dropzone, we ask that posters not change the text within attributed quote tags, even to paraphrase.
I wanted for the most part to stay out of this…
Basically from what I’ve read it looks like legally, in some jurisdictions this would be a sex crime, in other jurisdictions it would not be. Ok, fine.
I’m more interested in the moral question myself. I don’t think the law necessarily dictates what our moral norms should be. I find the person’s behavior reprehensible. The only people I really want to address are those who think it’s a harmless prank because it’s allegedly such a common thing.
Do you think that just because a behavior is deemed socially acceptable and harmless in certain circles makes it okay? Because I don’t. When I was in high school some guys held another kid down and stuck a deodorant stick in his ass. They all thought it was a rollicking good time. And the kid just kind of shrugged it off because he was that desperate to be socially accepted. Does that make it okay? Hazing is a social norm among certain college students – and yet it is clearly a traumatizing, at best humiliating experience. I’ve spoken with people who refuse to talk about their own initiation experiences–not out of a sense of loyalty, but out of a sense of obvious aversion to the memory–this is indicative of trauma. In my local sororities, one popular exercise is to parade freshman girls in their underwear in front of college men, hand out black sharpies and have the men draw circles over all the womens’ bodies–the circles of course representing the unattractive features those women have. I would conservatively estimate at least 1.000 people on my college campus find this perfectly acceptable behavior.
Does that mean it is?
What these activities–and the disgusting practice of teabagging–all have in common is they involve domination and humiliation. Do you think your average guy really WANTS to have someone’s scrotum shoved in his face? No, but he tolerates it because it is considered socially acceptable within his peer group.
That doesn’t make it RIGHT. That doesn’t make it “just a prank.” I refuse to justify this behavior as harmless. It is, at best, an unhealthy social orientation that derives pleasure from humiliating and subjugating others.
works for me.
What would really be funny is if all four dudes dropped trou and pissed on her all at once. Sort of a piss bukake.
There’d be that moment when the heat and the smell of the urine would jar her awake and then she’d be spluttering with a mouthful of piss. Killer funny.
Even better, if somebody videotaped it and put it on youtube. Of course, then the dudes would have to wear face masks or something to avoid prosectution. Or take photos, blow em up, and post em around campus.
Now, if she was wearing light colored pants, you could just put her hand in warm water. Nine out of ten she’d piss her pants, and that’s killer funny with no chance of assault charges.
I agree completely with this as well.
IMPO (In my pompous opinion), while guys might regard doing this to another guy as a semi-acceptable prank type behavior, it is still a very small minority of guys who would do this to a woman, even if they did try to use a comforter of theirs. I can’s say that I knew anyone who would, in fact, but I didn’t hang out with anyone close to that ignorant.
Below - Please explain how what you describe is funny.
Please explain how this aligns with your very next post:
Now, I am all for moving past the pain and getting on with life. But there seems to be a contradiction in your stance. The hazing you describe leaves the victims with an “aversion” to talking about it. And yet, you seem to be saying that rape or similiar is not a lifelong sentence for some-ok, but how is the length of time for healing to be determined? BTW, I would agree with that-the goal is to heal and go on with life, correct?
How does one heal, if the pain is not acknowledged? Everyone deals with pain differently-and some may need to relive, talk out, re-do, re-whatever for a long, long time(or not).
I have no experience with rape or hazing or teabagging (thank you god), but in this instance, we are talking about a woman whose body and dignity WERE indeed violated, even as she lay there unconscious. If and when she finds out about it-that is a lot to process and work through, no? Sometimes becoming aware of past vulnerabilities is more scarey than dealing with ones in front of your face. I would think something like this might be harder to get through than if she had been awake during the teabagging. No? I could be completely wrong-not knowing the woman.
I am not defending the stance you refer to in your first post, and have never heard of the woman’s aura of purity or whatever that you mention. But don’t we all have an inviolate sense of space around us? Some call it their personal space. I am getting at more than that–this woman was treated in a de-humanizing way. She was more than objectified, she was made lesser, with no recourse, no protection. Call that dramatic, but it is not insignificant, IMO.
Thank you very much, olivesmarch4th, I very much appreciate that.
Here’s a thought experiment for you-- imagine the girl in question is your sister. Or wife. Or you mom. Someone you really like, take your pick. Would you be angry? Would you think the guy who teabagged her was a violating sexual perv who needed at the very least a thorough ass-whipping? OK, why? There’s your harm.
If you’d feel nothing, or just “eh” at the thought of your favorite woman having some drunk asshole’s dick on her face while she’s unconscious, well, I guess we have nothing more to talk about.
You can’t explain funny. It just is.
Picture it. Golden arcs streaming through the air, landing silently on her face and in her hair. Running down her neck, soaking her clothes, and then… “PBBBTHWTT! What the fuck!”
