On the Hofstra Rape/Recant Case & the Campus Rape Epidemic

I’m talking about it all on CNN tonight during the 5PM broadcast. In the meantime, check out my related piece from the Prospect last week.

What really matters about Chris Brown’s sentence.

I’ve got a piece up at Huffington Post today on Chris Brown’s sentencing:

…if there’s any silver lining to this whole awful incident, it’s the way it’s put relationship violence back in our public conversation. Given how infrequently that happens, we should be doing more than just be asking what kind of sentence Chris Brown deserves. We need to ask what kind of sentence will help ensure he — and men all over the country just like him — never beats another woman.

You should go check it out.

Reasons I Am Not Approving Your Post

Anyone who read my article in the Prospect yesterday can guess that this here very blog has attracted its share of sports misogyny apologists in the last few days. Which might make you wonder – how come I can’t see ‘em in the comments?

Well, here’s the thing. They have the rest of the interwebs to spout off, so I really don’t see why we have to give ‘em air here. Plus, WordPress (the free version, anyhow) has this weird thing where you can’t ban commenters. You can only approve or not approve them the FIRST time they post. Once you’ve approved one post, they’re free to run roughshod over your blog and there’s little you can do to stop them. Therefore I’m pretty cautious about approving even the posts that might be from jackholes, and might just be from dumb people who lack reading comprehension. I don’t want to find out the difference later when it’s too late.

That said, some people are downright IRATE that I haven’t approved their posts. Fortunately no one has accused me of iminging on their freedom of speech yet, but I thought I might clear some things up before it gets to that point.

So, without further ado, your (possible) trolls and my responses to them. Jump in in the comments section and add whatever I left out:

Isnt there two sides to every story? The fact that you used Ben rothlisberger, a story that all the facts are not known completely ruins your argument. There are girls out there who will use such accusations to get money from rich people. Im not saying that he did not rape her, I am saying that we do not know what happened. Doesn’t it make you wonder why the police are not bringing up charges? I’m sure police they would if there really was something that happened. Shit they dragged Michael Jackson into court for ever just because they thought he was molesting children. Sexism works both ways and you are promoting it.

On Sports Misogyny Apologists

I’ve got a piece up at The American Prospect today on the legions of sports fanatics that live to excuse even the most heinous behavior by their players and their teams:

The apologists drink from a potent cocktail of hero-worship, almost military levels of team solidarity, and old-fashioned “boys will be boys” gender essentialism. And they would just be offensive if they weren’t such an integral part of the larger culture of misogyny in sports — a culture that makes it possible for there to be so many henious acts to defend, minimize and deny in the first place. As is, they’re downright dangerous, writing a blank check for athletes’ behavior that too many athletes are happy to cash.

Go read it here. And then check out CounterQuo, a new organization dedicated to challenging the way we respond to sexual violence in the U.S.  I’m a charter member, and my fellow leaders there — including Katie Hnida, who I quote in the piece – were much help to me in putting this piece together so quickly. Their site is a great resource to all of us trying to fight the victim-blaming spin already developing in the Roethlisberger case.

Why the Charges are Civil (and Why That Doesn’t Mean She’s a Lying Golddigger)

A lot has already been made about why the victim in the Roethlisberger case has pressed civil charges but not criminal ones. Bloggers and commenters across the web have begun suggesting this undermines her credibility and makes it more likely that she’s a “lying golddigger.” (I won’t be sending these folks traffic by linking to them.)

In reality, there are TONS of reasons a rape victim may file civil charges but not criminal ones. For one, the burden of proof is easier in a civil case. In a criminal one, even DNA evidence may not be enough to prove the accused did it “beyond a resonable doubt” if he’s claiming the sex was consensual. But in a civil case, the evidence need only prove that it’s more likely than not that the accused did the crime.

But burden of proof is only one reason among many. I asked the fantastic Jessie Mindlin and Lydia Watts of the Victim Rights Law Center (and my fellow CounterQuo founding members) about this issue, and they said that burden of proof is far from the most common reason victims choose civil suits over criminal ones.

While we don’t know this particular woman’s reasons, here are 10 good reasons Mindlin & Watts see all the time:

This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like

I often get asked what the phrase “rape culture” means. And while, honestly, the answer is no further away than wikipedia, it’s sometimes easier to grasp a concept by observing it in the wild.

Ben Roethlisberger is the Super-Bowl-winning QB of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Last summer he was in Lake Tahoe for a celebrity golf tournament. While there, he flirted up a female host at Harrahs, the casino hotel where he was staying. Whether or not she voluntarlily flirted with him is unknowable – as a rich, high profile celebrity, he knew that it was her job to flirt with him, and so did she. That’s rape culture. When men make choices about what women do with their sexuality, that strengthens the idea that men can control women’s bodies.

The following night, he called her to say his TV wasn’t working – would she come take a look? She couldn’t find a tech person to do it, so she went herself, knowing that she had to do everything possible to keep her celeb guest happy. Once up there, she discovered a perfectly functioning TV. And then, allegedly, Roethlisberger blocked her exit and raped her. That’s rape.

