To be fair to Hentor he was not saying she did not experience any harm, he was asking WHAT harm she experienced. Are you able to quantify the harm she experience? I don’t believe he was saying because she was unconscious there was no harm done.
So, then, he’s saying that unless people are able to quantify the harm experienced by/done to the girl, they have no right to be outraged by the behaviour? Yeah, that makes such perfect sense… :rolleyes:
I swore I was going to stay out of this thread…
her human dignity was harmed. Humans have the right to not be touched (generally speaking) w/o their consent. On’es dignity is also harmed when one is intentionally made the butt of a joke while in a vulnerable condition. that ‘quantitative’ enough?
No he has not said that. Read his posts. He says a crime was committed. He is asking people to quantify the harm that was done.
Where did he, or anyone, say that because no one has been able to quantify it no harm was done?
I’m sorry, but you apparently misread *my[/] post. I’m not accusing Hentor of saying there was no law broken or harm done. I’m accusing him of implying that if a person cannot define a thing, they have no right to be outraged by the thing.
Rayh --I think Maureen is referring to this post. I dont’ see where Hentor asks to quantify the harm. He is asking IF there was harm done.
What if she were mentally retarded and completely unaware? No “harm” came to her, yet harm has been done. We would not shrug this off if it was to others who fit the “unaware” category (I am not saying you are shrugging it off, Hent).
I suppose, if one was to get all philosophical about it, it comes down to essentially that no matter their sentient status, we as people expect that some basic liberties(?), truths(?)-some fundamental something (I need polycarp or tomndebb to help with the words) will be adhered to and recognized by others around us. We say she was harmed because that boundary was broken, not because she suffered hurt. In a strange way, the teabagging harms all of us. (or is that too philosophical for SDMB?).
Actually, el, it was more my point that Hentor seems to be trying to say that everyone is getting all outraged and upset over something they can’t even define; therefore they shouldn’t be outraged and upset. Sort of the equivalent of patting someone on the head and telling them not to worry their pretty little heads about such things, let the smart people figure it out. It struck me as rather self important (especially after throwing in the “as I am a therapist…” line) and pompous. I was hoping he’d come in and tell me that’s not at all what he intended.
And of course, that’s exactly the reason to be outraged by such a thing. No matter who it was done to or how many idiots with high school mentalities think it’s amusing.
Dropzone, don’t fuck with my quotes, asshole. I never said “tons of sociopathic shit.” The idea that you consider me a sociopath for my argument here says more about your state of mind on this matter than mine. I think you may safely be discounted.
wring, I’m not going for anything like a tree falling in the forest. I’m trying to understand why I feel I’m on the left side of the spectrum, towards “Eh,” and other people would like to see this guy in jail or his life “ruined.”
Part of that is that I just don’t see her experiencing a level of harm that would merit such reactions. I think justice should be proportionate, and the degree of harm that the person experiences should have bearing on that.
I would have expected that people who want this guy’s life ruined or for him to go to jail would be able to fairly easily express something about the harm he caused to merit such responses.
Maureen et al., I’ve already agreed with jsgoddess and with Captain Amazing’s expressions of the nature of the harm she might have experienced. I would hope that as a just society, the punishments someone would receive for causing these harms would be roughly proportionate. In the case of her not being aware of the incident, if there were still some mechanism for a reasonable punishment, I would agree with that, even though I cannot describe any harm beyond the potential harm to her reputation.
And I agree with eleanorigby that we as a society have some interest in acting to prevent teabagging of the unconscious.
I’m not saying he should have his life ruined, but certainly some consequence is called for. Yes, I think a short jail sentence is also called for. I don’t at all get the ‘eh’ sort of response. It was wrongful behavior on his part, certainly likely (to me at least) that the woman involved suffered some harm, he had no right to do what he did. Yet, he did.
I’m not saying that the woman will need therapy for dozens of years, the guy should be drawn and quartered, but I don’t have any problem at all w/him being on probation for a nice long while and have to jump through legal hoops and so on. Obviously he needs some level of negative reinforcement for “it’s not ok to dangle your scrotum on the face of sleeping persons for your amusement” I’d have thought that sort of thing was a given, but apparently not.
Gee, sorry if I came off pompous or arrogant. Or sociopathic.
There seems to be a pathological level of either/or thinking here. If my pointing that out to you is pompous, I guess I’ll have to suffer the consequences. I thought someone had already established that there was a continuum of outrage, and I have agreed with that. So, I don’t know why you would think you are in a position to tell others I’m seeking a dichotomous response.
I’ve never said that no outrage would be warranted. I’m trying to understand for myself, and have others reconsider their own outrage, which in many cases here seemed vastly overblown.
My point about bringing up my experiences working with people is that vastly overblowing the meaning of their experiences generally does not do people much good. It is very unhelpful in figuring out how to move on afterward.
So you really DO think if he raped her while she was unconscious, well, no harm, no foul?
If he didn’t harm her, if she never found out she was raped while passed out drunk, then it wasn’t a big deal. Certainly not enough to ruin a high-spirited young man’s life over.
What’s the objective difference if he dips his balls in her mouth or if he dips his cock? What’s the objective difference if he sprays come into her vagina, as long as she doesn’t get pregnant or get an STD? How was she harmed, since she was unconscious?
You don’t get to rape people just because they’re unconscious. That’s where the sociopathic stuff comes from.
And there’s a big difference between dealing with a victim after the fact, and asking what should happen to a perpetrator. Right now there are children getting chopped up with machetes in Darfur. What am I doing about it? Nothing, there’s not much I can do about it, and getting upset about it helps no one.
