@Hollyjokers: Thanks for your replies. We're obviously coming at this case from different perspectives, but you've helped me to understand a little more where that divide is coming from.
If we start from what we have in common, it seems like everyone here believes that this girl was sexually assaulted and that the actions of both the accused and the boys who stood by and videotaped, photographed and laughed about it are really disturbing.
Beyond that, your posts seem to reiterate that the accusations and public outrage about this case are exaggerated. The response that you are describing though, was fueled by the exact opposite feeling that many people had reading about this case -- that the rape and the actions of the boys involved were being minimized. After reading some of the responses here, I think where people stand on this might be partly to do with how people understand the terms 'rape' and 'gang rape'.
For example, I thought that referring to the assault in the car as "being interfered with" was offensive, and you replied that you wrote this because you were uncomfortable with the alternative "being fingered". But IMO, this reply is still omitting that the act was a sexual assault. (Referring to rape as a 'bad decision' gets me riled up for the same reason).
Just to clarify: Here's a defn. of rape according to the US Department of Justice: (link)
Along the same lines, you suggested the term 'gang rape' doesn't apply here. I'm not sure if you acknowledged LinX's post, which makes it clear that this situation is exactly characteristic of 'gang rape'. But your posts continue to suggest that others are exaggerating their 'narrative' of how this crime took place -- even as you suggest one based on your imagination of what happened that night. Explaining why you think the girl was probably drunk and not drugged, you wrote:
I haven't seen Project X, so I can only imagine the Hollywood version of 'roofies' or 'gang rape' that you might associate with these terms. If you want a real life description, I recommend checking out the book "Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood and Privilege on Campus" by Peggy Sanday. (link to google books) I looked it up after coming across the CNN article I posted earlier. Like the link posted by LinX, it offers some shockingly similar descriptions to the Steubenville case and is an eye opener about rape and how it is dealt with on campus, by LE, and in the court system.
Finally,
Another point on which we agree, yay! But if we really agree on this, we don't need to argue about whether the victim drank, at which point she could walk or was carried, or anything else about how she acted that night or in the past. All we need to know is whether she was able to consent, and I'm pretty sure that anyone who has read the court transcripts would agree that the evidence, so far, suggests she was not.
The term rape apologist was taken out of my last post. I totally get that the mods are trying to keep the peace around here (thanks mods
), but for the record, I didn't mean it as an insult to any particular poster, but as a label for a certain kind of argument that keeps popping up. It would be cool to be able to talk about it directly because it seems like a rational conversation could clear so much of this up! But it's hard to do in practice with such a heated topic.
Here's a definition though so that at least the term is clear:
I think it's fair to be critical of evidence taken from social media and posted on the internet. But we should be careful not to turn this around and forget who the real victim in this case is, and defending the accused shouldn't be done by blaming the victim.
(Sorry for the extra-long post, if you made it all the way here!)
If we start from what we have in common, it seems like everyone here believes that this girl was sexually assaulted and that the actions of both the accused and the boys who stood by and videotaped, photographed and laughed about it are really disturbing.
Beyond that, your posts seem to reiterate that the accusations and public outrage about this case are exaggerated. The response that you are describing though, was fueled by the exact opposite feeling that many people had reading about this case -- that the rape and the actions of the boys involved were being minimized. After reading some of the responses here, I think where people stand on this might be partly to do with how people understand the terms 'rape' and 'gang rape'.
For example, I thought that referring to the assault in the car as "being interfered with" was offensive, and you replied that you wrote this because you were uncomfortable with the alternative "being fingered". But IMO, this reply is still omitting that the act was a sexual assault. (Referring to rape as a 'bad decision' gets me riled up for the same reason).
Just to clarify: Here's a defn. of rape according to the US Department of Justice: (link)
Along the same lines, you suggested the term 'gang rape' doesn't apply here. I'm not sure if you acknowledged LinX's post, which makes it clear that this situation is exactly characteristic of 'gang rape'. But your posts continue to suggest that others are exaggerating their 'narrative' of how this crime took place -- even as you suggest one based on your imagination of what happened that night. Explaining why you think the girl was probably drunk and not drugged, you wrote:
I haven't seen Project X, so I can only imagine the Hollywood version of 'roofies' or 'gang rape' that you might associate with these terms. If you want a real life description, I recommend checking out the book "Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood and Privilege on Campus" by Peggy Sanday. (link to google books) I looked it up after coming across the CNN article I posted earlier. Like the link posted by LinX, it offers some shockingly similar descriptions to the Steubenville case and is an eye opener about rape and how it is dealt with on campus, by LE, and in the court system.
Finally,
Another point on which we agree, yay! But if we really agree on this, we don't need to argue about whether the victim drank, at which point she could walk or was carried, or anything else about how she acted that night or in the past. All we need to know is whether she was able to consent, and I'm pretty sure that anyone who has read the court transcripts would agree that the evidence, so far, suggests she was not.
The term rape apologist was taken out of my last post. I totally get that the mods are trying to keep the peace around here (thanks mods
), but for the record, I didn't mean it as an insult to any particular poster, but as a label for a certain kind of argument that keeps popping up. It would be cool to be able to talk about it directly because it seems like a rational conversation could clear so much of this up! But it's hard to do in practice with such a heated topic. Here's a definition though so that at least the term is clear:
(This was snipped from someone's response to an article that I found googling the term -- I'm sure you could find more detailed discussions on this if you search yourself, but I thought this summed it up nicely).
I think it's fair to be critical of evidence taken from social media and posted on the internet. But we should be careful not to turn this around and forget who the real victim in this case is, and defending the accused shouldn't be done by blaming the victim.
(Sorry for the extra-long post, if you made it all the way here!)
