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A senior high teacher commits statutory rape with one of his students.
That's bad.
He was 54, she was 14.
Getting worse...
Once the charges were brought, she committed suicide.
How much worse can it get, though, this is terrible!
He was sentenced to 31 days of jail, one already served, so he's spending only one month in prison for this.
Wait, what?
The judge ruled that the victim was, "older than her chronological age."


http://billingsgazette.com/news/loc...cle_07466a01-c9c1-5538-a9e0-41f296074b27.html

Since when did Icarus become a judge?

Yay, precedent. *falls in a ditch*

Bullshit! Ugh, this kind of things really rub me the wrong way.
I was also classified by people as "mature for my age" and that doesn't mean you stop being a child, it just means you've got dealt with a lot of shit you've had to overcome or learn from at a very young age.
Fucking judge.

Nothing like a dash of horribleness to wake you up in the morning.

Honestly I don't even see how maturity applies. He was both way older than her AND in a position of authority over her. The only way I would ever have a chance of thinking of maturity would be if the two people were teenagers.

This article lays things out better, and has less fluff:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/28/justice/montana-teacher-rape-sentence/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Heh... Montana.

stienman said:

Since when did Icarus become a judge?

Click to expand...

I love that thread because someone uncaged the @Dave rage in that one.

stienman said:

A senior high teacher commits statutory rape with one of his students.
That's bad.
He was 54, she was 14.
Getting worse...
Once the charges were brought, she committed suicide.
How much worse can it get, though, this is terrible!
He was sentenced to 31 days of jail, one already served, so he's spending only one month in prison for this.
Wait, what?
The judge ruled that the victim was, "older than her chronological age."

http://billingsgazette.com/news/loc...cle_07466a01-c9c1-5538-a9e0-41f296074b27.html

Since when did Icarus become a judge?

Click to expand...

X

I was thinking about posting about that judge last night. He's a real piece of work. Here he is letting someone off of their THIRTEENTH FUCKING DUI with a warning.

http://helenair.com/news/opinion/re...cle_fcb46a7e-f658-11e2-a11c-001a4bcf887a.html

That girl was under that fucking asshole's care. That fucking piece of monstrous shit. That God awful judge.

UGH.

She was so much older than her chronological age and so mature that her response to this entire thing was to FUCKING KILL HERSELF.

I am struggling for words I am so angry.

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/vi...-day-sentence-girl-s-rape-amid-public-outrage

Judge Icarus Baugh said:

“Obviously, a 14-year-old can’t consent. I think that people have in mind that this was some violent, forcible, horrible rape,” Baugh said. “It was horrible enough as it is just given her age, but it wasn’t this forcible beat-up rape.”

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UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH

stienman said:

Since when did Icarus become a judge?

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Wait, wasn't that @Iaculus?

Apparently, "No" means "Get Baugh to be your judge."

--Patrick

BananaHands said:

I love that thread because someone uncaged the @Dave rage in that one.

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I found it hard to believe nobody had picked up on by the time I did. We drove that guy off. No regrets.

Dave said:

I found it hard to believe nobody had picked up on by the time I did. We drove that guy off. No regrets.

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The one time we tried to keep the thread on topic and you had to ruin it.

I bet that judge is one of the people who believes that the female body will just shut that down too.

THANK YOU for linking to the Icarus thread. I just had the most amazing 5 minutes of my life re-reading that. Wow. Truly a great moment in forum history.

Dave said:

I found it hard to believe nobody had picked up on by the time I did. We drove that guy off. No regrets.

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I just remember being really weirded out by it and not really knowing how to react. Then you came along and shit GOT REAL.

I gotta read that again.

It's a travesty how little we punish sexual offenders. I've known of a few admitted sex offenders who didn't serve any jail time for statutory rape. It's horrible.

I saw this story earlier on some news site, but didn't click the link - I figured it would just piss me off.

Gusto said:

I gotta read that again.

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I didn't even realize that I posted in that thread. That seems eons ago.

Ha - chaz!

chaz said:

What did you do? While all your friends were out playing beer pong, you were at a Hanna Montana sleep over?

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This is disgusting. A judge shouldn't be able to do that.

Man, that thread. Poor Iaculus, came in with a popcorn-munching emoticon and was misidentified as Icarus not long after. I have a feeling Dave was the first to notice because it was a text blob and we were all so focused on Polanski.

Hard to believe that was four years ago.

OP: this is fucked up.

Wow, so many old familiar names and avatars and sigs in that old thread.

