Colleges Victim Blame, Turn A Blind Eye To Sexual Assault

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>is there any states where jury can not choose to beleive whomever they
want? I still wonder which if any states require jury to be instructed
to beleive the woman. What is so unequal?</p>

<br>

<p>To the best of my knowledge, juries can disobey the directions of the
court in determining guilt or innocence, thus we have jury
nullification.</p>

<br>

<p>does it occur to you that the “in-depth analysis” of rape
accusations, in some cases including polygraphs, might cause a lot
of actual rape victims to withdraw their allegations rather than go
through yet another grilling? That actual rape victims, being
hounded in this way, might say, “OK fine I made it up” rather than
continue the process?</p>

<br>

<p>One can make all kinds of speculation on a research paper after reading
the paper. I haven’t read the paper since around 2006 and do not recall
the methods that they may have taken to account for that particular
problem or if they considered it at all.</p>

<p>Has it occured to you that there are problems with self-reporting
surveys?</p>

<br>

<p>I don’t know the actual prevalence of false rape accusations. I
suspect it might vary by location. But I do know that having to go
through a long grueling process just to report a crime would tend to
discourage reports. For example, my house was recently
burglarized. I called the police, who responded and took a
report. But if they had said, you have to be grilled, you have to
take a polygraph to continue this report, I would have stopped. It’s
just not worth it-- the criminal probably won’t be caught anyway, my
insurance deductible is so high I won’t get any insurance, what’s
the point. Similarly, a true rape victim having to undergo the
“in-depth analysis,” knowing his/her rapist probably won’t be
convicted anyway, might well decide to give up even though he/she
was telling the truth. He or she might decide she just wants it to
be over with. So I’m deeply skeptical of the military analysis.</p>

<br>

<p>Have you read the study?</p>

<br>

<p>I also agree that arrests ought not be made prior to
investigation. I do believe the alleged rapist ought to have some
protection before arrest and conviction, frankly. I think the press
fails to respect our consitutional rights to “innocence until proven
guilty.”</p>

<br>

<p>The problem is that the suspected rapist is considered dangerous and
probably a flight risk. How many cases of SWAT teams killing an
innocent person in a “legal home invasion” have we seen over the
years?</p>

<br>

<p>However, I find the false rape allegations numbers at 50 or 60% to
be highly suspect. I would take anything the military alleges in
regard to rape reporting with an entire salt-lick since quite
frankly the institution has an abysmal record on this issue, and we
probably don’t even want to get into the exploitation of women, at a
sexual level, in the military, up to and including commanding
officers and admirals.</p>

<br>

<p>Did you read the report?</p>

<p>It seems like you’re using Ad Hominem reasoning.</p>

<p>The reports that state that the number on false accusations ranging
from 6% to 10% - how would you characterize the quality of research
there? Have you read the original research or are you just looking
at news reports?</p>

<br>

<p>Anectodally speaking, and given the population I interact with, I
don’t think this false accusation issue is quite the wieghty issue
of non-reporting women, or women who have been “blamed” for thier
own rape.</p>

<br>

<p>My anecdotes are quite different from yours. In the case of different
anecdotes, we turn to research. Unfortunately, there is a lack of
high-quality recent in-depth research.</p>

<br>

<p>I respect your opinion, BCEagle, and everyone needs an advocate. But I
just don’t see this as the main injustice in the argument at hand.</p>

<br>

<p>You have your cause, I have mine.</p>

<br>

<p>I’m trying to find any example of a case where the Innocence Project
freed a man for a rape because the victim made up the accusation of
rape. Can anyone supply such a case? In all the cases I’ve found,
the victim was apparently actually raped, but the attacker was
misidentified. I haven’t even found a case where the victim seems to
have deliberately misidentified her attacker. These are not cases of
false rape accusations. These are cases where the victim, perhaps
impelled by faulty police work, wrongly identified her attacker.</p>

<br>

<p>How would one know? The Innocence Project clears people by certain
means, DNA testing for example. Let’s say that there were no fluids
involved - then there wouldn’t be a way to exhonerate based on that
approach.</p>

<p>If you want an example of men being released because of a false rape
accusation, there’s the Hofstra case.</p>

