August 15, 2013

"The stories of young men sexually assaulting young women seem never to stop... and there are times when I find myself darkly wondering if there’s some ineradicable predatory streak in the male subset of our species."

Writes Frank Bruni, beginning his NYT column, which proceeds to tell us about a psychology professor who blames the culture and is in the business of fixing the culture. The military uses him to teach and advise on the prevention of sexual violence, so it's in his economic interest to promote the theory that it's the culture and not the innate biology. On the other hand, even if a tendency toward violence is inborn, we demand that people overcome destructive urges and channel their energy in a positive way.

Reading the line quoted above, what I found myself wondering — darkly wondering? — is whether Bruni should have noted that he is gay and thus not susceptible to the "ineradicable predatory streak" that he imagines leads to the sexual assault of young women. Is it wrong to write something like that about men and not address his own exclusion from the category he's derogating? Maybe. There's added authority in running down one's own kind.

A more serious omission here, however, is that sexual assault in the military happens to men even more than to women. If homosexual encounters are a big part of the problem, then Bruni is protecting his own kind, and the eclipsing of his exclusion from the heterosexual group he insults becomes much more problematic.

68 comments:

Michael said...

Yeah, there's no predatory streak toward cute little underage twinks in the gay community at all. Just ask all the teenage boy actors in Hollywood. Or hang out around Belmont and Halstead in Chicago.

Birches said...

Rape culture is one of the most infuriating topics. There is no such thing as "rape culture"; it's called "Drunk culture" and "Sex culture" and when you mix the two, bad things happen to both men and women.

O2bna2 said...

" On the other hand, even if a tendency toward violence is inborn, we demand that people overcome destructive urges and channel their energy in a positive way. "

Ok Frank if tendencies forwards behavior are "inborn" and it's ok to "demand" people fight those urges who gets to decide what inborn urges are acceptable. As Ann has pointed out, you demand heterosexuals fight their urges while ignoring the cultural ramifications of homosexual urges. Are those who demand homosexuals fight their urges bigots Re homosexuals who assault men not considered violent? Or is it just that you want the left to decide??

traditionalguy said...

Dare we call it sin? Predators are mostly the lawless ones...I mean Democrats.

Shantastik said...

Excellent observation!

Matt Sablan said...

An "ineradicable predatory streak" does not necessitate male-on-female predation (though the information before the ellipses makes that the clear target.)

Then, we hit this section: "It’s not DNA we’re up against; it’s movies, manners and a set of mores, magnified in the worlds of the military and sports, that assign different roles and different worth to men and women."

Quick: Tell me what movie, manner or set of mores that you've seen that says rape is cool. In fact, rape is a special kind of evil is so common in fiction it has its own trope.

Like most of these, it also ignores the growing market share of -women- watching/downloading porn. It focuses solely on the problem with men (I talked about this problem with the Demise of Guys before, and laziness prompts self-linkage.)

The author clearly doesn't get the military either: "The armed services are a special challenge, because they’re all about aggression." No. That's not what it is all about; war is politics by another mean, after all.

YoungHegelian said...

From the article:

“We start boys off at a very early age,” Kilmartin told me during a recent phone conversation. “When the worst thing we say to a boy in sports is that he throws ‘like a girl,’ we teach boys to disrespect the feminine and disrespect women. That’s the cultural undercurrent of rape.”

Oh, good Lord in heaven, the NYT actually publishes articles by people who say shit like this?

Has no one pointed out to these guys that macho swagger may just be a good part of what turns a boy into a man capable of climbing out of a foxhole and advancing in the face of mortar & machine gun fire?

I'm sure Bruni & his ilk at the NYT probably do think that martial courage can be turned on & off like a light bulb.

submandave said...