Many rapists will never be charged for their crimes, much less convicted. There’s no physical evidence, they kill the victim and hide the body under the floorboards, it’s a he-said she-said situation, the rapist is her husband, the victim is a prostitute, or a minor child. And when counseling victims where there is no legal way to punish the perpetrator, or no physically possible way to punish the perp (like he’s dead now), dwelling on what the perp did isn’t helpful. But what does that have to do with whether we should throw the perp in jail if we could convict him? How does having the perp in jail help the victim? It does nothing for the victim. Does that mean we shouldn’t do it?
Sure, if I were advising the victim in this sordid story, my advice to her would be pretty different. I would first of all advise her to stop drinking so much she passes out in the presence of strangers. The chance of the perp ever seeing the inside of a prison cell is remote, since there’s no physical evidence, and the only witnesses were jackass frat boys who cheered and laughed. So advising her to focus on pressing charges against the perp would be counterproductive for her. So what?
But the perp still belongs in jail. He’s guilty of sexual assault. The fact that it would be very very difficult to prosecute the scumbag is irrelevant. He belongs in jail. If I had been present, rather than the laughing jackass who sparked this thread, the scumbag would be in jail. Or not, since he wouldn’t have gone through with his sexual assault unless he knew it was a “safe space” for sexual assaulters. But you can bet your ass I’d call the cops, and testify against him at his trial. You know and I know that this is very unlikely to be the first sexual assault the perp committed, nor is it likely to be the last. Sure, we can’t throw the motherfucker in jail–because we have no evidence that the story even occured as reported. But if we did have that evidence, we absolutely should.
You don’t know, and I don’t know either, whether this jerk has ever been guilty of anything more heinous than Assholery In The Third Degree, so how about we don’t go around wagging our heads and saying “oh, f’sure, he’s a multiple rapist and we all know it”? Just a suggestion. :rolleyes:
I put myself in the victim’s shoes and I see myself being urged to suck it the fuck up and get on with my life - and being ten thousandfold more able to do so than if I’d been sodomised with a broom handle. Talk about straining gnats.
(As to the hygeine aspect, IIRC during oral sex the dirtiest body part involved is generally the mouth.)
Now that line was funny. 
Except we’re not just talking about what the victim should do with the rest of her life. Yeah, what she should do is get over it and stop drinking herself into a stupor at frat parties (or whatever the hell it was).
OK, everyone agreed? Girl needs to pull her shit together and realize she put herself in an incredibly vulnerable position and move on.
Next.
The sexual assaulter deserves to go to jail. Except that’s not going to happen, even if the laughing jackass had a change of heart and called the cops. He DESERVES to go to jail, but he’s not going to go to jail. So what? He still deserves to go to jail, he still committed sexual assault. And just like we can surmise that the mugger who grabs your wallet isn’t doing this for the first time, it doesn’t seem outrageous to imagine that young men who feel comfortable pulling down their pants and rubbing their genitals on unconscious women are the kind of people who feel comfortable pulling down their pants and sexually assaulting people. And that means they are likely (LIKELY) to have done so in the past and continue in the future. Until they either grow the fuck up, or get the crap beaten out of them, or go to jail.
The perp deserves to go to jail. Just because the victim is best served by shrugging it off and moving on, doesn’t mean the perp gets a get out of jail free card. It doesn’t work that way.
This made me laugh out loud. A wise position and one we can all agree on. 
Well, I don’t think Captain Lipton should go to prison for life or even for a week. I DO think that some consequence should follow-like have him work at a rape crisis center (under strict supervision)–nothing like a little reality check. YES-I know it’s not rape, but we don’t have crisis centers for teabagging or similiar. I’d like to see a fine at the very least. Something.
I think what is more important than the individuals in this case is the atmosphere that allows shit like this to happen. Unless this guy is a true nutjob (sorry for the pun), I’ll bet he wouldn’t have done that in private. There’s peer pressure at play here, mob (or mob-ish) mentality, male strutting (for lack of a better word) and misogyny-IMO, entrenched misogyny: putting the blame on the woman, laughing etc.
We haven’t come real far* (or perhaps we have sunk even lower) or so it seems.
- far from where is something I can’t answer.
A simple “yes, that’s what I meant.” would’ve been sufficient.
Are you suggesting that Cheney should be arrested for touching people?
'Cause I could totally get behind that.
The girl was a stranger to the four guys involved in this…so these four guys (including the Pittee, whose name should be in the title), did this to a stranger who was basically completely at their mercy. Those few Dopers who think this is just a prank should consider that…do you usually pull pranks on people you don’t know? You might do this to a frat brother, but surely it’s not a prank when done to someone you don’t know.
ArchitectChore egged the guy on and gave him suggestions. Truly a prick.
You are my favoritest person EVER. This is absolutely the truth, and it is especially done to women in cases of rape or child abuse… “OMG rape is the worst thing that could ever happen to you EVER! It robs you of your innocence and you’ll never be the same again!” I think this opinion rests on some underlying assumption about women’s bodies being some kind of sacred shrine of purity or other crap, like women have some “essence” that can be irrevocably stolen from them. Generally well-intentioned, but never helpful. It is unsubstantiated by research, Cult of the Holy Notion of Victimhood bullshit, and is everything that is wrong with the therapeutic world today.
I completely and thoroughly understand the work you are doing here, and applaud it. You are the kind of therapist I wish to be someday.
/hijack