Party Vibe

this first draft is brilliant. I would say its design elements (and colour schemes) do appear to be aimed at a core audience of young teenage girls (which is understandable) –

a harder problem is to approach the males.

We must spell out it does not make anyone more of a man to force a girl to do something she does not want to do – these sorts of people are pathetic, cowardly scum who have no place on the free party scene.

there is a problem with certain sorts of music, and so-called “adult entertainment” glorifying this sort of behaviour as well as a deliberate and determined rolling back of feminism to return women to their 1970s status as submissive sex objects.. – this must be challenged.

Also we need to providing support for boyfriends/husbands and male relatives of those who have been affected by these crimes (even attempted crime which was foiled).

The men should support the girls/women but try to sort things out via the conventional authorities rather than take matters into their own hands, such as by being supportive and assisting the girl when she needs to attend Court, and above all remembering that it is not her fault, and it is not their fault.

Male relatives, friends and lovers of a sexual assault victim often feel equally angry and powerless as traditional gender roles state you should protect the women you feel love for from outside predators.

Cops have access to DNA testing equipment which although not infallible has brought offenders to justice years after the incident happened, and in most EU countries people who commit such abhorrent crime do go to prison for a long time.

But vigilanté action often ends up with the wrong people being targeted, long-running feuds involving whole families, so that the vigilantés spend the rest of their days paranoid about cops or reprisals from the attackers family (even scum have friends and family) or that they go to jail whilst the person who attacked their loved ones goes free (as the wrong person was beaten/killed)

I believe a film was recently made (Irréversible?) which shows the futility of badly planned revenge – someone kills an innocent man instead of executing his wifes attacker whilst the attacker looks on from the sidelines and has got away totally free…

Liaphin – I will write up whatever content I can for the moment and if you can wait a month or two I will have a new job which is an IT manager in the healthcare profession, where I will be able hopefully to obtain good advice from professional people as well. Please relay whichever bits you want from these posts to your forum (I will register there but at present my work net connection is slow and unreliable)

another aspect of the site I can think of being worth adding to is another bit for the boys/men to discourage the increasing use of violence and weapons in disputes between males.

I am a progressive minded person who usually reads liberal/left-wing media sources (so I am not swayed by the conservative paranoia over “fear of crime”) but it is clear there is a massive increase in aggression in society.

I am not that much a “pacifist hippy” though!

In the early 90s when I first started raving I was part of a “gang”. The gang would do drugs, rave, and commit low-level crimes (petty theft and shoplifting mostly) on the comedowns, and also sell some drugs (cannabis mostly, penalties for pills were way worse and could result in jail in those days). It wasn’t a violent gang though. Fights between members or rivals were rare, and broken up quickly. We never robbed people or burgled residential houses. Weapons were rarely used until the mid 90s (when a wannabe “hard man” from another area attacked one of my friends with a baseball bat).

So I can understand the gang/street culture as I was part of it once… rave crews are perhaps also “politically correct gang culture”… and hanging around with your mates is a way of looking out for them

However in the 90s although trouble sometimes happened no one want looking for it..It seems now that a street culture has erupted where every lad is prepared for a fight, wants to fight, and/or people feel if they can’t afford an Ipod/mobile its OK to rob off someone else.

Also every fight now has the potential to be a “fight to the death” or to create serious injury because even when only fists and feet are used people go for vulnerable parts of the body, or kick and stamp on an opponent who has already been knocked down.

I don’t know why people have become like this TBH. Is it the computer games?

But surely lads must realise you cannot always beat or kill people and get away with it? Their enemy has friends who will become new enemies, and the attacker then HAS to live with paranoia every day. Even if they get away first of all eventually cops find out (a mother, a girlfriend or a friend of the victim talks even if people on the streets don’t) and the attacker goes to prison.

And prison is shit. Even if bullying has been reduced or the lad is strong enough to fight their way through the prison hierarchy its still a loss of freedom.

I was thinking recently about all the things I have done in the last 10 years – raves, good times with friends and families, learning new things about technology and creativity; all of which I could not have done if I was in prison.

The attackers who are not caught create a prison within their own minds – a forcefield of paranoia, which keeps them from certain areas/activities in case they meet their victims comrades.

Why do young men continually condemn themselves to this for a moment of madness often over something trivial?