And hey, as long as we're judging people by their mental ages anyway, it's pretty clear this judge has the mental capacity of a four year old, and should be treated as such. Remove him from judgehood, and let him spend his days with a box of crayons and some paper.

Yeah...I'm the first to say statutory rape isn't always and necessarily as bad as rape and what have you - and "more mature than her chronological age" can make sense and I can understand a judge giving a 31 day sentence...if it's a 17 year old boy and a 15 year old girl or some such, who just happen to be on the wrong side of the law for a few weeks in a relationship. This? This is a guy who needs forceful castration. And a judge who needs to be tried for making a farce out of justice.

My wife is seven years younger than me (pretty accurately actually since her birthday is a day before mine). But when she asks if we would have gotten together when she was 14 instead of when she was 24 I give her a very weird look and tell her "No.". But I think that George Clooney said it best in From Dusk Till Dawn. "I may be a bastard, but I'm not a fucking bastard."

Looks like the 30 day sentence may not be legal. He's being called back to most likely be re-sentenced to 2 years.

It appears the mandatory minimum is two years, not 30 days, the order said.
"In this Court's opinion, imposing a sentence which suspends more than the mandatory minimum would be an illegal sentence," it continued.

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Well, that would at least be something.

It sickens me how light sentences for sex offenders are. Ruin someone's whole life and you only have to serve 2 years?

Seriously? 2 Years? I mean, yeah, it's better than 30 days but still... the guy all but killed this little girl.

I was going to say... he should have had a mandatory minimum there, like other part 1 crimes...

As for the judge... Montana's very conservative, but not THAT conservative... I could see the MT supreme court looking at his credentials and deciding whether or not he should be defrocked...

Officer_Charon said:

I was going to say... he should have had a mandatory minimum there, like other part 1 crimes...

As for the judge... Montana's very conservative, but not THAT conservative... I could see the MT supreme court looking at his credentials and deciding whether or not he should be defrocked...

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He's up for re-election next year too. Hopefully if he makes it that long people will remember this mess and vote him out.

There's an online petition to get him off the bench, for all the good that does.

I'm sure two years isn't enough to make the family of that little girl feel better. Well... them and most of the population who have a heart.

You know, I hear there's this thing, it's called a "recall petition"...

EDIT: And Google informs me that's not how Montana does things, sadly.

Montana judges may be removed in one of two ways:

• Judges may be impeached by a two-thirds vote of the house of representatives and convicted by a two-thirds vote of the senate.

• On the recommendation of the judicial standards commission, the supreme court may retire, censure, suspend, or remove a judge.

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Quotemander Prime said:

There's an online petition to get him off the bench, for all the good that does.

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Online petitions are the laziest form of slacktivism.

Bowielee said:

Online petitions are the laziest form of slacktivism.

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Even lazier than "liking" a post and thinking you've done your part?

The Montana supreme court stepped in and said "Nope!"
Apparently the prosecution stepped in and asked for it to be stopped since it may interfere with their appeal. They did, saying it wasn't legal to revisit the sentence. The prosecution is appealing though, so there may still be hope of a better sentence.

The prosecution should consider, after the appeal is done, going to the SCOTSOM and getting the #$#@!$#@!%@!% yanked from the bench.

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/yemen/bride-8-dies-of-injuries-on-wedding-night-in-yemen-1.1228706

This guy just needs to get tried in Judge Baugh's courtroom.

TIME SERVED!

Aww. I was coming here to post that, @Frank.

Rage-inducing, indeed.

--Patrick

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/10/12/4549775/nightmare-in-maryville-teens-sexual.html

More succinct article:

http://gawker.com/family-gets-driven-out-of-missouri-town-after-daughter-1444590830

Lovely story of a town outraged that a rape case would actually be prosecuted. Outraged to the point of driving the victim and her family out of the town. How dare they shame a young high school football star and try to mar his obvious perfection.

BOYS WILL BE BOYS AMIRITE?

Frank said:

BOYS WILL BE BOYS AMIRITE?

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I loathe that phrase, and I have since I was a child when it was used to justify the bullying I went through. In 6th grade, the time I fought back and got caught, I got sent to the principal's office because I tried to shove my way past a bully who wouldn't let me sit down on the bus. I was told that I shouldn't have made such a big deal about it, and that the older, larger student was just having fun. Golly, wonder why I didn't trust the bus driver enough to tell them that I couldn't follow their instruction to sit down because my way was being blocked, and so I just slammed my trumpet case into the bully's stomach instead. Yeah, I didn't trust the authority figure because the authority figure couldn't see what was going on, despite demanding obedience, and other authority figures tried to defend the bullies too. Thankfully the principal had some sense, and realized I wasn't the cause of the problem. (Thankfully for him, as well, because he would not have liked what he would have had to put up with if my parents had found him on the wrong side of the argument. At this point my parents were none too happy with my school career, but they knew I wasn't a violent person.)

