posted
So, as of this weekend, four of my closest female friends have been raped. Not by strangers, but by friends. In all instances, the female in question has been with a group of friends, and had alcohol in her system. In all instances, the rapist intended to take advantage of a drunk female friend. In all instances, the female thought she was in a safe place, with safe people, who would protect her in case she DID drink more then was good for her.
[ February 14, 2005, 04:39 PM: Message edited by: Paul Goldner ]
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
The ones from a while ago, its hard to tell. I'm not physically around them anymore (1000 miles is tough) and when it happened to them, I was. So what they tell me sounds different, you know? One seems ok, one is still struggling with it, as far as I can tell. The third I really don't know.
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posted
[This post has been excised because, in the words of one Hatracker, it is "insensitive, misogynistic, and condones rape by implying that it occurs when a woman changes her mind after the fact." That's a good enough reason as far as I'm concerned.]
posted
Well if I were you, I wouldn't be posting on here, I would have lost my cool and introduced the guys knee caps to my tire iron. I mean Girls who are my freinds are my family, and I have my mothers temper, a Texan temper, and messing with family is messing with me.
Posts: 1094 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
"So if the woman was drunk and isn't totally satisfied with the outcome of the activities once she returns to her senses, it's rape?"
"Well if I were you, I wouldn't be posting on here, I would have lost my cool and introduced the guys knee caps to my tire iron."
Mind if I start with the tire iron on skillery? The girl didn't even LIKE the guy that way! this has nothing to do with liking the sex, and EVERYTHING to go with sex she didn't consent to, was incapable of consenting to, and wouldn't have wanted had she been sober, and probably said "no" to while drunk.
Tire iron planning for the perpetrator is happening.
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posted
Don't get stupid, Paul, and get yourself in trouble, too. As much as a tire iron might be momentarily satisfying, legal repurcussions from a succesful rape conviction are much more painful in both the short and long term.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:A good rule of thumb for men would be to never have sex with a drunken woman.
Yes, that is a good rule of thumb, because unless there's pre-existing consent given explicitly or by virtue of the relationship, it's sex without consent. In many states that's rape. And any resistance, even resistance made highly ineffectual by her drunken state, would be revocation of that consent.
I see enormous difficulty prosecuting such offenses, but that doesn't make them less illegal.
posted
skillery, it would be nice if you could deal with this a little more sensitively, please. Paul was good enough to include the information that alcohol was involved -- he didn't have to, and we certainly would have all be sympathetic.
Regardless of whether alcohol was involved, if a guy pursues sex when it's unreciprocated, it's still wrong.
I was raped twice. (Both times were a long time ago, so it's not difficult for me to talk about, okay.) Neither time alcohol was involved...but my own behavior contributed to what happened. And still, the two men were *wrong* to do as they did. One of those men died this past summer. He wasn't scum...I knew him very well and loved him for years. But his attitudes about sex were completely, totally wrong. It was okay to him that I was underage while he was 28. And a part of me is relieved that he's dead...relief because he's not going to be able to teach those same stupid sex values to his young son.
A man who would have sex with an intoxicated woman should review his values about sex. She's not in a position to give informed consent, IMO. And that makes it rape.
posted
Either the guy dragged her, kicking and screaming away from the group of friends while they watched, or he did the deed right there in front of everbody.
The whole lousy group gets tire ironed!
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posted
Yes, clearly people among groups of friends never go off to talk to each other more privately, especially not easily manipulated drunk people.
Have you never, ever met a drunk person? Try extrapolating from fact instead of shooting BS fiction out of a place I can't name here.
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posted
The problem adam, is that there isn't that kind of problem prosecuting assault and battery cases, and that someone who uses the tire iron, no matter how well justified, may find themselves getting punished by the legal system, which in this day and age follows you around forever.
There is also a little problem that things often don't go as we expected in violent situations. One lucky blow, and Paul could suffer severe trauma to various parts of his body.
And don't forget that the next day this guy may just round up a bunch of his friends and come pay a visit to the person who beat him....
Is beating the crap out of this guy really going to accomplish anything? Is it going to teach this guy a lesson? Doubtful. Heal the girl of the effects of the rape? No. The only purpose to this is a brief moment of satisfaction.
I totally, totally, totally understand the impulse to inflict bloody justice on this jackass, but at the very least pursue legal channels first before doing something rash.
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Well, none of us was there, and even she wasn't there. So we'll never know.
You're at a party, and some creepy guy is trying to sweet-talk your girlfriend. You know she hates the guy and would never sleep with him, but you let him lure her away from the crowd anyway. Forget tire irons on kneecaps. There isn't a single knee in this crowd that isn't made of rubber.
I despise the whole drinking, partying, sexing lot!