<br>

<p>Fact: in post #143 in this thread, BCEagle, in discussing “false
accusation rate[s]” and “false accusers,” set forth at length
details of several cases (including the Central Park rape case, of
all things) which very clearly and very obviously had nothing to do
with false accusations of rape, but involved mistaken identification
of the culprits in rapes that had indisputably taken place. I do not
for a moment believe that in posting those details, he suddenly
intended to change the subject from false accusations to mistaken
identity. The post was highly misleading, if not intentionally
disingenuous. As was his cherry-picking of one study finding
absurdly high false accusation rates (which, for all I know, also
involved mistaken identity rather than false accusations per
se). After pulling these two little stunts, he has no more
credibility on this subject.</p>

<br>

<p>Thanks for calling me a liar.</p>

<p>Perhaps you could spend a little time perusing my posting style.</p>

<p>I frequently respond to multiple points in a post taking each point
one-by-one.</p>

<p>You don’t read my mind.</p>

<p>Don’t put words in my mouth. </p>

<br>

<p>The number of women I know who’ve never been raped or sexually
assaulted is virtually zero. Out of all those women I know against
whom such crimes have been committed, the total number of resulting
convictions (so far as I know) is one. The percentage of total
sexual assaults against women resulting in convictions is
infinitesimal, largely because the consequences to women of
reporting such an assault are almost uniformly horrifying.</p>

<br>

<p>And you call my writing suspect.</p>

<br>

<p>The idea that the percentage of made-up, false accusations of men
accused of rape is remotely comparable is laughable.</p>

<br>

<p>We must travel in vastly different circles.</p>

<p>To my knowledge, there are no studies indicating that anywhere close
to 100% of all women have been raped.</p>

<br>

<p>And yet, every single time a famous man is accused of rape (from
Polanski to DSK), enormous numbers of people think “she made it up.”
Because any woman would want to have to go through all that. Or else
she asked for it.</p>

<br>

<p>Duke Lacrosse Case.</p>

<br>

<p>So some of the comments on this thread don’t surprise me one bit. </p>

<br>

<p>I’ll have to say that your comments surprise me as being so outlandish
as to be ridiculous.</p>

<br>

<p>Consolation, any woman who has spent significant time riding a
crowded subway has been sexually assaulted. A lot of men have
grabbing and pinching fingers-- not most men, to be sure, but enough
men so that a woman on crowded public transit will encounter one
sooner or later.</p>

<br>

<p>And this resembles the legal definition of rape in what way?</p>

<br>

<p>And Donna, you’re perfectly right about BCEagle’s
disingenousness. In post #143, he gives four supposed examples of
false rape accusations, and in every case the victim was in fact
raped. The Central Park jogger was found four hours after her
assault, nearly dead of hypothermia, beaten to a coma, with one eye
hanging out of its socket. Does BCEagle think she made up the story
of her attack? Or maybe she consented? As I understand it, the
victim did not identify the wrongly convicted youths-- bad police
work led to their convictions. So what was the point of listing
that attack in a conversation about women who made up stories of
being raped?</p>

<br>

<p>You just don’t want to admit that you were wrong. If either of you
were honest, you would just quote the text that I was responding to
and my response.</p>

[ChrisTKD]

<p>CardinalFang “I’m trying to find any example of a case where the Innocence Project freed a man for a rape because the victim made up the accusation of rape. Can anyone supply such a case? These are not cases of false rape accusations.”</p>

<p>A false rape accusation need not result in prison time to destroy an innocent man’s life. You must have heard of the lacrosse case at Duke? Locally we had a male coach falsely accused of sexual assault by a female minor. The accusation was proven false and yet he lost his job, and may have to sell his house and move to be employed again.</p>

<p>The threshold evidence required to possibly expel a male student from the university would be too low, IMO. He (or his parents) could have invested as much as $200,000 in the college education. As a citizen he would be considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Why should any male student, employee or whatever be held to a different standard when it comes to his education or employment?</p>

<p>I am all for female students being protected on campus from sexual assault. But, IMO any criminal complaints should be directed to the criminal justice system and dealt with accordingly.</p>

[ChrisTKD]

