The judge found what he said to be acceptable. His supporters found it acceptable. Quite a number of people supported him, using the excuse that the woman who had been raped had been drinking and was homeless. The judge took some kind of sensitivity training and proclaimed he was a changed man and now understood what a bad bunch of things he said and wanted his job back... but he'd held out on these remedial measures as long as he could in the first place, and seemed to think he actually deserved his job back.
The fact is, he should have resigned. A judge at his level getting booted off his job for inappropriate behavior is actually pretty rare in Canada, and he's the only one to try to hold on to his job, kicking and screaming and proclaiming that he "didn't deserve" to be fired. It's disgusting, how some people stood up for him when he was so clearly guilty of re-victimizing the rape victim in court.So while many people did not support him, there were quite a few others who did - who said, "Oh, he knows now that he said a bad thing"... and dismissed the fact that no other rape victims would ever feel confident of their attackers being convicted or appropriately sentenced in this judge's courtroom, or who couldn't understand what all the fuss was about in the first place - because if the woman was drunk and homeless, she deserved whatever happened.
So let's be clear here, we're talking about the case of Robin Camp, right? The huge majority of normal people on the internet, all authorities involved in the case, and all newspapers I can find that covered the story, were against him and denounced what he said as despicable, said that he's unfit to do that job.
How you can think that this case is an example of how slut shaming is a "common thing" is beyond me. From the evidence available, it's clear that the people in favor of what he said, are a tiny minority. He's made a fool out of himself, and pretty much nobody agrees with him.
You missed the point that I was making - the JUDGE was engaging in slut-shaming. Asking her why she didn't just keep her knees together wasn't the only wrong thing he said.
No, I didn't miss your point, I just disagree with your assessment of the situation. One judge said something that outed him as a person who shouldn't be a judge. He was then removed from that position, and the vast majority of people agreed that that's the right decision.
You're ignoring all of that, looking at the small group of people agreeing with him, pointing at them and yelling: "See! See! That's Canada!!" ...no, it's not, it's just the tiny minority of people that you focus on.
Well I don't feel that bad about it. hehe. It's bad enough alpha male rapists like Trump take away my money, I don't want to lose any more because of men like him.
Yes, we live in a rape culture. Male physiology is constantly being raped by insolent females who tease, torture, play with it, utilize it extremely egoistically to gain money, attention, self-esteem, prestige, to satisfy their natural sadism or archaic religious needs. And males are totally unprotected here; culture, law, collective consciousness, everything is against them. You can be forced into erectile disfunction, vaginal slavery, homelessness or even suicide, and the woman who did that will always be right in the eyes of almost everyone.
I don't see how's that not equal to rape. Males are being sexually abused and exploited all the time and it is considered a healthy norm in this crazy modern society. Rape culture as it is.
Yes, we live in a rape culture. Male physiology is constantly being raped by insolent females who tease, torture, play with it, utilize it extremely egoistically to gain money, attention, self-esteem, prestige, to satisfy their natural sadism or archaic religious needs. And males are totally unprotected here; culture, law, collective consciousness, everything is against them. You can be forced into erectile disfunction, vaginal slavery, homelessness or even suicide, and the woman who did that will always be right in the eyes of almost everyone.
Umm, not sure if serious but there are options for men. Of course there are options for women as well, this isn't the 18th century. Nothing about this post applies to me. I live a stress free life without those complications. You can choose not to get involved with women.
Yes, we live in a rape culture. Male physiology is constantly being raped by insolent females who tease, torture, play with it, utilize it extremely egoistically to gain money, attention, self-esteem, prestige, to satisfy their natural sadism or archaic religious needs. And males are totally unprotected here; culture, law, collective consciousness, everything is against them. You can be forced into erectile disfunction, vaginal slavery, homelessness or even suicide, and the woman who did that will always be right in the eyes of almost everyone.
I don't see how's that not equal to rape. Males are being sexually abused and exploited all the time and it is considered a healthy norm in this crazy modern society. Rape culture as it is.
But what if they aren't doing even the most basic forensic inquiry when there is a rape reported? To the tune of an estimated 70,000 untested rape kits sitting in various evidence lockers around the country.
It would appear that in an awful lot of cases, cops aren't actually doing an investigation at all. So what I would like is for them to start actually making a serious attempt to prosecute sexual assaults.
After reading that article I think the reasons for the untested rape kits basically boils down to bureaucratic inefficiency rather than a deliberate effort to avoid prosecuting sexual assault cases. So while that is a huge problem that does need to be fixed somehow, I don't see it as being indicative of a "rape culture".
According to the article, the main issue would seem to be the lack of standardized regulations and procedures on how to handle sexual assault cases. That is creating a situation where some jurisdictions are doing a good job of dealing with sexual assault while others are utterly failing at it.