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posted
While I find skillery's post offensive I would wager that there are cases where his scenario is dead-on accurate. There are reprehensible men out there that will take any advantage that they can find and not suffer a moments remorse. There are also reprehensible women out there that will file false reports in an effort to punish someone that they know didn't rape them. This isn't a men are bad, women are good world. This is a some people are moral and some are not world. Skillery needs to temper his tone because he doesn't know the particulars, not because he stated an impossibility.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
You just can't stop from inventing situations and then trying to use them to show how everyone is scum, instead of talking based on what we know.
First there's this utterly ridiculous doozy:
quote:Either the guy dragged her, kicking and screaming away from the group of friends while they watched, or he did the deed right there in front of everbody.
As I pointed out, people aren't always "dragged away kicking and screaming" when they go off together. Say the guy told her he wanted to talk to her (he is supposedly a friend, after all) and they went off. See how your description is completely inane?
Then we have this elaborate bit of tripe:
quote:You're at a party, and some creepy guy is trying to sweet-talk your girlfriend. You know she hates the guy and would never sleep with him, but you let him lure her away from the crowd anyway. Forget tire irons on kneecaps. There isn't a single knee in this crowd that isn't made of rubber.
Now apparently the girl was with her boyfriend, not just among a group of friends, and the guy who raped her was trying to sweet talk her, which could be true but definitely isn't necessarily (see: tricked her into going off together under other pretenses). You can only make your gibbering accusations seem even mildly reasonable by fabricating fictional worlds which add considerable information we just don't know.
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posted
The whole idea of leaving a party with someone you didn't arrive with is wrong. (unless you're being rescued) Any "friend" would know that.
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She was at the home of two of her friends (including the rapist). There were a couple other people over. They all had a couple drinks. My friend, who does not drink much, depending on the drink, can have 5 and be fine, or have 1 and be smashed. She had two drinks, and thinks one of them may have been drugged, because her memory of the event is worse then it would have been had she only been drunk. This is not certain. She was planning on spending the night on the couch at the location (and has done this about a dozen times previously), for a variety of reasons. He raped her, and apparently had planned on doing so. He knew it would be rape, because my friend has rejected his offers before.
Was the drinking a problem? Yes. Does it excuse rape? No. Was it rape? Unquestionably.
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I leave parties with people I didn't come with all the time. I did Saturday, in fact. Claudia gave me a ride there, and Ryan & Kari gave me a ride home. It was in the interest of minimizing the number of people driving. I wasn't drunk, and I wasn't involved with any of the people mentioned.
How about you can the blanket statements? The world is not black and white.
posted
I'm curious why you (skillery) are continuing to pursue a line of posting that implies that the women were at fault. It is becoming apparent that you have a particular axe to grind and without knowing why you feel this way most folks will become tired and disgusted with your boorish outlook.
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quote:and has done this about a dozen times previously
So the scum bag knew this was her pattern and built his scheme around the fact that her friends have left her sleeping on the couch before.
What a sicko.
Sorry, but this isn't my scene, and I obviously don't understand. I go to parties where punch and cookies is served, and everbody goes home before midnight to sleep in their own beds. This other kind of party you're talking about...what kind of built-in protection do you have against sickos?
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote: She had two drinks, and thinks one of them may have been drugged, because her memory of the event is worse then it would have been had she only been drunk. This is not certain.
I don't suppose she went to a hospital as soon as she realized what happened and had a blood test to see if they could find traces of a drug in her system? I really, really wish more people would do this. (In these situations.)
quote:I leave parties with people I didn't come with all the time.
You know what I'm talking about.
Plenty of people go to parties with the intention of hooking up with the right girl or guy, and in their minds, there is a possibility of leaving the party with that person. What kind of built-in safeguards does a person with that mindset rely upon?
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posted
" and everbody goes home before midnight to sleep in their own beds. This other kind of party you're talking about...what kind of built-in protection do you have against sickos?"
Skillery, she's stayed there because she trusts the two men... they are (were) good friends, has known them for a while, and she builds up trust in people only as they prove themselves worthy of that trust.
She stayed there for a variety of reasons, one of which is that she trusts them, and felt safe with them. She wrote to me once before about them "Its cool, I have friends that I know I can trust to protect me if I get drunk." These men WERE her safegaurds, against sickos. Unfortunately, one of them turned out to be a sicko himself, and managed to hide it very well.
Eventually, we trust people. If we don't, we live our lives in isolation. If we do, the opportunity exists to be burned, and burned badly. but trusting people who ahve shown themselves worthy of trust is better then the alternative.
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posted
"Plenty of people go to parties with the intention of hooking up with the right girl or guy, and in their minds, there is a possibility of leaving the party with that person."
The problem is, you've suggested from the beginning that this girl intended to hook up at this gathering, and even stated she chose to hook up with this guy.