<p>Cardinal Fang “any woman who has spent significant time riding a crowded subway has been sexually assaulted. A lot of men have grabbing and pinching fingers-- not most men, to be sure, but enough men so that a woman on crowded public transit will encounter one sooner or later.”</p>

<p>Well, not all women have been pinched. But I understand the issue that you bring up. However, you make the same mistake that advocacy groups have made with regard to potential rapists. You state that “a lot of men have grabbing or pinching fingers”. This is an opinion not a fact. You accuse men in general by using the term “a lot” even though you attempt to mitigate it later by stating “not most”. 2% of men could pinch a lot of hiney on the subway system. You might eventually encounter that 2%. But, 2% is a small number not “a lot of men”. Do you have any studies to support your blanket accusation against men? BTW - I’m assuming from the original post that we were discussing more serious sexual assaults and rapes not annoying behavior.</p>

[poetgrl]

<p>

You have your cause, I have mine.

</p>

<p>On this we can definitely agree.</p>

<p>

IMO any criminal complaints should be directed to the criminal justice system and dealt with accordingly.

</p>

<p>I agree with this. I do not think university security should be trusted with a rape investigation. </p>

<p>The accuser in the Duke case was not a student. The article in the OP is about female students being assaulted by male students. The Duke case was a case of trial by media, a politically ambitious DA, and a serious issue of town/gown hatred that has existed in Durham for a very long time. Of all the Universities, Duke has one of the worst relationships with the town of any. It was a political manuever on the part of the DA to go in this direction. As for Duke and how they reacted? Much can be said for innocent until proven guilty, and frankly, any organization can easily say, “We are going to reserve judgement until all the facts are in and the trial has been held. Until then, we have no comment.”</p>

<p>However, in the relatively unspectacular day-to-day existence of the college co-ed, aqcuaintance rape remains an unfortunate reality she or at the very least one of her friends will face at some point in time. Knowing how to deal with it, knowing to go to the real police, to go get a rape kit, to have a blood test for ruffies and to have all the prophylactic drugs they will give her at the hospital is important, not to mention the counseling she will need to get over what has happened to her.</p>

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>Well, not all women have been pinched. But I understand the issue
that you bring up. However, you make the same mistake that advocacy
groups have made with regard to potential rapists. You state that “a
lot of men have grabbing or pinching fingers”. This is an opinion
not a fact. You accuse men in general by using the term “a lot” even
though you attempt to mitigate it later by stating “not most”. 2% of
men could pinch a lot of hiney on the subway system. You might
eventually encounter that 2%. But, 2% is a small number not “a lot
of men”. Do you have any studies to support your blanket accusation
against men? BTW - I’m assuming from the original post that we were
discussing more serious sexual assaults and rapes not annoying
behavior.</p>

<br>

<p>I have had women approach and touch me too. Would one consider that
rape? It would qualify for assault but reasonable people let a lot
of things go.</p>

<p>We were walking out of a Barnes and Nobles last fall and I was behind
my son and a women walking in the other direction turned around and
punched him in the back. I couldn’t believe what I saw. I considered
calling the police but she looked like she was truly crazy. Is that
rape? BTW, son barely felt it - I don’t know why a very small women
would attack someone huge with muscles unless she was crazy.</p>

<br>

<p>The accuser in the Duke case was not a student.</p>

<br>

<p>This is incorrect as I pointed out before.</p>

<br>

<p>In March 2006 Crystal Gail Mangum, an African American student at
North Carolina Central University[1][2] who worked as a stripper,[3]
dancer and escort,[4] falsely accused three white Duke University
students, members of the Duke Blue Devils men’s lacrosse team, of
raping her at a party held at the house of two team’s captains in
Durham, North Carolina on March 13, 2006. Many people involved in,
or commenting on, the case, including prosecutor Mike Nifong, called
the alleged assault a hate crime or suggested it might be
one.[5][6][7][8]</p>

<br>

<p>– Wikipedia</p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>

I am all for female students being protected on campus from sexual assault. But, IMO any criminal complaints should be directed to the criminal justice system and dealt with accordingly.