Didn't you get the memo? Gays, like women, are an ennobled oppressed minority, and therefore immune to all the negative characteristics that seem to plague those no-good straight males. WRT the military sexual assault "epidemic," after the third mandatory emergency training stand-down it became obvious to me that the DoD leadership was at least, if not more, interested in logging millions of man-hours (or should that be people-hours?) of Sexual Assault Prevention Training (tm) in order to prove their seriousness than in actually looking for root-cause and solutions. In the last session I attended I asked the training facilitators what the actual data showed and a break-down on how many reported assaults were predatory, how many were crimes of opportunity, and how many were two people too young and drunk to effectively understand each other's intentions. They, of course, had no actual useful data, just the pre-printed "we are serious about stopping this crime" materials.

Cosmo said...

A very appropriate question, Ann. I'd be curious to see if he finds time to answer it--honestly.

Michael K said...

Having practiced surgery near Laguna Beach for 40 years, I think he just wants to ignore the ugly underbelly of gay life.

mdgiles said...

And you're surprised because? How long did they media go on and on about the "scandal in the Catholic Church", without mentioning it was mainly homosexual priests and adolescent boys?

SGT Ted said...

No psychologist is equipped nor are any of these progressive control freaks qualified to "fix the culture".

They are delusional narcissists.

grichens said...

Projection is the domain of the Left.

richard mcenroe said...

"The military uses him to teach and advise on the prevention of sexual violence..."

Howzat working out for 'em?

richard mcenroe said...

Or look at the line of high-end cars that used to circle the gay youth shelter on Santa Monica Blvd by Highland at closing every evening. (Place couldn't offer overnight shelter anymore because tricking was going on right on the premises.)

mishu said...

sexual assault in the military happens to men even more than to women.

This link doesn't work.

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...

" On the other hand, even if a tendency toward violence is inborn, we demand that people overcome destructive urges and channel their energy in a positive way. "

Odd, is it not, how society demands that civilised people overcome and repress all sorts of inborn tendencies, but that homosexuals continually demand exemption from that pattern. As if they're, you know, special or something.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Or hang out around Belmont and Halstead in Chicago.
So that was you, Michael?

Unknown said...

Hmmm, after multiple millennia of existence some people still perpetrate crimes, violent crimes against one another. Wow ! Who'd a thunk ? Really, does he expect that crime, even crime against another, would evaporate from the face of the earth ? He's surprised that sexual assaults still occur ? Still occur in the face of people and organizations that cover up, indeed, diminish and apologize for the transgressions of their members or of their demagogues. Organizations, NOW, the democrat party, the catholic church and others, that protect and suppress and excuse.
Geez, and he purports to be "shocked". Rubbish. He likely hates heterosexual men and wouldn't pass up any opportunity to bash them. Not at all unlike the hatred of heterosexual men, well those of conservative bent anyhow, displayed by women's "rights" groups.
" Is it wrong to write something like that about men and not address his own exclusion from the category he's derogating? " Yes, but it isn't an unusual behavior or occurrence. Further ,it was approved by editors, or, perhaps "overlooked". Surely ,Professor, you cannot be surprised by this. We see this everyday in a variety of venues on a variety of topics. It's just that some get a pass.
Let's face it, the people whom regularly let this kind of vitriol appear on their pages are the very same folks whom are astounded, still, that their circulation numbers and revenues are again today in decline. That a considerable portion of the population don't blindly support their published and stated baloney.

Mark said...

Given the quantity of rapes of men and the long history of this in the military, do you think most of the men doing the raping here consider themselves gay? While some might,I bet the majority are self-identifying `straight' men.

There's a lot of male-on-male sexual and non-sexual dominance that is common in our culture and it seems clear that certain portions of the population do not consider an act where they receive sexual gratification to be straight/gay ... that this is defined only by the giving of sexual pleasure.

You see it in plenty of cultures overseas [See: South Asia, Afghanistan for lots of this] and you see it in locker rooms, parts of the military, and here and there in the US.

Hell, pick up Jarhead. It among other books make a clear case for what I argue.

paul a'barge said...

