# Law & Order SVU 5/19: So absurd I'm done with you **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 21, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225 "2009-05-21T19:35:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/21 "2009-05-22T22:26:53Z")
FWIW, I’ve heard of at least one case of a woman who had a stalker who was making “I have a rape fantasy, won’t you help me make it come true?” posts under her name and giving out her address and phone number. (I read about it in _Reader’s Digest_ about 10 years ago, but I don’t know what the original source was.) Fortunately this woman was not assaulted. She started getting a lot of obscene phone calls and was using an answering machine to screen her calls. She finally got fed up with it and picked up the phone and demanded to know why this guy wouldn’t just leave her alone. That’s when she found out about the Internet posts being made in her name. I remember that this was considered a tricky legal problem as her stalker hadn’t hacked into any accounts belonging to this woman, he’d created a new email account in her name. There’s no law against using a fake name online, and the contact info he was posting was publicly available. Sounds like this true story would have made a better SVU episode than what they came up with instead! ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/22 "2009-05-22T22:33:10Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > You’re quite right, not least because it’s arguable that, from time to time, Benson would show up at Cabot’s apartment without warning, Cabot would kick out anybody who happened to be there, and they’d have incredibly hot monkey sex, all without ever saying a word and without ever talking about it afterwards. Not to mention that > > the same thing still happens with Munch and Finn. Finn did seem to know EVERYTHING about being on the down-low. ---
**Author:** ![apollonia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2bfe46/32.png) [@apollonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/apollonia)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/23 "2009-05-22T23:24:56Z")
But…but…he just knows stuff! ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/24 "2009-05-23T01:18:52Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > FWIW, I’ve heard of at least one case of a woman who had a stalker who was making “I have a rape fantasy, won’t you help me make it come true?” posts under her name and giving out her address and phone number. ! **Ripped from the headlines!** [Court reinstates Yahoo lawsuit over fake profiles](http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE54801B20090509) Fri May 8, 2009 8:15pm EDT By Gina Keating > [@](#): > > A U.S. appeals court on Friday reinstated a breach of contract claim against Yahoo Inc by an Oregon woman who said the company failed to remove nude photos and fake profiles posted by her estranged boyfriend after promising to do so. > > … > > The Yahoo profiles included nude photos of Barnes and her boyfriend taken without her knowledge, her office phone number, email and address and “open solicitations” for sex, the opinion said. > > “Before long, men whom Barnes did not know were peppering her office with emails, phone calls, and personal visits, all in the expectation of sex,” the opinion said. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/25 "2009-05-23T01:25:20Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > I rarely/never say this - but this line made me LOL. I liked the too much to “swallow” part myself 🙂 Holly molly, I could only get through about half that contorted story before I gave up! Nevermind the unlikelyness of it all. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/26 "2009-05-23T02:17:53Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > Finn did seem to know EVERYTHING about being on the down-low. That’s because his son is gay and HE’S TOTALLY MOSTLY ONLY COOL WITH IT WHEN IT’S RELEVANT TO THE PLOT. Apparently, in the SVU-verse, that is a huge, huge gesture for a black man. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/27 "2009-05-23T06:39:59Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > After Law & Order: Original Recipe has gone to shit, I clung to L&O:SVU as the last hope. Then they did that ham-handed show a couple of weeks ago with Swoozie Kurtz as the corrupt judge. L&O:OR has done Corrupt Judge before, and done it well, and the contrast was horrible. She somehow doesn’t recognize Stabler undercover and gets tricked in so obvious a way that anyone on their guard would notice. It was such a waste of her and the rest of the production that I gave up. Yeah, that was a pretty lame sting at the end. I said, “Gosh, Evil Judge Kurtz, you’re really not seeing through this? Their little high school production of ‘We’re Going To Trick Us An Evil Judge’ didn’t set off ANY alarm bells?” ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/28 "2009-05-23T07:22:29Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > Mind you, as a regular viewer, none of this is implausible enough for me to write this show off. You sound like one of those characters that develops a tolerance to a poison by drinking a little bit of it each day. Or in this case, once a week. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/29 "2009-05-23T14:59:49Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > That’s because his son is gay and HE’S TOTALLY MOSTLY ONLY COOL WITH IT WHEN IT’S RELEVANT TO THE PLOT. > > Apparently, in the SVU-verse, that is a huge, huge gesture for a black man. I don’t know about in New York, but it IS a huge gesture for a blackk man in my neck of the woods (Memphis). ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/30 "2009-05-23T16:00:10Z")