TLDR: That fucking phrase gets used to marginalize all sorts of victims, not just those of sexual assault. It's a phrase that needs to stop.

So isn't the internet supposed to rise up and destroy the lives of assholes like Matthew Barnett, who escape justice because of "lack of evidence"?

Shawnacy said:

So isn't the internet supposed to rise up and destroy the lives of assholes like Matthew Barnett, who escape justice because of "lack of evidence"?

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Anonymous is on vacation?[DOUBLEPOST=1381722649,1381722413][/DOUBLEPOST]

Frank said:

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/10/12/4549775/nightmare-in-maryville-teens-sexual.html

More succinct article:

http://gawker.com/family-gets-driven-out-of-missouri-town-after-daughter-1444590830

Lovely story of a town outraged that a rape case would actually be prosecuted. Outraged to the point of driving the victim and her family out of the town. How dare they shame a young high school football star and try to mar his obvious perfection.

BOYS WILL BE BOYS AMIRITE?

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That is just beyond horrible.

Bowielee said:

Anonymous is on vacation?[DOUBLEPOST=1381722649,1381722413][/DOUBLEPOST]

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I just tweeted the link to AnonNews and AnonOps. Whether they'll do or can do anything about it is another thing altogether.

Frank said:

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/10/12/4549775/nightmare-in-maryville-teens-sexual.html

More succinct article:

http://gawker.com/family-gets-driven-out-of-missouri-town-after-daughter-1444590830

Lovely story of a town outraged that a rape case would actually be prosecuted. Outraged to the point of driving the victim and her family out of the town. How dare they shame a young high school football star and try to mar his obvious perfection.

BOYS WILL BE BOYS AMIRITE?

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I can't even bring myself to open the articles. Your description alone has my hands shaking with rage.

AnonymousNews has now spread the story around. The hashtag #Justice4Daisy has begun.

ThatNickGuy said:

AnonymousNews has now spread the story around. The hashtag #Justice4Daisy has begun.

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It's getting viral and damned fast. It was on Reddit as well. (Haven't been there yet today but I assume it's rising.)

http://www.reddit.com/r/news/commen...eens_sexual_encounter/?already_submitted=true

And it's now a Reddit thread, too. We'll get this news spread, folks.

There's a great spot on a podcast called "Throwing Shade" where one of the hosts tried to research documented rape accusations and convictions at university campuses, and she found close to nothing except for a girl killing herself and people arguing things like "come on, a quarterback doesn't need to rape to get sex..."

Rape and the cultural underpinnings that support it is still so prevalent that many, if not most, women who experience it on college campuses believe they weren't raped. To some of them it's just college life, the consequences of getting drunk and/or perhaps flirting too much with a guy.

One article talked about female on male rape, and one of the questions investigators ask in such cases is "were you aroused?" Which is something they don't ask female victims. But the reality is that physically some women believe that if their body responded positively to even some small part of it, then it wasn't rape, just as some men who are raped find that their bodies are responding sexually to something they don't want, and know that others don't believe that a rape occurs if the victim's body responded positively to any small degree.

This on top of the public shaming and private threats that also force them to hide rape.

So I'm not surprised that even after decades of campus rape awareness movements you're still having a hard time finding the evidence.

That's simply amazing. Barely any of my college orientation was mandatory, but the rape awareness seminar was one of those required things.

And yet many kids there just brushed it off, like "Oh that couldn't happen to me."

I suspect a good bit of that attitude, though, comes from society's changing sexual mores. Casual sex, friends with benefits, etc all suggest that having sex with someone isn't very different from going out for a meal and satisfying one's hunger.

"She helped me out with my exam, so though I'm not interested in her, when she asked me out to eat I felt I couldn't say no."

Given that sex, virginity, and fidelity/monogamy are no longer seen as important to many youth today, it may be that the line between rape and consensual sex has grown so broad and gray that to many of them it simply isn't an issue, anymore than eating a meal you didn't really want to eat, but feeling like you couldn't easily socially extricate yourself from. And yes, I understand that homework/money/etc for sex isn't necessarily rape, the point is that sex is cheap, and since that's the case not all rapes are as horrifying to us as they perhaps should be.

