November 6, 2013

Student newspaper editor extensively explains decision to publish a letter questioning the existence of a "rape culture."

You have to try to imagine the criticism the editor (Katherine Krueger) must have heard. She goes on at such great length. On the blog yesterday, we talked about the letter, here. The newspaper is The Badger Herald, at the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

Krueger begins with the assumption that we are living in something that deserves to be called "rape culture":
The existence of ‘rape culture’ on college campuses — the social conditions that allow for the normalization of sexual assault and violence — leads to one in four college women being assaulted before they reach graduation.  For evidence that rape culture is alive, well and thriving on the University of Wisconsin campus, look no further than David Hookstead’s letter to the editor.
So Hookstead is not only a denialist; his denialism is proof of the existence of the culture. There should be a name for the culture where there are articles of faith so strong that if you say X is not true, you are viewed as reinforcing the proposition that X is true.

Krueger condemns her fellow student in language so strong that I had to go back and reread his letter to try to figure out what was so inflammatory. Krueger calls it "morally repugnant, patriarchal... offensive... the embodiment of rape culture... horrifically misguided... repellent... reprehensible... hateful... infuriating... ugly."

Isn't that a little over-the-top? Is no one allowed anymore to muse about the location of the line between bad sex and the crime of rape? Must one become a social pariah for questioning whether the activities of some criminals means their crime is our culture?
As ugly as Hookstead’s version of reality is, this is an actual view held by more than a few UW students. 
"More than a few"... but is that enough to make it our culture? Anyway, Krueger says condemning Hookstead's views is not enough:
If you’re disgusted and angry, this is your starting point. It’s only by opening the dialogue and banishing topics like sexual assault from our list of cultural taboos that we can begin to affect [sic?] a lasting change on campus.
So... does that mean students are supposed to talk about it or not talk about it? I suspect the message to those who have anything even mildly challenging to say is: Shut up or we will ruin you.

Krueger ends by expressing regret for her failure to put a "trigger warning" on Hookstead's letter. Now, there's: "Editor’s Note: trigger warning for sexual assault."

ADDED: I see Hookstead got attention in Jezebel last August, here.

AND: As MadisonMan in the comments tells me, I actually did blog that at the time.

ALSO: I'd just like to say there are so many issues here: 1. I'm not sure who, if anyone, I feel sorry for, but I know I don't feel sorry for any members of my own generation that may have made Ms. Krueger feel she had to talk like that. 2. Young people: Break loose, be free, say new things, dare! 3. What is the meaning of "culture"? How do you define that term? If you use it loosely, but someone else wants to use it narrowly, why are you — especially in a university — fighting instead of having an intellectual conversation about what "culture" is? 4. Who is being repressed and who is repressive, and why doesn't everyone care? 5. In what might be called a "culture of repression," is it any surprise that people are drinking too much and having bad sex? 6. Can we talk about whether we have a "culture of bad sex"? If so, why? 7. Isn't the real rape question: What should be reported to the police for prosecution? And if we put that in a separate category, would we be able to talk about what bad sex is and why we're having it? 8. What about love?

128 comments:

Gahrie said...

There should be a name for the culture where there are articles of faith so strong that if you say X is not true, you are viewed as reinforcing the proposition that X is true.

There is ..it is called victimization, or Democratic Party politics....

Gahrie said...

How is rape culture allowed to flourish at colleges when colleges are dominated by women today?

Meade said...

"There should be a name for the culture where there are articles of faith so strong that if you say X is not true, you are viewed as reinforcing the proposition that X is true. "

The name is "witch hunt".

Peter said...

"one in four college women being assaulted before they reach graduation"

And I suppose they are, if one considers forceful verbal or written disagreemet to be "assault."

Hook Hookstead's letter does prove the point, as the letter itself is an assault.




Sayyid said...

"There should be a name for the culture where there are articles of faith so strong that if you say X is not true, you are viewed as reinforcing the proposition that X is true. "

The other thread was stale and dead before I was able to post my thoughts on that exact topic.

The rape-culturists absurd argument can only really be grasped in its full laughability if you lay it out in premise-conclusion format.

Premise 1: Rape culture is the minimization of the seriousness of sexual violence or concerns about sexual violence.

Premise 2: Person A has said sexual violence is a terrible thing and wonders who the hell could think otherwise.

Conclusion 1: Rape culture exists.

Conclusion 2: Person A supports rape culture.

Plain as day, conclusion 1 is circular and conclusion 2 is ad hominem. It's nothing more or less than screaming insults and failed logic.

Bob Boyd said...

"There should be a name for the culture where there are articles of faith so strong that if you say X is not true, you are viewed as reinforcing the proposition that X is true. "

There probably is. The first place I'd look is in the DSM-IV.

Lance said...

Editor's note: trigger warning for thought crime.

madAsHell said...

We must raise awareness for this rape culture.

I know.....lets have a slut walk!!!