Bruni (gay) wants to hold all straight men responsible for rape.

I want to hold all gay men (Bruni) responsible for gay pedophilia.

What do you say now, Bruni?

AaronS said...

Drivel. Absolute drivel.
Bruni doesn't take any thought through to it's conclusion. Instead content to stop right at the edge of his preferred policy prescriptions and world view. Can he seriously have written that:

"They hear politicians advocate for legislation like the Virginia anti-abortion bill"

and extrapolate that little boys are imagining violating women's bodies? Yes He Can.

He is the same as Todd Akin. He has so much confidence (really no confidence at all) in his abortion point of view that he has to give it magical characteristics.

Bruni is wrong. All of the quotes from Kilmartin come accross as stand up comedy.

n.n said...

Women are encouraged to remain perpetually pregnant. Men are encouraged to exploit that "right". A general devaluation of human life was a predictable outcome. It was exacerbated and accelerated with the resurrection of sacrificial rites.

As for Bruni's obfuscation, it is dissociation of risk which causes corruption. It is dreams of material, physical, and ego instant (or immediate) gratification which motivates its progress.

This is in the same class of nonsense that we observe when some violations of life and dignity are elevated to national or even global awareness, while others, often more heinous, are actively denied recognition.

That said, it is imperative that the issues are discussed on their merits and not on their personal appeal.

Brent said...

"then Bruni is protecting his own kind"

This is the entire point of his column, let alone this single piece.

Mr. Bruni is a brilliant writer and often, -in this conservative evangelical's opinion - sheds needed light on issues that are a sore spot between political opposites such as he and I. I will give him the benefit of the doubt in this piece that he believes the writings of Kilmartin are valid. But as someone who has been aware of and read Kilmartin for several years, I believe the point he seeks to make about masculinity is pure extrapolated nonsense. he started with a pretext and cannot fit it into the desired thesis. But that doesn't keep the people looking for justification for their views - such as Bruni - from quickly accepting the so-called credentials of a scientific community derelict such as Kilmartin. Time does not permit me to refute Kilmartin's points with the dismissivness that other psychologists do of his thesis.

But to the point of Bruni being protective of his own, again, that is the overall point of Bruni's column. That is why he is known as "the gay columnist" of the New York Times when he is surely not the only gay columnist at the new York Times. And while there is essentially nothing wrong with seeking to write from a "gay" point of view, we have to wonder why Bruni is so representative of all gays?

Bart Torvik said...

The really weird part about that op-ed is how it ignores that the incidence of rape (along with all violent crime) has been on a long, steep decline since about 1990. So if culture is to blame, then it would seem that the culture is improving. I guess that doesn't make for much of a column, though.

Carol said...

Michael beat me to it. And it gets worse than that.

Deirdre Mundy said...

Part of the issue is that a fairly big portion of the gay community doesn't see a huge age and power differential as an issue.

So, for instance, the total non-response to the Elmo issues.....

Instead, it's initiation, or a mutual exchange.....

So... he doesn't feel the need to draw attention to the fact that this sort of thing exists in the gay community, because he doesn't see it as violent. It's gentle and desired, not rape...... But... if you can have heterosexual date rape, it stands to reason that there should also be homosexual date rape....

Maybe, with the addition of marriage to the gay world, there will be more of a conversation about extra marital relationships?

TA said...

Last link is broken.

Ann Althouse said...

"An "ineradicable predatory streak" does not necessitate male-on-female predation (though the information before the ellipses makes that the clear target.)"

Right. I noticed that too. That's the remnant of honesty in his essay and the place where he could rest his deniability.

By the way, if culture is as powerful as his interlocutor says it is, why does any boy end up gay?

Matt Sablan said...

"He noted that discussions of domestic violence more often included the question of why a battered woman stayed than the question of why a battering man struck, as if the striking was to be expected. ..."

