Excuse me? In what way is “the culture” pressuring you to commit rape? And if you know that it is wrong, which apparently you do (“Rape is never excusable”), then why would you even contemplate it? Or try to pass off responsibility to a “patriarchal culture creates situations where very many men end up committing rape?” Really, I’'m curious. What cultural factors or “situations” pressure you, as a human being, to attack and rape someone?
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No one is saying Brock raped the woman because he’s a rapist (do you think we are idiots?). You’d have to get a psychologist involved to be really sure, but it certainly sounds like he believes (was raised to believe) that his needs/desires trump others, that he can do no wrong, that it’s possible to escape consequences by laying the blame on others, or on some amorphous “culture.” (Sound familiar?)
I’m sorry, but you are either doing a really bad job of communicating your meaning, or you are expressing something that is uncomfortably close to Brock’s own excuse. If your point is that the people who commit rape might be ordinary in other ways, well, yes. Except in the important characteristic that they chose to violate another human being. And the rest of us don’t have to accept or excuse that, or avoid using the appropriate term for such a person: a rapist.
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What if he wanted to drive a car while blackout drunk? Any sympathy or leniency in that case? I think it’s easier to get behind the wheel when drunk since it’s hard to draw a line between too drunk. It’s also something you do everyday.
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I think the point ZicZak is trying to get across is that we have to be careful not to say Brock was a monster, because that line of thinking leads to “and I/my friends aren’t monsters so they couldn’t rape”. By seeing him as a relatively normal person, who committed a horrible act whilst under the influence of alcohol, you examine yourself and think “are my attitudes appropriate or am I taking a dangerous attitude thinking that women owe me sex? Am I drinking so much that I might do something to hurt someone else that I wouldn’t do sober?”
I feel that that kind of education is what’s needed to reduce rape - realising that the potential is there in all people[1] and steps need to be taken against it. Demonizing those who do it gets rid of that awareness.
[1] I alternated between people and men there, and I don’t know which gets my point across better. It seems men are more likely to commit rape but women do too.
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I think you misunderstand what he’s trying to say.
He’s not saying: ‘he’s not a rapist’. He’s trying to say: ‘rapists are not some special kind of person’.
This is a useful thing to keep in mind, because thinking ‘he’s a rapist, I don’t know any rapists so this not something that really concerns me’ is a dangerous mindset.
there are always multiple factors leading up to a situation. Him becoming a rapist (when he raped someone) is caused by : his genetic predisposition, his upbringing, the circumstances at the time. (and probably lots of other stuff I forget)
Just concentrating at the first two factors and ignoring (or even denying) the third is dumb. The third factor is never an excuse, but is still very important because you can actually do something about the third factor. There will always be people with a bad upbringing, bad judgement or just plain nasty characters. A campus culture keeping these people in check is better for everybody.
There’s a comment somewhere above that someone is sexually assaulted (at least) every 2 weeks at stanford. That tells me his comment about the ‘party culture’ is not wrong (even though it is not an excuse).
If there’s something we (as humanity in general) should have learned since WWII it’s that it doesn’t take special people to do horrible things.
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Alrighty!
Zol es im onkumn vos ikh vintsh im (khotsh a helft, khotsh halb, khotsh a tsent kheylik).
Let what I wish on him come true (most, even half, even just 10%).
Oyf doktoyrim zol er dos avekgebn.
He should give it all away to doctors.
Got zol gebn, er zol hobn altsding vos zayn harts glist, nor er zol zayn geleymt oyf ale ayvers un nit kenen rirn mit der tsung.
God should bestow him with everything his heart desires, but he should be a quadriplegic and not be able to use his tongue.
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Are you trying to make a distinction like the one between murder (with malice aforethought), voluntary manslaughter (mitigating circumstances or lack of intent to kill), and involuntary manslaughter (without malice or intent)? That’s what Persky was reported as having reached for: "There is less moral culpability attached to the defendant who is … intoxicated,” the judge said. While murder is a specific intent crime and can be mitigated by intoxication, this one is general intent, so it can only mitigate sentencing. Perhaps a lawyer in this area can be more precise, or correct me if I have misconstrued.
