Enough from the defenders of rapists already

[bengangmo]

@The_Second_Stone

Due to legal statutes of limitations, the only justice left for Bill Cosby is public shaming. The public seems to be doing a pretty good job of that.

As for the people who excuse more than a dozen rapes with the myth of the myth of women always lying, the denizens of this thread seem to be putting a pretty good smack-down on that too.

As arm-chair internet warriors, we have left the Shagnasty’s and kstarnes holding their own limp dicks on a SFW and logical thread in the pit.

The question is -

Is “public shaming” for unproven, unsupported allegations justice?

Is it justice for someone to be persecuted for allegations that are virtually impossible to defend against?

Assuming the allegations to be true - the women involved most certainly have not got justice either - and it would be an outrage if someone that had done this were not to face any consequences.

So there is a bit of an impasse - on the one hand, we want justice for the women (it’s unlikely they’re all deliberately lying). On the other it doesn’t feel much like natural justice for someone face repercussions for accusations that, for all intents and purposes, it essentially impossible to defend yourself against.

[even_sven]

28. We can’t just start calling out rapists, because there are so many of them. Think about how disruptive that would be.

@bengangmo

Assuming the allegations to be true - the women involved most certainly have not got justice either - and it would be an outrage if someone that had done this were not to face any consequences.

So there is a bit of an impasse - on the one hand, we want justice for the women (it’s unlikely they’re all deliberately lying). On the other it doesn’t feel much like natural justice for someone face repercussions for accusations that, for all intents and purposes, it essentially impossible to defend yourself against.

Being able to tell your story is a form of justice. It’s a weaker one than a criminal court case, but it’s still a powerful way to start bringing some balance back after an act of evil. It’s also necessary to move on. Such testimony is an essential part of justice in situations where criminal justice won’t work, such as after a civil war or genocide. And it works.

As I mentioned in another thread, it’s also valuable to a wider audience. It’s valuable to men and women who are being, have been, or may be attacked in similar ways and may not recognize their rights or are scared to use them. It’s also instructive to current or would-be rapists who have convinced themselves it’s not big deal, or that they will be protected by their victims’ silence.

Cosby, of course, can and should own up to his actions and issue a sincere apology. That would be huge step forward for the “rape is not okay” crowd. He would still be rich, he would probably keep a lot of his fans, he would probably lose some personal friends, but it wouldn’t be like his life would be over.

If he were innocent, he could certainly issue a statement along those lines and tell his side of the story. I’m sure the media would be all ears.

[crucible]

I know I will get pounded for this…but…I accept the figures about rape – there are far more rapists and rapes that we almost can imagine…

Why is it, then, that women seem to be behaving with more abandon than ever?

I’ve never known a mother (or father) who would say to her 16 year old daughter, “don’t worry, go where you want, dress how you want, act how you want, because, no matter what happens, the fault will be the man’s.” Yet, people I think should know better are happy to say, “No matter how a woman behaves, no matter what opportunity she gives a man, if she wakes the next morning with a headache and a feeling she has been used for sex, it is entirely the fault of the man”.

To me, the very definition of a ‘gentleman’ is one who, in the circumstances when a woman is behaving with abandon after drinking too much or taking drugs, makes sure the woman gets home and safely into her own bed by herself. There are quite a few ‘gentlemen’, but not one of them that I know thinks that if a woman felt herself a rape victim the next day after getting blitzed that she should not shoulder a fair portion of the blame.

In my time, men would assure themselves that a woman acting that way, getting drunk, etc, was only doing it to relieve her own inhibitions, that she was doing it purposely so she would be willing to get sexual release, freeing from whatever moral inhibitions she had collected. Gentlemen would refuse to be fooled by that facade, would refuse to be drawn into a situation where the fun they have would always be clouded by the knowledge that the woman probably would refuse to have sex with him if she were sober.

For that matter, alcohol is used by both sexes to relieve inhibitions. People today have far more access to drugs of other kinds that do the same thing.

Here I am, approaching you and your friends at a bar…I offer all of you some pills that will give you lots of energy and make you feel ‘high’. Later, I watch and offer the ones who took the pills to start with more pills…and the one who takes the most pills? You ask if she wants to go for a ride… Entirely the man’s fault? bullshit.

typical college problem, the hearing where he said, she said…but the fact is, she invited him to her room to ‘study’. Later, some cuddling gets started, and he says, ‘Want to?’…She says, ‘no, not now, not yet.’ He says, ‘well, how about just giving me some head?’ “Well, okay, but that’s all.” Things progress, he begins fondling her in exchange for the sensations she is giving him. suddenly, he’s on top of her, she’s saying, ‘stop…stop it’. But then it is ‘too late’, the deed is done. entirely the fault of the man, right? the reason I use this example is that it is absolutely true to life, that young women like to engage in sex play without vaginal sex, but sometimes, the man gets carried away at a moment when there is no real way for the woman to stop him. Every campus deals with dozens of these situations every year.