</p>

<p>And here we return to where we started-- with colleges discouraging women from reporting campus rapes to the criminal justice system. Seemingly everyone here disagrees with that policy.</p>

<p>Chris, I asked for a case where the Innocence Project freed a man for rape because they discovered no rape had occurred. You brought up the Duke lacrosse case. The Innocence Project was not involved in the Duke case. Nor was it involved in the Central Park jogger case-- in the Central Park case, the real rapist confessed.</p>

<p>I asked specifically about the Innocence Project because in the context of women falsely stating they had been raped, BCEagle brought up the Innocence Project. But the Innocence Project has not, to my knowledge, freed one single man who was accused of a rape that never happened. Rather, they have freed men who were victims of misidentification; the victim was in fact raped, but not by the man convicted of the crime. The terrible fact is that while some men falsely convicted of rape because of misidentification have been freed, surely there are many more falsely convicted people, equally misidentified, languishing in jail because there is usually no DNA evidence in cases of robbery or murder. But an equally terrible fact is that many many women get raped, and their rapist goes free.</p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>BCEagle, having one’s breast or butt grabbed in the subway is not rape, but it is legally sexual assault in many jurisdictions. </p>

<p>Chris, if someone grabbed your, ahem, primary sex organ on the subway, would that count as an “annoyance” that you would shrug off? Has someone ever copped a feel of your b***s on the subway? How did you react?</p>

[Consolation]

<p>

Consolation, any woman who has spent significant time riding a crowded subway has been sexually assaulted. A lot of men have grabbing and pinching fingers-- not most men, to be sure, but enough men so that a woman on crowded public transit will encounter one sooner or later.

</p>

<p>Exactly as I thought. A ridiculously low threshold for “sexual assault.” I’m a woman. I’ve spent LOTS of time riding in crowded subways in various cities in both the US and abroad. I never experienced anything I would call “sexual assault.” The most flagrant example of groping I can recall was being at a rock concert where a drunk young guy standing behind me and my H-then-boyfriend kept attempting to grab my ass. It was extremely annoying, to say the least, but I would never call that “sexual assault.” The idea of calling that kind of annoyance “sexual assault” goes a LONG way towards explaining all of those ridiculously inflated statistics.</p>

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>having one’s breast or butt grabbed in the subway is not rape, but it is legally sexual
assault in many jurisdictions.</p>

<br>

<p>What if it is done to a guy?</p>

<p>Do you believe, as Donna does, that all women have been raped?</p>

<br>

<p>Chris, if someone grabbed your, ahem, primary sex organ on the subway, would
that count as an “annoyance” that you would shrug off?</p>

<br>

<p>When I was about ten, a guy flashed me in the library. I did not know what to make of it back then so I just shrugged it off. I later found out that there can be a lot of activity in libraries (Boston Public Library for example).</p>

<p>Women do touch men too. At least I have my anecdotal evidence. Did it bother me? No. I was too young and naive to understand what they were trying to do.</p>

[poetgrl]

<p>Look, I’ve had the annoying, gropy idiots in my day, but I want to be clear that this is resolutely NOT what I am talking about. I am specifically talking about young women who experience acquaintance rape on campus by a student at their SAME campus who is discouraged from going to the real police, as was the case in the Original Post.</p>

<p>I am not discussing anything else in my particular posts.</p>

<p>Young women, and men, frankly, need to know what to do if something like that happens to them. They need to be well-counseled and they need to be aware that even if they do decide to report, they will not have control over what the DA or police do with that information. Sometimes you report; sometimes you just get help for yourself because there is no physical evidence. But, I"m not talking about Joe Idiot on the subway, though I do recommend dyed pepper spray in the face, which worked for me.</p>

[kayf]

<p>Even if only 2% of men grope on subways, they may grope such a number of women, that many women have this experience. I agree it is not rape, but it would be nice if these animals were punished, and if BCEagle would agree this is not right. I suspect here is a lot less groping of men than of women.</p>

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>Even if only 2% of men grope on subways, they may grope such a number of women,
that many women have this experience. I agree it is not rape, but it would be nice if
these animals were punished</p>

<br>

<p>It does happen. There was a guy on the Green Line of the MBTA (Boston) that was caught groping school girls in the last few years.</p>

<p>The touching for me was mostly in the workplace, a few times when I was 16 and once when I was in my early twenties so the people were known to me. It probably happens a lot less to men given that the motivations are considerably different.</p>

[Dad_of_3]

<p>

The number of women I know who’ve never been raped or sexually assaulted is virtually zero.