This 1958 law review article seems to be on point: Rape - Specific Or General Intent Crime?, 15 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 128 (1958),
http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol15/iss1/13. Is there current policy-level debate on this topic? Well, I guess there kind of is now.
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While I agree with this, I do not agree that it should have any impact on sentencing guidelines, as far as leniency is concerned.
In that it should have any effect at all, it should be the other way around – punishment is not primarily for individuals, it is for society.
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Where do you live? The same place where nobody is sexist or racist?
One of the males you know? He is, or will be, a rapist.
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Unfortunately it is new to some in this thread.
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Some people don’t really think of them as “terrible things”, but merely “20 minutes of action” and only alcohol removes the slight worry that not everybody agrees.
#notArguingWithYou
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It is.
Also: offices, schools, etc.
Just because it’s not out in the open, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
You seem very invested in separating yourself from all of this. Perhaps that will help you sleep at night.
But it won’t help you see the world.
UPDATE: that seems unnecessarily combative. Since this post has gotten 11 likes with that text, I will not invisibly remove it, but I am retracting the crossed-out portion.
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Given the father, I’d hardly expect this kid to be capable of doing anything but talk about how said it is he isn’t an incredibly privileged white male anymore because his easy ride is over and he is “merely” a incredibly privileged white male rapist.
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And just because someone is wearing fucksocks doesn’t mean they want to play footsies with you.
(I just put “holy fucksocks” on my list of Favorite Exclamations, so Thanks! 
)
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Let’s stop calling this guy a douche, scumbag, or jerk. He is a rapist and a felon. Let’s not diminish his crimes with lesser insults.
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Contrast Brock’s letter to his victim’s powerful and eloquent statements. It’s the difference between heaven and hell. Even though she was harmed it’s clear that she is living a better life just by being in touch with the truth, despite it’s awfulness. He on the other hand, after getting a lenient sentence is still a little worm - refusing to own up to his actions. Until he just faces them and feels genuine remorse he won’t be free. Honestly at least a year in the clink would probably help to that end.
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Dude, you threw your life away.
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Presumably the Judge was a Republican. This seems to validate their world-view of what education is about and what it does to people.
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Death penalty is just a bad idea, and prison is very rarely useful. That’s why some countries have very different attitudes towards sentencing then you’ll find in America. But when you make an exception to the lock’em-up and hang’em-high attitude only for privileged individuals, that’s not a shift towards a more compassionate and rational justice system, it’s just plain injustice.
Also, even in a system where we try to avoid sending people to prison, rapists would be on the short list of people we should think about locking away to keep others safe.
A thing about never having to apologize in your life is that when it comes time to apologize, you don’t even know what an apology looks like.
This is only half true. Well, it depends on “very many”. A lot of people have been in situations where we weren’t exactly clear on consent, or took things further than someone else wanted. Thinking back on my highschool and university years I can think of times I was on either end of that equation. Rape culture plays heavily into this. If we had a culture around consent more like the kind you typically find in BDSM communities (e.g. talk about what we want and what our limits are beforehand, use safewords) then we’d have a lot less sexual assault.
But a very large number of sexual assaults have been committed by repeat offenders. Most men simply don’t want to have non-consensual sexual contact with women, some men do. Most people, upon realizing they have done something horrible feel really bad about that. Brock Turner has been emotionally shattered by the punishment he has received, but not by what he has done to another human being. It’s not a question of whether there is a gene on not - we are a lot more complex than our genes anyway - but rape really is disproportionately caused by a small number of people who 1) want to rape women; 2) think it’s fine to rape women (as long as they don’t get caught).
Reversing rape culture is creating better understanding around consent (consent isn’t a nuisance, it’s sexy - it means someone wants to have sex with you) but also letting would-be rapists know what they will be caught and they won’t be easily forgiven.
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I’m curious why you made the point of noting ‘maybe not for life.’ Is there a point after which he will stop being someone who has raped? Does it correlate to a point in time when his victim stops being someone who was raped?
Oh nice. Very nice.
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