Some women like to claim, in those circumstances, the woman did nothing wrong, nothing that would lead to being ‘raped’, and the man is completely at fault.

In my day, I think we were a lot smarter than that. If a woman wasn’t interested, she wasn’t acting like she was interested. If she was interested, but not convinced, she might later say, ‘okay, I guess I got what I asked for last night. I should have been more careful’.

Men haven’t changed that much. women have become far far more overtly sexual, for better or worse, rightly or wrongly. They have revealed to men, through their own statements or through their acceptance of the intense displays of sexuality in the movies, tv and etc. , that they are every bit as interested in sex as men are…and still, the rape statistics soar? I wonder why?

yes, I know I will be clobbered, but I have to tell it like it is.

[Clothahump]

@The_Second_Stone

The various people around here who are either directly or indirectly defending Bill Cosby from rape allegations are venal scum. They decline to accept the accusatory statements of women against this serial rapist, on nothing more substantial than that they are women, and as such, their statements cannot carry any, much less sufficient weight.

ROTFLMAO!

Dude, we don’t accept them because all they are is accusations. No proof. Proof is what matters. Except, of course, in the court of public opinion.

Did you believe Tawana Brawley from the start? BTW, Bill Cosby did.

[even_sven]

You don’t unstable, or are pretending not to understand, what “rape” is. Sex with an enthusiastic drunk partner is not rape. Sex with a drunk partner who is saying “no”, pushing you off or is incoherent and unable to understand what is happening is.

This is a straw man used to minimize rape or excuse rapists.

[even_sven]

@crucible

typical college problem, the hearing where he said, she said…but the fact is, she invited him to her room to ‘study’. Later, some cuddling gets started, and he says, ‘Want to?’…She says, ‘no, not now, not yet.’ He says, ‘well, how about just giving me some head?’ “Well, okay, but that’s all.” Things progress, he begins fondling her in exchange for the sensations she is giving him. suddenly, he’s on top of her, she’s saying, ‘stop…stop it’. But then it is ‘too late’, the deed is done. entirely the fault of the man, right? the reason I use this example is that it is absolutely true to life, that young women like to engage in sex play without vaginal sex, but sometimes, the man gets carried away at a moment when there is no real way for the woman to stop him.

Checking for consent is not hard. “Are you ready for this *** ****” is a classic.

If you have trouble “not getting carried away” then you need to make sure you are never alone with a woman. Most guys can manage not to rape people. But some guys have impulse control problems and (rape people, start bar fights, shoplift, whatever). Those people are dangerous and need to be identified and put away.

[Frylock]

@Heffalump_and_Roo

I
If you think that’s a really bad idea with potentially disastrous consequences, so do I.

It’s a really bad idea, but not because it has potentially disastrous consequences. Since no one would believe what they read in the setup you describe, it would have basically no consequences, much less disastrous ones.

One important distinction between your amended scenario and the actual case is that in your scenario, there’s no element of vetting–the anonymous accusers, for example, didn’t have to approach any person who would make some basic judgments about the plausibility of their story (are they old enough to have been alive at the time, that kind of thing at least!) before the story is printed.

Another important distinction between your scenario (in both forms) and the actual case is the distinction between a standardized streamlined reporting tool and a the messy, difficult means available to the actual accusers by which they can give their accounts. The ease with which reports can be made in your scenario (and again, the lack of even a basic vetting) causes the reports, taken as a whole, less weighty as evidence, both in the psychological sense (i.e., people would be less likely to believe it) and the rational sense (i.e. people would be right to be less likely to believe it).

As an aside, like even sven I found your remark about the effects of outing all the rapists there are to be mysterious. You really did seem to be making the argument that we should think twice about doing it even were it possible, since it would affect so many people. Is that the argument you were intending to make?

[nicole1912]

@crucible

typical college problem, the hearing where he said, she said…but the fact is, she invited him to her room to ‘study’. Later, some cuddling gets started, and he says, ‘Want to?’…She says, ‘no, not now, not yet.’ He says, ‘well, how about just giving me some head?’ “Well, okay, but that’s all.” Things progress, he begins fondling her in exchange for the sensations she is giving him. suddenly, he’s on top of her, she’s saying, ‘stop…stop it’. But then it is ‘too late’, the deed is done. entirely the fault of the man, right?

Um, yes? How on earth can you read this scenario so that it’s not entirely the fault of the man? He bullies the girl into giving him head, ignores the explicit limits she’s put on what she’s prepared to do, gropes her and then rapes her, in the face of explicit protest - but the rest of your post suggests you were giving this as an example of a grey area of sorts. I can’t for the life of me see how you interpret this as anything other than the man’s fault…

[Frylock]

@crucible

Some women like to claim, in those circumstances, the woman did nothing wrong, nothing that would lead to being ‘raped’, and the man is completely at fault.

