‘For women, online vengeance serves as both catharsis and punishment…it’s the most public way of dragging down an ex-lover’

London, England–“The devastating power of the internet as a tool of revenge was revealed in January by actress Jane Slavin who took ‘e-venge’ on her lover, world-famous composer Michael Nyman, after he spurned her with no explanation. “Posing as a beautiful woman called ‘Lucia’, she began a flirtatious online relationship with Nyman, who began bombarding ‘Lucia’ with explicit e-mails. “The crowning moment of her revenge came when ‘Lucia’ agreed to meet Nyman in a café in North London.
At the appointed time, it was Jane, of course, who walked in. “To compound the humiliation of the man who wrote the haunting film score for The Piano, Slavin wrote an online diary drawing attention to Nyman’s physical failings… “In the U.S., there are countless websites and blogs dedicated to wronged women and the men who have hurt them – and the UK is fast following. Boiling bunnies is a thing of the past: revenge, it seems, is a dish best served up on a web page. “For the women, online vengeance serves as both catharsis and punishment. It is also possibly the most public way of dragging down an ex-lover – the modern-day equivalent of putting him in the stocks and pelting him with rotten tomatoes.” The article Don’t get mad, get E-venge! (UK Daily Mail, 5/8/08) details all of the vindictive, vicious things (allegedly) mistreated women do to the exes who (supposedly) mistreated them. It’s an odd societal disconnect: we often see these “hell hath no fury/you go girl” type stories, yet our society is in denial about the most common vehicle for women to extract their revenge–the family court system. Does anybody really believe that the women who do the vicious acts described in the article wouldn’t use the system against their exes? In fact, there’s no better vehicle for revenge–the kids can be (and sometimes are) poisoned against their fathers and held as de facto hostages of the vindictive mother, child support and alimony are used as weapons, and the overwhelmed and anti-male family law system often unwittingly enables such behavior. I’m also amused at these women’s bottomless sense of being wronged and how it’s always his fault. The best example is Laura, who started an affair with a married man, and then is an outraged victim she discovers that–gasp–he’s cheating on her with other women! The full article is here. As usual, anything a woman does to a man, no matter how outrageous or destructive, is A-OK. I enjoyed author Laura Topham’s clueless line about the Jane Slavin/Michael Nyman (pictured above)–Nyman dropped Slavin “without an explanation.” Actually, what Slavin’s subsequent behavior says about her provides plenty of “explanation” why Nyman wanted out.