Jason said...

Anyone who needs a "trigger warning" to function is asking for it.

Lance said...

How is rape culture allowed to flourish at colleges when colleges are dominated by women today?

I think Taranto would ask "Fox Butterfield, is that you?"

Jason said...

"Only the True Messiah denies his divinity!"

Mob: "HE IS!!! HE IS THE MESSIAH!!!!!"

Heartless Aztec said...

And in an unexpected development there are soon to be no men on campus. They are all graduating from on-line universities. There won't even be a hook up culture for the girls.

eddie willers said...

From the OPED:

Rape culture prevents members of the LGBT community, cisgender women and men

I had to Google cisgender women.

Went to Wikipedia and I am STILL scratching my head.

Is that a word used to describe normal people if you don't want to say normal people?

Seeing Red said...

Well, if she's so concerned about rape culture, shouldn't she start banning purchases of Marie Claire, Elle, Cosmo, etc?

Michael K said...

Once again, I am grateful that my sons graduated 20+years ago. I do worry about my grandson since we are not allowed to have all male colleges anymore. I wonder why all those women wanted entry to the male dominated campuses if rape culture was a risk?

Chris said...

Isn't that a little over-the-top? Is no one allowed anymore to muse about the location of the line between bad sex and the crime of rape?

"Gentlemen, you can't muse in here, this is a university."

RecChief said...

"opening the dialogue"?

Why yes, I can see where holding a view that is in opposition to the orthodoxy; that is termed 'repugnant' and so forth; and people are told not to listen to your heresy would lead to a 'dialogue'. /sarc off

Also, "There should be a name for the culture where there are articles of faith so strong that if you say X is not true, you are viewed as reinforcing the proposition that X is true. " - I can see that the current strategy to to reinforce sin of 'white privilege' has jumped hosts.

Brando said...

Meanwhile, students in Chinese universities are learning to build bridges and dams and things....

Tom said...

It sounds like the denial of this feminist, PC claptrap is the societal taboo. Not sayin', just sayin'.

Scott M said...

If you’re disgusted and angry, this is your starting point. It’s only by opening the dialogue and banishing topics like sexual assault from our list of cultural taboos that we can begin to affect [sic?] a lasting change on campus.

Maybe I need to reread that ten more times, but it seems to be that what she's saying, very poorly, is that there's this list of culturally taboo topics. Sexual assault is on that list and, thus, a taboo topic. Her point, I think, is that opening up the dialog requires removing sexual assault from that list.

Since WHEN has sexual assault be taboo to talk about? Hell, it's been 10 years since I was on a college campus as an employee. Twenty since I was a student and I have a son who's currently in college.

It's "multi-talked about" as Eddie Izzard would say.

Real American said...

it's not rape or assault if you regret it later, ladies. take responsibility for your own (often drunken) actions, ladies. isn't that what your feminism demands, ladies? Yes.

Conserve Liberty said...

Men: Just say no to sex before marriage.

B said...

As a Phd student in the midst of grading midterms, I deserve a trigger warning for righteous undergrad nonsense.

Where's my trigger warning!?

rcocean said...

"One out 4 college students will be sexually assaulted"

According to the latest stats 8 million female college students (4-year) in the USA- so if 1 of 4 gets raped - that's 2 million rapes every 4 years. Or 500,000 a year.

Wow. The police must be writing up Rape reports on campus 24/7. Even odder, the FBI reports only 250,000 sexual assaults in the entire USA in 2010.

Which means not only is every Rape in the USA occurring on Campus, but half don't get reported. No doubt because the lines are so long.

Unknown said...

Poor Katherine Krueger. She thoguht a college newspaper might be a place to engage in intellectual discourse, showcase opposing viewpoints, have a dialogue about important and controversial issues, etc. She didn't realize that in fact it's supposed to be an echo chamber where only approved thoughts are to be countenanced. Quick Katherine -- toe that line!

TML said...

This:

It’s only by opening the dialogue and banishing topics like sexual assault from our list of cultural taboos that we can begin to affect [sic?] a lasting change on campus.

She sure does sound like she's a dialogue opener! Except if she doesn't agree.

YoungHegelian said...

Is there a reason to doubt that what underlies all these rhetorical gymnastics is little more than a Stalinist will to power?

Could this really quack anymore like a duck if it tried? Do we need to send Arthur Koestler up to Madison to write it up or somethin'?

n.n said...
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n.n said...
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n.n said...

Is this discussion about rape or rape-rape? Apparently, there is a difference, if perhaps only personally motivated.

The concept of rape is legitimatized by the principle of involuntary exploitation. This principle is generally relevant and is not intrinsically restricted to sexual exploitation.

I wonder if she, as a feminist, would be willing to conduct a comprehensive review of this principle and its diverse implications. Denigrating individual dignity serves to increase risk. Normalizing involuntary exploitation serves to increase risk. Degrading human life to commodity status serves to increase risk.

