ami
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I think the previous poster was merely referring to the fact that if SS wanted to meet up with strangers in a foreign place it would be alot safer to meet up with random woman, than random men. I am sure there are female photographers in Turkey and I think it is a little odd that all of the strangers we know she was talking to were men, not women.
It is a shame it is true but the fact of the matter is that it just is not that safe to meet up with men you meet over the Internet, especially if they know you are alone in a foreign place. some men,especially if they do not know she is married, will get the wrong impression. Add to that the fact that many people in other cultures have a stereotypical view of American women as "easy" and it makes the risk even greater. 99% of the time, it may end up being ok, and maybe that was the case here, maybe she was not harmed by anyone she met over the Internet. But the 1% of the time things can wrong can be quite tragic... Why take the chance? It is still a risk.
Saying that someone should be wary about meeting strange men over the Internet is not equivalent to trying to pigeon hole someone to 1950s mentality. It is just being street smart. Unfortunately it is just not the case that a lone female meeting a strange man over the internet is the same as a lone female meeting a strange female. You may hear of robbery meeting a strange female but you virtually never hear of death or rape for a female meeting female. But you do hear the latter for male meeting female. Risk may be small but the fact of the matter is the risk for female meeting male is higher than for female meeting female.
SS was a victim here, perhaps due to a random mugging or perhaps due to foul play at meeting some stranger over the Internet.
The post that I made about the 1950's was to a different post that was way farther back in this thread and was not directly referring to it being safe to meet strange men. That's just silly. I was making a specific point, and extrapolating all of this extra tangential stuff from it doesn't help clarify anything.
I think she took a lot of risks, and also did a lot of things right - like her constant communication with her family, updating them about where she was, who she was with, where she was going, etc. And put together, it sounds a lot like the profile of most people I know who travel solo - balancing risks against safety. In this case the risks won, and it's horrible to imagine. I know I will dream about this and imagine what she went through. I feel very attached to this woman I never met.