margin, I think you’re fighting a lot of stuff from **Zeriel **that isn’t there. ISTM that you’re both overly sensitive–on opposite sides of the issue–from your own personal experiences, such that you’re pretty much talking past enough other.
I’m pretty willing to come out and say I’m oversensitive on the issue of potential falsehood of unproven-in-court rape accusations, since in my personal experience around one out of twenty guys gets falsely accused hard enough to damage their reputation at some point during college. Any time I see someone who’s willing to make a rape accusation and talk about it publicly, but NOT go to trial, my brain immediately files it as “potential shenanigans”.
Is there an issue with the way rape prosecutions are handled in the US? You bet. Is there an issue with the way rape victims are treated in the US? Absolutely. (hell, my wife reports in my liberal college town in the 1990s, the first question the cops asked her was STILL “what were you wearing?”)
The thing I’m concerned about is this: there’s also a noticeable amount (aggregate frequency unavailable, since the one study I’m aware of (the abysmal Kanin one) had what I perceive to be unsurmountable methodology difficulties, not even getting into the differences between “false”, “unsubstantiated”, and “baseless” accusations) of false rape accusations that appear to be designed specifically to ruin the lives of guys in a way they can’t defend themselves against (for example, by going to trial–although given margin’s previous post, that’s not exactly the ideal solution these days either from either direction.).
Seriously? That’s what you’re going with? His history makes him more credible—or he thinks it should, apparently—while mine makes me that crazy ‘hysterical’ person? He’s a man, I’m a woman. Isn’t that kind of a glaring double standard? Adn for the record, no, I haven’t been sexually assaulted. But I guess if I were, it would totally make me emotional and paranoid, right? It’s funny how Zeriel’s entitled to be bitter ever after, but a woman is not. It just makes her suspect.
So is anybody here at all aware that feminists and interested parties have been studying rape and rape tropes for at least four decades? And that parts of this conversation here illustrate them perfectly? Oh, right. I guess sexism doesn’t exist on the Dope. Well, the kind of sexism where a bunch of guys defend a scuzzball because they like the way he throws a football, and besides, the bitch was a drunken whore.
Sigh.
margin, you are both overreacting to each other. **Zeriel **is getting overly defensive and giving more benefit of the doubt to people like Roethlisberger than he should because he was falsely accused of rape. You, conversely, are essentially asserting that **Zeriel **must be a rapist because he was, at one point, accused.
And in case you didn’t notice, I’m female and I have a serious problem with people who defend rapists (or were you just not paying attention to *any *post I made in this thread except for the one suggesting that you maybe needed to take a step back?). But you’re pushing so hard on this, right now, that you’re not doing the side any favors.
Well, her last response did have ONE benefit–I’m not taking her nearly so personally anymore.
This part of the conversation illustrates the PMSing woman stereotype perfectly.
See, now *there’s *a sexist retard you can get legitimately snarky at.
To be honest, when I saw that, I was expecting margin to come busting back in here like the Kool-Aid Man.
“OH YEAH!”
I’m going to be laughing about that all day.