When she reported the attack to Harrah’s security chief Guy Hyder, he declined to investiage and allegedly told her that she was “overreacting” and that “most girls would feel lucky to get to have sex with someone like Ben Roethlisberger.” He also told her to either keep it from their boss at Harrah’s, or to tell their boss they’d had sex voluntarily, in order to keep everybody happy. That’s rape culture. When people in power refuse to take women’s rape charges seriously, it means there are no consequences for rapists, which makes them more free to rape.

Later, while she was hospitalized for depression as a result of the assault, Hyder convinced her parents to give him the key to her house. He and other Harrah’s employees used it, allegedly, to enter her home without permission and erase information from her computer. That’s rape culture. When authorities use their power to deliberately silence rape victims instead of helping them find justice, it not only leaves rapists free but intimidates other victims from coming forward.

And now, as these details emerge, ESPN has instructed its entire team of reporters to not report any of this information. [Update: ESPN may be easing its ban, but it's still unclear how much and what will be reported.] Yes, the same network whose sideline reporter is currently being exploited all over the ‘net in a peeping tom video. You’d think that would make them more sympathetic to the sexual exploitation of women just trying to do their job, but they’re too focused on protecting access to the star athletes who are their cash cows to even do their basic job as journalists. That’s rape culture. When our media won’t talk about rape, people think it doesn’t happen, and the rapists face no consequences. That emboldens rapists.

Gossip blogger Perez Hilton is already suggesting she may be a lying golddigger. That’s rape culture. As this woman’s case proceeds, her body, her actions, her mental state, motives and her history will be put on public trial in a way that would never happen if she were accusing someone of kidnapping or attempted murder. That’s rape culture. When women are too afraid of being re-victimized by the courts and the media to come forward, and when the public gets the message that women who accuse men of rape are lying or did something to deserve it, the cycle continues.

There is only one rapist alleged here. But there are so, so many participants. That’s rape culture, and it has to stop. In this case, let’s start with holding the media accountable for their role. Contact ESPN here.

[UPDATE #2: Read NBC Sports' spot-on takedown of ESPN's excuses for their "do not report" policy here. h/t Anna Clark]

The Capacity for Violence

We all have the capacity for violence. Rape, and promoting rape, is not limited to cis straight men, to white men, to men of color, to men you don’t know, to men at all, to cis people, to straight people, to people who aren’t survivors, to people who aren’t your close friends, to people who don’t speak out against rape, to people who don’t volunteer on rape-crisis hotlines (that really sucked, by the way), or even to people who don’t write forwards to anti-rape anthologies, or who haven’t written songs against date rape and dedicated them to Sarah Palin.

Those last two categories are pretty specific, huh?

In case you’re wondering, I’m talking about this (trigger warning):

If it’s hard to see, here’s a basic rundown: a Katy Perry lookalike comes onstage to lip sync “I Kissed a Girl.” A few people make brief passes at her, then Margaret Cho, wearing a purple strap-on, and Amanda Palmer come up from opposite sides of the stage and trap “Perry” between them. Cho takes “Perry’s” hand, puts it on her strap-on, and *holds it there* while Perry looks anxious and uncomfortable and tries to remove her hand. Then Palmer touches her belly, “Perry” momentarily looks more uncomfortable, and then suddenly “gives in” and starts acting enthusiastic, making out with Palmer and pushing her butt back towards Cho. (You can see her facial expressions better in this video if it’s hard to see clearly.)

Just in case it wasn’t clear that this was a revenge fantasy rather than just a “oh she really wanted it it’s ok” fantasy (still rape promotion, but still)–A curtain goes up, and when it comes down, Cho is dressed as a minister/pastor/whatever, and “Perry” and Palmer are in wedding dresses… and “Perry” is bound hand and foot, with duct tape over her mouth. She tries to hobble away, and Palmer stops her, making an expression of overdone, false-looking bliss with a sinister undertone. (This part is somewhat more easily visible here) A “Fuck Prop 8″ banner goes up and the crowd cheers.

There’s really not a lot more to say. I understand being angry about “I Kissed a Girl”–I’m none too pleased about it myself. (Not knowing my name, fine, I can work with that, but I’m your “experimental game”? … Excuse me?) The song is exploitative/exoticizing/fetishizing/objectifying whatever other words you want to use. Basically it’s gross, keep your hands off my sexuality. But resorting to dramatizing sexual violence as a revenge strategy? (Hell, revenge at all?) Not cool. And it’s not as though Cho could ever objectify or fetishize anyone. Nor Amanda Palmer.

