My opinion is that this is ridiculous, and that your belief is not motivated by logic but by an attempt, even if subliminal, to undercut my assertion that Christine Ford’s experience was less serious than full on rape.
I’m going to PM the rest of my response, however, in case it may hit too hard or come to close to home for some of the thread’s readers who may be victims themselves. Feel free to respond in kind, or here if you think you can in a way that would be acceptable.
Maybe it might be an idea to get back into watching some media (Perry Mason re-runs don’t count) to bring you up into the 21st century’s cultural mores.
Just a thought.
Your opinion is fucking irrelevant. There is no logic involved in emotional responses to events.
And no, I am not responding to your PM. Bring your shit here mate…
It was sexual assault and deprivation of liberty. Both are serious offences and both would get you immediate terms of imprisonment.
Your insistence that if a sexual assault doesn’t involve penetration that it is not serious is wrong.
As for you knowing what women thought about being attacked, STFU. You don’t know.
Except for Kambuckta?
Mighty big of ya’.
As for your concern that your unfettered opinions might upset any sexual assault victims reading the thread, I think the thread title has got you covered.
Unsurprisingly given the venue, you’re conflating entirely different things.
Or is it your position that your opinion is the same thing as their response to these crimes?
If kambuckta has been a victim of rape I’m unaware of it.
And no, kambucta, I’m not going to post my response here for the reason I stated. Feel free to post it yourself if you’re so unconcerned about it’s potential repercussions.
What?
What? I haven’t read your PM and you would be aware of this as well. If you’re so smart and brave, post it here instead, YOURSELF.
And here we have the SDMB in full bloom. First I’m damned for being insensitive to women’s feelings and then I’m damned for trying to take them into consideration.
Someone once commented on Facebook that you can’t win with women, because: “They get offended if you compliment 'em and insulted if you don’t.”
I appreciate the sentiment.
Indeed.
It has nothing to do with bravery. (Or being smart, for that matter.) I felt and still do that the content may be too upsetting for some of the women in this thread who may be victims of rape themselves. I’ve been reading the thread about the experiences many women here have had, and contrary to popular opinion I’m not an uncaring ogre. It was my hope to make you aware of your own stupidity without unnecessarily upsetting other women in the thread.
What?
He knows what women want, what women feel, and what women think and it’s his role as a superior being, he gets to control what women see or do. 
(hint for paternalistic nutjobs: We don’t need you to decide ANYTHING. We decide it ourselves. You know, whether being physically attacked is “not serious”, stuff like that.)
The point isn’t that men get to tell you how to feel. Christine Ford is clearly free to interpret the seriousness of what she says happened to her in any way she feels she should.
Feelings aren’t determinative, however. Why do you suppose we don’t let crime victims dictate which charges are brought and to what degree once the perpetrator has been arrested?
Because the impact on the victim matters. And here in Australia at least, the victim of a crime (sexual or not) has an opportunity to have his/her voice heard prior to sentencing of an offender.
Why is this so hard for you to understand SA? How come, after umpteen threads calling you out, you STILL cling to your prehistoric ideas and outmoded opinions, and you are as tenacious as fucken super-glue?
You’ve been here on this board for a long time. Has ANYTHING permeated your thick skull yet?
Certainly the impact matters. We have victim impact statements in our courts too.
But we don’t allow people guilty of manslaughter to be charged with first degree murder simply because the family of the victim feels it was first degree murder.
Does this ring a bell:
Or this from the so-called rape culture thread:
Compare & contrast
Certainly compare and contrast. A dispassionate and objective assessment will reveal both statements to be correct.
I’ve stated multiple times now that what Ford says happened to her is not all that serious compared to actual instances of rape. This is undeniable and will remain so no matter how long or how many times you or anyone else regurgitates that post.
and yet every right-thinking person denies it.
Sexual assault is a criminal offence.
It is serious.
Deprivation of liberty is a criminal offence.
It is serious
Whether there are other criminal offences, whether more serious or less serious is IRRELEVANT to the seriousness of these offences.
Whether another victim had more injuries than this one does not in any way, shape or form mean that this SEXUAL ASSAULT is “not that serious”. It does not mean that this DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY is “not that serious”.
I’m getting more than a little tired of this. Maybe if I put it in caps it’ll finally sink in: I DID NOT SAY, AND I HAVE NEVER SAID, THAT SEXUAL ASSAULT IS NOT SERIOUS!
What I have done is make the perfectly valid observation that what is alleged to have happened in this case is relatively minor compared to other more serious degrees of sexual assault.
Let me put it this way: What if you were to say to me that you had an upper respiratory infection and that it makes you feel terrible and is the worst thing ever, and I were to answer that your infection is actually relatively minor because I have other things in mind, such as pneumonia, emphysema and lung cancer. Does that mean I’m alleging your upper respiratory infection is meaningless or not significant? Of course not.
Same thing here. Do you insist that to be shoved into a room and onto a bed by a stumbling drunk kid and deprived of your liberty for five minutes or so is equivalent to being kidnapped, spirited off to an unknown location, and held captive for days or weeks and chained inside a small, cramped holding cell where you are forced to use a bucket for a toilet and are periodically raped?
There is deprivation of liberty and then there is deprivation of liberty. I maintain that Ford’s deprivation of liberty, to the extent you want to make it about this, is relatively minor compared to that which many other women have faced.
Again, this is undeniable, and plain as the nose on your face. I’m at a loss to understand why you people keep coming back to it. As for me, I think I’m just going to start posting links to the many posts I’ve already made on this subject every time somebody raises it with me again.