Of course this is a very broad over generalization, but it seems that acceptance of casual sex has watered down the concept of rape in our society.

stienman said:

I suspect a good bit of that attitude, though, comes from society's changing sexual mores. Casual sex, friends with benefits, etc all suggest that having sex with someone isn't very different from going out for a meal and satisfying one's hunger.

"She helped me out with my exam, so though I'm not interested in her, when she asked me out to eat I felt I couldn't say no."

Given that sex, virginity, and fidelity/monogamy are no longer seen as important to many youth today, it may be that the line between rape and consensual sex has grown so broad and gray that to many of them it simply isn't an issue, anymore than eating a meal you didn't really want to eat, but feeling like you couldn't easily socially extricate yourself from. And yes, I understand that homework/money/etc for sex isn't necessarily rape, the point is that sex is cheap, and since that's the case not all rapes are as horrifying to us as they perhaps should be.

Of course this is a very broad over generalization, but it seems that acceptance of casual sex has watered down the concept of rape in our society.

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Hrm. That's a very interesting and discomfiting point. If we're convincing ourselves that sex isn't a big deal, are we really that surprised when some also take that to mean that rape isn't either?

If you don't want sex, it's rape, end of story. That may be a difficult concept for younger people these days, but that makes rape awareness all the more important. Being manipulated into it is still rape. Rapists use manipulation to get compliance out of children; that doesn't change when both parties are adults. No consent = rape.

If people want to sell sex for favors, that's up to them. But they still need to know that when they don't agree to sex, that's a rape situation. Even if they give sex away for food or homework or whatever 99 times, if the hundredth time they don't want sex, they have every right to refuse, and the other person should respect that.

Because that's what it comes down to--rape awareness is not just informing people of what rape is to avoid it, but to not commit rape. That violating another person is not okay, no matter how great the violator thinks s/he is. That's where we're getting these morons who protect young rapists in recent news stories. "Who wouldn't want to have sex with him? He's an athlete!" Those fucking troglodytes.[DOUBLEPOST=1381943114,1381943053][/DOUBLEPOST]

GasBandit said:

Hrm. That's a very interesting and discomfiting point. If we're convincing ourselves that sex isn't a big deal, are we really that surprised when some also take that to mean that rape isn't either?

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We can be unsurprised, but those people are still wrong. The emotional toll left on a rape victim tends to be enormous and lasts longer than a convicted rapist's sentence, sometimes for a lifetime.

Zero Esc said:

We can be unsurprised, but those people are still wrong. The emotional toll left on a rape victim tends to be enormous and lasts longer than a convicted rapist's sentence, sometimes for a lifetime.

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Oh, I definitely agree with you there. I'm just unsettled by the revelation of a way I hadn't thought of before that the practice was being unintentionally encouraged.

GasBandit said:

Oh, I definitely agree with you there. I'm just unsettled by the revelation of a way I hadn't thought of before that the practice was being unintentionally encouraged.

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I'm not even sure that's happening on a wide-scale. What steinman suggests makes sense from a victim's POV though, such as telling themselves that everyone considers sex not to be a big deal, so their rape shouldn't be a big deal," which unfortunately only leads to not contacting authorities and not getting help.

What disgusts me are the situations we're seeing in this thread's links and earlier this year where victims do come forward, only for the authorities or their bumfuck town to sweep it under the rug because the rapist wasn't some 40-year-old in a ski mask and trenchcoat, but an all-American football player. It should not matter who does it, whether they're a homeless junkie, a straight-A high school athlete, a politician, or Roman Polanski. Regardless, the person is a rapist.

I was shocked that a high school teacher had to explain this to her students after those two guys who drugged a girl (I'm blanking on names, the story dug up by Anonymous). The students were discussing how it was unfair that those two were going to lose their scholarships and why did they have to go to jail. The teacher informed them "They went to jail for rape because they are rapists." It's like there's this societal disconnect that only some sex offender hiding in the bushes can be a rapist. That's not how it works.

And as steinman noted, it can be women too. There's a gif of it floating around tumblr, some girl starts beating the hell out of this teenage boy until he gives in. I'd bet money he didn't report it out of fear that no one would take him seriously.



Sorry, I'm rant-rambling now and to no purpose since everyone on this site knows this stuff already. Cases like we're seeing in this thread really burn me up. I've known people who either have been raped or almost were, and that a decade later it still has an effect on trust/relationships.

Zero Esc said:

If you don't want sex, it's rape, end of story. That may be a difficult concept for younger people these days, but that makes rape awareness all the more important. Being manipulated into it is still rape. Rapists use manipulation to get compliance out of children; that doesn't change when both parties are adults. No consent = rape.

