General Hospital - MESSAGE BOARDS

First of in the real world every 2.5 seconds a woman in this country is raped. In the military out of the military the fact is the same. Military men are not exempt. The Military takes the allegations of rape very seriously. The post war psychosis is a real problem with this war. It causes these men and woman to do things that they just wouldn't normally do. Believe it or not my son knows the sister of the guy they showed on the news who through that puppy in the dessert. He said he did it cause they were bored and he snapped. Something in his head told him to. He use to be a very sweet and caring guy now hes and angry misguided young man.
They also didn't say that he was going to rape her they said he was going to ATTACK her. And the violence against woman is not that bad on this show as is on some others. It how ever is necessary sometimes to bring to light the violence against women in real life. PSA's are brought up when they do this. I don't know your disgruntled factor about this. It happens in real life maybe in your little world it doesn't happen but women get beat and hurt and raped buy men everyday. Not all men are as loving and compassionate as we would love them to be. I am lucky I am now married to a loving and compassionate man who happens to be in the Navy but my first husband wasn't that way. Violences is something we must all face even though it is ugly it needs to be faced.

Seems like you have made me out the bad person. OK we all have our opinions. Shepmajor, it seems like I possibly offended you, if so I didn't mean to. General Hospital is a soap opera, and for our entertainment. Some people just take it all to heart. I watch alot of shows and many times I use the fast forward button, even in a movie. Today, after months, I decide to post and I made out the bad guy. Guess I will just read the MB for awhile.

**Some of the rebuttals here astound me. This is how I read what some of you are saying.
"He intended to rape her, but all he ended up doing was scaring the heck out of her, dominating her physically and calling her offensive names. So what's the big deal."
"Woman have been raped on daytime television for decades. What's the big deal?"
"But after a woman's attacked and brutalized and shot or stabbed or kidnapped ... man is she tough. So, what's the big deal?"**

No one ever said big deal.

**My feeling, when I started this discussion, and still today, is that A. woman can be portrayed as strong and independent without having to first go through a trauma. and B. GH has used this as a way to move a storyline forward quite a bit lately.**

You are right that woman can be strong and independent without having to go through a trauma. But how in the heck would you write a drama story without drama. I guess we could have an entire show with woman like Kate minus her shooting. Or we could have Diana in court but then they would need to bring on a bunch of male characters to commit crimes for her to defend so the women get backburned to keep them from suffering any trauma. But I also bet that the show wouldn't last long.

The entire point of the woman suffering trauma is to make the woman watching the show root for them. You also need an action and a reaction for a drama.

**Anyway, this is my final say on this. I really appreciate the posters who have agreed, whether in whole or part, with my grievance. It's easy to be numbed to something you witness often. I felt it was too much. **

I love the assumption that I am unfeeling if I don't agree. My close friends know my life story. My close friends tell me all the time that if my life was a soap opera, it wouldn't be believable because no one person could go through what I have in one life time. But I sure don't consider myself a victim. Someone who suffered a crime or a trauma yes but not a victim. A victim is somehow who uses what happened to them as an excuse. I've had terrible things happen to me, some have even been mentioned in your list. They happened because of bad people. But I not only learned a lot about myself because of my experiences, I've grown in ways that I never would have without those experiences. Part that growth and the biggest reason I am happy that I had those experiences is that I've been able to use my experiences to help others. And basically, that is what soap operas are about.

A young woman who is raped, watching Liz get raped and the aftermath, had someone to identify with. And maybe, just maybe seeing Lucky help Liz throught that situation got that young woman to talk to someone. A woman who suffers a miscarriage or the loss of a baby, seeing Carly miscarry or Sam lose her baby, had someone to identify with. It gave her an opening to start out talking about the characters on the show then turn the conversation into what she is going through.

An HIV positive woman sees Robin having a baby while HIV positive, just got hope that someday she can still have a baby.

I think that is the point most of the posters, who you felt were saying big deal, were making. It is not he trauma we look forward to seeing. It is the way they handle it that makes us root for them and maybe, just maybe, at some time in our lives, we can help someone else, or be more understanding and compassionate, because we haven't experienced but we have some idea because we saw it on a soap opera.

ITA Angel!