Yes.
@Pizzagirl : Maybe not easily recognizable, but that they sometimes send off a creepy vibe: too intense, too friendly, too accommodating.
I think there can be both - the creep who emits, and the creep who acts under cover of the gentle facade. I know, and have always told my girls, that it is far often less stranger danger that will find them in a compromised position than the ease we allow ourselves with friends, those we have taken to be friends, or the unassuming acquaintance.
Thanks for the read, @momofthreeboys. I clicked out and read the article, though not the embedded links.
Of course,*** I*** think the issues discussed in the article are not the particular concerns I will need to worry about with my girls, as this is not a drinking household, we are not social drinkers and they are openly turned off by soda as well as stinky breath (attributing the smell of alcohol-laden breath with stinky for this conversation).
But I went to college, and I’ve walked over the naked, last-night’s drunken classmates who liked to pretend they had no idea how they got there or what went on, so I know how wide the world is.
After the last thread, I know to have the discussions about alcohol and drugs, and know the names of some particular pharmaceuticals of which I had previously been unaware. Having learned from you all that, as reinforced in the article, that girls on these prescription drugs who also drink, not to even mention having someone slip something into their drink, are leaving themselves particularly vulnerable to the predator type, it is all part of the foundational talk that now happens about keeping safe.
Thx.
I’m with @pizzagirl on this one. I suspect the most successful predators are the ones who come across as affable, normal young men. Most emotionally healthy young women steer clear of the obviously creepy types.
Sorry. I really don’t buy into the “the creep always gave off the creepy vibe” thing, at all. I think that’s self-preservation - we like to think that we can identify the bad guys that way.
It’s kind of like when our kids were little and we would insist on meeting the parents when they were dropped off for a playdate. As if the child molesters or otherwise bad guys would come to the door in their bathrobes scratching themselves and dropping cigarette ashes on the floor while holding a rolled-up Playboy.
There was a woman in our area – a teacher or librarian of some sort – who slept with a 13 or 14 yo male student. I knew her vaguely because our sons were in Scouts together. To the outside eye, she was absolutely your typical, kind of frumpy suburban mom who baked cookies and had a little middle aged pudge and wore capris and shopped at Chico’s, not some seductress in a negligee with whorish red lipstick.
Nothing surprises me about humans anymore - nothing. Brock Turner looked like the boy next door. I don’t know anything about this kid, but I REALLY wish we would stop pretending that we could read people’s “goodness” or “badness” though their personal presentation. The guy who molested me when I was a teenager was a Sunday school teacher, and as upright and nice-neighbor-next-door as one can imagine.
Gonna pull back from an argument over perception, because I know plenty of folks from church that my mother would have been suspicious of, and that most of the men in my family absolutely were.
Sometimes all things are possible, to borrow from the church context.
“Never judge a book by its cover” is an old, old saying.
But then, I’m generally suspicious of everyone at first.
Got it.
Having fun, so… a melding:
“The belief that God will do everything for man is as untenable as the belief that man can do everything for himself. It, too, is based on a lack of faith. We must learn that to expect God to do everything while we do nothing is not faith but superstition.” -Dr. Martin Luther King
@Waiting2exhale Just a note of caution regarding the assumption that children from a non-drinking home, who in hs are turned off by alcohol, will not drink in college. A great many students do drink in college. While pressure to drink may not be overt on some campuses, there is plenty of social pressure to participate.
I think most parents would do better to assume that their child will drink at some point, and talk to them about safety issues surrounding that. Such as, you NEVER accept a drink that someone has handed to you.
Can I move this discussion to the Indiana University page? As an IU mom, I would hope that those looking at the school page could see this…I don’t know how to move it.
Moderator’s note: Parent Cafe gets more exposure to stories than specific college forums which is why it exists here.
Individual users may open threads but not move them.
@scrabblemomb Perhaps you could place a link to this discussion on the IU page.
This issue is far broader than IU, just like the Stanford rape case really wasn’t about Stanford.
Charged in connection with TWO rape cases.
@MidwestDad3 : “@Waiting2exhale Just a note of caution regarding the assumption that children from a non-drinking home, who in hs are turned off by alcohol, will not drink in college. A great many students do drink in college. While pressure to drink may not be overt on some campuses, there is plenty of social pressure to participate.”
Yes, I know, thank you MidwestDad3, that each of our children can find themselves drawn to, and engaged in, activities that had at one time seemed anathema to them. I am also aware that it is easy to profess a conviction that is untested, and another to find one’s self challenged to hold to that conviction.
My italicized “I” was a slight nod to all the reasons I could think it might not be an issue, but then following that with “the world is wide,” was my concession to the truth that their choices and experiences will be their own, and are as yet unknown to me.
Also, to @Pizzagirl : On a re-read of my post at #24, I found it possible to infer that I was making some underhanded slight toward you or your own parents, and I want to say that was not the case.
My statement was to say that there would have been no blanket immunity placed on the people gathered there, even though that place was church - where we are far more apt to feel ‘in community’ and safe.
An article in the September 15, 2015 issue of the Indiana Daily Student describes both encounters in detail. It defies logic that the consequences against this student aren’t more severe, but he comes from a very wealthy family. One parent is Managing Director of an international asset management firm.
@midwestdad3- interesting. Combining @hanna’s thoughts (posing one possibility being that prosecutors might not have had the victim’s support to secure a conviction) with what you learned, is it possible that the rapist’s family paid a handsome sum to the victim to get her to withdraw her testimonial support?
@prospect1 I don’t have any idea, really.
It is a little interesting that a similar plea deal reportedly was offered in the St. Paul case last year, but was rejected. As we all know that choice turned out disasterously for that defendant. I would have no doubt that the IU defendant’s lawyers discussed that case with their client at length.
“is it possible that the rapist’s family paid a handsome sum to the victim to get her to withdraw her testimonial support?”
Well, that would be witness tampering. I’m sure it happens. But you often don’t have to pay people off to get them not to talk about being raped.
He gets one year probation, but is he also on the sex offender registry?