Stupid Privileged White Kid Gets 6 Months for Rape, Father describes it as "20 minutes of action"

The BBQ Pit
421

It was his own doing. He asked for leniency. And he got it. His father, his high school friend - they all asked the judge for leniency.

I was surprised by the public protests outside his house. But the minute the sentence went viral, I expected the hate mail, stalking and death threats. After all, in a world where women can get harassed on the internet for creating and writing about video games or reporting on sports, or a black woman is harassed for playing a Ghostbuster, when high schoolers are cyber bullied into suicide, is anyone surprised that the same mob culture might go after a entitled asshole who raped a woman behind a dumpster?

I still think its wrong, but it happens to be the society we live in. And until we figure out how to control the raging mobs of the internet, it will be an issue. And frankly, rapists are pretty low on my list of victims of this behavior I care about.

422

Your other posts contradict this.

423

No, it makes you a condescending jerk. I’m sorry, I know this was two days back but it’s been eating at me.

We know what the victim wanted. She wrote a 10,000 word letter explaining exactly what she wanted, which was basically for Brock Turner–and people like him–to understand that what he did–rape her–was wrong and that the issue is not “alcohol fueled promiscuity”, but rather that he invaded her body while she was utterly helpless with complete disregard for her personhood. She had 10,000 words to say what she wanted, and she never once said she wished she’d never known, that the real crime was that anyone ever told her.

Coming along behind her and deciding that the men involved should have “taken care of the situation” and then left her in ignorance–out of concern for her “emotional well-being”–is exactly the kind of shit that leads to these problems. It’s a denial of agency, of someone’s status as a adult. “Protecting” women–or anyone–by keeping them ignorant has always been to the advantage of those that controlled the truth. Coming along behind her and deciding what she probably really wanted–even when we literally have her words on what she really wanted–is the worst sort of patronizing, condescending bullshit.

424

Spice, I’m very sorry for what you suffered, but I’m impressed with your strength and sense of purpose. Your personal example is obviously a very tough situation no matter how you approached it. What I was criticizing on Twitter was, I think, a little more clear cut: no family members involved, just allegations of what they used to call “date rape”. What was happening there was that women were accusing a comedian of being a rapist and trying to undermine his career, but not only had he never been convicted, none of them had ever so much as reported him to the cops.

I believe strongly in the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair trial, the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses against you. If none of those things occur, it’s flat-out wrong to use extralegal means to torpedo someone like that. And it’s also wrong not to at least attempt to give the justice system a chance to prevent rapists from raping again (more on that below).

This is the kind of thing they were saying on Twitter. It’s extremely irresponsible to promote this kind of narrative: “Don’t bother reporting rape–no one will do anything about it anyway”. If this is what you believe (and personally, I think it’s a bit hyperbolic although I’m not saying the justice system is perfect in this regard), then the answer is to keep reporting it and to organize an activist movement to change the system. To shrug and say “fuck it, nothing we can do” or to just take the law into your own hands…that is not the good road to go down.

And I think the main likely effect, particularly in college situations, is to allow the serial predators who commit 9 out of 10 college rapes to go unchecked. Per NPR, these guys don’t even think of themselves as rapists. So even if they never get convicted, don’t you think that being questioned by the cops would be likely to make a lot of them “scared straight”? It may not be justice, exactly, but it’s better than nothing and it certainly is better for the future potential victims they end up not raping.

It’s hard to find solid statistics on all this (though it should be noted that the Washington Post gave a widely shared graphic three Pinocchios), but it is clearly far from a vanishingly small percentage of reported rapes that lead to arrest, trial, and/or conviction. If it’s a much smaller percentage of all rapes, that would–again–tend to lead to the conclusion that if people would report more rapes, there would be a lot more convictions. But again, due to the serial predatory nature of the crime, the number of potential rapes prevented would be much greater than the number of men put behind bars.

I’m glad to see at least this acknowledgement. In other quarters of the internet, people are outraged by the mere suggestion that this is a problem.

425

They don’t even process the kit.How is that helping? How is adding one more unprocessed kit to literally tens of thousands, likely hundreds of thousands, sitting in warehouses, helping? How does a woman submitting herself to humiliation to literally fill a shelf and then be ignored serve as “activism”?

Imagine you found out that your colonoscopy would never be looked at, never examined, never used for anything. Would you still say you have a responsibility to get one, because if you do, there is some chance that some doctor somewhere might look at it and discover you have cancer?

426

The thing is that the police won’t even bother to question. The vast majority of date rape leaves no evidence of its consentuality. It will really be he said/she said. The police aren’t generally going to waste their time. You said it yourself - these guys don’t even see it as rape (my rapist didn’t) - why would they confess?

It isn’t like women usually get beaten to a pulp in date rape - they might end up with a few bruises that can get written off as “rough play” or even “I don’t know where they came from.” Especially in a case where alcohol is involved (or other drugs - intentionally or unintentionally consumed) and a woman is too drunk to do anything other than say no and limply push back.

In the meantime, the police want to run a useless rape kit and put you under examination - which - if what’s happened is you’ve been raped while in a state where you couldn’t fight someone off - or didn’t choose to fight someone off (IMHO getting hit is worse than date rape - other women feel differently - but I don’t want to get hit), isn’t going to find any evidence other than “yep, there was intercourse” - and he’ll probably admit to that.

427

Really? Color me shocked. Because sending rape and death threats to uppity women and fake geek girls hasn’t been seen as a problem for years by great swaths of the internet. Why would we see it as a problem when it happens to a rapist? Between those that see this sort of behavior as acceptable and those that think that turnabout is fair play, of course there are people outraged by the suggestion that this is a problem - especially when suddenly its a problem among the very people who didn’t think what happened to Zoë Quinn, Brianna Wu, and Anita Sarkeesian was a big deal.

