The Dark Corners: Online ‘R worded’ Academy

Content Warning: This post contains discussions of sexual violence, including drugs and *ape. Reader discretion is advised.

The definition of safe and healthy relationship is built around consent, alongside several other things. When I read about Gisele Pelicot, apart from admiring her bravery, it made me question the world we are living in, the relationships we share, the crime stories which never seems to cease but above all, how much the phase, ‘fact is stranger than fiction’ remains relevant.

Coming back to Gisele Pelicot, she was the woman in France who discovered that her husband had been drugging her and *aping her while she was sleeping for over a decade and she was clueless. What made this case more horrifying was that she discovered that he had been inviting other men, total strangers, into their home to also *ape her while she was unconscious and for years, she had no idea what was happening to her. She was of the belief that she was in a loving marriage and trusted the man she was with, this is so heart wrecking. Overtime, she began to experience memory lapses and weight loss and confusion. Considering these symptoms, she was led to believe that she was developing Alzheimer’s. It was only in 2021, when her (then) husband was arrested for filming women up their skirts in a supermarket, the truth was revealed. The police searched through his digital devices, they uncovered a library of abuse. There were 20k photographs of Gisele that were carefully catalogued over the years. Investigators believe that not only was she assaulted by her own husband, but between 2011 and 2020, she was assaulted by at least 72 men.  Her husband Dominique Pelicot had been drugging her with sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medications and then recording those assaults and saving those videos. When the case went to trail in 2024, the verdict was, 46 men were found guilty of rape, two attempted *ape and two sexual assaults. Dominique, the husband received a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, may he rot in the jail and in hell and beyond hell for eternity.

Hold on! It is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Korean Nth room incident was horrifying but it was not the season finale.

CNN did a month’s long investigation, which revealed that there is a much larger, more hidden ecosystem built around several abuse of unconscious partner/ women that exist online, and one of those websites apparently received 62 million hits in one month. Why it is termed as ‘Online *ape Academy’? These websites act like an academy where men go to learn the details of how to drug and *ape their sleeping partners, they specifically learn what drug (some of it can be purchased online, they are typically odorless and tasteless), how much drug, how it has be done, how to check if she is unconscious, how to make sure it cannot be traced (maybe digitally or manually), how to make sure she doesn’t remember anything, how to record, how to post it online (some perpetrators live stream the act), how to sell it online, how to coach other people on how to get it done. As obvious, payments are often made in cryptocurrency making it very difficult to track. Looks like such online community builds a sense of brotherhood where abuse is encouraged, lauded, and celebrated and their ultimate test of such learning is the execution of such hideous acts?

Statistics show abuse and violence against women are perpetuated mostly by person known to them. Psychologists are of the opinion that such acts spring out not from a sense of desire but by sense of entitlement and control. There can be numerous debates and discussions on how to end this cycle, or at least prevent its amplification. When technological advancement meet twisted minds the result is often dangerous, no say on that, but I find a small ray of hope when men too start speaking against such abuses with an assurance and assertiveness that they are not and will never be one of abusers.

 

 

Love, Shaadi aur Gleeden

After the buzz about Bumble, Tinder, Hinge and category specific like Grindr, Muzz and SeniorMatch, there is Gleeden. Hence, what is Gleeden? It is a dating app designed for extramarital relationships and discreet meet-ups. It was launched in France, introduced in the market in 2009 and marketed as, ‘made by women, for women.’  What interesting is, it has significant number of users in India, making India one of its largest and fastest growing market. The surge in adoption of such dating app in urban India among married individuals could be a result of Supreme Court India’s 2018 judgment which decriminalized adultery, if adultery was a crime then who would have installed such an app.

Since, Gleeden is marketed as, ‘designed by women, for women’, women use the service completely free of charge, while men purchase a credit based subscription model to initiate charge. Even so, the overall user ratio stands at 65% men and 35% women and the users’ ages are between 30 to 45. Bengaluru has the highest user followed by Hyderabad and Delhi, showing the cities is taking the lead, but some of the urban towns are fast catching up. A survey was conducted to identify the primary motivators for using this app, the result shows, loneliness, emotional neglect and time constraint caused by demanding corporate schedule driving users to seek a digital escape. No wonder, the majority of the users reside in the cities.

Let’s talk about the reaction of our society. Traditional Indian society, conservative family groups, and moral watchdogs look at Gleeden users with sharp condemnation. As marriage in India is widely regarded as a scared union, a lifelong commitment, and using an app to facilitate affairs is viewed as an outright subversion of family values. Sociologists and relationship experts view the app’s popularity less as a moral failing and more as a ‘mirror’ to the quiet cracks in modern urban marriages. While society broadly judges any user, women face significantly harsher social policing and shame than men if discovered. Relationship commentators point out that the female surge highlights a silent shift where women are seeking emotional fulfillment rather than staying stuck in lonely marriages.

I wondered what if both husband and wife are secretly in Gleeden, what are the chances of getting caught? It seems the chances are slim as the app prevents users from recognizing each other through a few strict features like ‘private album system’ and yes of course, fake nicknames and blurred geolocation. However, if a husband and a wife did come across each other’s anonymous profiles, they wouldn’t know it was their spouse because to see the clear photo, one would have to send a request to view the other’s ‘private album.’   But the ultimate irony is, if the spouse accepts, they would both instantly see each other’s faces and realizes they are both using this app to cheat. LOL!  It will be a mutual ‘checkmate’ scenario where neither person can easily blame the other.

 

 

 

 

 

Thrift Fashion: Circular Practices through Second-Hand Clothes Market

In the simplest of terms, thrift shopping means purchasing second-hand goods. There are several reasons why buyers opt for thrift goods, the main reason being ‘price- sensitive’. Even among thrift goods, thrift clothing has the strongest consumer base. The buyers of thrift clothes often settles for such clothes because of the availability of genuine foreign designer brands at a reasonable price, which would have been impossible to acquire if it was from designated show rooms. There was a time, when buyers of thrift clothes were looked down, as it subtly implied that those who were not in a position to buy first hand branded clothes settled for second hand/pre-used clothes. However, overtime, affordability is not the only reason behind such purchase. People have grown more sensitive towards the environmental issues. 

No doubt, thrift shopping is one of the ways that make circular economy stronger by extending the lifespan of garments, reducing their environmental impact and minimizing waste. The concept of circular economy which is modeled in production and consumption involving sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, recycling and refurbishing have made the consumers of thrift fashion to be a part of such model, with or without awareness of it. It will be interesting to understand the reasons behind the sell and purchase of thrift clothing, whether it solely for economic reasons or there is an ounce of knowledge of circular economy based on the environmental awareness, my guess settles for the former. The per capita income of the  Nagaland  is relatively low as compared to other states of India. The thrift fashion especially clothes have found a huge market in this region, making the people to get hold of their desired clothes at an affordable price. But, apart from its environmental and financial significance, one should keep in mind that compulsive purchase or hoarding of goods whether it is branded or thrifted is a mental disorder. Take Care!