-- That's because, frankly, people care about -victims.- Why Bob beat his wife doesn't matter to us; we want him in jail/off the streets. What we want to know is how to help the woman. The striking is not expected; if it were expected, no one would wonder why she stayed. The fact we question why she stayed shows we DON'T expect this behavior. No one says: "Why did the cashier give me change when I paid with cash?" You don't question expected responses to expected behaviors.

"If Kilmartin’s observations can read at times like humorless chunks of a politically correct tome, that’s not how he actually comes across."

-- You all know what's funny? Battered women! Kilmartin is a hilarious guy.

Matt Sablan said...

"The armed services are a special challenge, because they’re all about aggression ... if men are conditioned to show the same self-control toward women that they do, successfully, in following myriad military regulation ..."

Wait, what? So, this is all about aggression! And self-control. But, aggression! Also: Should we worry by introducing women into combat roles that they might BECOME sexual abusers like men? What makes us so sure that the culture that makes men abusive won't do the same to women?

Jason said...

I'm not buying the notion that men are sexually assaulted in the military more often than women. Yes, I understand the premise... Men are assaulted at a rate 1/5th of women, but women only make up 1/5th of the military ranks, and so you get a rough parity.

But a closer look at the data gathering reveals that the process is garbage, and the definition of sexual assault is reduced beyond all usefulness.

Here's a piece I wrote about it in more detail:

http://blog.militaryauthority.com/blog-1/bid/298762/Opinion-Fight-Sexual-Predators-in-the-Military-But-Not-with-Junk-Data

Sorry... don't know how to make the hyperlinks.

RecChief said...

I'm thinking that one component is the dismantling of social institutions that has happened over the last 60-80 years. Say what you want, but community shame kept an awful lot of bad behavior in check.

cubanbob said...

By the way, if culture is as powerful as his interlocutor says it is, why does any boy end up gay?

8/15/13, 10:57 AM

Ann hits the nail on the head. And not just for gayness but for criminal violence in general.

Glen H said...

The premise on the left is that rape is a crime of power and violence, not sex. If Bruni buys into that, he is not excluding himself based on his sexual preferences.

Nonsense, but consistent nonsense.

Ann Althouse said...

"Last link is broken."

I'm so sorry!

Fixed.

Anonymous said...

"A more serious omission here, however, is that sexual assault in the military happens to men even more than to women."

I'd be careful with this one, Ann. Sexual assault happens to men more in the military because there are many more men in the military. But the RATE at which men are sexually assaulted is lower than the rate at which women are assaulted. What you wrote is true, but it isn't the whole truth.

submandave said...

"[W]hy does any boy end up gay?"

Maybe his mother is a bigger influence than the culture?

TheRadicalModerate said...

In the special case of the military, I wonder how much we're confusing "sexual assault" and plain old vanilla "assault". Military culture is always based on violence--that's the job. But a wartime military is even more likely to encourage internal violence as a mechanism to instill that ever-necessary intra-unit cohesion.

I keep thinking back to passages in Sebastian Junger's War, where favorite passtimes of the unit he was with were casual--mostly friendly--beat-downs. When you live in that kind of environment, the line between sexual assault and the ordinary kind gets awfully blurry. It also accounts for the high percentage of homosexual assault.

This is, frankly, the most compelling argument against women in combat roles--or even in combat theaters--that I can think of. For women to fit into combat units, they have to participate in the violence that combat units use to bond. Some of that violence is going to get sexual. Given that we as a society are not going to tolerate sexual violence against women, you're left with only two possibilities:

1) Radically re-engineer small-unit military culture. Given that that culture is astoundingly successful at producing--and keeping alive--professional war-fighters, I'd want to be awfully careful about this.

2) Keep women out of contact with small combat units.

Take your pick.

Jason said...

I'm not buying the notion that men are sexually assaulted in the military more often than women. Yes, I understand the premise... Men are assaulted at a rate 1/5th of women, but women only make up 1/5th of the military ranks, and so you get a rough parity.