Women who claim that are completely right. The woman in your scenario did nothing wrong, and did nothing to bring a rape on herself, and the man is completely at fault. He asked, she said no, he asked again, she negotiated, and he forced herself on her anyway.

You, crucible, need to stay away from women.

[Frylock]

@Heffalump_and_Roo

I’m not seeing how focusing on Bill Cosby is helping to solve that problem.

Have you ever found yourself changing your mind about something important as a result of a series of social interactions you’d had?

This has certainly happened to me, and I’ve seen it happen to many others.

Having these discussions about cases like the Cosby case is part of the process of bringing about those kinds of changes.

[crucible]

@even_sven

Checking for consent is not hard. “Are you ready for this *** ****” is a classic.

If you have trouble “not getting carried away” then you need to make sure you are never alone with a woman. Most guys can manage not to rape people. But some guys have impulse control problems and (rape people, start bar fights, shoplift, whatever). Those people are dangerous and need to be identified and put away.

I don’t think the man I described is dangerous in the sense you want to make him. He was foolish, if he didn’t want to have some degree of trouble later, to let the woman use him to relieve her sexual urges, but when she obviously presented no obstacles to him relieving his, he took the opportunity. that, to me, is two people who went too far and should, perhaps, both be sorry for what each of them did. A man who had sex in that circumstance is not more likely to be a shoplifter, bar fighter, cheater on exams, etc. He was just a guy who got lucky, he thought, until she decided that doing everything except saying, ‘what’s taking you so long to take the hint’, meant she had been raped.

Listen, I’m not talking about the guy who, a senior, paid some attention to a freshman girl on her own for the first time, played pool with her, invited her to his room to see some drawings he made in art class (trite, I know, but this really happened to a friend), kissed her and groped her with her not ‘fighting’ him off, just trying to move his hands away…and then pushed her down and raped her. She admitted, to her father, later, she never actually said ‘no’ or ‘stop’ or ‘what are you doing!’ Or screamed or yelled or threatened to report him…no, she was inexperienced and says, 'I didn’t really know what was happening until he pulled down my panties and forced himself into me." That was Rape. Guess what? The guy had a reputation, but the women who said later, “I heard he was bad news.” Never tried to intervene, they just thought, unwisely, that if the young lady was so willing to climb the stairs with the guy, she knew what she wanted. She sure a hell didn’t expect to be Raped, and she shouldn’t be blamed…the guy should be prosecuted. He was, soon, tossed from the dormitory, but not the school.

Today, those cases like I first described, if it gets to the college hearings stage, often result in the man being tossed from the school, but no criminal charges are lodged, almost never.

[Frylock]

@crucible

I don’t think the man I described is dangerous in the sense you want to make him.

This means you don’t think raping a woman harms her. He actually did harm and, from your framing of the scenario, it’s clear he would do it again, and yet you maintain he’s “not dangerous.”

Again–you need to stay away from women.

[crucible]

When I was in college, just after the last covered wagon left for Oregon, if a man and woman were discovered alone in a dormitory room, they would both be ‘sent home’. There was no reason to be in such circumstances except to have sex, and that was expressly forbidden by the college. Everyone knew if you wanted to have sex, you had to go down to the local cemetery, or out behind the gym, or find an activities office unoccupied… as long as you got her back to her dorm before curfew, it was okay. I know of only one circumstance where a girl said she was raped at a frat house, drunk after a party…and one where a sophomore couple got together in her room during Spring Break and were caught. They both were tossed.

Today, if you aren’t getting some every weekend, you aren’t trying? Still, reported rapes soar…wonder why?

[iiandyiiii]

@crucible

typical college problem, the hearing where he said, she said…but the fact is, she invited him to her room to ‘study’. Later, some cuddling gets started, and he says, ‘Want to?’…She says, ‘no, not now, not yet.’ He says, ‘well, how about just giving me some head?’ “Well, okay, but that’s all.” Things progress, he begins fondling her in exchange for the sensations she is giving him. suddenly, he’s on top of her, she’s saying, ‘stop…stop it’. But then it is ‘too late’, the deed is done. entirely the fault of the man, right? the reason I use this example is that it is absolutely true to life, that young women like to engage in sex play without vaginal sex, but sometimes, the man gets carried away at a moment when there is no real way for the woman to stop him. Every campus deals with dozens of these situations every year.

Yep, entirely the man’s fault – this is definitely, absolutely rape.

Some women like to claim, in those circumstances, the woman did nothing wrong, nothing that would lead to being ‘raped’, and the man is completely at fault.