That, in my book, makes you almost as bad as the guy who raped her.
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posted
Okay, I guess this kind of party is kind of my scene, as I have got extremely drunk in my time and even woken up, (fully clothed, I might add) next to a guy I had never met before. I wasn’t attacked and two of my friends were also sleeping in the room so I know that nothing happened. I was however, amazed at my own stupidity.
The truth is that alcohol makes you less cautious, it makes you do and say things that you never would in ‘real life’. In this weakened state, you have to rely on your friends for protection. You have to rely on them to stop you making a mistake and you have to trust that they are good people. I know that, to those who do not drink, among which I currently number myself, drunk people can easily be scorned and looked down on. It’s very easy to throw stones. But the fact is, this woman clearly trusted this guy. She’s stayed on the couch before, she knows from experience that it’s safe, she thinks that she knows who this guy is, just as you or I think we know our friends. We think that we can be sure that if we were incapacitated for whatever reason, they would not hurt us or take advantage of us. So, sure, drink makes you make choices that you wouldn’t make normally. Now imagine the same scenario with a girl injured or in a coma. Would you ever suggest that she was asking for it? That she led them on somehow by being out of it? Stories like this make me so sad because it just shows that you can’t trust anyone and I really want to believe that I can trust people. That this was a friend, someone who should have taken care of her, kills me.
People have got to get past their moralistic problem with drink and see the real issue.
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Well, I implied that she may have hoped for a satisfying outcome. As you have indicated, all she hoped for was a place to rest her weary body.
quote:we live our lives in isolation...but trusting people who have shown themselves worthy of trust is better than the alternative.
And that is where our viewpoints diverge.
Isolation is an acceptable alternative in my mind, which is why I can shoot my mouth off amidst a group of seemingly friendly people without fear of having my kneecaps busted.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote: Plenty of people go to parties with the intention of hooking up with the right girl or guy, and in their minds, there is a possibility of leaving the party with that person. What kind of built-in safeguards does a person with that mindset rely upon?
You want an honest answer? In an ideal situation: You go with friends. If you decide you're leaving with someone else you go over to your friends and tell them you're leaving with so and so, and will call them in the morning. If they notice you're missing, they go looking for you. If they see you leaving without checking in, they come and check on you and make sure you're going voluntarily and aren't too drunk to make that decision.
It's not something I do, but I've been the friend who gets checked in with. And if it's in a club or something and you just met the guy you're leaving with you get his card and give it to your friend, and make sure your friend gets a good look at him. Not that he can't have a fake card, of course, but in the event that you're not there when your friend calls to check on you in the morning, at least she has somewhere to start and a description for the police.
Is it 100% fool-proof? No. But it's a way of mitigating the risks.
I also don't accept a drink from anyone but a bartender/waiter when I'm out, and if I'm at a party at someone's home I pour it myself or it's poured in front of me. Yeah, if someone is good at slight-of-hand they could probably slip something in my drink while they're pouring it, but that at least protects against the casual rapists. Oh, and you never leave your drink unattended, at a bar or houseparty.
That about covers the basics.
Paul:
quote: These men WERE her safegaurds, against sickos. Unfortunately, one of them turned out to be a sicko himself, and managed to hide it very well.
That's why your safeguards should be women.
I don't necessarily follow that myself, there are men I trust. But they're pretty few and far between.
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posted
Paul, I am sorry to hear about your friends, I know what it is like to be friends with someone who this happens to.
But really, I must say that I respect and admire the restraint you have used in dealing with skillery in this thread. You are clearly a mature and admirable person.
posted
That's not the only reason it's difficult. When the defendant's defense is that the sex was consensual, the prosecutor must prove a negative (lack of consent). It's difficult without some kind of corroboration.
posted
So my question is if you wake up, don’t remember anything, how do you know you were raped? Why couldn’t both have been drunk? How does one not know that they might have initiated things? You don’t remember right? I’m not trying to condone anything here. I’m just saying they personally don’t know. And I guess I just get confused.
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posted
I do have problems with the rape charges against the guy by the woman who got up, left the room, and fetched condoms - twice. But those weren't criminal charges, they were collegiate disciplinary charges, and she remembered her actions.
I see what your saying, but I don't think that's an issue here.
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posted
While I don't agree with some of what skillery said, I do understand (even if I don't agree) what he is getting at...that those types of situations are fraught with danger.
Times change, and it might not be the same type of situation that you might be thinking of, though. My sister has some very good male friends, and she trusted them implicitly in situations like that a lot...not so much the drunk part, but she would stay, along with other girlfriends, at peoples house to avoid drinking and driving, or because it is just too late to drive and my family lived in the boonies. People do things now that would have been unthinkable to my parents, like sleep over male friends houses.