Consolation, any woman who has spent significant time riding a crowded subway has been sexually assaulted. A lot of men have grabbing and pinching fingers–

And by making this the definition you’ve effectively dumbed down the crime of “sexual assault”. A hookerish woman once rubbed herself against me, and to include this sort of incident in the stats is as much of an insult and disservice to all those who have really suffered as any.</p>

[poetgrl]

<p>

The touching for me was mostly in the workplace, a few times when I was 16 and once when I was in my early twenties so the people were known to me. It probably happens a lot less to men given that the motivations are considerably different.

</p>

<p>the motivations are not different. This kind of thing is always about “power.” As in the toucher has power and the touchee does not. Also, if the person who was doing the touching when you were 16 was an adult, that is a crime, plain and simple. It’s not “rape” but it is not legal, either. Actually, both are sexual harrassment in the workplace, and neither are legal, per se. fwiw.</p>

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>the motivations are not different. This kind of thing is always about “power.”</p>

<br>

<p>Well, the motivations between doing something in the subway vs the workplace. I don’t think that the guys doing it on the subway are doing it for power as it is fleeting and they don’t know each other. I certainly didn’t feel a power dynamic but then again I was pretty clueless about such things at that age. These women weren’t my managers though they were all older.</p>

<p>At any rate, it’s not something that bothered me. I think that things were a lot different way back when when things were far less public than they are today. I also don’t think that there were as many things codified in law back then compared to today. Men don’t complain about unwanted attention from women unless it’s at the stalker level.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t consider it rape or sexual assault and it’s not something that I would report at work or to the police. The annoyance level was on the order of getting cut off in traffic.</p>

[DonnaL]

<p>BCEagle, I thought you were being merely disingenuous before, but now you’ve gone over the line into outright and clearly deliberate falsehood:</p>

<p>

Do you believe, as Donna does, that all women have been raped?

</p>

<p>You know very well that I didn’t say that. I said that in my own personal experience, the number of women I know who’ve never been raped OR SEXUALLY ASSAULTED is virtually zero.</p>

<p>All rape is sexual assault, but all sexual assault is not rape.</p>

<p>But it’s still a crime. Like it or not.</p>

<p>By the way, I’m not even including things like having someone expose themselves to you. Again, most women I know have had that happen to them, often beginning in childhood.</p>

[BCEagle91]

<br>

<p>You know very well that I didn’t say that. I said that in my own personal experience,
the number of women I know who’ve never been raped OR SEXUALLY ASSAULTED is
virtually zero.</p>

<br>

<p>So you don’t like strawman arguments either. Perhaps I should use them as frequently as most of you do.</p>

<br>

<p>By the way, I’m not even including things like having someone expose themselves
to you. Again, most women I know have had that happen to them, often beginning
in childhood. </p>

<br>

<p>Yeah, I know. You think that the breeze in the wind is a sign of rape.</p>

[DonnaL]

<p>So the famous BCEagle admits that he was lying.</p>

<p>All you’re really doing is demonstrating how clueless – and privileged – you are. God forbid you should keep quiet and listen to people, instead of spouting off about subjects and experiences you clearly know nothing about. I’m no expert on anyone’s life but my own, but at least I’m willing to learn.</p>

[SaintSaens]

<p>I’m having some difficulty completely figuring out what everyone is considering sexual assault. Some of the things mentioned, including flashing and grabbing, would be considered physical sexual harassment, at least with my state’s laws.</p>

[parent57]

<p>I am a guy and I don’t believe for a second that all woman have been sexually assaulted at one time or another. I don’t know any guys who do some of the things the female posters are suggesting here. Are there any female posters who have sons and who also believe 100% of females have been sexually assaulted or the male is always guilty if it is his word against hers. I would venture to say there aren’t many, primarily because I detect a certain hostility toward men that goes beyond this issue and may be due to psychological issues these posters are dealing with. We may need a panel of psychiatrists to explain this phenomenon.</p>