Jezebel
Dear Abby ('s daughter): I've never written you before, but I'm writing you now to ask for your resignation. It's with regards to some advice you recently gave a reader who found himself in an odd predicament. While he was staying at his parents' house, one of his brothers raped his wife. In the darkness, the wife thought it was him. He doesn't know which brother it was. And none of the brothers will rat out the offending brother. It's an insane situation, for sure. You were right to be a little weirded out by it. But when you decided to forego any sort of censure of the offending brothers and get straight to your real suspicion about what happened: that the wife is a lying slut who needs an AIDS test and a strict talking-to. "Please do not accept as gospel that your wife didn't have an inkling that it wasn't you," you wrote. "It's time to have a serious chat with your wife and get chapter and verse on what happened that night." Abby, dear, I understand the skepticism. You're a woman. Women are more suspicious of other women, and the story sounds sketchy.
Maybe it's natural to assume that a guy helpless enough to come to you for advice on what to do about his younger brother raping his wife would be foolish enough to believe anything of his manipulative wench of a wife. Maybe you think this sounds like a pretty good way for a woman to confess a spontaneous dalliance without really confessing it. But to jump to one of those scenarios is not only misogynist, it's FUCKING CLUELESS. Let me tell you a little story about a friend of my mom who is pregnant with her fourth child. Guess how she got pregnant? She woke up in the middle of the night to find her husband fucking her. She didn't know who it was, at first. You know how sleep can be weird that way? People walk in their sleep, initiate sex in their sleep, eat in their sleep, dream they are doing it with Barack Obama in their sleep.
But you know what they don't do in their sleep? Get up out of bed, go downstairs, and start fucking their brother's unconscious wives. No, that takes some hardcore wide-awake premeditation, and while I hate saying this, it's a kind of premeditation that is all too common in modern dudes. Read our site sometimes, you'll see. I'm not sure what it's all about: porn, evil, testosterone, evolutionary biology, alcohol, or just a "culture of impunity" — but I'm pretty sure the last part is the biggest offender. And if telling 110 million readers a woman who says she was raped in her sleep is probably lying isn't fostering that sort of culture, I don't know what is.
Husband Remains In The Dark About Wife's Nighttime Visitor [Yahoo News]
I'm Not A Rapist, I Just Pose As One [Feministing]
Comments
Dear CrAbby,
Bite me.
Love,
Dirtybee
Um, yes. When your fucking wife tells you she was fucking raped? Treat it as fucking gospel.
Damn, Abby-spawn, what a horrid thing you are. Without really wishing it upon you, I can't help but think a fitting penalty would be ... nah, nevermind. Just go fuck yourself.
Oh Christ. I always thought those Dear Abby things were reruns from like the 50s. I cant believe its still around.
And I'm stepping away from this thread now before rsr26 comes in and says something crazy and then everyone kills him. Again.
Oh, for fucks sake, I was just all Pro-Abby for her giving love to teh gays.
I agree. It's resignation time.
Wow, that is truly awful.
Boo-urns, Blabby. You suck at this advice thing.
the most fucked up part is that StAbby actually believes what she wrote...
Bravo, Moe. You're all up in my nook this week.
Um yeah, cuz she'd surely TELL the husband the next day, knowing it wasn't him. Right. Makes a lot of sense, Abby. Good to see that the "new" Dear Abby is still giving advice straight outta 1952.
I read Dear Abby every. single. day.
I was 1000% convinced this was a joke letter, and and Abby was only writing a reponse because it was obviously not real.
Yay, Moe!!
And was that picture of Crabby taken in the 80's?
Shouldn't they get someone who is not so out of touch?
And is not a fucking idiot?
Magazines suck.
I am utterly horrified that Dear Abby, whom I hold in rather high regard, would answer this letter in this way.
The wife knows which brother raped her, how would she know it wasn't her husband, otherwise?
Dear Abby,
Shut up, bitch.
Love,
Sloan
That's what happens when you don't fuck your wife constantly throughout the night. Your brother is bound to come and give her all the loving she so obviously needs. She was probably just bitching about something earlier in the day and they figured, "Man, what she needs is a good old dick in her cooch, and I'll be the one to give it to her, right in Mom's guest bedroom."
I mean, that's what I learned in sex ed. Did you fucking dykes learn this too?
Besides, it probably wasn't even the brother. Did Abby even consider invisible killer unicorns?
I was wondering if Jezebel would pick up on this. My husband was horrified when he read this in the paper.
Christ, if you read the original letter, the wife still thinks it was her husband she was with that night. The husband didn't say anything to her, even though he's apparently confronted the brothers. WTF? Also, why are all the grown brothers (save one) still living at home?
Also, I just had a flashback to the creepy penis-like PSA monster from this morning's post. Someone send that link to Abby ASAP.
@blondegrlz: Also, the writer said his wife "thanked him" for making love to her, so it's rape because it was by someone she didn't want to have sex with, but - according to the letter - she doesn't know that.
Way to promote sexual violence, "dear" Abby!
Didn't she see "the Prestige"? Shit like that really happens!
Way to go, Abby. Next time just send fire and stakes to burn 'em with.
In Abby's defense (sort of), would Dear Abby really be the first person you turn to after one of your brothers has raped your wife? Wouldn't you rather contact, say, the police?
This isn't really a defense of Abby. She crazy.
Damn. I'm not even sure how to respond to this. Thank God my husband believed me when I was raped.
@argylesockmonkey: They were all under 25.
I mean, if your brother's wife is accusing you of rape and really you were just fucking her while she was asleep but she could TOTALLY TELL it was you, thereby NEGATING the rape (WHAT?) wouldn't you argue consent, rather than simple denial? Or do I just spend too much time with rapists?