Life is an exercise in risk management. Women, and men, need to moderate their dreams and make better choices.

Crunchy Frog said...

Men: Just say no to sex before marriage.

How very Althousian of you. Next will you tell married men to always wear a condom in case their wives get pregnant from other men?

Here's one: Hey co-eds, don't get drunk and sleep with someone you'll regret having sex with the morning after. If you do, don't blame the guy and claim rape after the fact.

buwaya said...

This is a modern hysteria created by the knowledge that they have no fathers, brothers or uncles to avenge them, as was the good and proper custom of ancient times.

I think the whole thing is a manifestation of young womens insecurity.

MadisonMan said...

I wonder that a potential employer would hire her. She seems like a harassment lawsuit waiting to happen.

RecChief said...

buwaya said:
"I think the whole thing is a manifestation of young womens insecurity."

That or they want all the fun of 'equality' without any of the responsibility. Hey! young women are just like men, feminism is a success

Diamondhead said...

Reading both the initial letter and the execrable response, it occurs to me that what undergraduates write on campus should remain on campus. I suppose it would be too much to ask that the students in question remain there as well.

buwaya said...

Few people of this age are so consciously cynical. At best they may try to intellectualize their fears and urges, but they are not knowingly such plotters.

MadisonMan said...

Thank Goodness the Dean of Students is getting involved now.

She has to earn her 6-figure salary somehow, so why not wade right in to this?

Rose said...

I'm just curious what she has to say about Miley's twerking.

chuck said...

The name is "witch hunt".

Is that when the witches mount up to chase down escapees from the land of BS?

buwaya said...

The Dean of Students, as usual in these cases, begs the question.
She does not define "healthy norms", nor does she try to justify them. But she is all for them.
Which is a fine response from a politician, but its a poor one from an academic.
She has no answer to the callow youth that rejects all their hypocritical norms. The 1960's breed of student would have eaten this lot up for breakfast.

hombre said...

This woman provides an unintentional burlesque of both today's college students and today's journalists.

She has a bright career ahead among the PC mediaswine.

chickelit said...

Good to see that UW students are still talking about what natters.

Illuninati said...

If a large percentage of women are emotionally designed to unite sex and love, then the modern casual sex culture is damaging many women. Since the casual sex culture was invented by the left in rebellion against the fuddy duddy conservative Christians and traditional society the feminists can not admit it is their own agenda which has damaged so many women so they have invented the "rape culture" to express their angst.

If anyone is interested in the careless anthropological "research" which was originally used to support the benefits of sex outside of marriage should read the book "The Fateful Hoaxing Of Margaret Mead" by Derek Freeman. For balance they could read Ms. Mead's defenders.
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-12-16/

Whether one accepts Mead, or her skeptics, it is clear that Mead insinuated herself into the tribe through deceit and spent a relatively short time among the Samoans. From that brief encounter the left claimed they had scientific proof that casual sex without emotional commitment is beneficial and indeed is superior to traditional Judeo-Christian society in which sex is limited to married couples.

The result is the sad spectacle of colleges dominated by females obsessing about a "rape culture."

tim maguire said...

"There should be a name for the culture where there are articles of faith so strong that if you say X is not true, you are viewed as reinforcing the proposition that X is true. "

A lot of people are taking stabs at this, I'll add mine: Fascism.

Ms. Kreuger displays exactly the turn of mind that consigns first books, then later people, to the bonfire.

Does she mean it? Probably not, but you bet the people holding HER toes to the fire do.

(One of these references to fire is metaphorical, the other is not.)

buwaya said...

The Illuminati, of course, know everything more deeply than a simple crocodile.
I like your theory.

PB said...

the "1 in 4" statistic has no basis in fact, it just sounds good to certain people.

Revenant said...

I am so glad my college days were decades ago.

rhhardin said...

Nagging is what women do.

It's actuall sending men on quests as a test of their mettle.

Then, if there's an actual man, she shows him she's satisfied with him. The failure of which makes it nagging rather than a reward.

There are fewer and fewer actual men, so feminism makes do with the nagging part only.

What to nag about?

Anything available.

PB said...

Saying things that sound good is a big problem. It's playing fast and loose with the facts to achieve your goals that has led to many of our current problems. I think the editor's argument is more indicative of a "rape culture" where people will do anything to force their ideas/desires on other people.

pdug said...

" There should be a name for the culture where there are articles of faith so strong that if you say X is not true, you are viewed as reinforcing the proposition that X is true. "

conspiracy theorist

Jay Vogt said...

There should be a name for the culture where there are articles of faith so strong that if you say X is not true, you are viewed as reinforcing the proposition that X is true.

Aldous Huxley beat you to it by about 70 years.

Matt Sablan said...

If one in four women are being assaulted and raped on campus, we need to divide campuses by gender for their own safety, or install hall monitors on every floor.