428

The backlog of unprocessed kits is bad. And they are sparking outrage, so I expect to see change. That’s how the system is supposed to work. But you have made a giant leap to suggest that no one ever tests any, or more than a tiny fraction, of the rape kits that are collected. We are supposed to eradicate ignorance here, and that does not appear to be what you are doing.

Going to your colonoscopy example, do you know how many Americans die every year from medical mistakes? It’s an outrageously high number. But that doesn’t suggest to me that we should stop going to the doctor. Rather, we should keep going while agitating for the system to be reformed to stop making so many fatal mistakes.

429

Those gamergate assholes are the worst. But now it appears to be people on the other side who are unbothered by the tendency of social media to generate mobs. All depends on whose ox is getting gored, I guess.

430

Yes, although I suspect there is also some overlap of the same people. Some people just enjoy being part of a mob and the temptation to harass another person is overwhelming.

And my pity is used up for victims of online harassment on people who simply were female and spoke at an SF Convention (I have a friend who used to speak on panels, she doesn’t any longer.) I don’t have a hell of a lot of it to spare for Brock. Of all the things about this case “poor Brock’s” situation bothers me the least.

431

They’ve been sparking outrage for fifteen years - you can find articles going back to the early 2000s. I’m not expecting the tinder to catch anytime soon (though there have been isolated improvements) - it seems to be pretty wet still.

432

On the one hand, yes. It’s hypocritical.

On the other hand, deciding that the important time to speak out is now, in order to point out that hypocrisy, as opposed to taking an active stand during “gamergate” (or any other similar instances) is a perfect example of male privilege perpetuating rape culture (sorry for the string of buzzwords).

433

The mob justice thing bothers me a lot, as a general social problem. It harkens back to the days of stocks and stoning, and some studies have shown most people derive pleasure from punishing people they see as having violated a social norm. I heard a fascinating interview about it on the Nerdist podcast. Some guy whose name escapes me wrote a book called So You’ve Been Publically Shamed. It’s always bothered me, and even in the case of rapist assholes it still bothers me. I don’t believe in vigilante justice.

As for women reporting rape, it makes no rational sense for someone freshly traumatized to compound their trauma while setting themselves up for social ostracism, further abuse and the harassment and humiliation that often comes out of reporting a rape. The onus is on the system to change, not the victim to sacrifice herself. No rapist will be “scared straight” by a stern talking to, either. These predators thrive on plausible deniability.

434

To clarify, choosing to speak out about inappropriate vigilante/mob justice when it’s a white/male/whatever, while choosing to be silent when the victim is female/minority/whatever is just as problematic as hypocritical feminists who participate in public shaming of Brock, if not more so.

“I was against that gamergate crap too!” But did you speak up about it? If not, why didn’t you then, and why did you speak up now?

435

It is so nice when men speak with their brains. Thanks.

436

I am also troubled by the online shaming phenomenon. I believe the book in question is by Jon Ronson, who is a regular contributor to “This American Life.”

However, yes, I become very skeptical when outrage is expressed and equivalences are drawn—Brock Turner actually raped someone, was convicted, and still the justice system let him off because he is a young, affluent, privileged, athletic, handsome white man.

Sarkeesian did nothing but express her opinion and create a series of videos. In return she was harassed and threatened and her life was made miserable. The two situations—while sharing some aspect of public action against an individual—aren’t remotely comparable.

And this ridiculous idea that individuals or employers or institutions can take no action to exclude someone who they know harms the people in their communities just because that person hasn’t been convicted of a crime, that is utterly stupid.

If I am personally satisfied that someone in my midst has a history of sexually assaulting people in my community, I have a right and a responsibility to exclude that person, regardless of whether the law has acted.

And the idea that if a woman didn’t go to the police when she was assaulted, because no one would believe her, because if would very likely not result in any punishment, because it would harm her career, because it would make her a pariah in her professional or family communities, because she would have to spend the rest of her life being identified as a rape victim, because the legal system would visit harms upon her potentially far more painful than the original assault …

For all these good reasons, when she finally finds herself in a position in which she finds the strength to speak out, she is being told “nope, if you didn’t bring it up before, then you have to spend the rest of your life pretending it didn’t happen,” that’s a fundamentally unjust, laughable, ridiculous position.

The rape victim here has no choice but to be victimized over and over and over again. And the rapists—the ones who hold a certain level of privilege in society—they get to get away with it and prosper and do it over and over. That’s what it means for our culture to be a rape culture.

437

Well said, Ascenray.

Jon Ronson, that’s it. I’ve been meaning to read that book.

438

You can read a section of it that he extracted for a New York Times article about Justine Sacco.

439

Turner has had a few bad months. In another 6 months, no one will remember his name. The screaming hordes will be on to a new outrage. There are a lot of things to be outraged about. All in all, I think he will be happy with the deal he got, rather than spending 3 to 6 years in prison.

I don’t fault Turner, or his lawyer or father, for asking for leniency. That’s pretty standard behavior in that situation, although his father did show himself to be a first class asshole. That the Judge considered it should rightly stain his name, reputation and career, which should be over now.

440

I don’t think that is true. He may not be harassed by the mobs after six months, but for the rest of his life, this shows up on a background check. His high profile college degree is gone, and he’ll be lucky to be admitted to the University of Northern Iowa - no one wants a sex predator on campus - especially one that has this much publicity around him. He will have a hard time getting a job. When his dates Google search him, he will find himself sitting at a coffee shop, waiting for women who never show.

Brock Turner gave himself a hard life. But lets be clear, he did it to himself.