But a closer look at the data gathering reveals that the process is garbage, and the definition of sexual assault is reduced beyond all usefulness.

Here's a piece I wrote about it in more detail:

http://blog.militaryauthority.com/blog-1/bid/298762/Opinion-Fight-Sexual-Predators-in-the-Military-But-Not-with-Junk-Data

Sorry... don't know how to make the hyperlinks.

Tina Trent said...

Actually, in the early 1990's Frank Bruni wrote an entire book about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church (his co-author was the iconoclastic and under-appreciated Elinor Burkett, who has taken on the powerful AIDS service provision industry; misogyny in Islam; the possibility that conservative women aren't dupes; the possibility that American suburban teens aren't abject monsters, and other politically incorrect topics).

I don't remember if the book included any discussion of the role homosexuality played in the Catholic abuse crisis -- I think it did not.

What I find particularly appalling about Bruni's column -- and the rape clown he profiles -- is that there is not one word in it about actually punishing . . . you know, actual rapists.

The current feminist academic rape movement is destroying all the good work real anti-rape advocates did between 1973 and today to get the criminal justice system to put and keep rapists behind bars. The drop in reported rape rates and strong drop in stranger-rape rates between 1990 and today is due entirely to such efforts (helped by DNA) to impose real sentences on sex criminals.

We found that serial sex offenders (some are date-rape serials, btw) are tremendously prolific, and by interrupting their careers, we significantly impacted the prevalence of rape overall.

But now that good work is threatened by campus activists pimping rape to make political points. These activists have also opened the door to a lot of angry reaction by conservatives, who now whine about any rape prosecution (or throw around their "Duke" credentials or libertarian anti-cop lines while writing sheer nonsense about a criminal justice system they literally know nothing about).

We still live in a country where child molesters routinely get probation and rape kits still get shelved while the campus feminists couldn't care less about real prosecutions: all they want is to hold campus tribunals and "re-educate" heterosexual men.

And yes, they are helping obscure the prevalence of homosexual rape, for the same political motives. They are also making sure nobody talks about the exclusion of heterosexual stranger rape from hate crime prosecutions, though they howl for blood if a lesbian claims so-called "hate-rape."

Bruni's column is just a distilled version of such dangerous claptrap. But I wish conservatives who choose to speak out on the subject (not here but elsewhere) would not resort to conflating the inane campus feminists with the pro-law enforcement service providers in the trenches.

William said...

In the New Yorker--yes, The New Yorker--I read that fifty per cent of the women in South Africa claim to have been raped. That's an astounding statistic. It seems to me that a society and/or culture that produces this many rape victims isn't trying very hard to solve the problem. A media that does not publicize this alarming statistic is also doing its share to participate in the atrocity......But there you are. A military culture tolerant of rape fits in with the media's stereotypes of the military, and they fall all over themselves reporting on it. An African culture tolerant of rape is more transgressive of Mandela's legacy than it is of women's right, and some transgressions just cannot be reported.

jimbino said...

Women have ready access to all the sex they want and some they don't; men have ready access only to the sex they don't want.

Women need to be kept subject to sexual aggression unless and until the free men to seek sex on every corner too.

We're talking about legalizing hookers here, folks.

Levi Starks said...

He calls it sexual assault, Darwin called it procreation.
And please, lets leave the Bible out of this.

Jason said...

Wait a minute, Tina... that "Duke" case you dismiss with scare quotes is pretty damned important - as is the issue of corrupt or incompetent prosecutors, poor evidence handling, a witch hunt atmosphere, false claims, and protecting the rights of the accused more generally.

You can't throw the scare quotes around and pretend the issue vanishes. It does not. The presumption of innocence matters. Evidence matters. It MUST matter, or you don't have the rule of law anymore.

Alex said...