At Women & Children First, one of two Chicago stops of the YMY! tour, there was a comment exhorting [straight/bi] men to stand up and say they’re not rapists, because otherwise all the women would assume they were. But standing up and speaking out doesn’t make you an ally/not a rapist. Not raping people makes you not a rapist. If you don’t think of yourself as a potential perpetrator of violence and consider carefully how to exist in the world as nonviolently as you can, you will perpetrate it. Violence, including but in no way limited to sexual violence, is the norm in this society, not the exception–though often it’s not quite as blatant as Cho and Palmer just put on display for us, or quite as clearly intentional.

X-posted to Taking Up Too Much Space

It Became Necessary To Destroy The Town To Save It

This morning the New York Times reports that the ACLU has joined some courageous young women in a counterattack against a recent and disturbing moral panic. More than once recently, school and criminal justice authorities have threatened to use child pornography laws against teenagers for the distribution of photographs of their friends and classmates, including even against girls depicted in these pictures. A few have even been charged. Violet Blue had a rundown for the SF Gate. Atrios picked up the ACLU story yesterday, but this trend has been on Harper Tobin’s radar screen at polymorphous perversity for some time now.

(Harper is the source on this topic. While I’m a lawyer with good familiarity with these issues, I won’t engage on the legal analysis because I simply can’t improve on what Harper has done.)

What it doesn’t mean.

So, reports are everywhere that Chris Brown and Rihanna are getting back together, or at the very least spent the weekend together at Diddy’s mansion in Miami.

Who knows what’s true about these rumors? Hardly anyone. But for argument’s sake, and because many people are already assuming this is true, let’s discuss what it doesn’t mean if Rihanna takes Chris back:

1. It doesn’t mean she is stupid. Leaving an abusive partner is hard – really, really hard. Some studies have shown that it takes an average woman 4-7 tries before she can leave her abuser for good. Why? Because abusers aren’t transparent assholes all of the time. They can be very manipulative, and most of the time will wear down their partner’s self-esteem quite thoroughly long before they start with the physical violence. They’re also often charming and can be very loving and doting and romantic when they’re not being violent. They can talk real pretty about what they’ve learned, how sorry they are, how they’re going to change, how they can’t change without the help of their wo/man. And of course, we want to believe that we haven’t been so blind in choosing a partner for ourselves. We want to believe we can help. We want to believe that the good in them outweighs the bad. It’s a hard, hard situation. This is a good post about all of these dynamics.
2. It doesn’t mean we should forgive him. Because of all this, even if she does take him back, even if they seem happier than ever together, we shouldn’t forget. We shouldn’t shame her for her choices – when we think we can tell a woman what she should do, we’re not much better than a controlling boyfriend ourselves. But we can still call for justice to be served. He can still be prosecuted even if she doesn’t press charges. We can also continue to hold the media accountable for what they say about this case, to ensure that blame is placed on the proper party – the abuser.
3. It doesn’t mean what he’s alleged to have done is any less horrible. Again, see above. There are a lot of psychological reasons that victims take their abusers back. It doesn’t mean the abuse was any kind of “no big deal.” In fact, it often means it’s an even bigger deal than we thought, and involves psychological abuse as well, which leaves a victim vulnerable when the abuser comes back and tries to make nice.
   
4. It doesn’t mean she has betrayed any kind of sisterhood. OK, let’s get real clear on this one. Rihanna did not sign up to be any kind of spokesmodel for dating violence. The fact that we even know it was Rihanna is due to her name, and then her photo, being leaked and exploited. Rihanna is a young woman in a really hard situation, trying to figure it out the best she can. She owes us nothing. Her decisions are hers to make, and none of us know what we would do in her shoes – even if we have been through similar things, we haven’t been through her actual life. If we start judging her or blaming her for being a bad role model, the sisterhood has failed her, not the other way around. Got it?
5. It doesn’t mean that if he hurts her again, she deserves it. See number 1 – she is likely in a psychological state that’s hard to understand from the outside. There may seem to her to be a million reasons for her to take him back. Not one of them means that she deserves to be hurt again. No one deserves to be beaten or abused. Ever. By anyone. Period.

Rape survivor jailed in Scotland

Just to share some wackitude from across the Pond: a rape survivor was thrown into the clink (or as they call is in the U.K., became a “guest of the Queen”) when she left the witness stand.

Ann Robertson was unable to complete her testimony against George Cummings. Cummings was found guilty of sexually assaulting his two nieces back in the 1970s, but not charged with Robertson’s rape. According to Robertson, when she refused to return to the stand, the judge said, “…’well maybe a night in the cells will calm you down.”<teeth grinding>

Robertson waived her right to anonymity so that she can pursue having the judge, Roger Craik, investigated. I would vote for putting his ass under the jail.

I have many of these “WTF?!” moments in the U.K.I can’t even try to spin this into something remotely positive or with potential for resistance because the article from the BBC ends with this: “Figures show that of the 922 allegations of rape in Scotland last year, only 27 resulted in convictions. ” Let’s use the term “conviction” sparingly, shall we? In this case, Cummings got three and a half years jail time for his geezer perv ways.

I’m just gonna go over there in the corner and cuss like a cartoon character…sassum frassum rassum!