“Sexual violence, as that term is used in this letter, refers to physical sexual acts perpetrated against a person’s will or where a person is incapable of giving consent due to the victim’s use of drugs or alcohol. An individual also may be unable to give consent due to an intellectual or other disability. A number of different acts fall into the category of sexual violence, including rape, sexual assault, sexual battery, and sexual coercion. All such acts of sexual violence are forms of sexual harassment covered under Title IX”
Victims advocates are not interested in prevention. That is not a slam, it’s just the reality. They are victim’s advocates. They don’t want mandatory reporting because then less young women will report to the campus rape headquarters and there won’t be as many victims for whom to advocate. Consolation is also correct about the definition expansion. It creates a bigger number to use when they do their activist activities.
Marie, that sounds like a mighty generalization to me. Wanna link us to something substantive?
would you say child advocates want more abused children? And that, if the definitions cover more abuse, it;s just a way to, so to say, build their business? Or animal rights folks want more abused animals to advocate for?
al2isimon: It will not be a surprise to me if you haven’t had time to read the whole thread. Also, a bunch of us have been on earlier threads on the same topic, for how long, I can’t really say… seems forever. We discussed greek life in the first hundreds of pages. Shawbridge had excellent posts: 85, 167,236 , 295. He left the thread. I reported a fraternity gang rape in the 70s. Poetgrl reported a fraternity gang rape in the 80s. Poetgrl has left the thread (and maybe the board?) I am posting about fraternities: 333
There hasn’t been too much about athletes, at least no first hand accounts so far as I recall.
One question which has come up, but not really been explored, is whether the serial rapist theory is correct or whether peer pressure corrupts otherwise decent young men.
I’m definitely not a fan of the most extreme victims advocates. I’d even go so far as to make the strong statement that I question whether the programs they provide actually do more good than harm for the mental health and recovery of most victims (just my opinion). But I’d never accuse them of being uninterested in prevention. They are right that the criminal reporting process can be traumatic as well, and any hypothetical decrease in prevention due to mandatory reporting has to be weighed against this. It’s definitely a complicated moral calculus that’s beyond me, I don’t think anyone knows the answer but I think you could get the data without having to cross this bridge. Maybe other countries with different rules about police involvement have data that would be useful too.
@lookingforward
I don’t know exactly what a child advocate is but population control advocates definitely want more birth control and easier access to abortion. Less children. But, that’s beside the point. Advocates deal with data, not people. This RS story should be proof enough of that, actually. As is the one in five controversy. In this case, the victim advocates were very happy to throw their victim under the bus when her story fell apart and that was after feeding what should very obviously have been a girl with some issues to an advocacy reporter and then crawling away from the whole mess. I find it disturbing, true enough.
And, to be clear about this I am not accusing them of anything. Prevention suggestions become victim-blaming even in the hypothetical real fast and they won’t touch that area, at all. Maybe, I’m just too pragmatic, but this idea of an ideal world where young women should be free to pass out in public with no worries makes not a lick of sense to me. Nor does reporting a rape to a dean. It just doesn’t and it never will. Sorry.
Marie: I’m posting you links to show the definition has been expanding since the beginning of time. And I have posted this umpteen times. Marital rape, acquaintance rape, etc = really new ideas. The idea it’s rape to have sex with someone too incapacitated to consent is a newer idea. I don’t have a problem with it myself.
In the first several hundred pages (and I’m pretty sure you were reading and posting) I posted repeatedly my ideas for prevention: affirmative consent, enforce campus drinking prohibitions, bystander education. I am not the only one. There has been a lot of discussion of prevention ideas on this thread.
Cardinal Fang: Thank you for doing all that research. You taught me a lot today.
adding:
And I’m so happy to see dstark looking like his old self.
And I restrained myself and didn’t flag/report any more “rape advocates” typos, though I certainly find them offensive.
Alh, actually I 'm referring to the co-mingling of rape and sexual assault which may be something far less serious than rape such as unwanted grabbing or whatever but it gets them a bigger number and the not paying much attention people still hear rape and I do think it’s intentional because it’s what all advocates do, it’s not just in this area. It’s advocacy 101.