You haul ass out of the house and into the street, laughing like crazy all the way. She’s trying to catch you, shouting, “They pissed on me! They pissed all over me!”
Guess you really can’t explain “funny”.
The problem is that actions must be known to be harmful. If the woman was unconscious and never finds out about the incident at all, how could she possibly be harmed by it? Your hypo posits that the incident is known, by the victim’s family and, presumably, by the victim. Knowledge of the incident by the victim’s brother, father, boyfriend, etc. harms them once they know of it – as it harms the victim once she knows of it. It can even harm the victim without her knowing, if the story gets told around behind her back and her reputation is damaged. But Hentor’s point is that in the absence of such knowledge by anyone, it’s hard to identify the harm.
IMO, in that circumstance, the harm is to the social values and moral fiber of the actors, not the victim. They are diminished by participating in the degradation of another human being, in a way their victim cannot be diminished, even if degraded, because she didn’t know about it and, so far as we know, never found out about it. But they won’t ever have to wonder if they are the sort of people who exploit and degrade an unconscious, completely helpless person; they know they are exactly that sort.
Granted, this is the sickest, most twisted thing I can think of. But that’s what makes it funny.
But what if he raped Kitty Dukakis!!!
Holy crow. I really do believe this matter overlaps with some issues that just make some people lose their minds. If I gave him an ass-whipping, that would be completely disproportionate with the level of harm he caused to me or my wife.
I’ll go you one better: I asked my wife about this scenario. She thought that if it would have been her, she would have felt uncomfortable and a little violated. She would not have thought it deserved jail time (nor even judicial involvement) and did not assume that there was a sexual element to it.
I love my wife! She rocks. She’s beautiful, very intelligent, very centered and well-grounded. And she doesn’t flip out with crazy ass bullshit emotional responses to stuff. I can tell you that I feel far worse about the teasing that other kids gave her in grade school for her congenitally small ear than the idea that some guy might have touched her skin with his joint. Can I imagine beating the shit out of them?
I never said I would feel nothing, nor just “eh” to the unknown woman in the vignette. I certainly wouldn’t feel that way if it were my wife. But I’ll tell you what. If you are so unable to express an intelligent argument about what exactly was the harm that this person might have suffered that you have to try bullshit ploys to color the matter emotionally, then I’m quite fine having nothing more to talk about with you.
Yeah, THAT’S not a straw man. Wow. Good one.
I’ve lost my mind because someone putting his dick in someone else’s mouth without permission, IMO, warrants an ass-whipping? I think you’ve lost your mind that you think it’s no big deal. What makes you right and me crazy? I could be wrong, but most people would be incensed if it were done them, or if someone they cared about had it done to them. I’ll go you one better: most normal people would freak out even WITNESSING such an event. They’d try to stop it, and they’d think the guy doing it was fucked up. Not too many “eh” responsed would be given. But you’re the sane one. The rest of us are nuts. Ok.
I’m so glad your wife is the ultimate authority on what is and what isn’t sexual abuse. I’m also glad nothing bothers her. But I’m really glad that she’s not the final arbiter of these things, because I think her response is a bit on the abnormally blase side of things. And since I can’t ask her myself, I guess anecdote isn’t evidence for me.
Also, if you guys, any of you, think this girl isn’t going to find out about the tea-bagging… you don’t know frat guys. That story is going to get told, retold, passed around, bragged on, oh, maybe even published on the Internet, and that girl WILL hear about it. I’m sure she already has, wherever she is. What’s the harm done then?
Your appeal to authority here is romantic and quite touching, but just because you married a Vulcan doesn’t mean that putting a dick in an unconsenting mouth is a situation where no one is harmed. It’s a sexual violation, an act of belittling humiliation. It’s not the end of anyone’s life, but there should be consequences befitting the nature and intent of the act. Because the intent WAS to harm the girl, even if she didn’t know about it.
We may just have to agree to disagree on this, though I honestly am going to call bullshit that you and your wife wouldn’t care if some drunk asshole tea-bagged her without her consent in front of a room full of cackling frat boys. Maybe you should picture it in your mind’s eye for about 10 minutes or so before you fire off another response. Really get a good image of it in your mind. Nice, right? No big deal. :rolleyes:
I had hoped you had nothing more to say to me. Dammit, keep your fucking word.
I also note that you can’t make an argument without, um, enhancing the specific behaviors, nor without committing the same “If you ain’t agin it, yer fer it” type thinking. Sadly limited.
You’re the one who wanted to bring my wife into it. When I do, you dismiss her as abnormal and an anecdote.
Ah, c’est la guerre.