A 25% rape rate is worse than some third-world countries. As a country, we cannot stand for it and only serious, campus-altering behaviors can hope to stem this dark tide of rape.

Captain Curt said...

I'll repeat the comment I put up (late) on the last post on this subject about the "1 in 4" statistic:

I've looked into some of those studies claiming these kinds of numbers on college campuses, and to get those kinds of numbers, they have to include all the women who report some sexual incident that they didn't plan on going in, or came to regret later (or both).

Many of those studies include any incident of a boyfriend pressuring a female student to "go further" sexually as attempted rape.

When you include things like that, I'm surprised the numbers aren't higher.

One thing I've seen a couple of times on college campuses following the release of studies like these: activist feminist students without any sense convince themselves that rape is really epidemic and set up and staff campus rape hotlines, and literally get no calls, because rape as most people would define it is very rare on college campuses.

Fernandinande said...

There should be a name for the culture ...

There is: "The Cathedral".

Fernandinande said...

This Cathedral.

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...

So this is the type of prodigal pig piffle Wisconsin taxpayers get for their Billion bucks a year?

I thought "Fuck 'em Bucky" meant something else ... but it's obviously the taxpayers. RAPE !!

ALP said...

Is no one allowed anymore to muse about the location of the line between bad sex and the crime of rape?
**************
Uh, no - the Modern Female Prude cannot allow it. To allow such a discussion might reveal the primal, illogical/passionate nature of sex, and may even (gasp) find its way to the fact that rape fantasies are one of the most common female sexual fantasies.

No, the Modern Female Prude must engage in proper, politically correct sex as outlined by a bureaucrat, preferably a team of female PhDs.

Shouting Thomas said...

Wonderful, Althouse.

Why did you use the same deliberately abusive and shamefully arrogant tactics re gay marriage?

Shouting Thomas said...

The "1 in 4" stat is, by the way, bogus.

First appeared in Ms. Magazine. The editors of the magazine derived this figure by attaching the word "rape" to unpleasant sexual encounters that the women they polled did not agree constituted rape.

Scott M said...

Just what is a "trigger warning" in that context? Is that like when someone posts something about the end of a movie I haven't seen, triggering internet rage capable of propelling my monitor through a window?

Bob Ellison said...

rcocean said "Which means not only is every Rape in the USA occurring on Campus, but half don't get reported."

You jump to quickly to your conclusions. Some college students have Dissociative Identity Disorder and are therefore multiple people. I guess you'd have to figure out which identity was raped, but they probably don't account for that.

Also, maybe the sample size for the statistic only included four students, kinda like the surveys of dentists on which toothpaste to use.

Also, there's probably some noise in the data. Some of those students might wear capes (thus "caped") and misunderstood/misread the poll question. They could also have been taped or shaped. And some of those who were raped might similarly have thought the question was about caping, taping, or shaping. It all comes out in the wash.

SGT Ted said...

"Rape Culture" as posited by the Insane-left Feminist schism, has no basis in reality, only in rhetoric.

Shouting Thomas said...

Althouse's gay marriage campaign was waged with these same tactics. Once she decided that she favored gay marriage, opposition to gay marriage was the proof of the "oppression" that gays suffered.

Remember the famous "you just want to suck a bag of dicks" tantrum?

Gay marriage activists created a panic that suggested that gays had been dying by the thousands at the hands of roving bands of homophobic straight men. In fact, gay men died by the tens of thousands as a result of their own sexual behavior... AIDS. Pointing out this reality made you a "homophobe."

Althouse made a fool of herself by falling for this deception, and essentially hung the blame for the AIDS epidemic on straight men. She did so, obviously, out of a mendacious desire to attain her political goal.

Althouse is as guilty as these feminists hyenas of using this "if you oppose me, you're a bigot" tactics. What began as a campaign for medical insurance benefits for gay male partners was transformed into a great civil rights crusade against oppression. Althouse was among the most cynical and vicious practitioners of this tactics.

cassandra lite said...

Talk about begging the question. This editor begged the question that begged the question.

Yesterday on Twitter I had a bit of back and forth with a (presumably) young lady who was (presumably) a student. She claimed one in three women is raped. I pointed out that that's about 38 million women and asked whether she stood by her statement.

Yes, Stupid, she said. Because stupid people don't know what they're talking about, she said.

chickelit said...

cassandra lite said...She claimed one in three women is raped.

Perhaps the whole campus "hook-up" culture lauded by feminists is less voluntary than the cheerleaders admit.

Has anyone suggested that?

paul a'barge said...

<a href="http://badgerherald.com/media/2013/05/katherine_AF-336x504.jpg>click to view Kath</a>

Good grief.

That is all.

Diamondhead said...

Feminism is the haunting fear that someone, somwhere, might be enjoying sex.

LarryK said...

