Why I respect men so very very much

[Lucifer_Carroll]

What is to be quoted is a left-wing blog. I make no value statements on left wing blogs or their validity or the validity of blogs in general. I only wish to present the situation referenced in the blog. The fact it happened, the fact that this is a rarity in that it went as well as it did, the fact of the defense, and the fact that the first jury nearly voted unanimously to let these three self-videotaping rapist off. Not to mention that it was only brought forth on the suspicion that it was sex with a corpse as if that is worse.

OC Rapists Sentenced to Six Years in Prison

Many people have noticed my distinct bigotry in these matters and feel that I am overly harsh. And I make no defense against that. I am. When you read Hothead Paisan and feel its not over the top enough, there is something seriously wrong with you and I would love to wake up in a world wherein I didn't have my hands clenched in near-constant fury. Where I would learn to stop worrying and love my fellow men as the charming 50% of the world's population that they "really are".

Sadly, stories like this only serve to insure that I will always fall short of that dream and insure yet another day of being yelled at for my bigotries.

On a more jocular note: Someone please make sure I remember this time that politics are not an acceptable study break reading material. While great at waking one up, they are terrible for one's blood pressure.

 

[Guest]

agreed. rape is rape. nonconsent contains..non...meaning...NO. not...unwilling sperm recipient. my ex got 5 years for rape. it made me a wee bit upset; might be an understatement.

waking up to this is not what i would consider a good morning read. maybe stick to ann landers dear abby or weather reports ...
on second thought, that would just get you upset about global warming.
porn is good...

 

[neonlyte]

Luc
No yelling from this quarter. We had a similarly disturbing trial in UK concluded last week. Six men, two girls, one killed by 40 stab wounds after hours of being raped in an hotel room, the other survived a shooting in the head to give evidence. During the trial one of the men stated 'There were nine of us in the room, six men, two girls and the Devil.' Doesn't even begin to mitigate the ordeal or the dog-pack mentality of the attackers. They all received long jail terms.

 

[Liar]

Reminds of a case that is on in Sweden right now. The police is in an ethical dilemma.

A stolen cell phone was recovered in a raid. It was one of those fancy camera phones, and on it was a recorded video of a brutal and lengthy gang rape of a young girl. Only one of the four rapists on the vieo has been identified and arrested, and he is silent about who the other three are or who the victim is. The video is undoubtedly enough to get him convicted to a long prison sentence. But without being able to find the victim, there is little hope of finding and convicting any of the other rapists on the video. And the police is can't really release the image material to the press in order to find her. Who knows what that would do to her?

Now, if it was up to me, I'd have a solution. I'm a pacifist to the point of stupidity sometimes, but I wouldn't hesitate a strategically placed thumbscrew on the arrested rapists cock. I think that would untie his tongue.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Agreed, these sorts of people are repulsive and disgusting. I simply take issue with the title of the thread and the implication that males are somehow inferior to females.

Humans can be bastards. You can't tar half the race for the actions of a mercifully small number of genuinely disgusting people. Otherwise you become the living mirror of the man who refers to all women as sluts, bitches, and golddiggers because he's had a few bad experiences. Yes, there are bad people in the world. Why blame half of the world's population for them?

Shanglan

 

[Kev H]

Agreed, these sorts of people are repulsive and disgusting. I simply take issue with the title of the thread and the implication that males are somehow inferior to females.

Humans can be bastards. You can't tar half the race for the actions of a mercifully small number of genuinely disgusting people. Otherwise you become the living mirror of the man who refers to all women as sluts, bitches, and golddiggers because he's had a few bad experiences. Yes, there are bad people in the world. Why blame half of the world's population for them?

Shanglan

Case in point: Would you hate or curse our Shan simply because horses kick or trample or throw their riders? Neiiiigh, I say!

 

[Norajane]

Reminds of a case that is on in Sweden right now. The police is in an ethical dilemma.

