Here’s what I think of when I explore the debate over WikiLeaks and the sexual assault allegations against Julian Assange.
For the past couple of years, I’ve been an occasional visitor to a left-leaning blog that focuses on news, politics and pop culture. Members of this online community post articles and videos and use the comments section to have discussions about them. They are smart, snarky and opinionated, and their debates on a single topic can last for days.
If I’ve learned one thing from my time there, it’s that if you want to make this blog burst into a flame war of epic proportions, a foolproof way is to pick a fight about gender and/or sexuality. First, you post a provocative article about some complex but extremely personal subject – sexual assault, feminism, maybe transgenderism if you’re feeling adventurous. Then, when someone responds to the post with annoyance or discomfort, you answer them in a patronising way that implies they’re being “hysterical”.
After that, all you have to do is stir things up as necessary and enjoy the show.
People will immediately decry the narrow-minded message of the post. Quite understandably, those who have experienced discrimination related to the topic will be outraged. You can almost guarantee that some poor sap who hasn’t done the background research will ask a well-intentioned but offensive question, calling down a storm of exasperated rebukes on his or her head. The sap argues back, which only makes things worse. And somewhere around this point, a couple of genuine bigots will realise there’s a big fight brewing and will join in just to throw insults.
Everyone’s blood pressure goes up. Friends start fighting and it gets personal. A few people are deeply hurt or even traumatised. The comments section is now six pages long and full of discussion threads that zigzag clear off the right margin of the page.
Eventually the blog's moderators have to step in. Some people get banned; others storm off on their own. Giddy with exhaustion, the rest of the commenters resort to sex jokes, pictures of cats, and sex jokes involving pictures of cats. Finally the post dies a painful death, and the incident goes down in history as the Great Wank-splosion of Spring 2010.
In the meantime, the previous post about the United States launching secret drone strikes in Pakistan is abandoned and forgotten.
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