If people want to sell sex for favors, that's up to them. But they still need to know that when they don't agree to sex, that's a rape situation. Even if they give sex away for food or homework or whatever 99 times, if the hundredth time they don't want sex, they have every right to refuse, and the other person should respect that..

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But what if they don't refuse? What if they say "yes, let's have sex" while they are thinking "I don't really want to, but I feel obligated". Is it rape because they think they are obligated, even if the person who bought them dinner had no idea their date felt that way? This is not just an idle question, because this is part of how rape statistics are calculated. Is buying someone dinner "coercion" if it's not explicitly stated at any point that sex is expected in return? Because, depending on the survey, the question may be worded so that someone who felt pressured into sex, but only because of how they perceive societal convention, ends up counted as a rape victim, and neither they, nor their partner, ever realize that sex was counted as rape. It's unlikely such an issue would ever make it to trial, but it will certainly sway perceptions about how common rape is.

If someone says "no", it means "no". That's not in question, but there are legitimate reasons to say that "yes" sometimes means no, and there are some very hazy areas on that line. One end is clear, saying "yes" under explicit threat of harm is never actual consent. That's easy. The other end is clear, a married woman saying "yes, yes, dear god, yes, let's have sex right now" to her husband is clearly consent. Somewhere in the middle is the guy who took his girlfriend out to dinner at an expensive restaurant, and she didn't really feel like sex that evening, but said yes anyway, but wished she could have said no, but didn't because she thought she was being a good girlfriend and being romantic. There are those out there who argue that such a case is rape, simply because the power men have over women removes the ability to freely consent. I say that's bullshit, but where exactly is the line? When does buying dinner turn into coercing sex? It does at some point. Somewhere on the line of buying dinner, at an expensive restaurant, at the most expensive restaurant, with flowers, with a room full of roses, renting a limo beforehand, on prom night, when everyone knows what's supposed to happen on prom night if you've gone to dinner at the most expensive restaurant with the captain of the football team and... etc. At some point along that line the message shifts from "I want a special evening" to "you'd better put out in return for all of this" and I have no idea where in hell that exact point is. Anyone who does is lying.

This all points back to just how messed up the issue is. No one should ever feel like they can't refuse sex, but they do, and it's not always the fault of their partner that they feel like they can't refuse.


Not that any of this is relevant to the original case, where it's a clear-cut case that a minor cannot consent to sex with an authority figure, no matter what some moron judge says. However, I do think it's worth examining how we approach what it means to consent to sex. It's not always easy to define who is capable of freely consenting and in what situations.

If I'm gathering this correctly, you're proposing we take a situation where Person A does something nice for Person B, Person A later suggests sex, Person B doesn't feel like it, but feels this would be rude/impolite/incorrect/etc, and so through no coercion by Person A, Person B has sex with Person A at the suggest, because Person B sees an expectation to fulfill.

The problem there is societal, that a person would feel like sex is something they should do instead of something they want. To say it's rape by society would probably make people laugh though. But no one should feel something like that is a currency unless they want it to be. Sex is never owed or earned. Unfortunately, some people think it is. Obviously if Person A is insisting that they get sex for doing something nice, they're wrong. The hard part is when Person B's brain is telling Person B that Person A deserves it, even if Person B doesn't want to. That's wrong--it's also a learned behavior. Feminism is supposed to fix that, but as with what I mentioned from my college orientation, people don't like to listen, even for their own benefit.

I overheard some students today saying sarcastically "rape culture is a real thing guys" and then laughing. Sometimes I hate society.

Zero Esc said:

If I'm gathering this correctly, you're proposing we take a situation where Person A does something nice for Person B, Person A later suggests sex, Person B doesn't feel like it, but feels this would be rude/impolite/incorrect/etc, and so through no coercion by Person A, Person B has sex with Person A at the suggest, because Person B sees an expectation to fulfill.

The problem there is societal, that a person would feel like sex is something they should do instead of something they want. To say it's rape by society would probably make people laugh though. But no one should feel something like that is a currency unless they want it to be. Sex is never owed or earned. Unfortunately, some people think it is. Obviously if Person A is insisting that they get sex for doing something nice, they're wrong. The hard part is when Person B's brain is telling Person B that Person A deserves it, even if Person B doesn't want to. That's wrong--it's also a learned behavior. Feminism is supposed to fix that, but as with what I mentioned from my college orientation, people don't like to listen, even for their own benefit.

