Prep School Rape

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^^^ I agree with @catlady on all counts.

IMO, the defendant comported himself well on the stand and throughout the trial. He looked very innocent and barely old enough to shave. His $90K lawyer was right to have him wear glasses and grow out that awful peroxide dye job, which probably should have been a prosecutable offense along with the sexual assault.

So what will his life be like if acquitted? Will any selective college or blue-chip corporate employer take him? (You know I’m not buying that minister crap. With his aggressiveness and moral flexibility, he’d be a natural on Wall Street.) Will his life be forever tainted? Will he find himself in trouble again, a la William Kennedy Smith?

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Me either @GnocchiB and I hope the jury feels the same way. This kid is an operator.

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@GnocchiB your second paragraph made me laugh like heck. All along I thought the same thing about his hair. Was wondering when it would come up & thought it might with the eye glass discussion earlier.

But yeah, I see him as a trader on Wall Street…no offense to the traders on this site. He has the personality traits, particularly the aggressiveness, risk-taking, cool- headedness, combined with high intelligence. If he ever gets there, one can only hope that this experience will keep his behavior clean.

464

I’m wondering if his college essay that he sent to the detective (and to Harvard) was about his interest in becoming a minister. Bet Harvard doesn’t get a lot of undergrad app

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I would imagine the whole theology/minister thing was used t help him gain acceptance to Harvard. You see that advice on CC - select an unusual or unpopular intended major to boost chances of admission.

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No offense taken @ReanaissanceMom but my DH started his career out on a Wall Street trading desk and I can assure you they are not all like that. That is a stereotype perpetuated by hollywood movies. Aggressive and smart - yes. But a good deal of those guys do have a moral compass.

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Can’t seem to get the editing feature to work on my phone. Meant to write in last sentence:

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RenaissanceMom, totally agree with your assessment of his future skills. If he gets to legally “walk away” from this, I hope the damage that’s already been done (his ruined reputation at SPS, loss of Harvard scholarship) will cause him to rethink his behaviors and appreciate the second chance he may be given. A bitter pill for everyone involved but the lawyers.

469

I could see a scenario where he’d be blackballed from a Wall Street job for pissing of some influential people.

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@doschicos I completely agree with you. I live in a NYC suburb filled with Wall Streeters. It’s a small world and her father no doubt has some pull in it.

Who knows, maybe if he walks he’ll write about this experience in a thought-provoking law school application essay, that is if he gets through college first.

471

The article in the times yesterday that I posted up thread has some really well written reader posts today both advocating for guilty and non guilty. One I just read that I think is worth posting here, although I’m not sure that I completely agree bc if she said no three times, then that should have been enough:

If one says “no,” his or her next action should be to leave or to tell the other to leave. If the other prevents the one from leaving or refuses to leave when asked, physically or by other threat, and persists in something sexual, that is force, and that is rape.

But ambiguous mutterings, not followed by concrete action, however understandable on the part of teenage girls, do not rise to that level, and teenaged boys particularly cannot be expected to parse out what they really mean. There was once a lyric, “My lips say no, no, but there is yes, yes in my eyes,” a dynamic which has been the source of unending youthful misunderstanding and unhappiness throughout the ages, and so fraught with wishful thinking on the part of the immature.

Lives of young men are ever more frequently ruined by the overzealous and self-righteous rush to punishment by people like Ms. Bazelon, and the true victims of rape (where “no” was clear and unambiguous after which sex was forced) are belittled by the ever expanding definition of rape.

What happened at St. Paul’s is disgusting, and wrong, and it speaks to a grievous failure on the part of the parents of these boys, and of the school itself in not making it clear that such behavior and motives are categorically wrong and unacceptable and why that is so. And girls should be taught explicitly to say no and to make it stick. AND there should be serious consequences for what happened in this case.

But not felony convictions.

For those who want to read the article and reader posts:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/comments/2015/08/26/magazine/the-st-pauls-rape-case-shows-why-sexual-assault-laws-must-change.html?_r=0

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I saw this on Susan Zalkind’s twitter…

[quote]
Prosecution:“He was just as concerned as her about birth control. Use your common sense.”

To what is the prosecuter referring?

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He asked her if she was on the pill, I believe. But I would point out that it is not unreasonable in such circumstances to be worried about pregnancy even if the sperm were deposited immediately outside the vagina, instead of inside it.

More evidence IMHO that these were two sexually inexperienced kids. Her more so, obviously. It sounds as if she were not initially certain whether they had had intercourse or not.