This is embarrassing and more offensive than Hookstead's relatively level-headed letter. The comments are even worse. The Badger Herald has blown the lid on a shocking lack of reading comprehension and critical thinking skills at the University of Wisconsin. Hookstead never blamed victims based on their clothing or drinking habits. Pointing this out no doubt makes me a crypto-rapist or at least an apologist for the pervasive rape culture at "America's sexiest university" - so be it.

Illuninati said...

Fernandinande said...
"There should be a name for the culture ...
There is: "The Cathedral"."

Good point. Looks like an interesting line of philosophy by Nick Land. Should be interesting reading.

LarryK said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sorun said...

The way to fight the rape culture is with more porn. Are the ladies marching for that?

Freeman Hunt said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MadisonMan said...

You blogged about him back in August, here.

Freeman Hunt said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
mccullough said...

I traced the 1/4 college women rape or attempted rape stat to a DOJ study that cites some academic study published in 2000. I'm not going to look at that study, but will note that the study itself is 13 years old and the data in the study even older.

Assuming the 1/4 stat is true, has nothing changed in the last 15 years? If nothing else, the changing demographics of male/female ratio on campuses must have led to a drop at least.

Smilin' Jack said...

So... does that mean students are supposed to talk about it or not talk about it?

I know that I speak for all sensible students when I say, "Toga! Toga! Toga!"

tim in vermont said...

We love Bill Clinton and hate Juanita Broadrick for accusing him of rape, so I guess we do live in a "rape culture."

James said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
david7134 said...

To start with, what is rape? I know the legal aspect of penetration and consent, but what are the circumstances, is violence involved, is it occurring during a date with mixed messages being given off? So exactly what are people talking about. I have warned my son to be very careful around women today as they could start crying rape for any physical contact, in fact, I have told him to make sure that other people are around as much as possible. Now, if it is outside of the dating experience, who is doing the rape, where, what time, what circumstances? I was shocked 20 years ago when I took one of my children to college and found that the dorms were co-ed and that women were often living across a conjoining bathroom. Certainly men should have restraint, and violence is never accepted, but to put that much hormone in the same area is asking for trouble from those that have issues with restraint and who is able to identify these people before hand. The same goes for situations in the military and elsewhere with close proximity and the chance for miss-communication.

The fact is that 10 to 20% of people are not nice and will do bad things when given the chance. As a woman, you should anticipate this and take measures to protect yourself. My parents told me that a woman should not go to a man's room or not be unaccompanied. There was a reason for these rules and violation of them put at woman at risk from men who are not gentlemen. If we want freedom, then people have to take measures to protect themselves from those that will abuse that freedom. As far as I am concerned, women should make very good friends with two men, Smith and Wesson. That would stop a considerable amount of this "rape culture".

Sigivald said...

As ugly as Hookstead’s version of reality is, this is an actual view held by more than a few UW students.

What's "ugly" about it?

I read his original letter.

There was nothing "ugly" about the worldview in it (nor "hateful" or any other of her hyperbolic adjectives).

I can't help but wonder about the alternatives (not mutually exclusive):

A) She really thinks all of that's true, as stated, especially the judgments.

B) She is saying it to throw him to the wolves and end the (annoying, incoherent, irrational) criticism.

(On the other topic, it reminds me of Eric Raymond's "Kafka Trap, though that is about personal guilt traps more than "Denying X proves X". But "Denying X mean you're guilty for X" is close enough, I think.)

madAsHell said...

Meanwhile, students in Chinese universities are learning to build bridges and dams and things....

You know what the second language is at most west coast universities??

English. Chinese is the predominant language.

Thorley Winston said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Thorley Winston said...

I traced the 1/4 college women rape or attempted rape stat to a DOJ study that cites some academic study published in 2000.

Here’s some background information on the origin of that number:

“Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute delved into these uncomfortable waters in Who Stole Feminism. The one-in-four statistic, she found, was derived from a survey of 3,000 college women in 1982. Researchers used three questions to determine if respondents had been raped: Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs? Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man threatened or used some degree of physical force... to make you? And, have you had sexual acts...when you didn't want to because a man threatened to use some degree of physical force... to make you?

Based on women's responses, researchers concluded that 15 percent of women surveyed had been raped and 12 percent had experienced an attempted rape. Therefore, 27 percent of women-- more than one in four-- were either the victims of rape or attempted rape. This is the origin of the one-in-four statistic.

Yet other data from that same survey undercut its conclusion. While alcohol surely plays a part in many rape cases, the survey's wording invites the label of rape victim to be applied to anyone who has ever drank too much, had a sexual encounter, and then regretted it later. In addition, only 25 percent of the women whom researchers counted as being raped described the incident as rape themselves. The survey found that four in ten of the survey's rape victims, and one in three victims of attempted rape, chose to have intercourse with their so-called attacker again. The survey researchers scratched their heads as to why these women would return to their attackers, but Sommers asks the obvious question: "Since most women the survey counted as victims didn't think they had been raped, and since so many went back to their partners, isn't it reasonable to conclude that many had not been raped to begin with?"