That's true - we're not disagreeing here. The important point is that most date rape victims are not drugged against their will, although this does happen in some cases.
You were fortunate that she was so understanding about this. A lot of women wouldn't have been.
[anecdote about friend's blackout - snipped to save space]
Alcohol in moderate doses really does increase the "fun" of socializing while decreasing social anxiety. But blackouts are terrifying, for those who get them. I'd literally never heard of anyone blacking out on a normal, social-level dose of less than 4 drinks. Looking this up later, I found that blackouts are more strongly related to the rate of blood alcohol increase than the actual amount consumed, and the fact that she hadn't eaten dinner (unbeknownst to me) meant that her body absorbed the alcohol much faster than mine. Of course women are more susceptible, and she was probably ~120 lbs while at the time I was ~160.
In this exact type of situation, in which a sexual relationship already existed, and in which the first half of the night was remembered, very few women wouldn't have been understanding. But if the situation had been a little bit different - no previous sexual activity, and the blackout had started earlier - then she would have thought I was a date rapist, and no third party would be able to tell one way or another whether or not she had consented. Being the sort of person who actually cares deeply what women think, it would have been horrible if she had thought that.
And yet legally I'd have been in the clear, because of the same thing that protects most real date rapists: no witnesses, no physical evidence, no drugs besides alcohol - just "he said/she said", which isn't enough to procure a conviction or even much of an investigation.
------
I'll throw in a little more about her, as food for thought for everyone. She was (and still is, AFAIK) in an abusive relationship - married to a guy who sometimes beat her, and raped her on at least one occasion. This guy was a physics Ph. D. student with all the right (read: left) political opinions and so on. Point is, this sort of thing happens even among academic types, not just frat boys and the like. She also has serious mental problems, exacerbated by but not initiated by the marriage to a douchebag - depression, often suicidal, and intermittent eating disorders (with associated, completely irrational, body dysmorphia). She is also a vocal, radical feminist - on the surface, with the Tumblr arguments and the protests and whatnot.
But it was all a public facade for someone who is actually really weak and vulnerable in private. I met some of her feminist buddies and immediately found out that something like half of them were in, or had been in, similar situations involving rape and sexual assault and abusive relationships and so forth. That's the thing about outspoken feminists - a very large fraction are that way because of actual victimization at the hands of men, and arguing with people on the internet and going to rallies and whatnot is a release valve to release their frustration. Of course there were also the indoctrinated gender studies types, who provided much of the language and memes but were a distinct minority of the group. With the internet putting a wall against real interaction in favor of trolling and counter-trolling, it's easy to just succumb to stereotypes and the endlessly rehashed SJW vs anti-SJW crap. There's a reality underneath the surface too, though, and it's a deeply unsettling one.
Incidentally, there are also male victims of the relatively few but real institutions that are stacked against men. Civver presented exactly such a case - divorce and custody battles usually do favor women over men, and there are some cases where women do abuse the legal system to target ex-lovers. Similar stories are found all over 'MRA' sites, and many are likely to be true. On balance, society favors men over women by a wide margin, and women are much more vulnerable to abuse, but that doesn't mean that the flipside stories are invalid. Reality is complex and disturbing, but I hope more people take it all in and try to understand each other - despite the emotional cost that real empathy imposes on people - rather than just fight the same old tired battles over and over again.
Spoilermore anecdote, not directly relevant to thread :
We met as grad students in a biochem lab, back when I was doing biochem. We hit it off for a few reasons. One, that I am genuinely a nice person who both listens and really tries to understand other people - and as a depressive myself, I really do understand mental illness. And so I listened, nonjudgmentally, and quickly became one of her closest confidantes. Red pill types should know that "nice guy" is a strategy that actually does work at least sometimes. "[Anus]" also works all too often as well. Multiple different effective reproductive strategies coexist in many animal species, us among them.
Two, at the time she was more of a mad scientist than me - always spraying ethanol directly onto the lab bench and lighting it on fire, then putting various metal salts in it to make pretty colors. Not the safest thing to do - I was worried about the totally uncontained fires spreading, although luckily that never happened. I returned the favor with mercury from an old thermometer that I broke so I could play with it, then froze it in the -80 C freezer, pulled it out, and played with it while it was still solid until it melted back, and then gave it to her. She made a potassium chlorate-based pyrotechnic that we set off after hours. And so on. Actually she was probably the single biggest influence on my developing a strong interest in chemistry, enough to do this sort of thing myself and on even crazier scale.