As I said before, I think she now believes she was raped–and she certainly feels violated–and he knows that even if he did not actually have intercourse he did something that was very wrong.

The whole thing makes me sad.

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@dstark - The messages between the girl and the defendant after the incident. He asked her if she was on the pill.

@RenaissanceMom
" And girls should be taught explicitly to say no and to make it stick."

How about teaching boys “No means NO!” (which she claims she said) as well as that girls (or anyone) are allowed to change their minds at ANY time as well as not objectifying females and using them as sexual fodder in misogynistic games?? I sick of the “Boys will be boys” excuse.

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Ok…thanks.

So…he pre ejaculated and the semen got into or on her underwear.

Then he put a condom on and he wore the condom for how long after the encounter?

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I had assumed that his hair went the other way–that he dyed it darker for the trial! In either event, it made me think of James Holmes.

There are many things I find incredibly troubling about the whole case, but here are a couple. (This is my “grumpy old man” self speaking.)

First, it seems like these two kind of liked each other early in the year. In a rational world why couldn’t they have just gone out to a movie and see if they wanted to see each other further? Maybe I’m just incredibly naïve.

Second, SPS is obviously a funnel to universities like Harvard, Brown and Dartmouth–schools that supposedly educate the leaders of tomorrow. If the trial has been as reported, I can’t find any instance of a logical, thoughtful, and humane reaction to anything that occurred, either by the students or the SPS adults. (Except, maybe, the sister who punched defendant in the face on graduation weekend.) For example, the school nurse is told the sex was consensual. Shouldn’t she maybe have gently questioned the victim further about what happened, particularly because a 15-yr-old can’t consent? And the friends–surely they all know what is likely to happen up in the attic room with the machinery. But on both sides–the boys and the girls–it is just wink-wink and nudge-nudge, instead of straightforward rational advice. Everyone seems far too consumed with the way things “look,” rather than being concerned with the ramifications of anyone’s actions. These kids don’t even seem to be able to communicate meaningfully, unless it is on a college admissions essay. It is all so incredibly superficial.

Much was made at the trial about the name-tile that the boys would rub whenever they walked past it. I wonder if any of them have the slightest idea who that person was, or what contributions that person has made to society? Once the trial is over, St. Paul’s has a lot to do, IMO. Maybe they could start by bringing him, or a surviving family member, back to campus.

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@doschicos I’m in total agreement with you, as I also think the writer of that nytimes reader post is, because in the same paragraph from which you pulled your quote, he/ she began the paragraph in this way:

“What happened at St. Paul’s is disgusting, and wrong, and it speaks to a grievous failure on the part of the parents of these boys, and of the school itself in not making it clear that such behavior and motives are categorically wrong and unacceptable and why that is so. And girls should be taught explicitly to say no and to make it stick. AND there should be serious consequences for what happened in this case.”

I’m pretty sure he/ she meant by this to say that boys must be taught that no means no. Period. Full stop. And that’s certainly what I’ve taught my own boys, in addition to much else, such as you don’t have sex with a girl who’s been drinking, or if you’ve been drinking; you shouldn’t just hook up (& that’s for multiple reasons that I give them), etc.

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“First, it seems like these two kind of liked each other early in the year. In a rational world why couldn’t they have just gone out to a movie and see if they wanted to see each other further? Maybe I’m just incredibly naïve.” Exactly! Even in an age of more hookups, dating and “going out” still exists - yes, even at St, Paul’s! When he was giving his testimony and being questioned by Carney, I kept thinking that if he truly liked her as much as he said he did and really did have a crush on her, why not ask her out earlier and try to have a relationship with her? Why just talk crudely with his friends about her, using very crass and ugly sexual language - since January or earlier? Why wait until 2 days before graduation to attempt to hook up? Why, as the prosecution pointed out in closing arguments, schedule only 45 minutes and bring only a blanket and a condom? Why take off, leaving her up there on the concrete floor of a dark, machinery room on the top floor of a building in the corner of campus? Why take off so fast you didn’t remove your condom??

To the school nurse’s defense: She did ask about consent so good for her on that front. It could have been with another 15 year old and therefore no issue of consent. Perhaps she did ask more but it wasn’t pertinent to the testimony and, therefore, we did not hear about it.

@dstark - the defendant claims he took the condom off while walking to the a capella concert. It was still on under his underwear, which he claimed he never took off. (but again, underwear doesn’t have to come off to have sex.)

479

He said he put the condom on while he was wearing underwear? Really?

He never took off his underwear but he leaked and somehow his leakage ended up on her underwear?

480

Maybe his ambition is to be a televangelist.