when they are emotionally or financially abused by their wives. And I'm like, yeah, generally my thought, when somebody comes to me, a man comes to me and he's like, look at all [00:19:00] these terrible things my partners have done to me. And I'm like, okay, well, what are you doing? Like it's either something that you're doing in terms of how you're sourcing your partners, or it's something that you're doing in terms of how you're relating to your partners.

Because I have, you know, as I've talked about, I've been in tons of relationships. I have slept around a ton. I dated a ton before I met my wife. I never like, it's not that I never had partners who did things that were manipulative, but when they did, I broke up with them immediately before the situation ever escalated.

I never allowed somebody to treat me like that.

Simone Collins: You didn't expose yourself in a way that would allow you to be manipulated in that way. And I think a lot of this is like, people are, are allowing themselves to be exposed in a way.

Malcolm Collins: And here's something that people will say. I'll also say somebody will be like, yeah, but what was a man, you know, Oh, Oh, man can beat you if you leave him.

And I'm like, yeah. And a woman can claim you raped her. If you leave her, I actually had one person threatened to do that to me. Threatened to say that I had raped [00:20:00] her because I left her. I think

Simone Collins: that happens more than.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it happens more than you all think. And then in that situation, you need to be very careful.

You need to navigate the situation. And I think that women are like, What? A man beating you is so much worse than a woman claiming you raped her. And I'm like, are you actually serious saying that? Do you understand that you can have your whole life ruined? You'll never be able to get a job again.

If you're a woman and you survive that, Even if you walk with a limp or something, I would prefer a limp or even the permanent facial deformation than a rape record on my public record. In, in, in trying

Simone Collins: to live. Yeah. It would be interesting to do a poll of like both men and women, like, would you rather live with X or Y like, you know, permanent rape accusations or like having, like being Kind of beat up, like pretty beat up.

Maybe to the point of hospitalization.

Malcolm Collins: Well, hospitalization and permanent, like, like, maybe a limp [00:21:00] or permanent, like, scars or something.

Simone Collins: Yeah, although I, I don't think most cases of domestic

Malcolm Collins: abuse, I'm not saying that I'm talking about an extreme

Simone Collins: case. Yeah, but yeah, you're just going all the way to be that yet to show how extreme it can be.

Yeah, that'd be an interesting study. So I just, I want to point out 2 important points on this issue that I think need to be. considered when people are looking at it. One is that I think a big culprit in this problem becoming a problem in the first place is that people want the world to be fair. And the reason that they don't tell women that they shouldn't dress a certain way, or they don't tell their children that they shouldn't go to a certain neighborhood, or they shouldn't do this or that thing is because it's not fair.

It's not fair that I can't walk around a city in a mini skirt and, and not be, it's not fair. That I, I, I can't, you know, be in a hotel room with a guy and, and, and not have him crawl into my bed without my permission, right? Like it's, it shouldn't. It shouldn't be that way, but it is that way. And [00:22:00] because the world isn't fair, it's just that I think there's this weird, like perversion where like, we want, we're like, we're trying to dress for the world we want.

We're trying to dress for the job we want, or like, we're trying to, to behave for the world that we wish existed, but that world doesn't exist. So that's just one point I wanted to make the other point. And I think this is devastating, but also something that is not discussed enough that may be too spicy.

And you may have to take this out. Is it it's under it's under discussed. The extent to which sometimes being in an abusive relationship is better than the counterfactual that that some people stay in abusive relationships because the amount of resources or safety or happiness, otherwise, that they're getting out of it makes the bad stuff worth it.

And that many people are being abused. Over a long period of time because they've made a mental calculation that is sober and logical And they've decided this is better than the alternative And I think in in many cases[00:23:00] Abuse crisis centers and stuff like that. Don't they they make things worse because they're putting women in very dangerous situations saying like you either have to get completely out of this relationship Or we won't help you.

And I just want to point that out. Like sometimes

Malcolm Collins: people, I like what she means by this. Cause I think people may not be, imagine you are dating a billionaire and this billionaire is abusive to you. And I won't say that like we have friends in this situation, but like we probably not billionaires, but like very wealthy people who have dated women and clearly were abusive to them.

And the woman's like, look. I don't have a skill set outside of being a trophy wife. If I divorce this guy, he's got a solid prenup. My life is worse than being abused. And people are like, oh, how could you say that? And they're like, no, but really think about it. Would you rather have somebody [00:24:00] beat you every day, but have, or, or cheat on you every day in front of you, or degrade you every day?

And have to never worry about money, have all the luxuries you could want at your fingertips and the alternative is, is that you are living under an impasse or in a homeless shelter. I think most people who aren't caught up on this sort of bizarre pride hypothesis that our society has today would be like, yeah, that's better.

