Treacle Toes
Time
Yes...he called it 'action' as in sexual action when in fact it was rape. So yes I agree.
Locker room talk, grab them by the pussy, when you first time having sex is rape, 20 minutes of action...the attitude says it all.
Teenager who filmed himself raping girl 'deserves leniency because he's from a good family’-US judge
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Yes...he called it 'action' as in sexual action when in fact it was rape. So yes I agree.
Locker room talk, grab them by the pussy, when you first time having sex is rape, 20 minutes of action...the attitude says it all.
8ball
1,200 lights
It's a "spoils to the victor" thing with women seen as prizes and playthings.
Treacle Toes
Time
Yes, I know. That's obvious and disgusting. Although I'd change the descriptor 'victor' to 'abuser'.
dessiato
4 years and I still cry sometimes
why?
dessiato
4 years and I still cry sometimes
Because you seemed to have missed it in your quote, and in your reading.
Ah, ok. I certainly didn't miss it in my reading.
It's a regular question people (men) ask when discussing sexual violence against women, 'how would they feel if this was their daughter/wife/sister/mother' - a question which reduces all women to daughters/wives/sisters/mothers, adjuncts to men rather than people in their own right.
dessiato
4 years and I still cry sometimes
Point taken. I didn't intend that interpretation but can see how easily it could be taken. I was thinking more of the attitude that "it's OK if my son does it to your daughter, that's just a bit of a mistake" that seems to be too often the case.
spring-peeper
Well-Known Member
I wonder what would have happened if the boy was black....
JudithB
Well-Known Member
(ETA not that I don't agree with you Mrs Miggins)
In addition...
Boys and men need to be taught that women are actual human fucking beings and not playthings or non-men. Respect for women and girls needs to be taught from an early age. Girls need to be taught they have worth. They need to be taught feminism in school
8ball
1,200 lights
I wasn't trying to 'tell' you something, I was just agreeing (and thinking aloud a little).
Albeit by "victor" I'd more meant "the richest". Being born rich does seem to be a great achievement that confers a special moral status.
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spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
It’d depend if he was on the football team, I believe.
JudithB
Well-Known Member
There are so few convictions for rape what would you say is a sentence that matches the severity?
weltweit
Well-Known Member
I don't know so much about sentencing for rape here or in the USA, I would have thought a custodial sentence for a number of years as an absolute minimum.
eta: and on the sex offenders register for life, if they have such a thing in the USA.
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existentialist
Tired and unemotional
You see, I fear that he is not a "particularly sick individual" - certainly, there's nothing to say that he's some kind of massive outlier. The fact that, to quite a few people in the US justice system, the notion that an act of rape should not compromise a "promising" career suggests that there is a segment of that society which is happy to actively condone these "particularly sick individuals".
What this is is an entitled individual: one who thinks he can do what he wants, and get away with it. It's also an individual who has managed to reach sexual, if not emotional, maturity without gaining the notion that women are more than convenient receptacles for his genitals.
The worst thing we can do is to "other" people like this, by, eg, describing them as "sick individuals", because in doing that, we say "not like us, not our problem", and promptly stop looking at ways we might be able to help other people - people just like us, there but for the grace of God, etc. - not become rapists. It's what we've done all along, and that's one of the reasons rape culture still exists - because parents don't want their kids having proper sex education, or raising their children in an atmosphere of misogyny, or because society isn't prepared to call it out when it happens and say "this is rape. Not some kids fooling around - it's rape".
JudithB
Well-Known Member
But at the end of the day they are still a child. Custodial means locked up. But there has to be counselling/therapy given to him.
This really is an area where prevention is so much better than cure. If this was a one off I don't expect there would be a thread about it.
dylanredefined
Not a house elf a tiger
Obviously she was a slut who led a nice boy on and brought shame to the family.
Mrs Miggins
Eternal
Of course.
And the dirty little bitch really has no right to ruin such a promising career. She needs to just shut up and go away.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
Are you saying that it is not an outlier to rape a drunken girl, and film it, and send the film to your mates bragging that you just raped someone. I am afraid I do think that is outlier behaviour.
And I am not sure how deep the elements of US society are that seems to condone such behaviour. Hasn't the judge been roundly criticised and the case been taken from him to be tried as an adult in a higher court?
I agree the individual thinks or thought they were entitled to get away with it, though for what specific reason I don't know.