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Yeah, I think you're following me correctly. Rape by society is a dreadfully accurate statement, since it seems so absurd in concept, but is shockingly close to the truth. However, often enough the rhetoric boils down to "if there wasn't free consent, then the man is a rapist" and that's where my issue comes in. I know it's possible to rape without explicit threat, but I also know how unclear communication can be, and how messed up societal expectations are. I also dislike overly simplistic statements, and like to learn more about the truth of ethics by examining what appear to be grey areas. When people deny that there are difficulties drawing a line because of that grey, it drives me nuts.

I hate the idea of "teach men not to rape" because it's as stupid as "teach men not to steal". Gendered language aside, in most places we do teach people not to rape and not to steal. People break the law anyway. What I think we need is to teach what consent is, and what ownership is. We don't teach either of those very well, because they're much more difficult concepts than "don't do this" but on the other hand the positive concepts of consent and ownership are essential to understanding why rape and theft are wrong, and the difference between sex and rape, or the difference between a gift or purchase and theft. I don't think either is a simple or easy concept to teach, either.

And that concept of consent is pretty central to the idea of this whole thread. What is consent? Who is capable of consent? What can negate the ability to consent? Etc. None of these are always simple, but I think they're worth examining, especially if we acknowledge that it is a complex issue.

We're kind of meandering into "all sex is rape" territory. That's one of those strawmen that is often used to attack feminism, so I tend to stay far away from it.

Bowielee said:

I overheard some students today saying sarcastically "rape culture is a real thing guys" and then laughing. Sometimes I hate society.

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Sociological concepts like that have a huge PR problem. I'm betting in large part due to sleep-deprived college students who hear buzzwords in their sociology class, fail to understand the concept, and then proceed to use the term inaccurately on their Tumblr, which then gets passed on to other people who weren't even taking the class, who latch on the term while misusing it even further.

The "rape culture" these students are being sarcastic about may not actually reflect the legitimate sociological term in any meaningful form or fashion. For all you know everything they've heard about what rape culture is has been so wildly inaccurate that they're correct in rejecting what they've heard, but are also now prejudiced against the term itself, which describes a concept they've yet to even hear.

Bowielee said:

We're kind of meandering into "all sex is rape" territory. That's one of those strawmen that is often used to attack feminism, so I tend to stay far away from it.

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While I know that is a strawman, and that no credible authority on the subject believes that, I fail to see the harm in trying to better understand what is consent, and what is coercion. To me avoiding the subject for that reason would be like staying out of a debate on the cultural impact of television because you want to avoid the strawman that "CRT television rays literally rot your brain".

Wow, I saw a bunch of walls of text and was expecting to have my opinions of some people lowered severely. Thanks for proving me wrong.

figmentPez said:

What I think we need is to teach what consent is, and what ownership is.

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I think that's a big part of it.

Bowielee said:

We're kind of meandering into "all sex is rape" territory. That's one of those strawmen that is often used to attack feminism, so I tend to stay far away from it.

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Sadly, there are a large number of people I would've been unaware of if not for the internet's horrible depths who don't recognize that people are people, not property.

And, there was one famous feminist who did regard "all heterosexual sex as rape", but I don't remember anyone in my Women's Studies class taking that part of the feminist history portion of the class seriously.

figmentPez said:

...I hate the idea of "teach men not to rape" because it's as stupid as "teach men not to steal". Gendered language aside, in most places we do teach people not to rape and not to steal. People break the law anyway. ...

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Really? I'm honestly not convinced that we/society teaches men not to rape. Mass media glorifies stalking as an appropriate courtship technique than men can use on women. It's romantic! He's pursueing her until she realizes he's a good guy and finally breaks and says 'yes'. Women are used as nothing more than inanimate objects in all sorts of venues - particularly advertising - and as such, the idea of agency (let alone sexual agency or control of her own body) on the part of a woman is consistently eroded. Did your folks ever sit you down and, in the conversation about sex, talk about consent? Cuz that certainly wasn't part of any communal sex ed that I had in school, but I can't speak for what went on at home.

Oh, and I'm keeping the gendered language, not to annoy you, but because I would argue that women (generally speaking and in my experience) are taught about consent, and not letting your drink out of your sight, and dressing in such a way that it's easier for someone else to be assaulted instead of you, and taking self-defense classess, and not walking alone at night, and safety in numbers, and being aware of your surroundings and and and and....

While I get your point, I haven't seen what you are claiming is the norm.