Or imagine I even reframe the question. Somebody's abusing you every day, but your kids get their college paid for. And your kids get to go to private school. What do you do then? A lot of people would say this is a no duh thing

Simone Collins: for me. Yeah, and you have to like consider that a lot of jobs or just like menial factory work that is just mind blowingly Depressing and boring and, and just, it takes your soul away and, or many customer service jobs, like the amount of [00:25:00] verbal abuse that some people are subjected to just do their work every day is worse than the verbal abuse they might be subjected to in a day.

And not good relationship that maybe gave them more financial security or connections that allowed them to get a better job. Right? Like there, there are trade offs and I think people discount also how, how how cruel the, the world can be.

Malcolm Collins: The average world for a, a person without a college degree and, and, and even with a college

Simone Collins: degree, all sorts of people, like depending on who you are and where you are, like just the real, the real

Malcolm Collins: world story, you know, when people are like.

Oh, don't you know all the terrible things that happen to women who work in the sex work industry and she's like, b***h, do you know what I was doing before sex work? I was working in a factory. Okay. I hated every second of my life. And I then was able to do something that yes, it was degrading. And yes, it opened me up to risk in life.

But look at where she is today. Look at who her friends are today. Look at her. Like she [00:26:00] could you. Like, a lot of

Simone Collins: people when they see it, you know, I think it's degrading by some people's standards, but like, to other people, it doesn't really matter. And like, to her, I think working in a factory was way more degrading than doing what she did.

What she did was like an intellectual exercise that was very interesting. She optimized a ton. She learned a lot. She built a platform. Like, I think a lot of it also has to do with, like, people's personal preferences. And to some people like just like literally like living in a shabby house and not being able to like buy designer bags is, is, is way worse than being in a, a very bad relationship, but having all those things.

And like, you just, I

Malcolm Collins: know what you're thinking

Simone Collins: of, but sometimes you have to trust that someone understands what they care about.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but I also want to go to the Ayla situation, because I think a lot of people, they see, like, our culture line, like, we like Ayla, we'll have her on the show again, we, we, we think pretty highly of her, and they're like, well, what you mean is, you have differences of opinion, but, like, you don't actually agree with her [00:27:00] lifestyle, right, and I'm like, no, I actually do agree with her lifestyle, even if it was my daughter, if, if, if the alternative to sex work Was spending every day as a menial peon in a factory and having no alternatives to that in life.

Because she did not have alternatives at that time of her life. I would say, I'd rather you, I don't want you to go down this path. I don't want, like, like, As me as a dad, I would prevent this from ever happening, I'd give them money, I'd try to help them, I'd try to get them out of that situation, but she didn't have a family at that time.

She had been disowned by her parents, she was completely on her own, she had no formal education

Simone Collins: And she hadn't been raised to believe that she was able to take other types of jobs on, she just had been raised to believe that she was going to be a a mother and housewife. Not homeschooling kids for her entire life, so she didn't even know, like she, she wasn't given the, the worldview that would allow her to even do anything different.

So like, come on.

Malcolm Collins: I think [00:28:00] that we as a society have entered this stage where we are unwilling to see that there is often no better option for many people in the, in the more desperate parts of society. I often say that, that seeing Ayla's story. As an outsider is like, and being like, wow, she's a slut.

It's like seeing the ballad of Fancy May and, and then being like, wow, Fancy, she was real slut at the end of that story. And it's like, were you not paying attention? I'll, I'll play it here, Simone, because I know you have no idea what I'm talking about. I have no idea.

Simone Collins: Sorry. I guess I'm just not cool enough.

Malcolm Collins: It's a classic country song.

She handed me a heart shaped lock, if you said to thine own self, be true.

And I said, But as I watched a roach crawl across the toe of my high heeled shoe I was gonna be a lady someday, though I didn't know when or how. But I couldn't see spending the rest of my life with my head hung down in shame. You know I might have been born just plain white trash, but Fancy was my [00:29:00] name. She said, here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down. There's a lot of self righteous hypocrites that call me bad And criticize mama for turning me out No matter how little we've had But though I ain't had to worry about nothin for now, oh, fifteen years Okay, mama. I understand.

Simone Collins: Thank you. Okay. Because I'm not American enough. Jesus. Sad. But yeah, I mean, I, I, I just yeah, I think it's an important conversation and it, this is definitely something that, that colors the way that we do and plan on raising our kids. And that I think this is very connected to this internal locus of control thing.