Has no one pointed out to these guys that macho swagger may just be a good part of what turns a boy into a man capable of climbing out of a foxhole and advancing in the face of mortar & machine gun fire?v

That kind of machismo is what got millions of young men killed in The Great War(1914-1918). It's smarter NOT to go "over the top" into machine gun fire.

Carl said...

Of course there's a predatory streak in the male subset of the species. Isn't Bruni demonstrating it, by aggressively defending his tribe and pre-emptively demonizing those who could threaten it, before they even have a chance to do so?

He's probably also got some internal conversion issues, too. Probably hates and fears women, and needs to polish this bullshit carapace of concern to (1) try to make sure they don't clue in, although most women have better instincts about that than he hopes, and (2) convince himself that he's not as bad as his secret inner thoughts suggest.

Reminds me of that "women's studies" professor who confessed to all this contempt for women in a series of tweets. Or any number of men I've known who make a big deal out of their intellectual feminist credentials to compensate for unusual levels of inner misogyny.

damikesc said...

Professor, that men are victims of a lot of things is ignored by society-at-large and men won't gripe too much because that'd be labelled as "whining".

I hate to be cruel, but few things got people angrier than mentioning that the Catholic molestation scandal was a specifically homosexual scandal. Girls weren't being raped, after all...boys were. And women weren't rapists...men were.

Leaving certain groups as being too "high" on the totem pole to warrant introspection leads to huge problems. Blaming all problems on "racism" has served the black community quite poorly. Blaming "homophobia" won't help the gay community.

Jupiter said...

There is a single chromosome which differentiates men from women. Every man alive has inherited that chromosome from a long, long line of men. And given what we know about male behavior, the chances are that several of those transmissions occurred during a rape.

But DNA doesn't come into it.

David said...

His own kind? What are gays now, a species?

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...

"The stories... never seem to stop."

I suppose if you're prone to wringing your hands and worrying about things you can't prevent (and you're keenly interested in provoking anxiety about those things among others) the stories probably don't seem to stop.

The incidents stop. The stories stop. Then the incidents and some of the stories start up again. And on and on. Is it possible that the number of stories is disproportionate to the number of incidents? Maybe? Little tiny maybe? Adults-- and others with control of their emotions and a handle on how the world works-- entertain this possiblity. What's the matter with Kansas... er... Bruni?

Titus said...

Bruni used to be a chub. Since he lost the weight he is now attractive.

n.n said...

Jason:

You're right. The "Duke" trial was a landmark case for the violation and ultimately preservation of civil rights. We cannot base a justice system on the presumption of guilt or exploitation of emotional appeals, which would not only facilitate the violation of civil and human rights, but also sponsor corruption of institutions and individuals.

Mark said...

damikesc -

What about the many people like Jerry Sandusky? There's a long, long history of `hetero' men abusing young boys.

Sandusky had no gay identity, just as the Catholic priests didn't. Saying this is linked with only homosexuality is clearly wrong as so many people who identify as `straight' are known abusers.

This has to do with abusers, not people of either orientation with healthy, normal tendencies.

Tina Trent said...

"Wait a minute, Tina... that "Duke" case you dismiss with scare quotes is pretty damned important" -- Jason

I'm talking about the Duke "experts" -- several of whom have decided they're now experts on real rape prosecutions because they have a political reaction to Duke. Which was, it goes without saying, a travesty.

But that type of prosecutorial over-reach is exceedingly rare. If you have other cases, we can discuss them. I think we agree that the feminists trying to expand definitions of rape to mean anything are more interested in creating campus tribunals than in really tackling sex crimes, which should be left to the real justice system. I've testified against those definitional expansions because they politicize the crime.

But, don't put words in my mouth. I said nothing about the presumption of innocence.

Jupiter said...

"This has to do with abusers, not people of either orientation with healthy, normal tendencies. "

Ah. healthy, normal, homosexual tendencies. Got it.

And no, homosexuals are not a species, they are the opposite of a species. The members of a species can only reproduce by sex with other members of the species.

