A further hypothetical for the battery-vs-sexual-battery question: Suppose I get in a fight with a woman (assume for a moment that this fight was equally provoked by both of us, and that we’re both whaling on each other, not that I’m just beating up a helpless woman) and at some point over the course of the fight I attempt to punch her and, completely accidentally, my hand penetrates her vagina. (She was wearing very few clothes for some reason.)
Am I guilty of a more serious crime than I would be had my punch instead hit her in the thigh or the nose?
If that’s what you’d do to him, what would you do to a “normal” rapist?
Well, I am saddened and disturbed by it. I think most here are, which tells me that the SDMB folk have a lot of class. I don’t quite get why it would be OK for a woman to do this to a man-in talking about this in RL, things have gotten heated as well-and I am a prude apparently as well as other not so nice names for expecting decency (in all definitions of that word) from both genders.(IOW, my husband is fairly dismissive of the teabagging and completely of the case if the people were reversed. That’s a whole nother thread, but it has colored my posts here). <shrugs> So be it…I think our culture and our gender expectations are fairly messed up. And sadly, I think there are too many assholes in the world who were raised by wolves (with apologies to Canine lupus).
Someone was saying upthread that intent matters–and I think that’s true. This wasn’t some accidental freak occurrence; this scumball did what he did to mock the woman and humiliate her with his sex organs. So, battery for sure and ?
What of her unconscious state? Would that matter legally or would it just be ammo for some nasty defense attorney to smear her with, so as to get his client off? I am interested, if still incensed enough to not be able to talk about this calmly…
And what if she had been dead? Are there more stringent laws for that? Now I am curious.
Well, not suck it up and laugh. Suck it up and regard it as a lesson learned. Learn to be cool and not piss people off by…doing what, exactly? That’s what I’m not clear on – how her behavior was so egregious that she brought this on herself.
Um, winning a case in a two-bit Kentucky court is not exactly in the same class. Lovely state, truly one of the garden spots of the world, but this ain’t arguing before the SCotUSA.
Serious jail time. How about you?
Since I love standards so much that I happily double them up, I actually agree.
Rilchiam -I don’t see this as a proper response to anything she did or could conceivably do (unless she shoved her “junk” into the guy’s face, but then we aren’t talking about normal behavior and are off into some weirdness I’d rather not visit).
Under what circumstances would this(teabagging) be considered appropriate behavior? (excluding mutually consenting partners as too obvious an answer).
I’d like to follow up on the issue of harm for a moment.
Before doing so, in order to make clear, please read carefully and digest this caveat/disclaimer: This guy’s behavior is disgusting to me, and I do not defend it. He did wrong, and I have no opposition to considering it a criminal act.
Now, independently of that, given the specifics as described, was this woman harmed? If so, how was she harmed?
Did something happen to her that has made her a changed person? Has she lost anything? Is her life different? How so?
In a second condition to consider, say she did hear about it later? Is she harmed now? How so?
Well, what if she was unconscious and he put his penis in her vagina and ejaculated? But she didn’t get pregnant and didn’t get an STD. Did something happen to her that has made her a changed person? Has she lost anything? Is her life different?
No, no, no. So she wasn’t harmed by the incident, and the rapist should go free.
Fuck that.
The teabagger was a rapist. I don’t know if what he did would qualify as rape under the law of his state, but so what? If it were up to me, I’d call a coupla hard, pipe-hittin’ African-American gentlemen, who’ll go to work on the homes here with a pair of pliers and a blow torch.
Now, fortunately, our legal system isn’t based on my momentary whims, we have courts and laws and a burden of proof, and this is a good thing. I’m not capable of dispensing anything like justice, much less a system of punishments that contributes to an orderly society. I wouldn’t WANT to live in a society where I could rule by fiat.
But sending Mr. Soon-To-Be-Living-The-Rest-of-His-Short-Ass-Life-In-Agonizing-Pain Rapist here to jail for about 10 years would be a win-win situation. We’d win because a rapist wouldn’t be wandering around. And he’d win, because he’d have plenty of time to sit and think about what he’d done, and perhaps undertake not to sexually assault passed-out women in the future. Or not, but he’ll be locked up, and won’t have access to passed-out women so who cares? If anyone complains that 10 years in jail would ruin this guys life, I wouldn’t be opposed to euthanasia…after all, if his life is ruined, why not end it now? It could be like those old war movies…the disgraced officer is left alone with a pistol with one bullet, and the way to make the whole dishonorable situation go away is obvious.
I’m not sure what the argument is, because you haven’t said anything about how this woman was harmed. I’m not sure how I would be harmed in particular if you sat in front of my house and watched everything I did. I can imagine I would feel scrutinized and more self-aware, and less free to do things like scratch myself or go out to the fridge in my underwear to get a drink at night. How is that like if I had a scrotum placed on my forehead when I was not conscious?
I’m not necessarily saying she was not harmed, but I’d like for people to describe how. I mean, reading through the thread, it’s clear that most people definitively feel that she was.
So how was she?
I agree. I guess I’m particularly interested in how people define the harm that this woman experienced.
Jesus Christ! Perhaps I should have bolded my disclaimer, or perhaps this is not a topic that people can discuss rationally.
Working with people who have been through trauma has taught me that one of the worst things people do to themselves is convince themselves that they have been harmed in some way that is not recoverable. It is crucial to validate a person’s feelings about being violated and work on issues of security and safety. The work has to involve, eventually, how to move on and continue living, and that involves addressing whatever way they were harmed. Sometimes that involves challenging, albeit gently, the sense that they have been unalterably marred by their experience and could never live happily or completely again.
Of course, other people experience the same, or similar traumas and have no difficulty moving on without experiencing significant impairment.
I’m sorry if how this particular woman might have been harmed is a matter that cannot be discussed rationally. I just think it would not at all be helpful to regard her life as being ruined, or that her harm was particularly severe. (She might, and that would be something I would deal with with compassion, if I were to work with her, but I would be something that she would have to come to be able to live with, ultimately. Wouldn’t it?)
I would say that the harm she suffered is probably very limited. If she became aware of what happened later, she probably felt violated and exposed. Physically, her mouth and face came in contact with bacteria-laden body parts, but we don’t know if she contracted any illnesses from it. If she did, obviously the harm was greater.
Unfortunately, I think the legal issues raised are rather non-issues (whether it was a crime, whether the woman was harmed, etc)…apparently, she is not aware of what happened to her, and none of the guys around seem inclined to worry about it, so not much chance of anybody being prosectued, anyway. And even if somehow it were to come out in the open, what proof or evidence would there be, other than the testimony of those who were there and conscious at the time? Apparently, there are some crimes that are easily gotten away with. It’s a shame, but to me it goes back to what I said about the people who were there…you can’t always deal with this kind of thing in the courts…sometimes you just have to hope that there are decent people around who can tell right from wrong, and are willing to do something about it.
I agree with this, and would just clarify that if she never became aware of it, I cannot see how she was harmed in any way. [Obligatory note to the faint of knee-control: That is independent of my beliefs about Mr. Lipton, the tea-bagger.]
But you also seem to want serious jail time for the incident under discussion. Which strikes me as being less seroius by an enormous margin.
To put it another way: your wife/daughter/female loved one is going to be either raped or teabagged-and-hit-in-face-with-penis-while-unconscious. Do you prefer one to the other? By how much?