You know, the, the never blame a victim is an external locus of control. Heuristic. Whereas the blame the victim, even when it's not the victim's fault at all, is the extreme of an internal locus of control heuristic. So you can only imagine like culturally, of course, we're going to take this position.

Like you, anyone watching this

Malcolm Collins: can predict that we take this position. When we're [00:30:00] raising our kids. I'd be like, I does not matter if you were the victim or not, you are always responsible for the things that happened to you. And so we'd be like, how can you say that? And I'm like, look, a person who believes that they are always responsible for the things that happened to them in the individual decisions that they make are going to be less likely to make the decisions that lead to bad things happening to them.

So you can be like, Ooh, that's so consequentialist. So you only care that you lower the probability that your children get graped and you don't. Yes! Yes! That is all I care about! Yeah. Grow the f**k up, okay? You idiots! I'm so sick of this nonsense and the damage that's caused by it because they are leading to real people getting murdered by their partner.

They are leading to real people getting great. It was a good sentiment to begin with, but now it causes. It is infinitely more suffering than it relieves, and you do it because you are a justicle, and you pretend that by not [00:31:00] telling women that if you do X and Y, you are more likely to get graped, that you are lowering the number of women who get graped, when that is objectively not a true thing.

You are increasing the number of women who get graped because you didn't warn them. And you let them enter situations like the one Simone entered. It is just as evil as saying, I won't victim blame, therefore I won't teach a child to look both ways before crossing the street. What you are doing is evil, and you are evil, and genuinely, I hate you almost as much as I hate the greatest of this world.

Come here, kid! I'm gonna tie you to the radiator and grape you!

That's how he grapes people! That's what he does! No! He's the Grapist! These kids were obviously horrified. Not that girl. Look, she's totally asking for it. What? Look at her. She's begging to get graped. Will you listen to yourself? Look what she's wearing.

It's purple.

Malcolm Collins: Oh [00:32:00] god. That's just a side note, you know, whatever.

Simone Collins: Can we direct your hate mail to simona. Malcolm at we do not care. com. We are very sorry and we apologize and take back absolutely everything we say.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, all of this was discussed in a hypothetical universe. We're 100%. Yeah.

Simone Collins: We're, we're just talking hypothetically and taking on characters in this episode because.

Malcolm Collins: Because, yeah, yeah. No, this is not us. If somebody quotes us in this episode and they're like, can you believe they said this? I was like, could you not tell this was a comedy episode? Could

Simone Collins: you not tell? This was a deep fake,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Complete deep fake comedy nonsense. Yeah. And the fact that you didn't get the joke is your fault, not ours.

Okay. Yeah, because the joke was against

Simone Collins: Stop. You're blaming the victim again. Oh, no. Oh, no,

Malcolm Collins: no. Oh, yeah. Well, the, no, the joke was against the rapist. It wasn't against the individuals who were victims that they were. They were the people that we were trying to stand was this joke. And I, and I mean that as [00:33:00] sincerely as a human could.

And this was all an alternate world, Malcolm and Simone in this conversation. Yes. I love you, Simone. You're great. And I appreciate that you're the type of woman who doesn't, you know, you're

Simone Collins: amazing. Well, I was different, right? I was, I was the opposite version of this. And I got burned and I didn't even realize I got burned.

And who knows? Like the stuff that could have happened to me, really. It is, it is. It is very fortunate that worse things have not happened to me, based on the way that I knocked about the world with this old mindset. I, I could have been one of those girls who was like, I'm going to go backpacking through the Middle East and they subsequently disappear.

That's one of

Malcolm Collins: my favorites. It's the most horrifying story. I don't know anyone who's ever heard it, but there was this girl who you know, a lot of people go like hitchhiking, backpacking around the world and she said, I am going to prove that the Middle East isn't dangerous for women because, because it's not a justicalist mindset.

They don't care what's true or what's not true. They care what would be

Simone Collins: just if it was true. [00:34:00] Yeah, they're, they're living for the society they wish existed. And so

Malcolm Collins: she decided to hitchhike through Europe. No problem there. A mile and a half in. I might just post on the screen what ended up

Simone Collins: happening to her.

Yeah, just post on the screen. Let's not hear it. Keep my delicate ears safe from the story. I love you, Simone. I love you, too. Thinking beautiful thoughts. Thinking beautiful thoughts.

Malcolm Collins: Beautiful thoughts. That could have happened to you.

Simone Collins: Neat. Really neat. Really could have though. So yeah, guys hide your kids, hide your wife,

Malcolm Collins: and whenever anybody pulls this nonsense around you, shame them and point out that they are contributing to more of the very behavior they claim to be trying to prevent.

Yeah. Love you. Adore you.