Aside #2: I believe that 'all heterosexual sex is rape' may have been Greer, but it could have been Firestone. It was likley a second wave radical. [and just to be a twit: if we agree, and it seems we do, that someone cannot consent to sex with a person in power over them, and we accept the claim that the society we currently live in is patriarchal and actively works to disenfranchise women, this claim could be seen as a logical progression.]

Just my two-bits.

EDIT: I forgot something. The argument that 'we teach people to not rape, and they'll do it anyways' is problematic. For the primary reason that is leads oh so nicely (and often is used this way) to the claim that 'you can't expect them to restrain themselves' which is victim blaming at it's finest and I will have none of it. Because I very much do expect people to behave at least as well as a trained dog, who when told 'no', abides by that.

Dirona said:

Did your folks ever sit you down and, in the conversation about sex, talk about consent? Cuz that certainly wasn't part of any communal sex ed that I had in school, but I can't speak for what went on at home.

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Yes, they did. In fact, my church's course on sexuality taught about consent, as well. Then again, we were pretty damn progressive for church in Texas. In 8th grade a doctor in our church led, with other adults helping, a weekend course on sex and sexuality. Topics included: anatomy, clinical terms vs slang, birth control (condoms, pills, IUDs, implantable methods, etc. not just abstinence), and the importance of communication about sex.

But you seem to have missed my point that the very issue is that consent is not taught. I fully recognize that my experience is outside the norm, and even then what I was taught was a piss-poor excuse compared to what needs to be conveyed about the subject. I agree with all that you said, that we teach that stalking is romantic, that forcing a kiss is a good way to break the ice (women are actually more likely than men to initiate unwanted sexual touch*), that objectification is acceptable, etc. etc. To me the issues all boil down to not teaching consent, and what rights people have to control their own bodies. We teach that rape is wrong, but we teach that rape is some lunatic leaping out of the bushes and grabbing a woman.

*From the linked article:
"The study also found that males and females carried out sexual violence at strikingly similar rates after the age of 18 -- 52% of males and 48% of females.The study classified sexual violence into a few categories: foresexual or presexual contact (kissing, touching, etc. against their will), coercive sex, attempted rape, and completed rape. Women were more likely to instigate unwanted foresexual contact."

We don't teach what consent is, so our individual understanding of rape varies with our understanding of consent. If stalking is romantic, and approval can be won by persistence, then that follows that being persistent about sex is an acceptable method as well. Well, actually, that's not just implied, that's explicit in a lot of media. You get the girl by stalking, and then you get her to sex by pushing a little further each time. Because we don't teach about consent, this erosion of boundaries just becomes an accepted form of seduction, and it doesn't register as rape or sexual assault. We have to teach a better understanding of consent if we want people to understand what constitutes rape. Saying that someone shouldn't have sex without permission doesn't accomplish much if people don't understand what constitutes permission.

Imagine if, as a society, we taught that stealing is wrong, but never clearly defined what it means to own property. If we had only vague ideas of the lines between what is mine, and what is yours (and those vague boundaries tended to harm some groups more than others) we'd quickly run into problems of people saying "I didn't steal from you, that wasn't yours to begin with" or "How could that be stealing, I thought you wanted me to walk out without paying." The problem wouldn't be that we don't teach people that stealing is wrong, it would be that we don't teach people what ownership is, who owns what, and what acceptable methods of transferring property are.

In other words, the lunatic who jumps out of the bushes to grab a random woman is not going to listen to the lesson "don't rape" because he's crazy and crazy don't care. Individuals who are teachable need to understand what consent is in order to fully understand what rape is. Teaching positive concepts often works better than negative ones. Teaching people about how to respect others bodies and sexuality will go a lot further than trying to tell them to not violate others bodies and sexuality.

EDIT: I forgot something. The argument that 'we teach people to not rape, and they'll do it anyways' is problematic. For the primary reason that is leads oh so nicely (and often is used this way) to the claim that 'you can't expect them to restrain themselves' which is victim blaming at it's finest and I will have none of it. Because I very much do expect people to behave at least as well as a trained dog, who when told 'no', abides by that.

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I disagree about this. We teach people to not steal, but we also recognize that people will always steal, because there will always be criminals. Despite this we still expect people to refrain from stealing. The fact of the matter is that society has yet to come up with a way to form each and every citizen into a healthy member of society. We do our best to teach people, but we don't know how to stop at least a portion of the population from becoming criminals. It happens. We must acknowledge this and take reasonable action to promote safety. We teach people about how to be safer getting money from ATMs, tell them to carry their wallet in a front pocket, carry traveler's checks instead of cash, etc. None of this leads to blaming victims of theft. Nor do we claim that all people are unrestrained monsters who cannot resist stealing money. Acknowledging that some are criminals is merely truth, and that is what rapists are, part of the sub-section of the population that are criminals.