Correcting for the biases in the original survey yields a radically different picture of the prevalence of rape in America. Subtract the women identified by the alcohol and drug question and those who didn't think they had been raped, and total victims fall to between 3 and 5 percent of the women surveyed. This remains an alarmingly high number, but significantly less alarming than the one-in-four figure.”

Seeing Red said...

Via Instapundit:

As a poster commented government-sanctioned rape:

Cops Subject Man To Rectal Searches, Enemas And A Colonoscopy In Futile Effort To Find Drugs They Swear He Was Hiding

They asked him to step out of the car and then searched his vehicle (without his consent). Another officer brought in a drug dog which reacted (a relatively worthless indication of anything -- drug dogs can easily be "alerted" by their controlling officers) to the driver's seat. (Eckert's lawyer calls into question this dog's training, presenting documents that claim to show it hadn't received the proper field training and recertification. See exhibits listed under docket item 27.) Then the officer "observed" that Eckert was standing "erect with his legs together" and his "buttocks clenched." This was all the justification the Deming police needed to subject Eckert to the following horrific chain of events at a hospital in neighboring Silver City.

1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.
2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
4. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
5. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a second time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
6. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a third time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.
8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed acolonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert's anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.
At no time did Eckert give his consent to these searches. The police did obtain a warrant to rectally search Eckert but that warrant itself was problematic. For one, it was severely lacking in probable cause. For another, it was valid only for Luna County but the searches were executed in Grant County. Third, the warrant was only valid for four hours, up until 10 pm that night. Eckert was held for 14 hours and, according to medical records, prep for the colonoscopy didn't even commence until 1 am the following day.....

mccullough said...

Thorley,

Thanks for the information. You would make a good news editor.

Rosalyn C. said...

When I was in college it used to be common sense for a girl not to make out with a guy if she didn't want to have sex with him, especially if they had been drinking or getting high. I assumed that was still common knowledge, but maybe not. How does the hook up culture impact the rape culture? It probably contributes to more campus rapes.

I had no idea what "rape culture" meant so I googled it and realized it is a feminist academic term, so it's a real thing for some people. It certainly can't be challenged by a guy who has a reputation as a chauvinist creep.
Rape Culture
According to the Encyclopedia of Rape:
"The term 'rape culture' originated in the 1970s ...."

Birches said...

Once more, I feel a special gladness that my children will be attended my alma mater, a religious-affiliated University that allows neither alcohol or premarital sex.

Kind of ruins the rape culture party.

Illuninati said...

Seeing Red said...
"Via Instapundit:

As a poster commented government-sanctioned rape"

This should be an interesting trial. A friend in Silver City informs me that the police had been watching Eckert for awhile. Apparently when they stopped him their drug dog reacted as if he smelled drugs. In other words there is more to the story which should make the trial fascinating.

My friend shared another tidbit with me. According to her, the hospital Eckert for the procedures and the Emergency visit. When Mr. Eckert didn't pay they apparently sent him to the collection agency.

Anonymous said...

"Once more, I feel a special gladness that my children will be attended my alma mater, a religious-affiliated University that allows neither alcohol or premarital sex.

Kind of ruins the rape culture party."

11/6/13, 5:40 PM

Yes, because if a person is going to commit rape, the rule against the forbidden fruit of premarital sex will surely stop him.

Seeing Red said...

Him, Inga?

Women aren't capable of raping?

Spiros Pappas said...

Violence in this country is falling fast (thanks to the 2nd Amendment, an aging and wealthier population, etc.). Even better: the incidence of rape has fallen faster than every other major crime, including homicide. The rate of rape is now 50 per 100,000 people. This figure is very different from one in four. Where does the alarming statistic that UW Madison's "student newspaper editor" cite come from? And why do journalists make such startling accusations with absolutely no support?

Seeing Red said...

As someone else pointed out, men aren't going to college, so the incidences will decline.

Oddly, females don't want to go to college where the majority of the students are female.

Anonymous said...

Feminism teaches that female sexual promiscuity is 'empowerment' so now we have some women with no real respect for their own sexuality. Sex has become cheap and meaningless. These same women then get angry when the men they are around also treat women's sexuality without respect and sex as cheap and meaningless. What exactly do these 'ladies' want?

If there is a rape culture, it's been created by the very feminists who rage against it.

Anonymous said...
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Victor Erimita said...

I'm confused. Is this part of the rape culture at UWisconsin?
http://chronicle.com/article/Sex-Week-Should-Arouse/124152/

Just asking.

Anonymous said...

Yes, because if a person is going to commit rape, the rule against the forbidden fruit of premarital sex will surely stop him.

For people who don't believe in the efficacy of rules, you liberals sure do make a lot of rules.

Diamondhead said...

"Yes, because if a person is going to commit rape, the rule against the forbidden fruit of premarital sex will surely stop him."