@Lady Skittlehattington, Worsties Guild President: And I'm not excusing what she did with this letter, but can I point out this post from October? Also, Abby is generally really good about coming back and apologizing for her fuckety advice. That's all I'm gonna say.
[jezebel.com]
Dear Abby-spawn,
Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck. ...off.
Thanks,
Sev
ps - the tag "Dear Stabby" is the best tag ever
She was raped by fraud, basically.
Wow. Way to call that bitch out, Moe. What a fucking cunt.
But uh, you guys! What about...
"Abby shares more than 100 of her favorite recipes in two booklets: "Abby's Favorite Recipes" and "More Favorite Recipes by Dear Abby."
She likes RECIPIES! Don't hate!
Thanks Dear Abby. Because we needed someone else to keep spreading the idea that women lie about being raped because the skepticism that such claims are met with currently is just not enough.
"There is a special place in hell for women who do not help other women." Madeleine Albright
I'm sure we have at least one reader who agrees with "Dear Abby".
I wonder if the man is going to tell his wife that he never went to the bedroom.
@blondegrlz: I would have also come to the same conclusion, especially considering the letter that follows it - some girl's baby daddy's father trying to feed her 9 month old beer? Seriously? Are we sure this is for real?
Abby's got it all wrong. There's a scientific term for this. It's called an incubus. They SO exist. They weren't just made up as an alibi for when men raped women in the middle of the night. It was in Rosemary's Baby!
Can we talk about the letter underneath thsi one?
I'm 19 and have a 9-month-old, "Sean." I live with his dad, "Richie," and my father-in-law, "Dick."
Dick drinks a lot and offers my baby beer. Dick also likes to tease Sean. He also leaves coins, toothpicks and cotton swabs on the floor, where Sean sometimes sleeps.
My son puts everything he can put his hands on into his mouth. Dick loafs all day and doesn't pay any of the bills. Please give me some advice. I'm so stressed out, I don't know what to do. -- STRESSED OUT, MIDLAND, TEXAS
I don't know if anyone needs a laugh, but I love that the granpy's name is "Dick."
Dick loafs all day and doesn't pay the bills. Don't they all?
Abby is 90 years old. She's either a bitch out of touch with reality, or she probably doesn't even write the column anymore.
whoa. when you read the actual letter it makes even less sense. DUDE. i HATE Stabby's use of the passive voice when referring to that vortex of shame and disease that used to be the letter writer's wife: "she should be tested for STDS and treated." Like a stray fucking animal? How about, you should LET HER KNOW IT WASN'T YOU AND THAT SHE WAS RAPED. And then support her through this bewildering trauma. Is Stabby being ghostwritten? How old is this broad anyway?
@beatrice3000: It's her daughter.
Dear Abby,
You are a useless twit.
Huggles, baa
Read this yesterday. That husband needs to TELL HIS WIFE? Doesn't she have a right to know she was raped before Dear Fucking Abby does??? Then as a couple, they need to go to the police and let them question his asshole brothers, then press rape and accomplice charges if possible. And Abby's column needs to get pulled from the papers- because blaming a rape victim is NOT GOOD ADVICE!
Obviously, when your wife says "rape" you believe her first and foremost like in that case where the guy killed his wife's lover because he caught them leaving and she screamed "kidnapping!" (they put her in jail, by the way), but in Abby's defense, because someone actually sent this to me yesterday, you have to accept that her husband is utter indistinguishable from his brothers from his kisses, to his smell, to the way he fucks, to his dick. Fine. They are brothers, but then there's this whole thing about how "they decided" he wouldn't sleep with her that night. Sorry, but I think she's confessing in a very warped fashion.
But that none of his brothers were on his side...the whole thing turns my stomach. Either way, people are shit here
Um, I agree that that letter is crazy. But did you actually read it? Because the wife never said she was raped. The husband quite clearly said she doesn't know it wasn't him. And Abby said sever all ties with the offending brother(s). Come on, people. Dear Abby is written at about a 5th grade level.
@Archetype: Oh OK. Well, shame on her.
let me see if I've got this right - they're sleeping apart (why?), she thanks him the next day for sneaking in to do the wild thing with her and he knows he didn't (but doesn't tell her that), his brothers won't fess up and Abby says SHE is the liar? THE FUCK?
PS. Yah, whatever the fuck happened to "I'm for civility in life," such as? Or what that Miss Manners? So confusing.
Can't figure out if half of my other comment went through.
Pretty sure Dr. Laura got the leading Rethuglicans to write her a check from their Puttin Wimminz in Tehr Placez Buy Tehr Huzbndz Foundayshun.
You know, with Ashley gettin' paid and Silda still barred when the former Governor's license is in danger, and all.
I'm a dude, and I just want to say that despite looking at a lot of porn, I know that raping my brother's unconscious wife, or anybody for that matter, is wrong and I don't do it.
@meaghan2k: Well, I'm sure that Stabby just chastised "Stressed Out" for a) not being married, b) having a bastard child, and c) letting said child play and sleep on the floor, then suggested that perhaps Stressed should contact her local department of children's services and put little Sean up for adoption. Fucking moron.
I once read a very popular urban legend that was sent in as a "real" letter and poor Abby answered it, foolishly unaware that it was a joke. It was after that I stopped reading her. But this makes me ill in all kinds of ways. I can't decide if it is better that the wife doesn't know she was raped or not.
Dear Abby's over the line here for sure.
The original letter is really strange ... There's a snowstorm, a housebound family, a case of mistaken (sexual) identity, and brothers who won't tell on each other's crimes. Where's the sinister hypnotist, the woman who speaks only in rhyming couplets and/or Crispin Glover?
@cocoesq: That is rape!
Because the wife never said she was raped. The husband quite clearly said she doesn't know it wasn't him.
HE knows it wasn't him, so obviously it was someone else.