Who should we trust?

Today I'm feeling a little weary, and a lot angry at society... I'm giving a lecture on persuasive communication today, and the idea of propaganda really jumped out at me - manipulating people's ideas of common sense, in order to make them believe certain things. And I see it everywhere - we are pushed and pulled and moulded by society - often one person or organisation is behind it - and we are completely blindedsided to any alternative views. This week at uni, there is a protest against rape and gender bias - rape survivors and supporters are gagged and are "silent" for the whole day - this is part of the cause not to remain silent about rape. And I love it, I love the concept and I love the solidarity, but at the same time, I want to run around smacking people for being so manipulated. I only feel this way because, recently, I was told of a friend's 14 year old daughter getting raped in the UK, by a 16 year old boy in their complex. My first reaction was shock, and horror, and I wanted nothing more than that boy's appendages to get gangrene and fall off painfully. How could you take advantage of such innocence?? When the child cried help to a friend, who told her mother, the police were there in a flash - boy arrested, girl taken in for testing and questioning - everything was done immediately and efficiently. Nobody stopped to ask whether it had been consensual, whether anything had been forced... (with full knowledge of under-age sexual encounters being illegal) - everyone automatically assumed that it was rape and that the young girl had nothing to do with it. As it turns out, this girl was fully aware of what was happening, and had consented to heavy petting as well as oral sex - at the age of 14. Do we still get to cry rape? And who is looking after the interests of the young boy? The young girl also has a history of crying wolf in situations - how do we know what really happened?
My point is that we have been manipulated by society to the extent that, when someone cries rape, we automatically believe the girl - it would be "morally wrong" to step back and say that one cannot be declared guilty until proved so, yet there are so many people (and apparently children) that exploit this. We are so worried about 'doing the right thing' and taking rape seriously, that sometimes we forget how these types of instances may affect other parties. Labelled a rapist at 16? How does one move past these falsified incidences?
And how does one, as a parent, or a sibling, or a friend, choose who to believe, knowing full well that your child is prone to serious lying, and when evidence does not always match up. Society explicitly tells us who to believe, but maybe it's time to start believing from the brain, rather than emotions...

Sometimes I get a wave of inspiration, and in that brief moment I decide that I want to do some radical - dye my hair pink, teach at rural schools in rural Africa, start up an orphange... today, it was starting (yet another) blog, where I would become the queen of the blogoshpere and everyone would love me. I usually don't carry out these whimsical ideas, I tend to stretch back out on the couch and flip the channel to TLC or BBClifestyle. But today, starting a blog seemed like a much better idea than working on a Master's thesis. I don't know how long it will last, or how well it will do (things seem to stop halfway once they have been started and sit in the back of my computer like a mouldy piece of cheese that gets ignored at the back of the fridge...
Apart from the admiration and continous love and praise that I will get for being a fantastic blogger, I thought it would at least serve the purpose of me not talking to myself like a crazy cat lady, that, somehow, by sending it out into the deep abyss of the perpetual darkness of bloggyland, I would stop getting weird looks from people when I walk around shops saying, "Stapler....where is the stapler...hmm no, not that one....a bigger one....hmmm....stapler....stapler....". Also, I feel sorry for my mother and her phone bill - the ones who usually take the brunt of my ramblings and rages. So, dear bloggyland, prepare yourself for a whole lot of rambling, even more bitching, and a lot of lame grammar and language jokes...and here is to never looking back on what is written up here and cringeing.