Which explains why homosexuality cannot be normal. The reality is that homosexuals are broken, from an evolutionary perspective. It's not their fault, but neither is it "normal", except in the sense that certain deformities are "normally" encountered with Down Syndrome. You can feel sorry for them, or enjoy their peculiar sensibility, or both. But no one has children hoping they will turn out to be homosexual, any more than they hope they will be horribly crippled in any other way.

Jason said...

Tina: That kind of prosecutorial overreach is exceedingly rare.

Are you on crack or something?

damikesc said...

Sandusky had no gay identity, just as the Catholic priests didn't. Saying this is linked with only homosexuality is clearly wrong as so many people who identify as `straight' are known abusers.

If a man molests boys, it's homosexual pedophilia. It's not even a debatable point. If a man molests girls, he is a heterosexual pedophilia.

Is it saying all gays are pedophiles? No. What is being said is that male pedophiles who molest boys are homosexual pedophiles.

What is a "gay identity"?

SGT Ted said...

Frank Bruni may be a heterophobe.

Carl said...

The reality is that homosexuals are broken, from an evolutionary perspective.

You have assumed facts not in evidence, as the lawyers say. It is entirely possible that homosexuals serve a vital role in the survivability of primate tribes, and that evolution has therefore tuned our species to produce them at a certain level.

Whenever pondering human evolution, it needs to be kept firmly in mind that we're not fruit flies, and there are therefore far more ways individual human beings can contribute to the survival of their genes than breeding.

Google "the grandmother effect" for a primer.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Delving, I.

Just so you know (FYI).

And Apple put Capital to both: 1. "FYI" and 2. "C" in capital.

I had chosen; Apple superseded my choice for my and Mother Earth's beyond brilliance good.


You know Apple knows more than you. That is why you and I buy and buy and buy.

Our words are not up to Jobs's standards of dead fucks whom unGodly piss on every human in sight.

So fuck us.

Fuck us.

Jason said...

It is entirely possible that homosexuals serve a vital role in the survivability of primate tribes,

Ummmmm....

No.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Purposeful lies and blurred lines.


Ha.

Only unBuckley idiots fail to see un irony.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Let us concede Rush Limbaugh and his host Mark Steyn when it where'd, far from fucking now I'll have you know, slayed.

Matt Sablan said...

"But that type of prosecutorial over-reach is exceedingly rare."

-- How do you know? The Duke boys got lucky they were rich and powerful enough to weather the storm, and even then, their lives are likely forever ruined compared to what could have been (since there are still many people who insist that they are guilty.)

I'm willing to believe the high numbers of sexual assaults happen, but I also find it interesting that this is the -one- area of crime that people to the left refuse to believe prosecutorial misconduct happens on a routine basis. It's a huge bit of a mental disconnect; people on the left are suspicious of crime reports, criminal prosecutions, etc., etc. Except when it comes to rape.

False rape charges are easy to find [as are false charges of almost any crime, if you're willing to Google. There was a recent article about a woman who made five false allegations before going to jail, for example. There was also a football player who recently made the NFL after being exonerated from a false rape charge.]

Now, this does not mean EVERY rape accusation is false. It just means that it is a realistic concern, and we need to accept that we can err in prosecuting at times. In short, we need to give the accusations the same circumspection we give -every other accusation- under the law.

damikesc said...

Matthew, I'd argue that if a woman is given the identical sentence a man would be given if she files a false complaint, we'd see false rape claims drop...significantly.

Carl said...

Ummmmm....

No.


Damn! I was so hoping nobody would use that argument, Jason. Now I must acknowledge utter defeat and humiliation. Well played, sir.

Jason said...

You're the one who advanced the ridiculous idea that homosexuality advances the survival of primate tribes for some reason.

Some things are prima facie BS, though. But hey... convince me. Since you advanced the argument, the burden of proof is yours, not mine.