A stolen cell phone was recovered in a raid. It was one of those fancy camera phones, and on it was a recorded video of a brutal and lengthy gang rape of a young girl. Only one of the four rapists on the vieo has been identified and arrested, and he is silent about who the other three are or who the victim is. The video is undoubtedly enough to get him convicted to a long prison sentence. But without being able to find the victim, there is little hope of finding and convicting any of the other rapists on the video. And the police is can't really release the image material to the press in order to find her. Who knows what that would do to her?

Now, if it was up to me, I'd have a solution. I'm a pacifist to the point of stupidity sometimes, but I wouldn't hesitate a strategically placed thumbscrew on the arrested rapists cock. I think that would untie his tongue.

Don't they do plea bargains in Sweden? I'd imagine he might talk for a lighter sentence - not that he deserves one, but 20 years in prison might sound better to him than life in prison, and that means 3 other rapists would also be in jail.

 

[Liar]

Don't they do plea bargains in Sweden? I'd imagine he might talk for a lighter sentence - not that he deserves one, but 20 years in prison might sound better to him than life in prison, and that means 3 other rapists would also be in jail.

Apparently, they've tried that, and he still doesn't talk. Which will actually cause him additional charges for obstruction of justice. They guess he's afraid of retaliation if he rats his firends out.

 

[Liar]

Case in point: Would you hate or curse our Shan simply because horses kick or trample or throw their riders? Neiiiigh, I say!

Case in point.: There's no use debating this w Luc. He's dead set in his mind on the point. Or mabe just in his rhetorics. Not sure which. But learn to look past the All Men Are Evil repertoir, and he's one of the most sensible blokes around.

 

[BlackShanglan]

But learn to look past the All Men Are Evil repertoir, and he's one of the most sensible blokes around.

Interesting thought. Learn to look past the "all women are sluts and bitches" repertoire, and we might find sensible blokes as well?

 

[TheEarl]

Interesting thought. Learn to look past the "all women are sluts and bitches" repertoire, and we might find sensible blokes as well?

Thank you.

The Earl

 

[Liar]

Interesting thought. Learn to look past the "all women are sluts and bitches" repertoire, and we might find sensible blokes as well?

Theoretically. Could be a fully probable outlook based on very peculiar experiences. Could be a conscious choice of idenitiy for a desired effect. Should this affect how we view everything else said bloke says? In an ideal situation, nopes.


Just saying that we've been through this, and bloke in question is the way he is. Either discredit him entirely, or ignore the aspects that makes no sense. Your choice. I've made mine.

 

[Kev H]

Theoretically. Could be a fully probable outlook based on very peculiar experiences. Could be a conscious choice of idenitiy for a desired effect. Should this affect how we view everything else said bloke says? In an ideal situation, nopes.


Just saying that we've been through this, and bloke in question is the way he is. Either discredit him entirely, or ignore the aspects that makes no sense. Your choice. I've made mine.

No extremes necessary however, bud. Sometimes I think we humans forget how to be moderate, to "take it with a grain of salt." Anyone with Lucifer in their name makes me grin and take them only as serious as they take themselves.

Besides, I am confident enough in my calm and easy-going self (and those I see around me, even in BFE where I live) to figure only the most deluded would jump to all-horrible conclusions about my gender. If they do, I will feel sad for them and wish them peace someday.

 

[3113]

Ah. The O.C. case. *Shudder*

Lucifer, my friend, if you're going to make it to your next bithday without needed blood pressure meds...please, stop reading the newspaper, watching the news, or even glancing at headlines here on-line.

That this case went as it did was thanks, of course, to the rich-ex-sheriff dad of one of the perpetrators. I really don't think they'd have gotten away with as much as they got away with for as long but not for that.

So it really isn't men so much as anyone with money enough to mannipulate and buy and cheat their way out of justice that we need to hate. And certainly any system that allows such a thing to happen, where there is not "justice for all," needs fixin.