A somewhat-related aside: Did anyone else just never have "the talk"? My parents never sat down and had any kind of discussion or explanation with me about anything related to sex or dating or any of it. I was just left to figure it out.

Same here. The closest I got was my girlfriend's mom talking to the two of us, which could be summed up as: "Don't. Just don't"

Tress said:

Same here. The closest I got was my girlfriend's mom talking to the two of us, which could be summed up as: "Don't. Just don't"

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In a statement sure to defuse the situation, the Maryville, MO Sheriff who was on the case originally calls Anonymous "cowards," tells them to "get jobs and move out of their parents' basements."

GasBandit said:

In a statement sure to defuse the situation, the Maryville, MO Sheriff who was on the case originally calls Anonymous "cowards," tells them to "get jobs and move out of their parents' basements."

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The consequences will never be the same?

Zero Esc said:

The consequences will never be the same?

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I'm sure he's already started the backtrace.

Since the Kansas City Star published an explosive report on Daisy's ordeal over the weekend, the town of 12,000 has been besieged by reporters and the hacking collective Anonymous, which has targeted key officials for harassment as well as some of the suspects' friends and family.

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Zero Esc said:

A somewhat-related aside: Did anyone else just never have "the talk"? My parents never sat down and had any kind of discussion or explanation with me about anything related to sex or dating or any of it. I was just left to figure it out.

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My husband never did, and his public school talk was all about abstinence and deodorants. He went through anatomy books at the library.

Cajungal said:

My husband never did, and his public school talk was all about abstinence and deodorants. He went through anatomy books at the library.

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Same here, sort of. I learned all about sex from library books. One day my mom asked me, "So... you already know how it all works, right?" And I said, "Yep." And that was my "talk."

Mine was:
"If you do get busy, wrap it up. Because we're not raising your kids for you."

Cajungal said:

My husband never did, and his public school talk was all about abstinence and deodorants. He went through anatomy books at the library.

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I'd say my health class covered a lot.

My wife grew up in the midwest though, so hers echoes your husband's.

Zero Esc said:

A somewhat-related aside: Did anyone else just never have "the talk"? My parents never sat down and had any kind of discussion or explanation with me about anything related to sex or dating or any of it. I was just left to figure it out.

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Never happened to me. My parents are simply too conservative to approach the issue, so everything I know is from school. Uncoincidentally, this is probably why I've never had much success in knowing WHEN to ask someone on a date or knowing if someone is interested in me. I simply default to "She must want something, because people only do this to me when they want something."

An episode of Degrassi High had one of the characters talking about using a condom. I asked my mom what a condom was and she frankly answered my questions, because that's how she's always rolled. I was at the oldest 8. My parents were never shy about explaining things or using real terms for stuff. It was never my wee-wee, it was always my penis and other such stuff.

I have no idea how I learned. Probably from a book. Or three.

Our 3 (almost 4) year old is already going through science/anatomy books and asking us things like, "There's the baby?" (points to cross-section drawing of gestating child). "Yep," we reply. "And then it comes out of the penis?" he asks. "No, honey. Women don't have penises." Not sure he's clear on the whole gender thing, but he did say that I make a better bed than mommy because I'm not as bumpy.

--Patrick

School covered it all pretty good for me. I got nothing from my parents. The closest I ever got was an electric razor for Christmas followed by a whole lot of heckling from my sisters.

The man speaks one of the most vile and dismissive things I've ever heard. Again, 13 year old.

"I'm not saying she deserved to get raped but..."

FUCK YOU. YOU SLIME. YOU HUMAN TRASH. YOU GREASY FUCKING ASSHOLE.

5-year-old me who watched too much TV: "Mommy, what's sex?"

Mom: "Sex isn't something you shouldn't do for a very long time."

Then she left the room. Good talk, Mom.

So, she said you should do it right away then?

I knew 30 seconds was enough time!

Dude, that Icarus thread makes me wish I frequented this place more often.

Dave came out with the flappy hooties swinging

Poor Iaculus caught in the crossfire

KCWM said:

Dude, that Icarus thread makes me wish I frequented this place more often.

Dave came out with the flappy hooties swinging

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The best part of that thread is that everybody missed it until Dave came in and said WTF????

Bowielee said:

The best part of that thread is that everybody missed it until Dave came in and said WTF????

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Dave- "Oh, this thread is blowing up, I wonder waaOH MY GOD WAT???"