Shakesville got attacked again yesterday by yet another attempt by someone to shut down the site. Fortunately, the site’s web guru was able to get the repairs made and get it back up and running last night. Meanwhile, Melissa re-opened Shakespeare’s Sister, which has become the place to go to when this sort of thing happens.

It doesn’t seem to be a coincidence that these attacks have been happening when Melissa or one of her contributors writes about rape and the attitudes that some people display about the crime. There seems to be a certain mindset among some that rape is a joke, that women are “asking for it” by the way they dress, or that bringing up the subject is somehow an assault on Man’s right to assert his manliness. Melissa has written candidly and bravely about her own experience with the issue, and she does not suffer fools and rape-apologists gladly. But it seems that the only recourse some have is to try to silence her and her blog.

The methods they use are the usual cyber attacks. (I won’t detail them because I don’t want to tip anyone off as to what we know is being done or what’s being done to stop them…and also because most of it is high-level geekspeak that lost me at, “Okay, what’s happened is…”) Assuming that the attackers are really going after the site because of its expressed opinions — as opposed to some bored teenager who is tired of drooling (or whatever) over his posters of Seven of Nine — they are proving that they have nothing but this kind of outburst to bring to the table. Defending Opie & Anthony for their rape jokes or not seeing the idiocy running rampant when a judge says that using the word “rape” during a trial about guess-what is “prejudicial” and will not allow the word to be said in court isn’t enough for these losers. They want to enforce their medieval views of patriarchy and domination, and having some uppity women respond negatively sends them into a blinding rage. All they have left is to hack into a website, which is a form of rape.

But if that’s all they have, it’s a poor response. They’re unable to defend their views or their opinions in an articulate fashion — as if that’s possible — so all they can do is silence someone else. They’re incapable of responding in any other way, so all they can do is rage and attack, and all that does is prove that they have nothing to say.

Meanwhile, Shakesville is back in business.

Update: Never mind. Hardware issues. Back to the old site for now.