Sorry, I don't agree with this, we are not all "there but for the grace of God, etc" one step away from committing rape, luckily for society, the majority of boys and men do know right from wrong, and society in this case is clearly saying - this was rape, it should be punished and anyone else thinking about it should also realise that they will also face the force of the law if they go down that route.
This boy is a product of his upbringing and relevant society, and they are responsible in part, probably a large part for his actions, I don't think describing him as a sick individual reduced his societies responsibility for dealing with him and any others that may potentially have the same attitudes.
JudithB
Well-Known Member
This is the world we live in. Someone accused the US president of rape. The media shrugged | Arwa Mahdawi
It's not news any more. I used to watch the American late night talk shows because they do satire on a level we have yet to attain (hail Nish Kumar and his team for getting us close) More than one of them has a segment these days called "aint got time for this" because it's what would be a scandal after another scandal after another scandal.
Hypernormalisation anyone?
It's not news any more. I used to watch the American late night talk shows because they do satire on a level we have yet to attain (hail Nish Kumar and his team for getting us close) More than one of them has a segment these days called "aint got time for this" because it's what would be a scandal after another scandal after another scandal.
Hypernormalisation anyone?
JudithB
Well-Known Member
Women cannot stop this. Men get taken to court for 1.7% of rapes and convicted for 30% of those. It looks like a bro's club. Men get away with rape.
And how many get reported? Men have to take ownership of this. I'm sorry. I really am.
Feminists have tried but I think you all know how ineffective we are as we've been around for a while now and things have gotten worse not better in some respects. We are naturally too kind to kick up a fuss and when we do we're scolded as witches
Have you seen any of Michael Conroy's work? He is trying to prevent the entitlement men have.
Men have to stop ignoring this is happening. You all know a rapist maybe more than one. It's hard to hear.
You need to get over the uncomfortable feeling you're having hearing it and then move forward to find a solution
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Going on from my last...
I don't like this notion we sometimes here that "all men are rapists". But in amongst the semantics, there's a truth - if we don't take the opportunity to teach our kids, and particularly our boys, about things like consent, then we are certainly increasing the risk that they might go on to commit acts of abuse against others, including women.
There was a very good Guilty Feminist a couple of weeks ago, talking about sex education. Two things really jumped out at me.
First, our sex education is due to be updated for the first time in eighteen years, and will - finally - include teaching on consent. Why only now? I know there's an argument that schools shouldn't have to be responsible for teaching this stuff, but fuck it, if the parents can't be relied on to do it, far better than they risk getting it taught twice than not at all. I guess, for many kids, the consent thing will have been taught implicitly, through watching their parents interact, and their own interactions with parents and each other...but it still doesn't hurt to raise the issue specifically in connection with sex.
Secondly, the whole bugbear of parents withdrawing consent for children to attend sex education lessons. And, of course, it is inevitably the very parents likely to be teaching their children either nothing, or very skewed and often misogynistic attitudes towards women who want to withdraw consent (the point of the new curriculum is that, effectively, from age 15, the child can access sex education regardless of the parents' views. But I don't think that's good enough - I wonder whether, if parents had to become guarantors for their children's sexual behaviour throughout life in return for being allowed to withdraw them from sex education, quite so many would sign up?
Sex education needs to be better - miles better (this came out in the podcast too - not just embarrassed teachers mumbling their way through some diversity bullshit, but proper, engaged, full-on exchange of ideas stuff). And it needs to be as compulsory as English, maths, or RE. More compulsory, in fact.
I don't suppose education is all there is to it, or that giving our children a decent grounding in sex and relationships education is going to be a universal panacea, but it can do no harm, and has to be worth the possibility that it reduces harm in the longer run. Or even identifies higher-risk people earlier so that interventions can happen before someone gets raped, abused, or merely left wide-eyed and ignorant.
But I suspect it won't happen - and especially not in the US - where the pressure to "keep 'em innocent", often on religious grounds, is just too overwhelming to fight back against
I don't like this notion we sometimes here that "all men are rapists". But in amongst the semantics, there's a truth - if we don't take the opportunity to teach our kids, and particularly our boys, about things like consent, then we are certainly increasing the risk that they might go on to commit acts of abuse against others, including women.
There was a very good Guilty Feminist a couple of weeks ago, talking about sex education. Two things really jumped out at me.
First, our sex education is due to be updated for the first time in eighteen years, and will - finally - include teaching on consent. Why only now? I know there's an argument that schools shouldn't have to be responsible for teaching this stuff, but fuck it, if the parents can't be relied on to do it, far better than they risk getting it taught twice than not at all. I guess, for many kids, the consent thing will have been taught implicitly, through watching their parents interact, and their own interactions with parents and each other...but it still doesn't hurt to raise the issue specifically in connection with sex.