Unclench your fists. Take a deep breath. And remember that men as outraged as you are by this, make the gender worthy of respect.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Theoretically. Could be a fully probable outlook based on very peculiar experiences. Could be a conscious choice of idenitiy for a desired effect. Should this affect how we view everything else said bloke says? In an ideal situation, nopes.

I disagree. In an ideal situation, of course, the bloke would say no such thing. But should a person's willingness to lump an entire race, gender, or religion together and hate them affect my perceptions of that person's moral, ethical, and intellectual standing? Yes. The action is irrational. It is unethical. It is morally repugnant. It should affect my perceptions of the person, and those perceptions will reflect how I perceive other statements from that person. I am much less interested in a source that has proved itself hateful and irrational. I think that reasonable.

Just saying that we've been through this, and bloke in question is the way he is. Either discredit him entirely, or ignore the aspects that makes no sense. Your choice. I've made mine.

Yes, and I have made mine. This has, however, nothing to do with my response to the post. I believe that persons of good conscience, when speaking in a social environment, have some duty to uphold the principles of civil society. That doesn't mean haranguing every passer-by, but it does mean answering grossly offensive statements with a reminder that such views are rejected by at least some of the persons present. It is both part of one's own character and part of the construction of social mores. I think it important that the rejection of racist and sexist statements be enunciated.

Shanglan

 

[CharleyH]

Agreed, these sorts of people are repulsive and disgusting. I simply take issue with the title of the thread and the implication that males are somehow inferior to females.

Aren't they?

You can't tar half the race for the actions of a mercifully small number of genuinely disgusting people.

You are correct, and yet you can sure blame the original definition of slut or whore or cum bitch et al on men and as opposed to any hetero male equivalent of these words? I am certain the female race never came up with these particular "turn-on words" .

We females can certainly tar men semiotically.

 

[hugo_sam]

......

 

[CharleyH]

Thoughtfully and well said Shang, as usual
I could never say it as well or eloquently
Thanks

Hugo

But where is your argument, Hugo? I am not sure. You rely on Shanglan?

 

[hugo_sam]

......

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Oy.

Clarification time: I do not believe all men evil, nor that men are inherently evil. What I have been struggling with me and which has caused me to admit to a known bias and bigotry is the belief that for some reason a majority of the men picked the evil option for shits and giggles. I'm (hopefully) wrong about that, but I can't change what I'm struggling with and I fully recognize my views place me far beyond the realm where I can claim feminism or even chivalry, but where I am indeniably in "man-hater" or "ball-breaker" areas. Perhaps this admission and assertation has lost me all favor with the men who I personally consider to be the noble exceptions, those who make being a man something worth admiring. If so, sorry guys, really.

To Shan, I would rather admit to my bigotries when I have them than lie about it. I think everyone deserves that kind of honesty. I struggle with hope against cynicism to see good in men as something common rather than something rare. Stories like this do not help. That was the side of this post everyone took...to an extremis I think. But that's the risk I ran with both the title and the focus especially with my history on this board and my previously stated bigotries.

In truth, I was poking a bit of fun at myself, at my futile struggle against my bigotries and the nearly insurmountable ugliness of cases like this and what it illuminates about our society and our views on women and rape victims. As Kev pointed out sometimes I've got a touch of the silly (nah really?).

On a serious note though, what I found most frightening about this case, what most made me dwell on my low opinion of men was not the act itself but the response and what came afterward. The act itself is horrible and would cause many of the chivalrous good men on this board to offer their services with rusty power tools, but what happened afterwards just boggles.

