# What were you THINKING?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [October 13, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532 "2023-10-13T19:36:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1486

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**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\
**Post date:** [February 28, 2024, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/1486 "2024-02-28T18:07:27Z")

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Regarding Kavanaugh, according to @Sage_Rat pushing a woman onto a bed grinding against her and trying to tear her clothes off against her will, might all just be a harmless non-sexual prank, or simple accident. So long as there wasn’t an actual criminal conviction its all good.

I don’t have the energy to pit this with the full vitriol that it deserves, so I will let his words speak for themselves.

> [@Fuck you, Joe Manchin!](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-joe-manchin/953201/346):
>
> People can have different views of the same event. A person might say something as a joke and its interpreted or misheard as a slur. Kavanaugh might have genuinely attacked Ms. Ford, exactly as she said. He might have been pulling some stupid prank - entirely non-sexual in nature - and she misinterpreted it.

> [@Fuck you, Joe Manchin!](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-joe-manchin/953201/348):
>
> Ford did not accuse him of rape - just of grabbing her and holding her down for no good reason.

> [@Fuck you, Joe Manchin!](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-joe-manchin/953201/354):
>
> So again, if you are willing to hold that the evidence is sufficient then, by all means, disagree with Joe Manchin. But you need to be confident that the evidence doesn’t allow for any of these possibilities:
> 
> 1. Ford swapped in the [wrong person](https://innocenceproject.org/cases/ronald-cotton/) in her memory, later.
> 2. Kavanaugh stumbled, fell on her, was disoriented, and ended up pulling and pushing on things that he shouldn’t have, unintentionally. She misinterpreted.
> 3. Kavanaugh was asked to keep her upstairs by his friend, so that he and his girlfriend could have some private time. Kavanaugh saw Ford trying to leave, grabbed her, she tried to get away, he tried to hold onto her clothing as a means of not touching her anywhere intimate, and she misinterpreted it as an attempt to pull her clothes off.
> 4. Various other options of similar ilk.

For the record here is what Ford herself said about the encounter.

> I was pushed onto the bed and Brett got on top of me. He began running his hands over my body and grinding his hips into me. I yelled, hoping someone downstairs might hear me, and tried to get away from him, but his weight was heavy. Brett groped me and tried to take off my clothes. He had a hard time because he was so drunk, and because I was wearing a one-piece bathing suit under my clothes. I believed he was going to rape me.

But maybe she was mistaken and he just accidentally fell against her. 🤮

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