You mean fables that were read to you as a 3 year old don’t become important sayings that you incorporate into your adult life? And isn’t that same fable confined to your memory, to the exclusion of everyone else, so that if you do quote one portion of it, your long-lost parent will instantly recognize you even though you were thought to be dead…? ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/31 "2009-05-23T16:56:09Z")
I was peeved because they just dropped the first story line. What actually WOULD happen to the man tricked into becoming a rapist? Anyone have any idea? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/32 "2009-05-23T18:40:25Z")
> [@StarvingButStrong](#): > > I was peeved because they just dropped the first story line. What actually WOULD happen to the man tricked into becoming a rapist? > > Anyone have any idea? IANALawyer, but I would guess he’d probably be tried for rape. In general, the courts take the position that any act of sex that doesn’t have full mutual consent- the participant’s beliefs notwithstanding- is rape. Thus you have statutory rape (too young to legally give consent), rape by fraud (consent was fraudulantly obtained), or “no, it wasn’t really consent” (she was blind drunk, etc.) In the case of statutory rape, even having the minor actively deceive you about their age isn’t a defense. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2009, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/33 "2009-05-23T23:11:25Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > IANALawyer, but I would guess he’d probably be tried for rape. In general, the courts take the position that any act of sex that doesn’t have full mutual consent- the participant’s beliefs notwithstanding- is rape. Thus you have statutory rape (too young to legally give consent), rape by fraud (consent was fraudulantly obtained), or “no, it wasn’t really consent” (she was blind drunk, etc.) In the case of statutory rape, even having the minor actively deceive you about their age isn’t a defense. So there really would be no way to engage in the type of “rape fantasy” portrayed on the show? Even if I had a signed contract with my wife, notarized and on file at the courthouse? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/34 "2009-05-24T01:15:47Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > So there really would be no way to engage in the type of “rape fantasy” portrayed on the show? Even if I had a signed contract with my wife, notarized and on file at the courthouse? You could, but if she then said “no, stop I REALLY MEAN IT!!!” and you didn’t, then she could file a charge of rape. This btw is why “safe words” were invented. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/35 "2009-05-24T13:44:25Z")
This show went downhill when they started trying to fit two or more “ripped from the headlines” type stories into a show, instead of one. Like last week’s Casey Anthony/anti-vaccination episode. They’ve never had a “ripped” episode based on real life that played exactly the same as it did in reality, but instead of building a good story, they seem to be trying to reach a quota of twists, whether said twists make sense or not. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/36 "2009-05-24T18:17:20Z")
Wow, I got dizzy just reading that synopsis, I’m pretty sure my head would have exploded had I watched the show. L&O Criminal Intent is the only one that still does it for me, the plotlines are far more interesting and D’Onofrio is always good value. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/37 "2009-05-25T06:20:16Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Wow, I got dizzy just reading that synopsis, I’m pretty sure my head would have exploded had I watched the show. L&O Criminal Intent is the only one that still does it for me, the plotlines are far more interesting and D’Onofrio is always good value. I couldn’t follow the synopsis and I read the synopsis. I don’t know how \*\*Morbo \*\*parsed it enough to write it down. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/38 "2009-05-25T16:35:51Z")
I really want to know the line from Aesop. I don’t watch the show often enough,but when I do I’m always confused by the “how many hot topics can we cram into one crime?” method. ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/39 "2009-05-25T17:38:12Z")
> [@kittenblue](#): > > I really want to know the line from Aesop. I don’t watch the show often enough,but when I do I’m always confused by the “how many hot topics can we cram into one crime?” method. The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny. –Aesop (~550 BC) ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225/40 "2009-05-25T17:42:55Z")
> [@Omega\_Glory](#): > > This show went downhill when they started trying to fit two or more “ripped from the headlines” type stories into a show, instead of one. Like last week’s Casey Anthony/anti-vaccination episode. They’ve never had a “ripped” episode based on real life that played exactly the same as it did in reality, but instead of building a good story, they seem to be trying to reach a quota of twists, whether said twists make sense or not. Maybe they hired a new writer who is the love child of Emeril and M. Night Shamalat (sp?). Its a bad combination of “what a twist!” and “bam, take it up a notch” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-order-svu-5-19-so-absurd-im-done-with-you/497225.md?page=3)