Probably wouldn't stop rape-rape, but it may stop fake rape (you know, the rape that isn't so much rape as a woman's subsequent feeling that the sex was regrettable - ("he had a really ugly penis, it turns out")). That is the type of incident you have to include to get to the preposterous one in every four women in college are raped, and you have to accept such wildly inflated statistics if you are going to complain about a "rape culture." The problem with the whole discussion is that when dime store feminists make the rules, the term rape doesn't even have a definition. A woman could be involved with a man for twenty years, have sex with him every other night for all twenty years, and then get divorced and decide he was raping her the whole time. No serious person could doubt that notwithstanding the facts of such a case, this editor would not think twice before agreeing with the woman that she was a victim of rape. You see, vagina imparts unimpeachable moral authority to its possessor, and to question the existence of "rape culture" is to question that authority. A vagina knows if it's been raped. Only a vagina is in the position to say. A vagina can go back in time and make consensual sex an assault.

wildswan said...

It seems that everyone wants to do a study which shows that their subject is a central social problem. So a majority of Americans have mental health problems, a majority are overweight, a majority are racist. Our schools are poor, all of them, and so is our healthcare, all of it. Our cities are dangerous, everywhere. Now it seems that all educated women have been raped (because if 1 in 4 are raped in a given year then after 4 years they all are? Right?)

Isn't it true that lesser incidents are added into categories, like rape, to bulk them up into rape culture. Isn't it true that cities are safe except in certain areas and that huge swathes of cities in America have not had a murder in twenty years? Isn't it true that health care is so good that the main health problem in America is that people are living too long? Isn't it true that most Americans are in a good mood most of the time except when in the midst of an identifiable disaster? Isn't it true that people enjoy TV about drugs, violence and despair because it is so far away that it is interesting?
Oh well, they don't call me the old curmudgeon for nothing.

Henry said...

I've been thinking about this post for half the day. Then I see the ALSO that skates across the surface of what I was formulating to say.

So, succinctly: I just feel very sorry for these people. The fun I had in college seems utterly foreign to this story.

There was a great deal of parochialism in my undergraduate education, but there was also huge optimism. People really believed that truth was beauty and that knowledge could make you free.

My graduate studies in art exposed me to a much more cynical crowd, something I recognized at the time as partly corrosive, but still the cynicism was accompanied by a love of experience and expression. Students read transgressive literature not to stick it to the patriarchy but because it was interesting. Pornography was interesting. Comic books were interesting. Interminable black and white Italian films were interesting. The world was really interesting and it was up to us to keep it so.

Now the universities seem to be owned by resentful scolds.

But still, I remind myself, Madison still has a football team. It still has punks forming bands. I'm sure it still has kids reading outside the syllabus because they find themselves enraptured with some knowledge unexpected. The stupid, wonderful optimism must still be there.

William said...

It's not the rape that's being overdone but the word culture. Every time I hear someone say culture, I want to reach for my yogurt........I can readily believe that twenty year old guys can act like jerks in the presence of young women. If they've been drinking, the chances of their acting like jerks increases exponentially. If the young woman has also over indulged, the odds of something untoward happening do not decrease.......I don't ascribe this to a culture of rape. Darwin, stupidity, impulsivity, alcohol--it's a potent combination, but it's not a culture.

William said...

Please don't let this woman take any microbiology classes. There's a culture of murder among female microbiologists, and this woman is a ticking time bomb.

Revenant said...

The idea that a rule against premarital sex in any way discourages rape is particularly retarded.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

I suspect rape culture, or sub-cultures that condone or promote rape, does exist in this country, but I doubt lefties would be happy with correctly identifying it.

Sam L. said...

Zere iss only vun answer, and it iss MEIN! Ze boy iss WRONG, becauss he iss a boy/male!

RecChief said...

Inga said: "Yes, because if a person is going to commit rape, the rule against the forbidden fruit of premarital sex will surely stop him."

HA that's exactly how I feel when liberals talk about more gun laws

rcommal said...
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rcommal said...
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Birches said...

Why don't all you doubters check out statistics at religious affiliated colleges with strict honor codes to see how many rapes occur?

They are few and far between, I'm sure compared to UW. And I promise it's not because the girls are too scared to report (you know, all the Patriarchy and what not).

There is no rape culture. There is drunk culture.

David said...

"There should be a name for the culture where there are articles of faith so strong that if you say X is not true, you are viewed as reinforcing the proposition that X is true."

Fanaticism.

It's not just for right wingers anymore.

David said...

If you think you have been raped, call the cops. And don't tell me how awful the justice system is, or how humiliating and stressful it is to testify.

If you really believe that there is a pervasive rape culture, and particularly if it has lead to your own rape, it's your duty to speak out.

And if one in four women on a campus are assaulted prior to graduation, why do any women go to this benighted place at all?

David said...

"There is no rape culture. There is drunk culture."