Three, we're both Hoosiers. More to the point, she went to a publicly funded, mostly free academy/boarding school for bright high schoolers in Indiana. Two of my best friends in high school had gone there too, and were in the year below her, although she never met either of them. Her stories meshed well with my friends', but she went further and explained more about why it exists. It's fascinating - its reason for existing and being free except room and board isn't entirely benevolent. It's actually a giant psychological research project on mental illness in gifted teenagers, hosted at Ball State University. They took routine psychological exams and their mental health was closely monitored, without real intervention except in either student-initiated or suicidal cases. Academic pressure was kept very high, and a variety of arbitrary rules were imposed partly to see how the students would respond. Her first suicide attempt occurred there - just alcohol and OTC sleeping pills, nothing likely to actually cause death. She was hospitalized for the recovery and given antidepressants, but was allowed to return to the school pretty quickly. The suicide attempt was recorded as part of the stats they collect on this population. I'm surprised they haven't been sued to oblivion, but they haven't been, at least yet.
After reading that article I think the reasons for the untested rape kits basically boils down to bureaucratic inefficiency rather than a deliberate effort to avoid prosecuting sexual assault cases. So while that is a huge problem that does need to be fixed somehow, I don't see it as being indicative of a "rape culture".
According to the article, the main issue would seem to be the lack of standardized regulations and procedures on how to handle sexual assault cases. That is creating a situation where some jurisdictions are doing a good job of dealing with sexual assault while others are utterly failing at it.
But that's culture. If this was a crime that they really cared about, there would be standards. It wouldn't get to the point where places have backlogs that go back years.
Law enforcement is mostly bureaucratic. Inefficiencies exist where they don't care enough to fix them. It's pretty clear that sexual assault is not a crime that many jurisdictions care much about. Be really careful being an apologist for that; it only further evidences the existence of rape culture.
On balance, society favors men over women by a wide margin, and women are much more vulnerable to abuse, but that doesn't mean that the flipside stories are invalid. Reality is complex and disturbing, but I hope more people take it all in and try to understand each other - despite the emotional cost that real empathy imposes on people - rather than just fight the same old tired battles over and over again.
Without minimizing what female victims of abuse go through, men are victims of domestic violence much more often than commonly thought -- women and men abuse each other about equally. It's especially bad for men because they have no recourse. If they call the police, they're likely the ones to be arrested, especially if they acted in self-defense. If they have children and need to to get their children out of the home, there are virtually no domestic violence shelters that accept men. If they try to divorce their abuser they are likely to lose custody of the children and a large portion of their assets to her. It's a very lose-lose situation.
This is a little spin off from a discussion in the Trump thread. So the idea that we live in a "rape culture" seems to be pretty popular lately, and I was wondering what you all thought about this.
I think there is no "rape culture" for the following reasons:
1. Rape is illegal. If our culture condones rape why do our laws prohibit it?
2. Nobody in their right mind would want to be considered a rapist. If rape was seen as "sexy" wouldn't people brag about being rapists?
3. Rape victims are afforded many special protections that victims of other crimes are not afforded (look up rape shield laws). This seems to suggest that our culture views rape as especially bad, not as something it condones.
What do you guys think? Do you have any friends or family that think it's cool to rape people? Do you personally support rape?
I don’t know if anyone else has addressed this, but I believe what people mean by “rape culture” was not communicated well to you. Generally speaking, when people talk about rape culture they are not talking about the whole of a society making rape a cornerstone. Instead, they are generally talking about some elements of the society who condone sexual violence or, possibly, do not fully condemn sexual violence.
Let me put it this way: the United States has an equestrian culture. It is not an equestrian culture.
The first statement is true because the United States has a segment of society that is heavily focused on riding. That segment is identifiable as a part of the greater social whole. The second statement is also true because riding does not permeate the whole of society in a manner that would describe the whole of society as being a riding culture.
So there’s a difference between having a culture type and being a culture type. Most people who comment upon rape culture intend to discuss the sub-elements of the greater society that condone sexual violence. The condemnation of those social sub-units is not a claim that all of the greater society condones sexual violence. Of course, subcultures do reflect upon the greater society, but they do not define it.
To use another example, consider an around-the-watercooler discussion of a teacher who was being fired for sleeping with a student. Most of the office condemns the action of the teacher. However, there will likely be a guy who feels that the incident should be celebrated because the student got his jollies with the older teacher. That guy is part of rape culture, not the whole office.
@BvBPL I quoted the definition in the OP. This part -- "It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm" -- seems to contradict your explanation of it. Do you disagree with the definition in the OP?
After watching "13 Reasons Why" on Netflix, I'd agree that we live in a rape culture.
No one minds sexual remarks.
No one minds sexual touching. (TSA)
Only rape gets punished, and you have to have proof somehow? plus go public about what happened to you. (Good luck shell shocked women and male prisoners)
Really, no one in this country takes things seriously until blood is on the ground.
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