The tape was turned in on a suspected necrophilia charge for which the defendants after 4 years got less time than they would under that rap. Despite the equivalent of an evidence gold mine (video tape of inhumane and unquestionable rape and the celebration of the defendants while they engaged in it) the defendants were nearly found innocent (one vote for guilty resulted in a hung jury in the first trial). A defense attorney not only had the gall to defend such obviously guilty fiends, but actively harrassed the woman in question (going to her new school and yelling her real name), bribed the first jury to try and sway the second jury, and attacked the character in ludicrous ways (saying she was an aspiring porn star faking unconsciousness (ludicrous unless you believe she was both an incredibly good actress and somehow received a blow to the head to make her forget that she agreed to being violated in that way)). And people accepted that, went yup, she's a slut all right, she wanted to be raped with pool cues and snapple bottles, that's why she's risking everything to try and put these men away. That some people argued that since she was unconscious at the time, what did she lose. That something as black and white as this rape case was nearly thrown out and it is only through luck and determination that she was able to put them away for the likely 2 years they'll spend in prison (no wonder we have megan's law).

What does that mean to all the other rape victims, who have less evidence on their attackers, who scrubbed away the sperm in disgust and horror, who didn't have the guts to face a defendant who will gleefully destroy them to protect some smiling rapists, who don't have a friendly police department, who don't have a prosecutor who thinks they got a shot, who must face a world where "but she was a slut" is an acceptable rationale for rape? Why must we listen to asshole men decrying the fact that "our poor frat boys" are under attack by "fradulent" claims of "date rape" and whatnot while our justice system seems specifically designed to attack rape victims, where the victim is really the one on trial? To me this obvious mockery of all womenkind, this travesty of men who checked the evil box, who like to think of women as meat, make it really difficult to give men the benefit of the doubt they deserve. When I see a system nearly let off rapists who did all but triple penetrate her on the courtroom floor, where the victim is always on trial and "she was a slut" is considered a logical defense; when I see the men smiling and nodding and saying the system still favors the rape victims too much, my fists clench uncontrollably and I tic another space back into bigotry hell. That's what this thread is really about. Misogyny made policy, rape victims made worse victims. That's not my sex, that's not my system.

 

[TheEarl]

Luc: That's evil people. Not an evil gender.

I know we've argued this dozens of times and there's no profit in going over it again, but I just wanted to register my disagreement.

The Earl

 

[Liar]

I really don't like to divert this thread from the serious main topic but I will say this before I leave it alone. I'm baffled by the world Luc lives in, where good decent men are the noteable exception, and misogynist would-be rapists or wifebeaters are the norm. I see the exact opposite. And still, we're on the same planet.

Ok...that besing said, back on some kinda topic.

What can (or should) be done? One important thing to do I think is to try and wash away the social stigma that rape victims have had imposed on them. I'm not talking about the "She probably deserved it" bullshit, but a more general attitude towards victims. The by far most common reason why rapists escape justice is not that some low-life defense attourney plays the slut card or that the court and jury is misogynism tainted. The most common reason is that rape victims don't go to the police in the first place.

Why? Partly because they run the risk of being confronted with the "it's your fault" dickheads. (I'm not denying they are out there, but from what I've seen in terms of rape cases, they're the bad eggs that get the media attention.) But mostly because it means exposing a very intimate part of themselves to the public. They become, in the face of every person they meet, a violated and humiliated victim. That is traumatic, even if the people they encounter are understanding and respectful. It is, if you will, a loss of identity. They go from active Person to passive Victim. From Miss Jane Doe, to The Raped. Victims of abuse and robbery go through the same thing, but maybe less so, since the added social taboo dimension of sex is not there.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Thank you, Lucifer, for your post. I think it very interesting, and I admire your comments for their candour and their self-reflection. Honestly, they make a great difference to how I see your earlier post. Your evident struggle with the issue and the way in which you approach it help me to see better what you mean.

Your comments on the horror and wretchedness of such crimes I found particularly moving. I do know the feeling you describe, although it is humanity rather than men for whom I at times despair. There is something horribly repulsive and depressing about hearing of such crimes; it leaves one sickened to think that anyone has the capacity for such behavior. Who wants to acknowledge kinship with something that can do that? I felt much the same way when hearing some of the details about the recent arrests involving a chat room for pedophiles; some of the behaviors were so calculated and heartlessly evil, so utterly callous and even casual, that the sensation they evoked was one of physical sickness. It made one long to wipe such people from the earth as an offense to all of existence. When, as in the case you describe, that act is compounded by others who seek to cover and protect such wholly disgusting individuals, it's difficult to know where to turn one's rage.

