Just joking, boys will be boys: Yes, boys joke with each other in very socially unacceptable ways, it is ever so. Teen and young adult boys are the worst. However, as a society we are constantly pushing the rock up the hill to define what is acceptable and what is not. Not that long ago it was acceptable in public comedy to make big fun of people who were different - overweight, gay, from different ethnic backgrounds. But we have “evolved” to understand that these are no longer broadly acceptable subjects for joking. The treatment of women by men is the focus of a lot of discussion right now (a good thing, IMHO), but we are still in the process of discussion and “evolving” on these issues. I would expect in the future boys will be more attuned to what is acceptable in joking about the treatment of women, but we are not there yet.
Facebook as public: IMHO this discussion is also in it’s infancy in our society. We tend to understand that “everything you put online is public” as a mechanical result. But we really haven’t unpacked if it should be, and what rules should be applied. We have laws that understand the physical spaces we inhabit - the public sphere vs. our private homes, etc. But we don’t have the same discussions about the online sphere.
The rights and responsibilities of the University: Ultimately, they are the authority, they have charters and mechanisms in place to deal with anyone at any level of the organization straying from the flock. Let them do what they will.
My conclusion: Sit these knuckleheads down with a room full of women executives responsible for hiring dentist, certifying dentists, bankers who give loans to dentists starting their practices, etc., and read the posts out loud to them - shame them, they’ll get the message loud and clear. Then ship them out, they can find another school to finish up at. The school can implement sensitivity training to their future staff and students and then use them as an example in the teaching.
Really. I’ve never encountered “F, K, M” in real life, only online and only rarely, to the point that for a long time I thought this was one freak troll thing until I ran into it again from someone/somewhere different and I was like “wait, this is an online ‘thing’ now? gee, what class :rolleyes:” – and then not aimed at “people the posters knew” but at celebrities or other notables. Then again, I don’t cruise the online hangouts of the college crowd…
If it’s a fantasy, then it’s a fantasy. However, one would imagine that the university staff would be able to identify fantasies.
If someone willingly acts on the fantasies with a partner, it’s called “consensual non-consent”. Generally both parties talk about what’s on the table and what’s definitely off the table. The woman can use a safe-word to use to stop all proceedings at any time.
That process makes the activity the *opposite *of what these guys were talking about. A “hate fuck” doesn’t involve conversations between agreeing parties, for example. I imagine their chloroform scenario doesn’t, either. And it certainly ain’t the same thing as actual rape.
These don’t sound like fantasies, which are designed to arouse. This sounds like guys talking shit about women, which is more about being amusing/showing how manly you are/bonding.
I am not sure fantasies would be better, but it’s just not the same thing.
According to a recent survey I saw, around 2/3 of women have fantasizes of such things as being sexual dominated and raped, and such. You can’t criminalize 2/3 of the population for speaking of their desires. You can require that it be kept in suitable forum and that they don’t mention specific individuals which have not asked to be involved. The Facebook group was private though, so that is a suitable forum. Also it appears they want to punish everybody that was a member of the group whether they themselves have participated in any talks or not. Which is clearly way beyond called for.
I’m afraid my trust in nameless bureaucrats is rather smaller than what yours appear to be. I’d also question if the bureaucrats had access to the private FB group before various post were no doubt edited or deleted, or if they are working on a hearsay basis.
No, that’s the thing. Nobody has actually been raped, or in fact hurt or harmed in any other way. There doesn’t seem to be any victims, just some words on a private group not meant for the general public.
Can you please explain this? In what way have they already been suffering? Seems like, until a week ago, nobody but them even knew about it. Since then, all that’s happened is that other people now know what sort of assholes they are, and tests have been postponed.
If the school, the people who run and attend the school, don’t want these people around anymore, they are within their rights to not invite these guys back as students. They have the right to show them the door. THAT is freedom, freedom of association.
[QUOTE=Rune;17985580You can’t criminalize 2/3 of the population for speaking of their desires.[/QUOTE]
Not to be snarky, but do you think anyone here is calling for criminalizing anybody in this situation?
Is that the equivalent of “I’m not a racist but …” I think the difference between the state punishing you, and a private or semi-public (the university is public owned) entity punishing you with expulsion and termination of years of education is of little relevance. The punishment they’re now facing is probably more severe than any the state would have dealt out. Although I’ve come to understand that this (focus on the letter of the law vers. what is deemed fair) is a cultural difference between Americans and Europeans.
One woman’s opinion: yes. Even if they were going for MBAs I’d say expel them, for the reputation of the school alone, but medical doctors? Which is what dentists are? Oh yeah, I not only would expel them but if I could I would make sure they never practiced medicine in any form. Let them be coal miners.
Your opinion aside, it’s hugely relevant. It’s the difference between the government punishing a person for saying something disgusting, and the government forcing a 3rd party to closely associate with a person who said something disgusting.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want the government stripping away my freedoms by forcing me to associate with assholes. So, I maintain my right of association, and the assholes can go away, without whatever awesome thing they were hoping to get from me, like a diploma, or a job.
Rune. Honeybun. Dear heart. Sweetie pie. When I want to be snarky, you’ll know. I thought of three snarkalicious ways to ask the question but wanted to ask it non-snarkily to try to get a straightforward answer.
Instead, I got:
Which is a total dodge, but the answer’s implicit: you recognize that nobody is calling for criminalizing the behavior of these aholes. And the thing is, you can’t blame Americans for focusing on the letter of the law, since you’re the one who brought the law up in the first place with your comment about criminalization. You’re the one focusing on the law.
There are two interpretations of this statement, each weirder than the last. By one interpretation, the punishment of expulsion is more severe than any the state would have dealt out, since the state wouldn’t deal out any punishment in a case like this. Similarly, if their punishment was that they couldn’t have a cookie at the Dental Christmas Party, that would be more severe than any punishment the state would have dealt out.
The other interpretation is that it’s more severe than any punishment the state would have dealt out in an imaginary world in which the state deals out punishments for this sort of aholery. As obviously true as the former interpretation was, this one is obviously false, since I can easily imagine a state that takes these students, grinds them into dog food, and feeds them to pound puppies right before they’re put to sleep.
Either interpretation, in addition to being bizarre, is completely irrelevant. Who cares what punishment a real or imaginary state would offer? We’re not discussing judicial action here. We’re talking about what a professional organization should do when it comes to upholding standards of character.
If you want to make the argument that character standards have no place in professional codes of ethics, feel free to make that. So far, nobody has come close to making that case.
Jesus, you sound like an old poof but anyway I already said a discussion about the official legality rather than the general fairness of it is of little interest to me. And I kinda think it’s not fair that people should be so heavily punished for posting things to a private Internet group, which I consider somewhere between the privacy of your own home and totally public. I do however think it’s very bad form to talk about raping named individuals.
You miss my point. Guys sitting around saying 'Oh, man, my dick is so big, I’d like to fuck that bitch" are not sharing fantasies. They are talking shit about women. This is a totally different social phenomenon. It’s just unrelated to fantasies. It’s not about creating/sharing arousal, which is what fantasies do. It’s about asserting your masculinity and sharing in the masculinity of your peers.