Woman blogs about sexual assault at tech conference

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I came across this story and am interested to hear Dopers’ opinions.

A woman alleges she was sexually assaulted at a post-tech-convention after-party at a bar, posts the allegations on her blog (naming the guy), and the story spreads like wildfire via Twitter, Reddit, tech blogs, etc.

Links:

Gawker: Googler Accuses Twitter Engineer of Sexual Assault on Her Blog

The woman’s blog

The woman is a Google technical writer and the guy is a Twitter engineer, and they were attending the ApacheCon tech conference in Atlanta. The night started out with the woman inviting people back to her hotel room for beer pong and socializing. Much drinking ensues and the crowd outgrows the hotel room. They move to the Irish pub next door, where the party continues. Then as she is on her way to the bathroom, the guy calls her over, pull her forward and kisses her. She pushes him off, verbally protests, then “He responded by jamming his hand into my underwear and fumbling.”

She posted an account of the whole evening on her blog, and names the guy. She apparently has contacted the police but I cannot find any more information about what action police have taken, if any.

This story raises many issues. Undoubtedly people are going to rip into the woman for her actions throughout the night, including self-described heavy drinking, “flirting,” sitting in laps, etc. While I do not want to blame the victim, after reading her account, I can’t help but feel that her story reflects a sort of blase attitude while making a very serious accusation.

An additional thought. If she/law enforcement seeks to prosecute this guy, it doesn’t seem like it would be such a great idea to post a detailed public account of the partying and drinking; it just gives the defense a goldmine of material to use against her.

Also, if the guy is not prosecuted, or is and found not guilty, can he sue her for libel?

He is, of course, innocent until proven guilty, but with the way this story has quickly spread across the Internet, this guy will never live this down.

What are your thoughts?

2

Honestly and hopefully, “She was asking for it” is no longer a Defense. It hardly matters how much she was drinking, or flirting, or whatever. IF it happened as you stated, that he made an advance, she rebuffed him, and then he physically and sexually assaulted her by shoving him hand down her underwear, then he deserves to go to jail. Period.

If it did not happen, and others come forth as witnesses saying that nothing of the kind ever transpired, then oh hell yes, I hope he sues her within an inch of her life for Defamation of Character.

3

Hmmm…I am not so convinced.

While “she asked for it” is never a valid defence,

At the same time if the behaviour she is complaining about is similiar to behaviour that was ok earlier in the night I think it should make a difference.

Of course this does presuppose the nature of the “sitting in the lap” cited, and who it was with…

4

She consented to sitting on people’s laps. She consented to talking to the man on the way to the pub loo. She did not consent to being grabbed and kissed. She did not consent to having his hands fumbling in her underwear.

Seems clear to me.

I absolutely hate all of the victim blaming and “seems suspicious she’s been assaulted before, she’s not that hot” comments over at Reddit :frowning: Are people really this naive of what it’s like to be a woman in a man’s world nowdays?

5

I think the woman showed poor judgment. I think the man showed poor judgment.

And if it was that serious to me, I’d call the police before I tweeted it.

6

She did call the police, didn’t she? I thought she had. And talking to her friends about it - on Twitter, on the phone, or in person - doesn’t seem an unreasonable thing to do, particularly if she was pissed off rather than deeply traumatised. There’s no mandatory reaction to being assaulted, after all.

And, without meaning to pick on you PunditLisa, it seems to me that sticking your hands in someone else’s knickers when you know they’re not interested is rather more than poor judgment.

7

She put Groperman McGropie in his place - nothing wrong with that.

8

This is my opinion.

Also, how can anyone here be in a fair position to know what exactly really happened at the time? Based solely on what someone has written in their online blog?
Before condemning anyone I think one should be more open minded until learning more of the facts. (the sole approach of handling this by writing it in their blog raises credibility red flags for me)

9

It’s hard to learn more about what happened other than their “she said, he said” stories, frankly. It’s not like there are any DNA samples or anything.

10

Oh shit - it happened in Atlanta, and we just elected Nathan Deal our governor

11

That the odds are good she just made it all up to destroy his reputation, but we’ll never know for sure either way. But her actions to me look like someone setting out to publically ruin someone else via rumor mongering.

Could he sue her for libel? Perhaps, but what are the odds he’d win? The courts tend to be indifferent towards punishing false accusations of rape/sexual assault. And his reputation would still be ruined. Guilty or innocent, he’s screwed.

12

Mm, I’m thinking there’s more concrete evidence of rumormongering here (assuming there’s nothing to the story) than in most cases where it’s just verbal, so that’s more to prosecute on. Plus I’ve definitely heard of charges being brought against women who make up stories of assault, so it’s possible.

13

Taking her story at face value, she did nothing wrong except to make this public. It could hurt her defence (the lawyers will put the “girl gone wild” spin on this, for sure). Also, let’s say the guy gets convicted and gets put on probation (or whatever). His name is still besmirched forever through the internets. I think, if he did do this, he’s a jerk. But even jerks don’t deserve that.