Now, now, must not blame the victims. Young women have a right to get snot snorting drunk and suffer no consequence. And really ladies, even if you are convinced that most men, and especially men fueled with alcohol, are incipient rapists, no one should question your judgment in drinking with them. Those horny rapey boys should just refrain. Until of course you take them off the leash.

Michael said...
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Michael said...

Remember how brave the people who opposed George W. Bush told themselves they were, in the face of his total fascist state of oppression? It was obvious to me that there was a need to feel like one was living bravely in very dramatic times, precisely because one was, in fact, living a coddled, nearly risk-free existence of intellectual conformity.

Same thing about rape culture. All around the world women live in something that could deserve the name, so the safest, most protected and unthreatened women on earth have to imagine themselves brave warriors against the patriarchy.

Brian Macker said...

Not only aren't men taught that rape is wrong, but all Christian, And Jewish men are taught that any sex outside marriage is wrong, period. It is called adultery.

All one need do to show how crazy these particular feminists are is to substitute "black" for "male". Just imagine if they were claiming that blacks had a culture of rape.

Plus they make all sorts of false claims which indicate they don't live in reality. Like claiming we don't blame victims of murder, or joke about that. Bullshit, wear a white hood in harlem and I'm going to blame you for your murder.

SGT Ted said...

"Rape Culture" is just the latest morphing of leftwing feminist oppression fantasy in order to maintain moral authority.

SGT Ted said...

Rape of females is one of the few crimes that still sparks a vigilante response, especially from the types of men that feminists bash as "the patriarchy".

"Rape culture" is a fraud. There is no rape culture that is tolerated by anyone, especially on the PC campus of today. So, campus feminists have to invent one.

What people are missing is this "rape culture" bullshit is coordinated to be used with the latest push by the Obama Justice Dept to use Title IX as a club to force the Academy to enact Star Chamber kangaroo courts to railroad any men accused by a woman by adopting a conviction standard that violates his right to a fair trial.

Its all part of the propaganda campaign to justify what they are doing to men on campus.

Henry said...

There's some deep feminist analysis of purity regimes and how they work against women (and against men, too, in final analysis). Martha Nussbaum covers some of this ground in Upheavals of Thought. Purity regimes turn the body into an object of disgust and despoils a person's full expression of mortal, bodily, humanity.

It is ironic, therefore, that Ms. Krueger's only recourse against Mr. Hookstead's sloppy assertions is the cleansing acid of cultural conformity. Intellectual purity must be observed.

TheThinMan said...

The term Rape Culture means let's assign collective guilt beyond the tiny fraction of the population that has actually committed the crime. here's a handy rape-o-meter to find out how guilty you are:

10. A male who raped (or were accused thereof. Same thing.)
9. A male who had sex with a girl who was drunk (as were you.)
8. A male who at any time wanted to have sex more than his girlfriend did and they had sex.
7. A male who had sex with a girl who regretted it later (even if she initiated it).
6. A male who watches pornography.
5. A male who's conservative.
4. A male.
3. A woman who's conservative.
2. A gay man.
1. A lesbian.

TheThinMan said...
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jabrwok said...

I'm surprised that in all these comments, no one has provided a link to Heather MacDonald's excellent _The Campus Rape Myth_ (http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_1_campus_rape.html).

Anonymous said...

If you’re disgusted and angry, this is your starting point. It’s only by opening the dialogue and banishing topics like sexual assault from our list of cultural taboos that we can begin to affect [sic?] a lasting change on campus.

It's only now that we learn that stoning people in the public square was just another form of "dialog".

Weeeeeeeeeeeee said...

Time to tell the truth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4zSRkBMPng

Weeeeeeeeeeeee said...

truth time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4zSRkBMPng

Trashhauler said...

I believe the dialogue she suggests would go something like this:

1. Admit you are male and unable to understand the problem.

2. Admit that the rape culture consists of males behaving badly.

3. Admit that in certain circumstances, any male will behave badly.

4. Admit that, as a male, you might behave badly. Therefore, your presence enhances to the rape culture.

Unknown said...

"What exactly do these 'ladies' want?"

They want what women always want: Broiled ice cubes.

Tim said...

Let us say two college kids get too drunk and have sex. Neither really remembers what happened very well, but they do remember from the next morning they had sex. Who raped who? If neither remembers, and neither was really capable of consenting, then how the hell do we decide?

Brian Macker said...

Unintentional double negative in the first sentence of my prior comment.

Mark Neil said...

"She didn't realize that in fact it's supposed to be an echo chamber where only approved thoughts are to be countenanced. Quick Katherine -- toe that line!"

I actually think this is far closer to the truth than the idea she is completely ideologically bent. If she was as much the crazy ideologue she comes off as in her article, she would never have allowed Hook's article to see daylight, and would instead have written an article responding to such ideas. But she posted Hook's article, got slammed by criticism (and who knows what threats to her career) and so is backpeddling like her life depends on it.