Gladly. While I normally don’t whip this out to win arguments, I think it will be useful in understanding where I am coming from: I am a trauma survivor. I think there is a difference between acknowledging and validating painful experiences, and allowing people to believe that those painful experiences are all that marks their existence. I had to learn this the hard way, because sometimes my very well-meaning therapists would push this standardized notion of what it “means” for a person to experience Trauma X. I have experienced trauma X, Y, and Z, the more I focused on “processing” these personal experiences as somehow holding the key to my personal happiness, the more miserable I became. Have you ever been to a website for trauma survivors? They are one of the most depressing and least helpful kinds of websites that exist. They consist of 2,000 people chanting “woe is me” repeatedly and listing off their various diagnoses as if it means they somehow corner the marketing on suffering. It become a contest–who suffered more? Who deserves the most pity? The stories get more and more fantastic–I’ve talked to people who believe that as a result of their trauma, they have alters who are toddlers. They talk to each other in chat rooms using phraseology like, “I don’t wike dat.” There are also “forbidden” words – some as objectively harmless as “father” or “mother.” That might be all well and fine, but nobody gets any better–and, as I have stated before, it indulges people’s already very well-honed selfish tendencies. Self-absorption seems to be tacitly accepted if someone’s suffered enough. I for one think it’s bullshit. There is a HUGE difference between ruminating over harm done to you and grieving over harm done to you. Grieving is natural and necessary. Ruminating is encouraged by the self-help industry and many therapists, but it accomplishes nothing by way improving quality of life.
Please forgive me for the aggressiveness of my words – I’m still bitter. I’m still bitter that I allowed anyone to convince me that something that happens to you, no matter how painful, is sufficient to define who you are. I will define what my experiences meant to my life, not some therapist’s scientifically unsubstantiated victim ideology.
Having said that, placing people directly in positions of responsibility for their own personal happiness is in no way the same thing as approving of abuse and reprehensible behavior. There is no excuse for harming another person or acting in a way intended to degrade or humiliate them. It is low and vile and I condemn it.
You can’t stop talking to me either. Even though I’m totally nuts. I just think you’re full of shit. So who really has the problem here?
“Enhancing the specific behaviors”? The guy put his dick on her head in front of his friends without her permission. The particulars beyond that are just quibbles. And yeah, my response to such behaviors would be limited to an ass kicking if I could get away with it, and legal prosecution to the fullest extent of the law…
…which brings me to another point, which is that a case like this would never be prosecuted because who the hell would want to sit in a courtroom and have a ton of strangers know she was involuntarily tea-bagged? The perpetrator has very little to worry about in the way of legal ramifications BECAUSE of the humiliating nature of the act.
And an ass kicking is totally, 100% warranted in this situation. It’s getting of easy IMO. You don’t think so? Really?
She is an anecdote. I wanted you to picture for yourself the emotional/psychological ramifications of the act depicted by Architect Chore. I wanted you to imagine having feelings in this situation, not being coldly analytical and dismissive. Sexual assault is humiliating and degrading. Empirically, from Mr. Spock’s wife’s POV, it’s just skin touching skin, no biggie. To actual human being, in real life, it’s horribly embarrassing and demeaning. I wanted you to think about it from that point of view, and bringing your wife into it was a way to make that possible. But your wife is immune to such things and so are you, so you win teh intranets. Good for both of you.
Hentor, I was relieved when I read the following:
Relieved, that is, until I read this:
You talk about validating their feelings and yet you talk about how their outrage is overblown? Or how the meaning of their experiences is overblown?
I agree with you (and olivesmarch4th) that traumatic experiences don’t have to suck the life out of a person forever. And it’s good that you can help a patient to know that. But how dare you judge any woman’s feelings that have to do with being robbed of her humanity, her power? If you are a white American malel, you cannot know what I am talking about.
Maybe your wife is too young to remember what it was like before the 1970’s. Or maybe she had a role model from the beginning who empowered her and showed her how to fight and what she was capable of doing. Unlike me, when she was twelve, maybe she wasn’t automatically inducted into Future Homemakers of America and lulled to sleep.
The incident described was just as much about domination vs powerlessness as putting a Black student in chains and having an impromptu “slave auction” against his will. It is about humiliation. The words in your face come to mind.
For such a violation against an unconscious woman, I would sentence the man to not one day less than six months in jail. And that’s for the first offense. A little negative feedback has a way of curtailing the behavior of more than just one or two people. And I would hand out the same punishment to a woman when genitalia are involved. The person would be charged with a sexual offense other than rape.
This whole thread has pissed me off.
Warning: I have a slight overbite and a compulsion to grind my teeth while I sleep.
(my internal response) Whatever. It was an accurate paraphrasing.
(my attempted external response) Yeah suh! Whatever you say!
(my actual external response) Whatever. It was still an accurate paraphrasing. I don’t want creeps like him around my three daughters. “She wasn’t hurt because she was passed out?” Fuck that. I’m letting him and his ilk off easy.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s a particularly big deal, which is why I didn’t warn you. But the rules do forbid any mucking about within attributed quote tags, even paraphrasing. I’m sure you can still find lots of creative ways to call Hentor a scumbag. 