14

It isn’t exactly a surprise, though she herself wasn’t wise.

I’m pretty careful at tech conferences. I don’t drink to excess. I don’t hang out with people who know where my room is. I don’t let people into my room (except my own coworkers and then its 'come on in while I get my laptop into its bag). I’m well past young and cute, learned long ago how to give off a “don’t mess with me” vibe - and I’ve still had moments - a few years ago a drunk guy at tech ed who insisted on escorting me back to my hotel room (I managed to shake him by excusing myself to the ladies room and asking him to wait for me - for all I know, he is still on a bench waiting for me).

But her not being wise doesn’t excuse him being alledgedly criminal. Getting drunk and flirting isn’t against the law - shoving your hands down someone’s pants without there permission is.

And since it will go no where legally, she might as well out him on her blog. But then again, might not be wise - she might not enjoy the commentary about how stupid her own actions were.

15

She shouldn’t have blogged about it. Not publicly like that. She wasn’t using a private medium to communicate with friends, but a very public publishing tool. That was a mistake and is now putting her on trial in the public eye.

In the blog, she’s talking about it being very crowded and how she had to squeeze into “any available space.” She was leaning on people and in their laps to try to find space to join the conversation. That doesn’t strike me as unusual or sexual. Even if it was sexual, consenting to sexual contact at one time doesn’t mean you consent to sexual contact at all times.

If it happened as she described the guy was a nasty creep, but like monsto said she’s hurt her own case by making it public the way she did.

16

This is a bit off-topic, but this woman makes it seem like this has happened to her before, perhaps numerous times. Also, I think there are many Doper women who have been sexually assaulted numerous times.

So, I have never been assaulted in my life. I used to go to a lot of bars and drink a lot, I still go running at night by myself, etc. And, not that rape is necessarily about looks, but I’m not hideously ugly or anything. I know this is a scary line to tread, but why does it happen to some women and not others? Why does it happen to some women numerous times? This blog author made it seem like she’s been assaulted many times before. Why/how does that happen?

17

I’ve read a lot of books on rape recovery and my WAG based on them is that people who suffer certain psychological reactions to being assaulted become repeat victims. If they blame themselves or feel that they reacted “wrong” they’re more likely to doubt themselves later. If you doubt yourself and then run into people who rub all the wrong instincts you’re less likely to remove yourself from that person’s company. Someone who trusts their gut instinct is less likely to find him or herself in those situations. It might even be an entirely subconscious avoidance response.

In my own case, I’m certain that being attacked when I was in high school is why I got myself into a bad situation in college. A situation that somebody else might have said “fuck off” to and walked away from instead left me petrified and panicked and making poor choices for my safety.

18

My opinion? It’s about the company you hang out with and–sorry–the way you carry yourself. Sounds like she likes fun, attention, and hosting “let’s get smashed” parties. The latter is not my cup of tea (especially at a work-related conference), but there’s nothing wrong with it as long as people conduct themselves properly. But couple the kind of personality that likes getting drunk and fun-crazy with an environment full of fun-loving young guys (possibly guys who are used to being in male-dominated environments…which would be the tech industry), and you get yourself into situations where people misread cues or do inappropriate things because alcohol is clouding EVERYONE’S judgement.

I’m not the type of woman who likes to go to the bathroom with other women. In fact, I hate when a woman tags along with me and then talks to me about stupid stuff through the stall (unless it’s “can I borrow some toliet paper or a tampon?”, leave me alone please). However, this is a situation where a female bud would have come in handy. Let’s hope she isn’t one of those “I hate other women” type of chicks. They also crop up a lot in male-dominated industries.

19

That’s Twitter for you. Once he made his move he was obviously desperate, knowing that he only had 138 digits left.

20

My personal opinion is that some women repeatedly put themselves into situations where the odds of Mr. Assault happening by are higher than they would otherwise be. And by that, I don’t mean jogging late at night.

It has to do with the way they carry themselves, the way they dress, the way they interact with people. Sometimes they give out mixed signals. Sometimes they don’t seem to have very good “Bad Guy” radar.

Assuming the story actually happened as told… her response to a kiss being a physical push away from herself, that’s a pretty clear “NO” and should clear up any prior ambiguous signals. Most men, in my experience, would get the message and back off at that point, some might even apologize for any misunderstanding. If it had just ended at that point I’d call it rude behavior but not something criminal.

However - a decent man should not drink to the point he finds jamming his hands into someone’s underwear an acceptable response to a post-kiss shove. And if he thinks that’s OK sober he’s not a decent man. It’s continuing any form of touching past that shove that makes this a trip into sexual assault territory.

Is it as bad as a full-out rape? No. It’s still not acceptable.