These women are correct. In fact, there is absolutely no action that any woman could take in any situation whatsoever (short of, perhaps, paying someone with explicit instructions to rape her) that would lead to her rape that is her fault.

[iiandyiiii]

@crucible

Still, reported rapes soar…wonder why?

Probably because reporting rape, while still very difficult and unpleasant, is not as difficult and unpleasant as it used to be. In the past, rape victims had very little opportunity for justice unless their rape happened to fit the ‘perfect’ societal expectations of what “real rape” was – a stranger in the bushes jumping out, or a black rapist, etc.

[crucible]

@Frylock

This means you don’t think raping a woman harms her. He actually did harm and, from your framing of the scenario, it’s clear he would do it again, and yet you maintain he’s “not dangerous.”

Again–you need to stay away from women.

And, I would reply, she ‘raped’ him every bit as much as he ‘raped’ her. What you seem not to comprehend, and you aren’t alone, I know that there is a philosophical chasm between us, is that putting yourself willingly into a situation where sex is likely to happen is not the same as being grabbed on the jogging path and forced at knifepoint. Some women today seem to be so anxious to show they are the blameless victims of sexual violence that they ignore, deliberately, taking any precautions at all to prevent an unwanted physical or sexual encounter. And if, as any parent will tell her daughter, it is wise to take precautions, and they choose to ignore that advice for the sake of demonstrating, in that particular way, that women have power equivalent to men and men had better get used to it… well, it isn’t always going to work out the way they thought it might. Mama has been there, done that, and is probably right.

[iiandyiiii]

@crucible

And, I would reply, she ‘raped’ him every bit as much as he ‘raped’ her.

This is utter bullshit. In your scenario he asked her to have sex, she said no, and he did it anyway despite her protestations. That’s rape, and it’s only rape one-way. How on earth was he raped in this situation??

What you seem not to comprehend, and you aren’t alone, I know that there is a philosophical chasm between us, is that putting yourself willingly into a situation where sex is likely to happen is not the same as being grabbed on the jogging path and forced at knifepoint.

Sex doesn’t just “happen” – people have to make a choice to have sex. When one person makes that choice but the other doesn’t, and he does it anyway, then that’s rape. Humans are not animals – humans are capable of deciding to have sex or to not have sex.

[iiandyiiii]

crucible, whether you realize it or not, you are excusing some rapists. In your scenarios, these men made a conscious decision to have sex with a woman who did not want to have sex. That’s rape in all circumstances. It doesn’t even matter if she said an hour before “I’ll have sex with you later”, as an example – if she later takes it back and says “no”, then it’s still rape if he has sex with her.

That’s what rape is – when one person decides to have sex (and goes forward with this decision), and the other person has not decided to have sex. In all circumstances when one person decides to do it and the other hasn’t, it’s rape.

[Frylock]

@crucible

And, I would reply, she ‘raped’ him every bit as much as he ‘raped’ her.

Jesus Christ. :smack: You being (apparently? as you seem to be emphasizing?) an old man–an elder, I suppose, is what you would like to be called–does not excuse this shit. What you’re saying is evil. You are being an evil human being right now. You need to stop. You are the bad guy, and you need to stop.

Look, let’s accept for the sake of argument that “in your day” going into the same dorm room together was an unmistakable, absolutely unambiguous statement that you intend to have sex with each other.

That has absolutely no implication for the question of who raped whom in your scenario. All it does is add one act of assent at the very beginning. After giving that assent, she withdrew it. Once she’d withdrawn it, she was not consenting. Hence, when he had sex with her, he raped her.

She did nothing to him without his consent. Hence, she did not rape him.

[crucible]

@iiandyiiii

Yep, entirely the man’s fault – this is definitely, absolutely rape.

These women are correct. In fact, there is absolutely no action that any woman could take in any situation whatsoever (short of, perhaps, paying someone with explicit instructions to rape her) that would lead to her rape that is her fault.

I don’t claim that a man who goes ‘too far’ is blameless. Far from it. But a woman who puts herself in that situation willingly for the sake of some sexual equality principle, is almost as much to blame for the fact that she had sex she may not have expected. I some situations, I can’t call it rape, when intercourse results from an extremely intimate sexually charged moment. Sorry about that. You don’t like it? Keep your daughter away from my grandson, tell her not to invite a guy to her dorm room, tell her not to drink too much, take any pills, let herself get separated from friends she trusts…tell her to take precautions, because if she doesn’t, she’s likely to have a sexual encounter she didn’t ask for…or did she? I know, I know, I’m horrible, but I’m really telling it like it is. Really.

Would I? No way, I’m a gentleman. But I wouldn’t trust any other man in the world with my granddaughter under those dorm room circumstances, not to think he was welcome to have sex with her. If you think society doesn’t make decisions about guilt or innocence along the same lines as I describe, I think you are deluded on that point.