I remember, when I first got into pool, and my parents were sure that I was going to get mixed up with drugs or something....because they didn't realize that pool halls weren't the same as they had been when they were growing up. I told them that over and over again, but they never really believed me. Then my Dad got stuck in town, so my wife and I took him to the pool hall I use to hang out at for some snacks and a drink or two. He was completely amazed that the p[lace was more than half filled with tables of women playing pool with their girlfriends...he had heard me say it, but he didn't believe it, not really, until he saw it for himself.
Are there still losers and drunks that go there...yes. Is there still some danger? Possibly...but no more than anywhere else these days.
Nothing excuses what happens to those girls, regardless of where they slept..
I have been on the other end of that, were someone tried to accuse me of something I had not done to get out of trouble herself....and thank god for modern forensic science, which proved me right and her story a lie. I had been drinking, so I wasn't even sure what happened; but I was sure I didn't make a pass at her.
So even guys should think twice about allowing girls to sleep over, even if they are just friends. There is risk to both of their reputations.
(Paul, I am NOT saying that is what happened with your friends, just so you know.)
quote: I go to parties where punch and cookies is served, and everbody goes home before midnight to sleep in their own beds. This other kind of party you're talking about...what kind of built-in protection do you have against sickos?
I could be wrong, but it's not simply that skillery is unfamiliar with this particular 'scene' and therefore feels free to make uninformed judgements, but that he takes a large measure of pride in his unfamiliarity. It's part of his self-definition and sense of self-worth.
Unfortunately, skillery, while I don't think it's wrong to feel proud of yourself for living a lifestyle you believe is healthy and that (considering the peer pressure of teenage/young adult culture in this country) is sometimes difficult to maintain, I believe you're abusing any appropriate sense of pride and self-worth into a feeling of superiority over others. Instead of protecting yourself, you're actually damaging your ability to see the world correctly and, worse, hurting the feelings of others in the process.
These girls are facing something you can't even begin to imagine. Yes, it may be that you've prevented yourself from situations where you would be vulnerable to an assault like this and it could just be arbitrary, dumb, blind luck. But regardless of circumstances, people who go through this sort of thing deserve only your sympathy and pity for the gambit of emotions and scar tissue they will invariably be facing for a long time to come, and definitely not your derision or censure.
Posts: 7600 | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
This thread came on the heels of a discussion I had with some co-workers this morning. An older gentleman was telling of his first-hand knowledge of an LDS lady who couldn't deal with the guilt after having sex with her boyfriend, and couldn't face her bishop with the truth. So she told the bishop that the guy raped her. She only recanted her story after the guy was in jail.
That may explain why I was so quick to heat up.
Sorry that I twisted this thread. I did learn a lot during the course of the discussion. Thanks Mr. Goldner, for remaining civil even though I wasn't.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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This is one of the reasons I don't drink, myself. (there have been a couple excpetions, primarily my step sister's engagement party when I had 7 sangria's and wasn't phased). And me and my friend had a huge row about 3 months ago when I got concerned with her drinking, which isn't really a lot. She had TWO drinks. She's only been at parties where she has drank at all twice in the last month and a half. But, its dangerous stuff... probably more so then marijuana, and I don't like when people drink. But one has to remember that, if one wouldn't give consent before drinking, then its impossible for that person to give consent. And if there is no legal assumption of consent, then not giving consent is rape. Even if the person is drunk, or high, or unconscious.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
My two close friends who were raped (by the same guy, I might add) were dating him at the time.
They said 'no'. He did it anyway. His justification was since they were dating, he could do it.
I swear, when they told me, they had to take my keys away or else I was going to go and make sure he'd never do that to another woman ever again. With my bare hands and some fire, just for starters.
Ever since then, I've been the protector. One of them has a great boyfriend, one I trust with my life. He's one of the only three men I trust if I were to be incapacitated: the other two being my father and Bernard.
The other refuses my help, although I try to do my best.
Another thing about drinks and drugs: none of us do drugs and my close friends learned our drink limits among women, in a locked apartment.
Posts: 873 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I had almost this exact thing happen to me less then a year ago. I went to a friend’s apartment her and her male roommate were the only ones there. It was the first friday of spring break and I was ready to relax and drink a little. I normally have a couple drinks and leave it at that, but there was mostly whiskey and I really didn't get a good feel of how much I was drinking. I blacked out. I can to semi-consciousness with him on top of me. I knew what was happening but I couldn't get my thoughts together to do anything. The last time I had been there he had kissed me and tried to have sex with me. I firmly told him no. I do not think that he was plotting a planning for it to happen, but I do think I was taken advantage of, but luckily I had a "friend" right there to help me when I needed her.
By the way Skillery, you are part of why I wasn't able to get anything to happen to the B******, you make me physically ill.
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