Secondly, the whole bugbear of parents withdrawing consent for children to attend sex education lessons. And, of course, it is inevitably the very parents likely to be teaching their children either nothing, or very skewed and often misogynistic attitudes towards women who want to withdraw consent (the point of the new curriculum is that, effectively, from age 15, the child can access sex education regardless of the parents' views. But I don't think that's good enough - I wonder whether, if parents had to become guarantors for their children's sexual behaviour throughout life in return for being allowed to withdraw them from sex education, quite so many would sign up?
Sex education needs to be better - miles better (this came out in the podcast too - not just embarrassed teachers mumbling their way through some diversity bullshit, but proper, engaged, full-on exchange of ideas stuff). And it needs to be as compulsory as English, maths, or RE. More compulsory, in fact.
I don't suppose education is all there is to it, or that giving our children a decent grounding in sex and relationships education is going to be a universal panacea, but it can do no harm, and has to be worth the possibility that it reduces harm in the longer run. Or even identifies higher-risk people earlier so that interventions can happen before someone gets raped, abused, or merely left wide-eyed and ignorant.
But I suspect it won't happen - and especially not in the US - where the pressure to "keep 'em innocent", often on religious grounds, is just too overwhelming to fight back against
weltweit
Well-Known Member
I agree he needs therapy of some kind, I can't see him not getting a custodial sentence though.
Certainly if it could have been prevented, or if future young rapists could be prevented I agree measures should be taken, which specific measures I am less sure about.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
We all need to take ownership of it - not just men. But yes, the locus of the problem is definitely men.
And a big part of the problem is that, for men, when another man does something evil or abusive, we all fall over ourselves to do our silverback gorilla impressions, wanting to get macho and rip him to bits, roar, stomp, rant, and conveniently forget - OK, so weltweit disagrees with this but I think he's wrong - that these things are often just more extreme versions of behaviours many of us also do, or have done, or might have been liable to do, to some degree. These rapists aren't "monsters", they're us, and it's naive to think otherwise. They started out as cute little baby men, just like we did. And something happened...or, probably, didn't happen, so they lost the capacity to be disgusted at the idea of forcing themselves sexually on someone else. OK, maybe there's some kind of pathology deep down in there, but I just don't believe there's some kind of "monster gene" that gets switched on.
And, by continuing to insist that somehow there is, we absolve ourselves of the responsibility of doing everything possible to make sure all those cute little babies turn into halfway decent human beings who don't want to rape, murder, abuse, hurt, exploit, victimise or terrorise other people who grew up from being cute little babies, too.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Well, that's kind of what I'm banging on about, and you're disagreeing with. You assume - for the purposes of deciding how you're going to bring up and train these young men - that any of them is liable to become a sex abuser. In the same way that, when someone starts having driving lessons, you don't say "oh, this is a nice learner driver, I won't need to teach them about making sure not to mow down pedestrians" - you assume that they're as potentially likely to mow down a bus stop queue as the next learner.
What you're talking about seems to be after-the-fact stuff, which is a bit late, although better than nothing, or some vague handwavery about "preventing future young rapists". We need to do just a little bit better than that.
JudithB
Well-Known Member
Thats a really good analogy existentialist
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
You know those rapists too. You don’t live on a separate planet to men. Likewise, we all, you and me, women and men, know a paedophile too. Uncomfortable isn’t it? Let’s hear you moving forward with a solution.
Not easy is it?
JudithB
Well-Known Member
People but particularly men with regards to this topic have to move beyond the uncomfortable feeling they have when it is proven that only 1.7% of rapes are taken to court and only 30% end in conviction and YET 1 in 5 women say they have been a victim of rape or sexual assault by men. It's happening. You probably know people who have be perpetrators.
As a white woman the only correlation I can make is if a black woman tells me how white women are unkind to her and racist. I may know she does not mean me. But even typing this I feel a flush of redness and a feeling of discomfort. I do not know what it is like to be a black woman. But I cannot deny what she is telling me is true however uncomfortable that makes me feel.
As a white woman the only correlation I can make is if a black woman tells me how white women are unkind to her and racist. I may know she does not mean me. But even typing this I feel a flush of redness and a feeling of discomfort. I do not know what it is like to be a black woman. But I cannot deny what she is telling me is true however uncomfortable that makes me feel.
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