The mandatory reporting vs non-mandatory reporting is quite interesting.
It seems that sexual assault has craved out its own niche in some way, in that the colleges are deemed to deal with sexual assault and not the crime of rape. Thus, not reporting a sexual assault is fine, state dependent. Therefore, the word crime and felony are not even applicable here because, in contrast, a school cannot know of a murder or a kidnapping and not report them, both which are also crimes and felonies. Clearly sexual assault is another animal and rape is not operative even as a term to use at any time when dealing with schools.
But how weird is that? A female gets sexuality assaulted just 30 feet inside the college gate, and it is not a crime, and the worse that could happen via a tribunal is expulsion and the perpetrator wake freely to assault again. However, the exact same thing happens 30 feet outside the gate and its a crime punishable to up to life in prison. Sorry, but that logic is just assinine. Something only government could create and think it makes sense.
@marie1234 I find your comment about advocates flippant and uninformed. Many rape advocates are volunteers who provide support by accompanying women to the hospital, subsequent medical appointments and provide information about legal resources that might be available. They undergo over 50 hours of training in order to volunteer their time and then are basically “on call” at specific time frames during each month.
So your contribution is to get up on a public message board and make statements that these dedicated volunteers have no interest in prevention?
@harvestmoon
It’s not rape advocates it’s victim advocates. And, I’m actually pretty informed on the whole advocacy thing. I will agree I tend to get flippant. Sorry. And, I’m not really talking about the support provided to victims by support groups. I am talking about the lobbyist activists who crunch the numbers and put out the press releases and feed victims to reporters. And, I’m not a fan.
Marie: Unwanted grabbing is serious to me. I already said that waaaay upthread. I’m with dstark: two strikes and you are out. I think second wave feminists should have created a campus culture where we aren’t even having a discussion about whether butt grabbing on campus is acceptable. We failed our daughters and sons. And as Poetgrl stated: you don’t get away with that in the corporate world. It even seems unacceptable at awc’s business.
…and also against the end result of the maximum being an expulsion and the perpetrator (who may be a true serial assaulter) is sent skipping down the street to another school to do it all over again.
It just seems wrong that colleges treat the butt slapper and the true rapist essentially as equals. That alone should give people pause because I think that is a horrible message to send. But that is just me.
Have butt slappers been expelled? As I recall dstark couldn’t even get posters to agree in theory that repeated butt grabbers should be removed from campus. It was seen as an individual problem.
edit: it used to be grabbing. Where does slapping come from?
Alh, I don’t even disagree with you all that much but I wouldn’t put it in the same category with felony rape. Or even close. And, as I also said earlier I do not expect the world to be perfect. Ever. That may be where we differ on this one. I got interested in this thread because from day one I was pretty sure Jackie’s story was clearly and obviously going to fall apart. And, it really did in ways that were beyond even my very high expectations and the advocates behind it promptly cancelled their interviews and went silent.
awcntb: I think you have a misunderstanding about the mandatory reporting concept. I don’t blame you since there are a fair number of technical terms that are also used on a more casual basis. For example, almost nobody is a mandatory reporter for crimes like murder, arson, robbery (I’m excluding sworn officials, doctors, etc.). In fact, generally it’s not a crime to witness a murder and not report it. Obviously I’m not saying this happens much in real life, and the ethical issues are obvious.
So you’re right that sexual assault has “carved out its own niche”, but its exactly backwards from what you think since there are at least some reporting requirements in the case of minors and the elderly (and students at some colleges). At least this is what I was told years ago; I hope I’ve remembered it faithfully.
I understand what you are trying to say here, and I will not quibble with your sentiment, but at least please be logical.
How in the world is a rape victim advocate at a hospital, at subsequent medical appointments and the teaching about legal resources helping to prevent rape? The advocates positions you cite are only employed after a rape has already occurred.
That said, such advocates are useful after any traumatic crime and it is good that they exist, but let’s not pretend that their existence is preventing anything from occurring.
Marie’s statement was that the rape victim advocates were not “interested” in prevention. People get involved because they care about a cause. Some offer support,others volunteer legal resources and others lobby to change or strengthen laws. To argue that these people have no interest in prevention is beyond the pale.