My scenario was a hypothetical, but it was MY hypothetical and Consolation does NOT have the right to change it into something quite different. I did NOT say the young woman was drunk. I did say she may have had a few drinks. Note that I did not say she definitely had. I also didn't say she was drunk. Consolation said that was the only possible reason that she wouldn't just leave when the guy paused to put on a condom and it was "just another drunken hook up." I disagree and, yes, I think it's disgusting to suggest that if a young woman didn't just leave when the aggressor "paused" to put on a condom she must have been drunk. If Consolation's attitude is that a young woman who is not "blotto" in that situation can just get up and leave when the man has decided he's not going to let her, then yes, I hope Consolation doesn't have a daughter. After the daughter has been raped, asking "Why didn't you just leave? You MUST have been "blotto" " isn't what I'd call sympathetic. For saying this, I am a "vicious *****." Put my wish that Consolation doesn't have a daughter on steroids.
One of the "details" in "Lucky" Consolation seems to have forgotten is that many people including Alice's FATHER could not understand why she didn't fight harder. HE blamed Alice for not fighting harder physically. Another is that she later realized that the policeman who took her first complaint did not believe her. Alice didn't just wake up 10 years later and discover she was suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome. Alice became an alcoholic who eventually came to recognize that alcohol was the coping mechanism she used to deal not only with the fact that she had been raped but the responses she experienced when she reported it. Alice wasn't "ashamed" when the rape first happened. It was a stranger rape. She was stone cold sober when it happened. Yet Alice experienced exactly what we've experienced in the thread. "This story doesn't 'smell' right." "Printing this victim's story of what happened is "yellow journalism."
How on earth does that poster know that the Amherst college paper didn't verify some of the facts? What if 2 women on the staff said "Yes, I was raped. I went to the counseling center and I too was discouraged from reporting the crime. I too was told to forgive and forget. I'm not as brave as Angie and you can't report my story, but , yes, I experienced something similar. "
Another post acknowledged that "not every" or maybe even "many" guys in my scenario wouldn't be convicted. IRL, it would be absolutely extraordinary for criminal charges to be BROUGHT against the perp in that situation. If there was a condom, a rape kit isn't going to prove a darn thing. And even if there wasn't , he'll say the sex was consensual. There is NO way in that scenario that a jury is going to find rape "beyond a reasonable doubt" so there is NO way that most prosecutors would file charges.
This isn't just about "shame." This is about FEAR. Forget rape. Imagine someone mugged you and in doing so beat you very, very badly. Imagine that person was someone you saw on campus all the time. Heck, I know someone who lived a version of that at the age of 8. Another child in school beat her up. She named the assailant but the assailant didn't admit it and said that the victim must have her confused with someone else. Because there were no witnesses and no other proof, the school did nothing. The victim had to go back to the same classroom as the child who beat her. Guess which child's parents withdrew her from the school. The little girl was NOT ashamed, but she was SCARED. I'm sure Angie was too.
Consolation goes on to tell us that "empowering" women is the "only thing that will work." Empowering women? When someone is bigger than you are I don't care what kind of attitude you have. Remember poor Annie Le? She was the small Ph.D candidate at Yale who was raped and murdered by a lab tech who was angry because she left the mice cages dirty. Annie was a bright beautiful young woman who was in a competitive doctoral program. The guy who raped and murdered her was a high school grad with a low level job who KNEW that complaining about Annie would do him no good because she was far above him in the academic hierarchy, so he used his physical power. Oh, Consolations would have "empowered" her. I'm sure that would have prevented her rape and murder.
As for Savannah Dietrich...the young men ADMITTED what they had done to a police officer. That's rare. And, there was physical evidence corroborating Savannah's story--the photos on the cell phone belonging to one of them. So, while I applaud Savannah Dietrich's bravery--if you check you'll see I started the thread--it's just a very different scenario than most acquaintance rapes. Nevertheless...remember Will Frey's father's reaction? He tried to tell the police officer that Savannah was ..well..not a nice young woman. We don't know exactly what he said. We do know that when police questioned his son...HE WANTED TO TRASH THE VICTIM.
If you want to go beyond the hypothetical, the U of Montana has a major rape scandal going on now. One of the victims was alone in a dorm room with a football player WATCHING A MOVIE when he allegedly overpowered and raped her. From what I've read, there was no drinking involved and there was no "foreplay" involved. I guess we need to "empower" the alleged victim because that's the ONLY answer. Why didn't she just leave when he started to rape her?
University of Montana QB Jordan Johnson charged with rape ? USATODAY.com
Jordan claims it was consensual sex. Maybe it was. I don't know. I do know though that even if it wasn't, he's extremely probable that he will be able to create a "reasonable doubt" that it was.
Women are only half of the equation. We need to do something about our young men. We need to change the culture. We need to convince young people of both sexes that sexual encounters shouldn't occur unless both parties have agreed while sober that they want to have sex with each other. We need to teach our young men to speak up when some other guy brags about his "score." We need to teach them to intervene when they see a young woman who seems to be in a bad situation. There's a frat house at Penn at which something like 7 young women reported they were raped while in the bathroom. The parties were loud. The alleged perps pushed into the bathroom behind the women as they entered, locked the door behind them and raped them. I'm sure that in each and every case there will be reasonable doubt. Do I think that seven young women who didn't know each other would make up the same story? Nope, I don't. That doesn't matter. What does matter is that in each individual case, it will be almost impossible to prove the guilt of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt.
"Empowering" women is the only thing that will work? Yeah, I see RED when I read lies like that. That's felony stupid.
The trouble with emphasizing empowerment of women is that it is only a long term solution and doesn't stop what is happening today. Besides, with other crimes we don't say victims need to do this or that. If our kids get their laptops stolen, do we say they need to get a better lock or schools should enhance the security? Do we tell buliies stop right now or else or tell victims go to a self-defense class?