I agree with you that the system has much to answer for, and everyone in it. I felt much the same way with the actions of my church as regards the offenses of pedophile priests. In truth, I think some of the bishops have more to answer for - for while I consider it possible that a pedophile might be so mentally ill that he could not control his own actions, I cannot accept any mitigation of the bishop who knew about those actions and decided to continue to sacrifice children to a pedophile in order to polish his own image or seek advancement for himself.

Shanglan

 

[Pure]

Go, Luc,

I believe Luc's last post makes some excellent points, though (like him) I reject universal 'tarring' of the male sex.

It's reminiscent of the old saw about politicians: It's the rotten 99% that have given the other 1% a bad name.

I would however add something to this statement of Luc's

LC: When I see a system nearly let off rapists who did all but triple penetrate her on the courtroom floor, where the victim is always on trial and "she was a slut" is considered a logical defense; when I see the men smiling and nodding and saying the system still favors the rape victims too much, my fists clench uncontrollably and I tic another space back into bigotry hell. That's what this thread is really about.

P: It deserves more emphasis that the legal system is designed by males, since time immemorial. The defense antics--the slut defense--work because of how the laws are written. Previously the bias was obvious in that, for teen females, and a rape accusation, the female had to be 'of previously chaste character.' Yet dropping the phrase did not solve the problem.

Some ancient laws specified that if the alleged assault took place in the city (i.e. with people anywhere in the vicinity) then the victim's 'crying out' is necessary for laying a rape charge. If there's no cry, no charge, since she was obviously fornicating or commiting adultery, rather than being the object of the rape she alleges.

Another interesting area of the law regards the unconscious victim. It is only a recent innovation to infer lack of consent (in the eyes of the law). Indeed, if present-day men-on-the-street are asked about the 'passing out' scene, I believe a sizable minority of lay (male) persons would deny there's anything untoward, or at least 'undeserved.'

All of this reminds me of the problem of trying to play--and win-- a game with someone who gets to make the rules--and alter them as it suits him during the progress of the game.

All of this being said does not mean that the last 20 years' reforms have been mostly beneficial, excepting in the obvious case of excluding the victim's past in some cases (not all, by any means). I'm thinking of such bumbling moves as upping the [unaggravated] penalty to, say 20 years; as creating a crime of 'date rape' where there was not an explicit question and an explicit 'yes' answer; as enabling charges to proceed with utter lack of material or tangible or third parties' corroborating evidence. I believe some other posters have mentioned the fact that the alleged improvements have had minimal or negative effects in several respects.

 

[3113]

P: It deserves more emphasis that the legal system is designed by males, since time immemorial.

Nicely said, Pure. It was one of those things I was thinking and which does score points in Luc's argument and position. The gender in charge has made the rules, and Luc's true fury was as much at these cruel and bias rules than at the boys who committed the rape.

It's one thing to say that the rapists are the exception to the rule--but when those who make the rules allow rapists to get off easy AND allow the victim to suffer along the way--then they've really given a bad name to their gender. Those of that gender put themselves in charge--gave power to others of their gender--and when it came time for them to protect the weak, their rules and methods instead protected their own. They lacked justice, empathy, compassion, common sense.

I'm not going to join the "man-hating" camp, but I do think Luc's perspective is understandable given such examples. Rather than trying to argue that this is rare and he shouldn't tar all men with the same brush--why not present counter examples? I think, Pure, that you're on the right track. Actions speak louder than words. You can argue philosophically that Luc should not tar all men with the same brush, but such philosophies are not going to counteract this example and convince Luc on a visceral level that he should modify his bias against the male gender.